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Half-Life 2 Roleplay => Topic started by: Sexy Frog on February 02, 2013, 02:48:39 AM
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Okay, bare with me here; I'm making my first rant/why u do dis post ever since I've been here more because I feel it necessary. I want to make it perfectly clear that I am in no way attacking or singling anyone out as everyone is entitled to their opinions and whatever, I am just addressing the elephant in the room.
Right, so the reason I am making this is because of the City server. It's been dead for quite some time, which isn't that huge of a deal, I guess. But where things start grinding my gears is when I look back at recent posts and more specifically Airborne's City Questionnaire thread and then I can plainly see the reason why City is dead. Everyone, if not almost everyone is claiming the same thing over and over. "City is too boring" they claim, "Citizens don't have enough to do" they say, "CCA have too much to do, you may as well name it CCArp" they sneer. Really? Like...are you kidding me?
The fact that people point it out isn't what bothers me, it's the fact of how everyone says it and then gives nothing after that. Okay...City is bad because it's 'bland' and citizens need more to do. That's nice, you just say it and expect it to magically get fixed? Don't work that way, boo boo. If people are going to complain about something, at the very least you can try to give a fraction of a thought as to a way to fix it, if not that then maybe just to make it lightly more bearable! Things like this don't fix themselves without a little elbow grease and cooperation.
For instance:
I myself prefer Outlands greatly over city. Reason being, after almost 2 years of playing HL2RP, city RP is the same thing over and over again. Clean up that street. Fix that wall. Line up so I can cavity check you. There's not a whole lot of room for modulation in the city. In outlands, you have a much wider area of freedom to do what you want. You can make friends, start a business, go on adventures, build a scrapper tank that shoots rocks with pneumatics. Whatever you want. Its survival RP as well so there's always something to do like collect water, go hunting, gather fruits/vegetables, or upkeep the shelter. There's no sitting, waiting around for something to happen (unless you lack imagination) passive RPing in your home or sitting on a bench.
Okay, you say that Outlands is better because there's more freedom and action. Great, perfectly understandable. No argument here. But you also state that City is boring because it holds none of these aspects and that cleaning/getting oppressed all the time is boring. Well, to be entirely honest that is the WHOLE THEME OF CITY. Oppression and misery. Sure, you may get a flit of action here or there with some rebel groups like Third Eye or Red Union or whatever but there isn't much. However, I can't fault you for not stating constructiveness as it was indeed a preference thread.
What would you rather play on, the city or the outlands, and why?
Neither at the moment. City is too stale and has fallen into the same situation as many other communities who have just opened a server: no players, same story, nobody daring to do something different. Outlands, by my own experience, has been too exclusive to be involved myself in decent RP.
What is about city that makes you not want to join or play it?
Apart from the fact it's always empty (so there's no one to roleplay with) there just isn't much to do
What is about city that makes you not want to join or play it?
A server full of citizens and units and the plaza/UCH are totally empty, making finding others to RP with near impossible and really just ends up with me walking around aimlessly.
What is about city that makes you not want to join or play it?
Almost everything about it at this point. The player base, the stale environment, people's lack of originality and lack of desire to be original and the map. I'm sick of city 45; I hate to say it and I know Ozjackal has put tons of effort and time into it but I just don't enjoy the map/environment anymore.
What do you want to do on city?
have interested roleplay -- which is lacking on the city server at the moment
What is about city that makes you not want to join or play it? The disparity in effort put into citizen gameplay compared to the elaborate systems constantly maintained and updated for the CCA
What do you do for fun on city?
Sit on a bench, literally.
Is City_45 too hardware reliant for your current system? (too laggy)
No.
What would you like to see more of on city?
RP for loyal citizens to actually do.
What do you want to do on city?
Something interesting for once.
What is about city that makes you not want to join or play it?
It's really, really, boring.
What can be done to help you enjoy the city?
RP for loyal citizens to actually do.
All examples of reasons pretty much everyone gave for not liking City in it's current state. Now, I can in now way blame them for what they said about not joining due to the dwindling population because it's true and that makes playing there undesirable. But this is a bit ridiculous. The complaints ranged from City being stale to City consisting of walking around doing nothing. But not a single one gave any sort of insight as towards making it better save extremely vague answers like "Give Citizens more to do" or "More cwu stuff" or "More originality" which all in all tells us NOTHING. The issue of the CCA being the 'golden child' of City and having elaborate and complex systems while citizens got the shit end of the stick has come up on multiple occasions throughout my being here. I won't deny it, because that would be retarded on my end. But I see few to little of any of the people complaining actually giving serious suggestions as towards what to do. I also want to state that Citizens not having a system of some kind is entirely false. We do but it is in the works, which is something else that needs to be addressed.
Section 0 is in the midst of working out the Loyalist Program as everyone is well aware of, a decent system as to give citizens, CCA, CWU and even CAB more RP in general. A system that doesn't just consist of cleaning and bench squatting and is much more immerse and interactive to cease the constant complaints. Everyone can agree on that, right? But what makes matter worse is that raged has even posted that new thread about Loyalist system suggestions and even offered a reward ICly for good suggestions just to give a little perk for helping out but not a single soul has commented on it other than Dallas. And he's a CCA player, having few ties to Citizen RP for Christs sake.
Everyone expects shit to magically get done but nobody bother to give some insight just as to how. Just a single comment would help. Not asking for whole super worked out system that put ObamaCare or something like that to shame, but at least tid bits can help. A little "hey, why not try this (insert helpful suggestion here)" or something.
I mean, look at Outlands. People have been saying that "there's not enough action" for as long as I can remember and nothing happened. Why? Because nobody said jack shit regarding what specifically to do about it. It was only recent that people gave serious and descriptive suggestions and then shit changed. Not to mention the new OverWatch Commander has a totally different mind set than others who had his spot so that helps too. Now look at it. Action every damned day. No joke. OzJackal even posted it himself. OTA sweeps every day of the week so long as there is 10+ people on the server. On top of that, Challenge and Alex even took it upon themselves to bring Antlion characters into the mix to give even more action and not to mention the sudden spike in baddies in the outlands like Dallas's Nazi, My recent vortigaunt, Toxic's douchie character and a few others I don't really remember.
I'll just leave it at this for now. At the end of the day, nothing much can really get done if those complaining don't take some initiative and give actually helpful comments. Only so much can actually be done without legitimate feed back, I like City, I always have and it sucks to see it so empty and hear the same reasons over and over as to why. Again, if I offended anyone I am sorry, I wasn't aiming to. If you feel I singled you out or put you on the spot, I am also sorry but I am only addressing the obvious.
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make city rp post-uprising and make it survival rp like outlands and you'll still get people complaining saying its boring
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For instance:
I myself prefer Outlands greatly over city. Reason being, after almost 2 years of playing HL2RP, city RP is the same thing over and over again. Clean up that street. Fix that wall. Line up so I can cavity check you. There's not a whole lot of room for modulation in the city. In outlands, you have a much wider area of freedom to do what you want. You can make friends, start a business, go on adventures, build a scrapper tank that shoots rocks with pneumatics. Whatever you want. Its survival RP as well so there's always something to do like collect water, go hunting, gather fruits/vegetables, or upkeep the shelter. There's no sitting, waiting around for something to happen (unless you lack imagination) passive RPing in your home or sitting on a bench.
Okay, you say that Outlands is better because there's more freedom and action. Great, perfectly understandable. No argument here. But you also state that City is boring because it holds none of these aspects and that cleaning/getting oppressed all the time is boring. Well, to be entirely honest that is the WHOLE THEME OF CITY. Oppression and misery. Sure, you may get a flit of action here or there with some rebel groups like Third Eye or Red Union or whatever but there isn't much. However, I can't fault you for not stating constructiveness as it was indeed a preference thread.
Right, so you have just indirectly admitted that the Half-Life 2 canon is absolutely terrible for a city-oriented roleplay server, because the essence of roleplay is freedom and the essence of oppression is the detraction of freedom. Do you know why people never suggest anything constructive to fix City? There isn't any way to fix City. All of the problems that exist within City are inherent byproducts of the shoddy Half-Life 2 canon that should have never been used for a city-oriented roleplay server to begin with. Though no one would ever agree to it, a replacement of the canon in HL2RP with something more unique and specially crafted to avoid the issues that stem from the Half-Life 2 canon would be the ultimate solution.
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Though no one would ever agree to it, a replacement of the canon in HL2RP with something more unique and specially crafted to avoid the issues that stem from the Half-Life 2 canon would be the ultimate solution.
such as
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Okay, you say that Outlands is better because there's more freedom and action. Great, perfectly understandable. No argument here. But you also state that City is boring because it holds none of these aspects and that cleaning/getting oppressed all the time is boring. Well, to be entirely honest that is the WHOLE THEME OF CITY. Oppression and misery.
Oppression and misery can be an atmospheric theme, but I don't think gameplay should ever hinge on being oppressed and bored. This reminds me of the classic Vanilla Canon vs. Progressive Canon arguments which pop up periodically. "Blah blah, it's like this in HL2 so therefore you're missing the point if you try to do it like X or Y. Stop whining, you whiner." Yes, CG generally aims to stay true to the "feel" of HL2. However, when it comes to gameplay mechanics, as in WHAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO on the server, I believe fun and engaging gameplay deserves top precedence.
Also, you seem to be fairly miffed about people failing to proactively contribute positive suggestions of their own. If you really want to hear forward-thinking suggestions, maybe next time you could post a thread asking to gather that particular type of suggestion, instead of using the rather roundabout means of an accusatory rant to get your feedback.
It's easier and quicker to point out the flaws in something, as opposed to actively suggesting methods of improvement. If a particular sort of feedback is not specifically asked for, many people will just leave it up in the air. Don't be so quick to label it a sign of malicious intent or inferior personal character. Should people feel bad for failing to give feedback that wasn't asked for? No, perhaps they could use a simple nudge in the desired direction. Whatever the case may be, it's definitely not necessary to get angry and create an angrythread.php. You could've gotten the desired suggestions free of drama, simply by asking a few follow-up questions in a comment or even in a new thread if you wanted the visibility.
Last year, I made a quick thread where I listed a few ideas that were on my mind regarding citizenRP improvements. You can see the thread here: http://www.catalyst-gaming.net/index.php?topic=4651.msg35895
The ideas are obviously a bit dated. A few, like the official resistance and the date/time suggestions, have since been decisively deemed impossible or undesirable. The point about more interactions with the City Administration appears to be coming into fruition, I'm happy to observe. Yet others, e.g. greater interaction with the CWU and official restaurants and businesses, have not been fully realized, if at all.
One thing I think is missing from Citizen RP is the presence of choices with persistent and long-term effects. For instance, the CCA is extremely fun partly because of the many choices a character can make that will majorly affect his/her career. And development that happens on the server often carries over to the next day and the next, with significant effects. I'm not exactly sure how the newest rendition of the CCA is organized, so forgive me if I misuse any terminology. But anyway, the fact is that players get a kick out of mentally debating which section the character wishes to enter, then going around collecting recommendations from section leaders, then get the transfer approved. It's fun and quite addicting to new players to gradually work their way up the ranks, slowly gaining more power, respect, and recognition as they go. Who knows, maybe one day the lowly Recruit will finally reach the top of the ladder, but that day is a long way off.
Every step of the way, CCA players have some sort of roleplay carrot dangling in front of their faces. A promotion coming up soon, a new training course scheduled for the afternoon, a section meeting tomorrow. That figurative carrot tends to be very effective in getting people involved in the roleplay and continuing to come back for more.
Now... if only this concept was readily applied to other factions. The trick is to preserve the unique feel of the faction in question. For example, it would be difficult to pull off a rank system for Citizens without it seeming overtly CCA-like. Luckily, there are many ways to implement persistent choices into city life.
Off the top of my head:
- Official and persistent businesses with various management and employment positions to be filled. Businesses aren't necessarily businesses per se, more like means of employment. Could be a factory, a cafe, and a repair shop. There just needs to be enough choices so that most player passiveRP interests are covered.
- Assignment into a certain starting district at start, that is character's "home" district. Character is free to roam inside said district, but if he wants to visit a different district, he has to meet certain requirements such as loyalist points, tokens earned from working, security clearances, etc. Districts could vary not only aesthetically but also in the quality of housing or types of officially-run shops or employment sources inside. For example, Joe is processed and allocated to D:3. Life's not bad, although the civil housing block has communal showers and bathrooms instead of individual ones like you see in the fancy D:1 housing. Joe works at the ration packaging plant in D:3, when he's able to scrap together enough tokens he enjoys paying his way to D:2 to eat at the noodle stand there. Inter-district travel is expensive, though, so Joe's considering volunteer janitorial service to eventually get enough loyalist points for a discount. He could also just work his ass off in the packaging plant so the supervising CCA units will eventually notice and reward him, but that could take months. Still, he'll do whatever it takes to save tokens for unexpected costs. Once, one of his mates got mangled in a machine at the plant, and since he'd spent all his tokens on beer at the in-district workers' bar, he didn't have enough money to pay for the semi-permanent transfer to the CWU hospital up in D:1. His coworkers chipped in with their daily wages, forgoing dinner for that night.
I could go on and on about the possibilities of all factions interwoven with a cohesive system that makes use of district boundaries, tokens, and points.
- Suggestion for points and getting people to actually buy things from shops: in every business, what if each buyable item had a certain point value attached to it - you buy a blue sofa for 200 tokens, which in turn will prompt the store clerk to add 2 "Metroplex Welfare Points" to your record. The more valuable an item is, the more MWPs are added to your record if you buy it. MWPs are used to qualify for progressively better health-related benefits such as admission to clinics and hospitals, as well as progressively better quality-of-living benefits such as transferring from the ratty old housing block with no doors to the slightly nicer one with doors and a storage closet and a window overlooking the street. The more MWPs a citizen has, the more presumably well-to-do they are, as they were able to afford all the purchases to accumulate the MWPs. MWPs could possibly be used as a sign of social status and wealth, almost being a currency in itself - perhaps certain upscale clubs or bars could require varying MWP prices for admission.
- In contrast, there would an alternate type of point - the Metroplex Service Point. MSPs would generally be earned for excellence or achievement in a citizen's Union Sanctioned Vocation (official name for a job), or for outstanding volunteer work or some other sort of notable contribution to the Union's cause. MSPs could be used to expended for extra rations or token discounts, making it easier to obtain MWPs. Alternatively, they could be saved to qualify for promotion or assignment to a certain position within one's Union Sanctioned Vocation, or even a switch to a different vocation altogether.
- Some important things, such as healthcare provision, could be purchased using different currencies but at varying costs. For example, admission to the CWU hospital would require EITHER 500 credits, OR 200 MWPs, OR 100 MSPs.
- Certain high-status Union Sanctioned Vocations such as CA Embassy Aide might have an MWP requirement in addition to the MSP requirement.
There are so many possibilities to be discovered here. Anyway, I hope I've made my points clear.
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you say it's boring because you are probably one of those shitheads that sit on a bench and then when you look at them after them ranting about 'rp being le boring' and you look at their character and they just keep walking
like seriously changing canon won't do shit except bring activity up for about a week
wow guys a week of circlejerking in a new canoN WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no
outlands isn't active because it has a unique canon (which it doesn't) and neither will city
i swear this happens every time activity drops and maybe you should consider the fact that everyone wants to cyber on outlands and look at the difference between pre-outlands launch and post. crying about it won't do shit so maybe you shouldn't
What do you do for fun on city?
Sit on a bench, literally.
whoever does this should just up and neck themselves
yeah bitch about not being active and then go fucking sit on a bench and cry about the lack of 'rp' just because there's no female characters on to cyber with
all in all a change of canon will make me want to set myself on fire and good luck having people joining and understanding what's going on in the first place - which less playerbase = less activity = more bitching from faggots
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I pretty much have to agree with hogs. Yep.
He has a point- no sudden changing of the canon will make things better. Until the map switch to C38 we've got to be active and start having events every other day. Tonight's event will hopefully get City populated and we can begin again.
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Okay, you say that Outlands is better because there's more freedom and action. Great, perfectly understandable. No argument here. But you also state that City is boring because it holds none of these aspects and that cleaning/getting oppressed all the time is boring. Well, to be entirely honest that is the WHOLE THEME OF CITY. Oppression and misery.
Also, you seem to be fairly miffed about people failing to proactively contribute positive suggestions of their own. If you really want to hear forward-thinking suggestions, maybe next time you could post a thread asking to gather that particular type of suggestion, instead of using the rather roundabout means of an accusatory rant to get your feedback.
It's easier and quicker to point out the flaws in something, as opposed to actively suggesting methods of improvement. If a particular sort of feedback is not specifically asked for, many people will just leave it up in the air. Don't be so quick to label it a sign of malicious intent or inferior personal character. Should people feel bad for failing to give feedback that wasn't asked for? No, perhaps they could use a simple nudge in the desired direction. Whatever the case may be, it's definitely not necessary to get angry and create an angrythread.php. You could've gotten the desired suggestions free of drama, simply by asking a few follow-up questions in a comment or even in a new thread if you wanted the visibility.
I want to make it perfectly clear that I am in no way attacking or singling anyone out as everyone is entitled to their opinions and whatever, I am just addressing the elephant in the room.
But what makes matter worse is that raged has even posted that new thread about Loyalist system suggestions and even offered a reward ICly for good suggestions just to give a little perk for helping out but not a single soul has commented on it other than Dallas.
I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad, as I said that wasn't the purpose of this. I am trying to call it out and make everyone see, even if my delivery was a bit on the rough side. Yes there has been threads to ask for suggestions such as the multiple loyalist reform threads, I believe there were some CAB threads a while back that Reaver posted and Airborne's questionaire is a thread specifically based on way to improve city. So yes, feedback has indeed been asked for. But as for more to do, it's a bit difficult to come up with with the few people who think of things that wouldn't come across as undesirable and wrong in the eyes of the players, so a little help goes a long way.
Post Auto-Merged: February 02, 2013, 10:52:22 AM
Okay, to follow up my thread I see what I can think of/include from comments in the thread.
~ Water Treatment Plant/Ration Packing - WTP was something used back in Sigma7 before it died and did a good job of promoting roleplay. Plus the CWU made a Breens Water mixer machine thing so we can use that. Ration Packing has been used in the past back in the version of City45 that had Precinct 2. So this is one.
~ Small gangs that only reside in P3 to do what Yak said and give P3 and actual sense of danger since it's the dangerous district of City. Targeting, mugging, raping, beating up innocent citizens or whatever.
~ Couple Citizen oriented events like fire, exogen breach/necrotic breach starting in P3, etc.
~ Occupy the train station check point and assign official 'Room Mates' to people as they log in for the time they are logged in (not permanent). So if they go about actually getting a room, they are meant to room with that person and give them some RP/interaction, maybe make a friend.
~ More focus on CWU - Give them a bit more of a helpful shove and make them less boring in the sense of them revolving simply around selling shit. Maybe have them host small 'Citizen meet and greets'/'festivals' or other city wide events that try to get them to join the Union. Maybe have them actually ask for citizen assistance with labor jobs of switching shops or have them develop 'test products' like experimental soup or something like that to hand out to citizens and get them to try.
~ Door to door Union missionaries? Kinda like the Mormons of the UU that knock on your door and try to share the word of the Union with you?
~ Actually holding outdoor ceremonies? Like maybe when a unit gets a badge of honor or a promotion to high up rank like HC or when loyalists actually get high up there in the rank tier to get some more out there.
~ Mimic 1984 - Try setting up a 'Hate Week' of sorts or a '15 minutes of Hate' where for an OOC week we are setting out a little thing to express our hatred of say...those in the Outlands ICly and try to portray them as murderous ruffians and hold a little speech campaign to amplify that hatred. Something like that?
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All of the things above are great ideas. I will go out of my way to try to implement these. Especially the week of hate.
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For instance:
I myself prefer Outlands greatly over city. Reason being, after almost 2 years of playing HL2RP, city RP is the same thing over and over again. Clean up that street. Fix that wall. Line up so I can cavity check you. There's not a whole lot of room for modulation in the city. In outlands, you have a much wider area of freedom to do what you want. You can make friends, start a business, go on adventures, build a scrapper tank that shoots rocks with pneumatics. Whatever you want. Its survival RP as well so there's always something to do like collect water, go hunting, gather fruits/vegetables, or upkeep the shelter. There's no sitting, waiting around for something to happen (unless you lack imagination) passive RPing in your home or sitting on a bench.
Okay, you say that Outlands is better because there's more freedom and action. Great, perfectly understandable. No argument here. But you also state that City is boring because it holds none of these aspects and that cleaning/getting oppressed all the time is boring. Well, to be entirely honest that is the WHOLE THEME OF CITY. Oppression and misery. Sure, you may get a flit of action here or there with some rebel groups like Third Eye or Red Union or whatever but there isn't much. However, I can't fault you for not stating constructiveness as it was indeed a preference thread.
Right, so you have just indirectly admitted that the Half-Life 2 canon is absolutely terrible for a city-oriented roleplay server, because the essence of roleplay is freedom and the essence of oppression is the detraction of freedom. Do you know why people never suggest anything constructive to fix City? There isn't any way to fix City. All of the problems that exist within City are inherent byproducts of the shoddy Half-Life 2 canon that should have never been used for a city-oriented roleplay server to begin with. Though no one would ever agree to it, a replacement of the canon in HL2RP with something more unique and specially crafted to avoid the issues that stem from the Half-Life 2 canon would be the ultimate solution.
That doesn't explain why and how city was nearly full, or at the very least half full, almost every day for 2011 and up to the fall of 2012, while outlands was completely empty, being extremely lucky to get 5 players on a weekend.
On a side note, I brought this up in an admin meeting we had last night, but I'll bring it up here as well. Where is everyone who was screaming for HL2RP in the 3 months that clockwork was in development?
Also, regarding Frog's suggestion of exogen breaches and necrotics in P3, I brought up the fact that citizens want action oriented events last night in an admin meeting and I even said, "I know they're frowned upon and regarded as stupid, but let's do necrotic and exogen events more often because people love the action." I didn't word it exactly like that, but that was my point. It pretty much got heavily shot down by the other admins because no one likes doing these events, including myself honestly. But as of now, we need a quick but efficient fix to the city issue for various reasons.
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you say it's boring because you are probably one of those shitheads that sit on a bench and then when you look at them after them ranting about 'rp being le boring' and you look at their character and they just keep walking
like seriously changing canon won't do shit except bring activity up for about a week
wow guys a week of circlejerking in a new canoN WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no
outlands isn't active because it has a unique canon (which it doesn't) and neither will city
i swear this happens every time activity drops and maybe you should consider the fact that everyone wants to cyber on outlands and look at the difference between pre-outlands launch and post. crying about it won't do shit so maybe you shouldn't
What do you do for fun on city?
Sit on a bench, literally.
whoever does this should just up and neck themselves
yeah bitch about not being active and then go fucking sit on a bench and cry about the lack of 'rp' just because there's no female characters on to cyber with
all in all a change of canon will make me want to set myself on fire and good luck having people joining and understanding what's going on in the first place - which less playerbase = less activity = more bitching from faggots
That was my post actually, if you would have read it more in depth, I said, What do you do for fun on city?
Sit on a bench, literally.
Is City_45 too hardware reliant for your current system? (too laggy)
No.
What would you like to see more of on city?
RP for loyal citizens to actually do.
What do you want to do on city?
Something interesting for once.
What is about city that makes you not want to join or play it?
It's really, really, boring.
What can be done to help you enjoy the city?
RP for loyal citizens to actually do.
I never said resistance RP wasn't interesting, because it could be, but in all honesty, what is there for a loyal citizen to do who isn't going to join the CCA or CWU? That's why City is so dead.
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you say it's boring because you are probably one of those shitheads that sit on a bench and then when you look at them after them ranting about 'rp being le boring' and you look at their character and they just keep walking
like seriously changing canon won't do shit except bring activity up for about a week
wow guys a week of circlejerking in a new canoN WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no
outlands isn't active because it has a unique canon (which it doesn't) and neither will city
i swear this happens every time activity drops and maybe you should consider the fact that everyone wants to cyber on outlands and look at the difference between pre-outlands launch and post. crying about it won't do shit so maybe you shouldn't
What do you do for fun on city?
Sit on a bench, literally.
whoever does this should just up and neck themselves
yeah bitch about not being active and then go fucking sit on a bench and cry about the lack of 'rp' just because there's no female characters on to cyber with
all in all a change of canon will make me want to set myself on fire and good luck having people joining and understanding what's going on in the first place - which less playerbase = less activity = more bitching from faggots
That was my post actually, if you would have read it more in depth, I said, What do you do for fun on city?
Sit on a bench, literally.
Is City_45 too hardware reliant for your current system? (too laggy)
No.
What would you like to see more of on city?
RP for loyal citizens to actually do.
What do you want to do on city?
Something interesting for once.
What is about city that makes you not want to join or play it?
It's really, really, boring.
What can be done to help you enjoy the city?
RP for loyal citizens to actually do.
I never said resistance RP wasn't interesting, because it could be, but in all honesty, what is there for a loyal citizen to do who isn't going to join the CCA or CWU? That's why City is so dead.
Never said that you said that. I was also referring to Loyalists. And if the problem is now that 'citizens always leave for another faction' then that's never going to end. Sorry. The best we can do it limit it and maybe go for putting back application cycles which I'm not sure if that would be too popular. As for citizens leaving to CWU, that makes no difference what so ever. CWU are still citizens. So that is invalid. They just have another skin and have more to do and besides, if citizens start joining CWU it's not all that bad because CWU is even more barren and inactive than any other faction. Even CAB are more active, since they used to be a rare sight on City a while back.
For instance:
I myself prefer Outlands greatly over city. Reason being, after almost 2 years of playing HL2RP, city RP is the same thing over and over again. Clean up that street. Fix that wall. Line up so I can cavity check you. There's not a whole lot of room for modulation in the city. In outlands, you have a much wider area of freedom to do what you want. You can make friends, start a business, go on adventures, build a scrapper tank that shoots rocks with pneumatics. Whatever you want. Its survival RP as well so there's always something to do like collect water, go hunting, gather fruits/vegetables, or upkeep the shelter. There's no sitting, waiting around for something to happen (unless you lack imagination) passive RPing in your home or sitting on a bench.
Okay, you say that Outlands is better because there's more freedom and action. Great, perfectly understandable. No argument here. But you also state that City is boring because it holds none of these aspects and that cleaning/getting oppressed all the time is boring. Well, to be entirely honest that is the WHOLE THEME OF CITY. Oppression and misery. Sure, you may get a flit of action here or there with some rebel groups like Third Eye or Red Union or whatever but there isn't much. However, I can't fault you for not stating constructiveness as it was indeed a preference thread.
Right, so you have just indirectly admitted that the Half-Life 2 canon is absolutely terrible for a city-oriented roleplay server, because the essence of roleplay is freedom and the essence of oppression is the detraction of freedom. Do you know why people never suggest anything constructive to fix City? There isn't any way to fix City. All of the problems that exist within City are inherent byproducts of the shoddy Half-Life 2 canon that should have never been used for a city-oriented roleplay server to begin with. Though no one would ever agree to it, a replacement of the canon in HL2RP with something more unique and specially crafted to avoid the issues that stem from the Half-Life 2 canon would be the ultimate solution.
That doesn't explain why and how city was nearly full, or at the very least half full, almost every day for 2011 and up to the fall of 2012, while outlands was completely empty, being extremely lucky to get 5 players on a weekend.
On a side note, I brought this up in an admin meeting we had last night, but I'll bring it up here as well. Where is everyone who was screaming for HL2RP in the 3 months that clockwork was in development?
Also, regarding Frog's suggestion of exogen breaches and necrotics in P3, I brought up the fact that citizens want action oriented events last night in an admin meeting and I even said, "I know they're frowned upon and regarded as stupid, but let's do necrotic and exogen events more often because people love the action." I didn't word it exactly like that, but that was my point. It pretty much got heavily shot down by the other admins because no one likes doing these events, including myself honestly. But as of now, we need a quick but efficient fix to the city issue for various reasons.
I for one support these Exogen and Necrotic events. I know they're a pain in the ass to manage and keep from going wrong but it's the quickest thing that comes to mind in order to spark immediate interest. Everything else would take some time to organize and plan so events are the only realistic solution to handle the situation swiftly.
And you know what:
Where is everyone who was screaming for HL2RP in the 3 months that clockwork was in development?
This, this, this, this and once again, this. What happened?! Everyone was moaning and groaning for City saying how "My life is over, no HL2rp!" or "Omg, hl2rp withdrawl wtfbbq!" What happened to that?! We finally get it and a month later it goes down the shitter? That doesn't seem right, nor very fair to Khub and Alex who took the time to bring it as fast as they could.
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My last post was directed to hogs, who apparently can't create a single post without flaming his dumbass off, not you, Sexy. Even CWU RP is boring, extraneously boring at that. Atleast when you sit on a bench, you can AFK until RP happens, as a CWU you just set up a shop and sell shit all the time, it gets extremely boring doing the same thing over and over.
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you say it's boring because you are probably one of those shitheads that sit on a bench and then when you look at them after them ranting about 'rp being le boring' and you look at their character and they just keep walking
like seriously changing canon won't do shit except bring activity up for about a week
wow guys a week of circlejerking in a new canoN WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no
outlands isn't active because it has a unique canon (which it doesn't) and neither will city
i swear this happens every time activity drops and maybe you should consider the fact that everyone wants to cyber on outlands and look at the difference between pre-outlands launch and post. crying about it won't do shit so maybe you shouldn't
What do you do for fun on city?
Sit on a bench, literally.
whoever does this should just up and neck themselves
yeah bitch about not being active and then go fucking sit on a bench and cry about the lack of 'rp' just because there's no female characters on to cyber with
all in all a change of canon will make me want to set myself on fire and good luck having people joining and understanding what's going on in the first place - which less playerbase = less activity = more bitching from faggots
No one's crying Hogs, we're trying to discuss this like mature people and find ways to fix this problem. Those "shitheads" that sit around on benches for one, don't actually do that and are trying to show in a witty manner the issues with City, and two, are inclined to actually sit around on benches because City doesn't offer many more opportunities to do much at all. Have you ever wondered why City is so boring, perhaps not for you, but indeed for many others? Have any of you armchair revisionists done so? All of you may note that I said that the Half-Life 2 canon doesn't work for a city-oriented roleplay, at least not as it stands. Therefore, I wouldn't suggest a change to Outlands' canon, and I wouldn't suggest completely changing to some other canon entirely, unless the majority of the community wanted to. However, we can start crafting our own canon of sorts, by integrating other stories (such as 1984, which Yankee mentioned) into the Half-Life 2 canon. What we actually know about Half-Life 2 comes from a storyline in video games based around violence and rebellion. How can we expect anything but violence and rebellion? But if we integrate elements of stories like 1984, which shows civilian life in these sorts of civilizations and passive rebellion for the most part, we can craft a much more fun City environment.
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We have a thread in the admin boards for events and event suggestions, but that's for other admins to give their input. So I edited my questionnaire post to include an event question on what YOU GUYS want to see done in terms of events. We keep trying to figure out what events citizens can do and be a part of and get some action RP in, but we're hardly even asking those who mainly RP citizens, so I've taken the liberty.
We had a really good event last night that got a lot of population back on city and I think it went very well. We had that Union tea party, and afterwards, rations in which the RDT was bombed and a unit was even killed, leading to a funeral procession tonight (check the IC section for info). We had a big turnout, mostly citizens and that's definitely good. I expect we'll have a loyalist system in place within the next few days and we'll likely have a map change with a map change event soon for city. Things should be picking up soon.
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My problem with city and my argument that's CCA>citizens is that.. Its what most people think and act, 90% of the time when I was on the city(Before and after outlands came up) was that one step out of line and BAM 3226 request for a CP to arrest you so someone could get loyalist points.
We often trade canon for whats fun and realistic, the CCA isn't all that realistic to start with. But its fun.
In outlands/on the resistance side we can't do whats fun because it isn't realistic(OTA/CPs on rebel fights) now I'm not saying that it should be easy, but we should at least be allowed to do it with out the classic "Lol massive combine army that would be impossible to mobilize" excuse.
On city it gets harder for people to start out on rebel RP if they're new to it because they tend to do things that may or may not fall under fail RP and such and they basically lose their character for a single mistake because they're new.
Another thing is most of the activity/shit to do on the city normally involve getting loyalist points other then that, you have to create you own RP(And this falls back to the whole 3226 request thing) which is where the whole "Lack of freedom" comes in.
People complaining that there's nothing to do often can't come up with a solution because its hard to figure out/when they suggest something they get shot down by people so quickly and basically flamed and their opinions belittled.
The CCA/CCA players tend to belittle people started out with resistance RP and do things that often can be seen as dickish(Lulwebels).
And often enough CCA tends to become the focus of shit in the admins eyes/the mappers(No offence) and a lot of the events involve them.
The whole outlands has more freedom thing really stems from an over bearing/assholic(Sorry had to be said) CCA.
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My problem with city and my argument that's CCA>citizens is that.. Its what most people think and act, 90% of the time when I was on the city(Before and after outlands came up) was that one step out of line and BAM 3226 request for a CP to arrest you so someone could get loyalist points.
We often trade canon for whats fun and realistic, the CCA isn't all that realistic to start with. But its fun.
In outlands/on the resistance side we can't do whats fun because it isn't realistic(OTA/CPs on rebel fights) now I'm not saying that it should be easy, but we should at least be allowed to do it with out the classic "Lol massive combine army that would be impossible to mobilize" excuse.
On city it gets harder for people to start out on rebel RP if they're new to it because they tend to do things that may or may not fall under fail RP and such and they basically lose their character for a single mistake because they're new.
Another thing is most of the activity/shit to do on the city normally involve getting loyalist points other then that, you have to create you own RP(And this falls back to the whole 3226 request thing) which is where the whole "Lack of freedom" comes in.
People complaining that there's nothing to do often can't come up with a solution because its hard to figure out/when they suggest something they get shot down by people so quickly and basically flamed and their opinions belittled.
The CCA/CCA players tend to belittle people started out with resistance RP and do things that often can be seen as dickish(Lulwebels).
And often enough CCA tends to become the focus of shit in the admins eyes/the mappers(No offence) and a lot of the events involve them.
The whole outlands has more freedom thing really stems from an over bearing/assholic(Sorry had to be said) CCA.
Which is why raged, airborne and I are trying out best to come up with ideas to change the focus from being on the CCA 24/7. Just yesterday, with the introduction of Union Watch I am trying to create more RP for citizens.
While yes, it is mostly loyalist RP, it will not consist of backstabbing citizens and hunting them down for the small crimes they commit all the time. Instead, while that may happen from time to time, it will be more focused around spreading propaganda, speeches, helping CAB and CWU and setting up citizen based events like rallies and loyalist meet and greets.
In some ways, this can even be something to begin anti-citizen RP. With the rise of the first all Loyalist Group on city, anti-citizens all have another common enemy that -- in all honesty is a much easier target to try and pick off than the CCA or CAB.
Airborne specifically has been trying to do events as of late that revolve around citizens like last night and the other event in the Ministry (o7 350). We can try out best to focus on citizens more but there are only so many event ideas that come to mind without CCA trying to swing their peepee's into.
What I mostly don't understand it that how we have had almost the same, if not similar settings for City for almost 3 years now if I'm not mistaken and now is when it starts to crumble. Citizen RP had a lot of the time been relatively low and if it was up there, it was rather tasteless yet the server was always full. And not just with CCA, so nobody can pull that one. I understand that everything has it's time but I don't get why City is now 'so terrible and bland' when it's been full 50/50 on various account before it went down for Gmod13. The only thing that comes to mind is the CCA restructure as a lot of people were butt hurt about it because everyone lost their ranks and didn't want to take the time to RP again.
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Just putting this out there. Anti-citizen groups in city are actually pretty easy to run, you just gotta' be smart and always careful. Think about things, study your enemy, know your environment and its variables and you'll be able to run rings around the Union.
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(dunno what the hell happened a post went away)
the new loyalist system is kinda icing on the cake to prove my point, its really, really, extensive.
There's a lot of issues that can be blamed on the loyalist/their system, 90% of the visible role playing is there and in the end anyone whose doing anything remotely anti-citizen like can kiss their ass goodbye because of the 3226 request that come from loyalist looking for any roleplay/pat on the back.
Outlands is normally seen as more free because of the lack of loyalist/CCA sticking their epees where it doesn't belong and kills roleplay.
Basically the system we have now only the veterans can start resistance groups while people just starting can't even really become anti-citizens before getting killed due to some loyalist looking for his next point or some CCA looking for a promotion.
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(dunno what the hell happened a post went away)
the new loyalist system is kinda icing on the cake to prove my point, its really, really, extensive.
There's a lot of issues that can be blamed on the loyalist/their system, 90% of the visible role playing is there and in the end anyone whose doing anything remotely anti-citizen like can kiss their ass goodbye because of the 3226 request that come from loyalist looking for any roleplay/pat on the back.
Outlands is normally seen as more free because of the lack of loyalist/CCA sticking their epees where it doesn't belong and kills roleplay.
Basically the system we have now only the veterans can start resistance groups while people just starting can't even really become anti-citizens before getting killed due to some loyalist looking for his next point or some CCA looking for a promotion.
Sorry to say, but the CCA and loyalist like to RP too. HL2RP=/=Rebel RP. HL2RP is about loyalist, resistance, Combine, Vortigaunt, and just about any other HL2 faction, RP. If you're RPing a rebel character and you're getting reported by loyalist 24/7, you're doing something wrong. You have a point about veterans being more able to start resistance groups than others, but there's a reason for that. Its because they know how to start a resistance group. They learned just like everyone else has; by screwing up a few times and getting caught until you learn how things work.
With your logic, everything should be changed so either a) everyone is equal and RP's the exact same way in the exact same scenario, or b) rebel RP is supreme and should be glorified and made easier so new players can do rebel RP and not get their feelings hurt because CCA and loyalist characters are doing their job and RPing how they're meant to and enjoy doing. Just like its a rebel characters typical RP to go against the CCA to survive.
Also, having a unit for over a year here (inb4 some "oldfag" rants about me being too new for only having a unit for a little over a year) I can say that most of the requests we get are shit requests like "/request rebel propaganda in my bum, cum get it." We only respond to probably 2/5 requests, as only about 2/5 requests are worth responding to. I can assure you that there aren't as many units in the CCA as you may think that want to completely destroy all rebel RP. If anything the CCA should be viewed as what makes rebel RP fun to begin with. Its something to hide from and its a real danger for you. What fun is a game if there's threat to you that you have to work against to survive?
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What I mostly don't understand it that how we have had almost the same, if not similar settings for City for almost 3 years now if I'm not mistaken and now is when it starts to crumble. Citizen RP had a lot of the time been relatively low and if it was up there, it was rather tasteless yet the server was always full. And not just with CCA, so nobody can pull that one. I understand that everything has it's time but I don't get why City is now 'so terrible and bland' when it's been full 50/50 on various account before it went down for Gmod13.
I was very active during the period that you're referring to, and I can say with certainty that most citizen players were either so new they didn't really know what was going on, or they were decent roleplayers who were trying to get into the CCA as quickly as possible. Population says fuckall about the actual quality of the gameplay.
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What I mostly don't understand it that how we have had almost the same, if not similar settings for City for almost 3 years now if I'm not mistaken and now is when it starts to crumble. Citizen RP had a lot of the time been relatively low and if it was up there, it was rather tasteless yet the server was always full. And not just with CCA, so nobody can pull that one. I understand that everything has it's time but I don't get why City is now 'so terrible and bland' when it's been full 50/50 on various account before it went down for Gmod13.
I was very active during the period that you're referring to, and I can say with certainty that most citizen players were either so new they didn't really know what was going on, or they were decent roleplayers who were trying to get into the CCA as quickly as possible. Population says fuckall about the actual quality of the gameplay.
True, but if there's no population there's no RP to quality manage. So it's a start.
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Lately I think the overall quality of rp, playerbase, and effort has picked up dramatically. The events are interesting and involve everyone, various groups like the Union Watch are doing very well and everyone has something to do. The city is getting much better now I have to say. A new map and sticking to things that everyone can do such as events and groups should keep this going for a start.
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Lately I think the overall quality of rp, playerbase, and effort has picked up dramatically. The events are interesting and involve everyone, various groups like the Union Watch are doing very well and everyone has something to do. The city is getting much better now I have to say. A new map and sticking to things that everyone can do such as events and groups should keep this going for a start.
Yes, yes. After speaking with Airborne, we threw out a couple ideas we're trying to cultivate and I have a hate week planned for Union Watch that House approved so that will be happening soon. It'll be a perfect thing as House will be trying to make a public appearance, rations after and it's perfect for would be revels to try and crash.
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If rp iis boring stop doing /me walks off when someone approaches you or be difficult to communicate with e.g 'yes' 'no' 'im fine' 'yeah, thats cool'