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Biomod issues and fixes
Moved from the wrong board

For those not in the know, biomods are a bit weird. Or very weird, actually. I think I can share this without getting in trouble, if not - oops. Anyway.

When you get biomods installed, they permanently remove your ability to alter the affected naked, essentially displaying a first-order "tattoo" over that particular naked that can never be altered by anything other than coded effects.

What this means is that you buying a biomod essentially permanently locks your nakeds to that one thing forever. Got goose mods and someone lops off your beak in a fit of rage? Nope, no way of showing that on your nakeds, because you can't modify them ever again. If you have a head biomod installed, you can never adjust your hairstyle to anything again outside of doing it via a hairstyler and having it never actually reflect in your naked. If you have an eye biomod installed and you wrote it to reference both your eyes (since you can do this and most people will), you can never have a cybereye installed in one eye without making your initial line look absolutely ridiculous on your look.

Have cat ears or a tail and a foe yanks them off? Nope, because you can't modify them. And the staff can't even modify them either - they have to have a senior member remove the biomod, then schedule an IC way of having a "fixed" biomod installed instead. Yes, you read that right. Staff cannot handwave a fix for it. It requires senior staff and request-service time to just have the mods removed for something as simple as a line alteration.

I have to ask, why are things this way? It makes no sense. My assumption of a biomod purchase was that you had a little RP sequence and paid an assload of chyen to make it happen, and then you were left with the express ability to alter your character's nakeds to make them match the mods you ordered for.

Instead of enhancing possible creativity, it just stifles it. You pay to have an "extraordinary" appearance PERMANENTLY locked to your nakeds without any way for you to alter or add on to it at a later date. It's a disaster, honestly. I would have never had my character modded if I'd have known that it would result in so much clumsy, pointless restriction.

The current system is annoying for staff, annoying for players, and most of all, arguably hampers what is probably one of Sindome's most potentially entertaining ways of direct character customisation.

Here's what I suggest happens instead:

* Biomod naked locking is removed as it currently stands.

* Biomods instead "mark" a naked as being available for "extraordinary" description in tune with whatever the modifications entail. Much like tailoring and other player design aspects, players are largely left to their own devices to determine what these descriptions entail, though they are informed at the purchasing process that they must conform their descriptions to accommodate the alterations their biomodifications provide.

* The rest is left for the player to handle at their discretion. This frees up staff time considerably, and allows biomodded players to assume full freedom in altering aspects of their character that might share their modded naked (hair on the head, eye availability/injury on the eyes, etc) as their environment sees fit.

Please consider doing something about this. It's a serious tragedy to leave things as they currently are.

--By XXXXX at Apr 16, 2019 3:07 AM

Agreed on all points, XXXXXX. I wouldn't call it a disaster as it stands, plenty of people have used the system, but having your nakeds locked to one thing is problematic for all the reasons you suggested.

--By Crooknose at Apr 16, 2019 3:08 PM

People were taking liberties with biomods, and creating characters that were both immersion breaking and un-cyberpunk-- and using the justification that biomods could change whatever you wanted. On top of that, people were getting basic biomods then augmenting their @nakeds with additional messaging to make the biomods seem more than they were. This is something that was very difficult for a small staff to police, thus it is not allowed anymore and biomods are strictly reviewed to prevent people from getting the wrong idea about them again in the future.

--By Slither at Apr 16, 2019 5:39 PM

That's disappointing, but does explain why they're currently so limited.

Is there no chance of reaching some sort of compromise to allow modded players some more freedom to at least alter their nakeds in response to things? Perhaps by changing the way the modded code works to allow all staff to apply naked changes without needing to create new mods, and having players make service-requests or leave notes in order to have said nakeds applied?

Or perhaps have @nakeds changes to 'extraordinary' flagged limbs throw a staff notification for sanity checking/review?

Either of these would allow you to police them at your leisure, and still afford the means for players to you know, not be entirely locked out of their nakeds.

--By XXXXXX at Apr 16, 2019 6:04 PM

Would it be possible to compartmentalize biomods into injections that have a % chance of adding one of multiple permanent @naked markers which are present on individual to multiple limbs?

Injections would be player creatable by cyberdocs with the right tools and be similar to regular artistry materials in design.

I figure we could use corporate players to design a shitload of these that would all be vetted by GM's before given public access. Get paid to test out bio-injections, kids. Biomods could become a cornucopia of GM-vetted but player designed crap. Cat Eyes, curved tip ears, etc. Each injection has a PDS effect per usual. Have a variable which inserts an adjective to reflect skill-level of cyberdoc who did install. Too many injections may cause weird hybrid appearances and be a social stigma of splicers.

A lot to code but if instituted correctly I think it could help resolve the problem.

--By ReeferMadness at Apr 16, 2019 6:24 PM

I'm pretty sure that's not far off from how bio-mods currently work, Reefer. There's a corporation that produces them using special equipment (and I assume skill checks) and then a doctor injects them. The interactions part would be new but the concept of players designing them is like, that's an actual job, I just don't think it gets publicized (and most people understandably want their own custom designed mods, which is probably the reason off-the-shelf ones aren't a thing.)

To address XXXXXX's point, though, is this something that could be done with a service request? Like, let you change the wording for your modded naked and have it be reviewed and applied by a GM?

--By Crooknose at Apr 16, 2019 6:45 PM

I really, really hope some sort of change can be made here. It's really, really bad, especially on a character that relies very heavily on their looks.

When a lot of your Sindome play is altering appearance to make use of the environment and circumstances and stuff, it becomes very distressing when a character goal that you've worked to attain suddenly becomes a very big DETRIMENT to your ability to express your character's appearance instead.

To put this into perspective, I've considered having the mods removed because of how OOCly limiting they are, even though there's nothing "wrong" with them ICly. That's how stifling they are. It's a constant reminder every time I look at my character that I'm physically incapable of altering one of their main traits in any way. No hairstyle changes, no updating to reflect the presence/lack of a controller for any external mods, no way of reflecting injury or other altering factors whatsoever.

It's creating a very uncomfortable situation for me where I essentially have to handwave away one of my character's major outward features. It's really unpleasant. Had I known this would've been the case before purchasing the mods, I never would have bothered.

--By XXXXXX at Apr 16, 2019 9:09 PM

After reading through this thread my suggestion would be to make them behave like tattoos, that is appended to the current naked but without locking the whole thing down.

Maybe we could make the biomod text colored differently than the @skintone's (since we have that sweet 256 color support now!) so they really stand out as something discrete and out of the ordinary from the rest of the description, and it will really call attention if someone is trying to add 'extra details' to their mods.

It won't totally stop the problem Slither mentioned but it will make it much easier to find and point out people who take taking too many liberties and going beyond what was approved by staff.

--By pfh at Apr 16, 2019 9:21 PM

I really agree with them being treated like tattoos. It seems to me that would avoid both the problems that Slither had listed and also the ones that XXXXXX did. I really don't see any downsides to it that would be any worse than what we have currently.

I think that if staff is worried still about people misusing nakeds, then maybe it shouldn't be allowed for naked to reference biomods. It would mean that you can't get damage done to biomods like what XXXXXX wanted, but it would allow people to get new hair.

--By Cinder at Apr 16, 2019 9:48 PM

(Edited by Johnny at 5:12 pm on 3/5/2020)

For my suggestion I'd go with cyan/light blue for male characters and a shade of pink for female characters.

Or some other universal easy-to-read color that will catch your attention immediately and let you know that the person is modded.

Maybe like plain white? It would contrast with the skin tone and clothing alright.
Unless it's someone with pale skin.
No thanks. Why do you need to know someone's clearly biomodded? Stop trying to cheat and learn to read that wall of text like the rest of us do, thx.
Bio modders are like vegans. They will let you know they are a bio modder ten times in the conversation you have with them.

If you color these you gotta color tattoos and eyes and hair etc

Because if I saw someone with dog ears and a tail I'd notice pretty damn immediately.
@Napoleon, your input could be a little more constructive. The suggestion about a colorchange isn't just for the fact it will be easier to read, but mainly because people suggested biomodded @nakeds can be altered, though since it would make abuse possible, people argued about a compromise. Coloring biomods differently would be a pretty good compromise, as newer edits would more easily be noticed then, and separate from the mods.
But in a world where it's so common place, would you reeeeeeeaaaally?
You could add 'splicer' as a shortdesc option for people who have biomods.
The suggestion was actually mostly for staff convenience to see who is rule breaking and not, as Slither mentioned.
It isn't commonplace enough to be hugely noticeable, though. It is MORE commonplace topside, and even there, not everyone wants to alter their DNA. It's still an idea that some people dislike, and some don't. Else there'd be no splice haters or whatever. Being noticeably spliced isn't a majority of the population.

And like was stated, the issue that @XXXXXX spoke about is the fact you can't alter your @nakeds that your biomods were assigned, because they are LOCKED. This would be a good solution, to color the biomods and allow you to edit your nakeds, and less easily abuse by making huge edits to your mods.

(Edited by Johnny at 5:13 pm on 3/5/2020)

I don't see the point in giving biomods distinction. If you don't read and pay attention, then you missed it. I might have a very distinctive standing out feature like my ear missing or my face entirely mangled that you can use the same arguement that 'you would definitely see it!!!' but if you don't read my description, then you won't. So unless we're making all distinguishing features colored differently from the rest of desc to make them stand out -- which I still don't agree with -- I don't agree with biomods getting that treatment.
I don't see the point in giving biomods distinction. If you don't read and pay attention, then you missed it. I might have a very distinctive standing out feature like my ear missing or my face entirely mangled that you can use the same arguement that 'you would definitely see it!!!' but if you don't read my description, then you won't. So unless we're making all distinguishing features colored differently from the rest of desc to make them stand out -- which I still don't agree with -- I don't agree with biomods getting that treatment.
@Evie I don't think there needs to be additional code to solve "not being able to notice when JoeBobSnowWhoever got tweaks to his biomods" when you have an arsenal of IC commands at your disposal to portray that. Bob has @lp and @tp, poses, and emotes, and @describe as tools he can use to point at the glaringly obvious changes.

@lp me is rocking some new biomods, looking more like Elvis the Elf God of 2101

@tp me is sitting uncomfortably upon a barstool, fidgeting with a tail and ears as though trying to get used to them

@describe me as BOB HAS NEW BIOMODS. LOOK YONDER AND WITNESS THE GLORY.

I think you are both missing the post Slither made that bio modded nudes were locked because it was too hard to tell when people were rulebreaking.

Please re-read the OP.

I'm not missing the point. I'm giving my personal opinion. If you don't agree with that, that's ok.
@Napoleon

Like I said, the issue isn't to notice or not. The issue is people want to be able to adjust their @nakeds whether they have biomods or not. Having a biomod on a specific @naked, locks that @naked from adjustment forever. I assume this is even more annoying for people who play performers or other creative types of characters.

Staff does not want to unlock it entirely because people have abused it a lot in the past and made changes that are against the lore or just outright impossible to change about your biomod after it has been installed. Giving the biomod a color in the @naked, and making so that any other additions are in your skin color, means people who try to abuse and change their, for example 'bright blue wolf ears' into something like 'bright red wolf ears' or whatever else that wouldn't be possible genetically, more noticeable. Easier to report, and less stress for staff who might worry about every biomodded person being able to abuse their @naked.

Example:

Getting a biomod attached to your @naked head, means you can never again describe your hair or facial features within, whether they change or no.

So, what makes you think that staff are going to be willing to make any more changes? You're suggesting a work around to the original problem, which is people being meta. How do you prevent people from not doing that with these proposed changes? If you lock an addendum in my naked of She has bright blue wolf ears. What's stopping me from going @naked In addition to these bright blue wolf ears, she has horns as well. Real, fleshy horns. SO HORNY.

Simple solution: make biomods like tattoos that come at the beginning of the @naked rather than the end. If you're worried about abuse, add an OOC message to the coded procedure: "DO NOT ABUSE YOUR MODS. If you abuse them, the Akalumpa will come and rip them off." Also, adding a 'help biomods' could aid with that too, so that what's possible and themely and what isn't is very clearly delineated for everyone to see.
Assuming they made bio mods color-coded and appended on your nudes, if you saw someoen with a tail that wasn't color-coded you would ideally xhelp and report them to staff for rulebreaking.
EXACTLY what @pfh said. If the rest of your @naked head (as an example) is in your skintone, if someone added something to their @head that is in the natural skin color, people can tell it is not part of their biomod. If they try to add new unthemely stuff to their biomods, you would see it in their skincolor, which makes abuse simple to report, and people would be more careful as to NOT abuse.
I feel like this has gotten way afield of XXXXXX's original issue. Why not just have a service request section for changing your biomod text for when you get a new haircut or want to re-write your head naked, etc? That means they're not set in stone but staff would have to review the changes to make sure they're themely.

(Edited by Johnny at 5:13 pm on 3/5/2020)

All descriptions trust the player to be themely. I feel like you're all forgetting that you could, in theory, write whatever you want in your @nakeds at any time. Issues come up when people don't understand the guidelines they need to adhere to. I seriously doubt people would just rewrite their biomods willy nilly into something against those guidelines, and if they do they're probably not a very good player anyways and how the fuck did they get to the point where they -can- get mods?
So how would this work for a head nakeds if you want to be able to describe your hair, for example?
I completely agree with Trickyhottrev, and I find it surprising that splicer nakeds are abused more frequently than normal nakeds.
Why not just make the @naked have a locked biomod prefix? Like this:

(She has a waggly dog tail.) It has been lopped off; a 6 inch stub remains.

The (parenthesis) is the locked biomod; the rest is the @naked you fill in.

Honestly, yeah, having them work similar to tattoos (but wrapped in something like parenthesis, if needed) sound like it'd work.
Not sure I like how that would look, same reason I don't add things like (HAIR) or whatever in my descriptions. But I guess it's an option.
Oh I didn't mean actually writing it in parenthesis! I was just doing that to show what part is the prefix.
Biomods are not compatible with adjustable nakeds. Period. They are designer, your body was sculpted. You get to write the nakeds one time, before you have the biomod crafted.

Anything else -should be- a service request.

Ask IC questions before you get permanent changes made to your body in a cyberpunk game, next time?

If you get a face biomod, you can no longer reflect on your "@naked face" that someone drew a dick on your face?
Trickyhotrev's idea seems the most viable solution to me.

Having biomods semi-locked like tattoos could limit potential for abuse, allow players with biomods to modify the components of an @naked that should still realistically be changeable (e.g hairstyles) and would also open up more gameplay and income options for the players responsible for administering biomods when people decide they don't like or want to modify their modifications.

I agree. Some sort of compromise should be allowed, for both realism and balance. If it's completely unchangeable, it's kind of overpowered at the same time. It's like telling someone 'no you can't cut out my eye because of OOC reasons'. But people still roleplay gouging eyeballs out, or tongues, or whatever. If the biomod is stuck to the naked, uneditable, but that you can add more things to the naked to elaborate on things like (It has been cut off), etc., that would be neat. Or say you have a tail, maybe it looks disheveled because you never brush, or it looks shiny because you used some kind of oil in it. Etc.
@Ephemeralis: I'm sure in your mind/from your perspective you feel like this coded limitation is an unjust affront to you, and I personally agree that it's a pretty restrictive implementation, but I also don't really appreciate the tone, you know? If I was a staff member and someone bitched about something, asked me if I even read what I was typing and told me to 'Do better' my response wouldn't be to re-evaluate what they said, it'd be to dismiss them as unhelpful.
@Crooknose I agree.

But I also agree that Johnny was a bit more dismissive than usual. I was a little surprised since he doesn't tend to be. No offense to anyone, especially not @Johnny. x

@Crooknose, and @Evie: Just posting to offer solidarity.

It's difficult being the ones to offer this sort of feedback, and I recognize and appreciate when it's offered to myself, or anyone here.

I remember in the first post there were some issues with wording and phrasing which could be considered overly aggressive. I can empathize with XXXXXX and see how frustrating the situation is, but what Slither said also holds true; What you say and how you say things is just always gonna affect how people respond.

I can see why Johnny's response was more on the dismissive side than what many are used to, and this is not meant as an attack or ridicule or anything.

But yeah, one of the big points brought up "And the staff can't even modify them either - they have to have a senior member remove the biomod, then schedule an IC way of having a "fixed" biomod installed instead." This is impossible to ask any IC questions on. There's no way to know this other than through OOC channels.

Seven or so posts up, there was also "For extra context, I've since spoken to the GMs about my particular issue and have been informed that my chief problem is that my mods were installed incorrectly OOCly." This is also not related to anything IC, as far as I can tell.

And as Johnny pointed out, "Anything else -should be- a service request." Maybe for the time being, Staff members *other* than Senior Staff could be authorized to assist with this? Would that be a resource-effective way to address this for now?


(Edited by Johnny at 5:14 pm on 3/5/2020)

@armingo I like how you're so constructive. I can honestly understand both sides in this. And I can understand if this is not a coding priority for staff. But it would be cool to come to a compromise at some point.
Sorry for double post, just want to make sure no one took my last post as sarcastic. I have no idea why that came off so sarcastic, at least from how I re-read my own post.
@Ephmeralis

"None of this is IC to start with. Nobody is even contesting the fact that biomods are unalterable and something you're stuck with forever after - people are niffed at the notion that getting them permanently locks your character's appearance into something that you can NEVER change thereafter to reflect the situation, environment or mood they're in."

You can actually... it's called going and getting the biomod uninstalled and reinstalled with what ever biomod you want next. It is only permanent if you don't want to spend money to alter it beyond that. It's not -literally- permanent IC.

OOC, the code systems behind the biomods I don't really know, but what it seems like it as Senior Admin overrides or installs an object on your character that overrides a specific @naked. That seems like a pretty powerful power so I can understand why they might only want Senior Admin doing that thing.

Sorry for the double post, but I should note that I technically broke the rules because I learned all that In Character myself years ago, so you could have to with about ten minutes of a proggia call?
Except what I'm trying to tell you is that the biomod -hasn't- removed anything. If you really want the ability to personalize your @nakeds again, got get the biomod removed.
Okay double post because I've actually fully delved into things.

Alright, you've been waiting for things to get figured out. Things are taking awhile, you're getting frustrated. Understandable. I don't agree with how long it has taken to get things done no, but at the same time there's no reason to get this irate about it. The first character I had biomodded I had the spelling errors in mine for almost a month before anyone was able to get to it and get it reinstalled (and it still costed me my own money to get it redone (but only half the cost) )

Except you have lost the ability to make changes.

Alright how about this, as an explanation, to hammer it home anymore.

Biomodded people cannot tan evenly.

Cannot sunburn evenly.

Cannot get superficial scratches.

Cannot freckle.

Cannot develop moles.

Cannot get fatter in the face.

Cannot get skinnier in the face.

Cannot have natural RP based changes.

Cannot change their hair style in description if their head is modded.

Cannot change their hair color in description if their head is modded.

Cannot pierce their ears they are modded.

Literally, a better implementation while still retaining the permanence of the mods, would be to have the naked's for the biomods on a completely separate slot, called BIOMODTOP BIOMODMIDDLE and BIOMODBOTTOM. One biomod slot for each formation paragraph.(So one for the head changes, one for the upper body changes, one for the lower body changes.) Boom, still immutable, still unchangable. And also, much more immediately obvious if the player is fucking with it.

One thing I think is important to understand is that bio-mods are about more than just adding an animal part. They are about making things about your character the way they are because it is programmed in. For example, I could get a bio-mod that keeps my hair the perfect length and style at all times. Some would even argue that if you include your hair's description in a bio-mod that this is exactly what you are asking for.

I would even suggest that having a bio-mod means that your body is now genetically programmed to keep you at the state you specified when you paid for it. Why can't you get your hair cut or face scarred? Because your body will revert. It is programmed to go back to what you programmed it to be. All the time. The only way to change it is to change the programming. Otherwise you will see nothing more than short lived changes.

Also, keep in mind that we can be pretty flexible with how we use our @nakeds. Especially slots with parings can be creatively used. Is your head biomod fixed but you want to have a scar on your face? Have left ear describe your ears and right ear describe your facial scar. You can even to similar things with your extra eye, hand, foot, calf, thigh. Keep it reasonable and be ready to adjust based on what you wear but you can do a lot with those extra naked slots.

I think it would be cool if biomod messages were handled like tattoos and pretended before each naked slot but I honestly don't think they are as game breaking as people try and make them sound as they are now. Sometimes you just need to be find IC reasons that explain the laws of the Sindome world. Like the example I suggested.

+1 Grey0

Also, you can change biomods, it just costs money again. It is not just full on permanent -unless- you wanna be cheap and not spend money again.

If we could not harangue each other/command each other/threaten to talk shit on Reddit that'd be awesome.
I agree with @Crooknose. Things are getting a heated. We should avoid that.

I also want to agree with and echo the sentiment that anyone who wishes to post in this thread, should really carefully read the entire thread. I have noticed some instances of frustration being caused by what seems like not fully understanding the issues and sentiments expressed here.

And @Evie that didn't sound sarcastic, you good.

If your character is hit on a location that has a bio-modded @naked, you will see a wound there. Bruise, cut, bullet hole and the like. So yes, short term damage is represented in the system - even on sculpted @nakeds.

Also, yes, I am suggesting that one possible IC explanation for the immutability of a sculpted @naked is that, because of the bio-mod, the body will always revert back to the designer state. Your body has been taught and empowered to maintain the sculpted look. And I don't think that this is really out of reach of the dome's current tech. I can be shot to death and have a Doc in the mix revive me and return me to near perfect health in under five minutes. I can have a bio-mod change the nature of my genes. The limits are UN imposed, they are not due to limited tech.

I am not saying this is canon but it is ONE possible IC explanation that would explain the way things mechanically work in the Sindome universe.

And if you do want to portray things differently, you have a bunch of @naked slots you can use to do so. Creative use of @nakeds is an accepted thing in Sindome as long as you keep it reasonable and themely. I also gave examples of this.

I know that there is a solution available that would make bio-mods work more like you want them to work. That does now mean, however, that staff and the community want them to work how you want them to work. Maybe they prefer to have them locked in and are fine with IC reasoning like what I suggested? From what I've read so far this is more likely the case.

Plus, even if they did want them changed, it will take time and effort from a small group of volunteers and I very much doubt that making Bio-Mods work in a slightly different way is the first thing staff wants to spend their time on when there are so many other things that impact many more players and have a far greater effect on playability and balance than this does. Especially as there are workarounds as I described previously.

So instead of continuing a heated argument I propose we ask staff a few direct, polite questions:

Is it okay for me to explain the fact that no permanent changes can be made to sculpted @nakeds as my body being designed to maintain the appearance aggressively as described in my last post?

If it is decided that a sculpted @naked means that my bio-modded body will always revert to the state programmed in when I got the bio-mod, is it okay to still use @nakeds creatively to describe short-term changes to bio-modded areas - like using a free left ear slot to mention a wound to my sculpted head?

I think @Grey0 makes a lot of good points, though I still would personally prefer they be treated like tattoos. Seem simple enough, not overpowered or overly special.
Emphemeralis, take a deep breath man.
Tattoo gun now is allowed to wipe tattoos despite the abuse done in the past, so why not the same for biomods?
@Beepboop

+1

At this point I want to weigh in and say that Johnny is going to have to address any points raised in this thread. Myself and the GM's who have weighed in so far are just reiterating what we have been told by him. Until he has time to review and address the suggestions made here there it's not much more the staff can say on this.