Fast forward to 2021: I started reading up the horror stories from the /vg/ threads of what became of /tg/ such as admins trooning, power grabs by people who've climbed the internal clique ladder ect.
Seems to be a trend; that's how all the servers die. I used to play on Bee, and ho boy did that server go to shit fast.
Drama started when they made a Discord, and started enforcing all the rules there. Biggest one was the nigher ban, along with others. People were furious, mods just wanted people to be "nice to eachother".
What followed was a slow transition to "MRP". Bee had 2 servers; Sage and Golden. Sage was meant to be more MRP but the only real difference was you couldn't meta-gang on Sage.
The changes started small; first, the slurs are gone, command need to competent, no power gaming, etc.
The bigger changes came; murderboning gone, they removed many power mechanics from mining, gateway, etc.
The 'culture' quickly devolved into admins telling people how to play the game. You couldn't spark a fight or fool around without getting noted. Everyone was 'incentivized' to just do their boring jobs and "play nice". Admins gawked like hawks and were always active, so fooling around was discouraged.
The 'head admin' had very little idea how the game was meant to be played. As a result of stupid rules, the game became boring. Noj antags could only do their boring jobs, and nothing else. Since misbehaving would lead to a ban, people would not tide or fool around, and pretty much everyone who didn't do their job were antags. As an antag it was very restrictive who you can and cannot kill. You could no longer blow up cargo to kill your target. Plasmaflooding medbay was always a ban. Syndie bombs were banned altogether.
Admins were really loose with Security though. They could do pretty much anything they wanted. Assistant shoved you? 5 mins. Clown slipped you? 10 mins in brig! No negative effects. They literally created the prison experiment.
The coders were even more out of touch. I know that because I tried to make my own changes. Big 'nerfs' were pushed over an hour and would break everything. One coder would decide "I don't like that" and would just change it breaking the game. Etc etc. Eventually they nerfed mining and implants, removed game modes like wizard and nukies, and added boring features.
Bee is very boring to play nowadays. The admins hawk all the time and every little slipup can get you a 'bwoink'. As an antag you need to know the rules and what you can do. They tried to make a MRP server for a playerbase that doesn't want it. The rules are strict and pretty much everyone is gone, only people who bicker when you break a rule are left. It's not fun to have to fight with admins over rules cause someone reported you for cuffing them.
I think SS13 lost its way ever since they changed combat to make "every encounter have an equal opportunity". SS13 is not about combat. Combat should be quick and dirty, and antags should be able to kill anyone quick and dirty. SS13 is about the antags; not the players. Antags make the game fun and should be prioritized. Without antags SS13 is just a shitty tile based space sim, and there's a billion better ones out there. It's not the systems that make SS13 great; it's the players and player interaction.
