(Final) My Critique of how Civil Protection Is Handled, and What I'm Going To Do to Fix It.

[bravo]

I don't think the issues with Civil Protection have much to do with the current body of leadership. There were a lot of promotions that went out before the server went down for development, and as one of them, I can attest to the fact that a lot of thought is being put into overhauling the faction and ironing out issues. Claptrap and Ozz not being omnipresent on the server isn't really too much of an issue; the issue we had on City 8 was that rank leader inactivity sort of hampered a lot of everyday decision making / authorizations. We'll probably need to wait and see if activity is still a big issue when the server goes back up, and if the new rank leaders patch that over.

As for the recommendations at the bottom, I think this years old obsession with 'CPs should all be corrupt thugs' is really falling out of the bounds of reality. Having seen your last two characters in action, you seem to conflate corruption with a lot of different things; most units are already corrupt. That's not the issue. At least in the case of PATROL-36, I understood that character more as a mental case (which is fine, mind you) and a potential Private Pyle teamkiller more than a corrupt unit.

The lack of certain consequences and strange expression of corruption on City 8 was mainly due to the local / foreigner divide in CP on that map, which you're familiar with. As with the problem of activity, I think what's best is for us to see how things bear out on the new map and assess where CP roleplay may be falling short. We're speaking in retrospect by a degree of several months as the server's been down, so I think the critique is a bit inflated. I've suggested to the leads that we look into cutting more regulations from units or reorganizing the structure in order to better facilitate what you're referring to; if you can identify a few specific rules or policies in the faction that are causing the problems you're talking about, I can try and incorporate it into what I'm working on.

Lastly, I don't think asking for ranks on the forums is really acceptable. I enjoyed both of your characters, but I think it's something that you need to reach on server. Both your units went up in flames over mental incidents and violation scandals, so it's not really a mystery for why you haven't reached command unit.

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

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I've been waiting for a time to say this, first of all, Nick, you are mostly correct in a lot of the stuff you wrote here. It's not all perfect, but you are right. There needs to be a deeper dive, and the next generation of Civil Protection need units to look up to.

So what makes a good Civil Protection Officer? Is it the dynamic of them playing corrupt? Is it a dynamic of them playing by the book? You mentioned in your statement that it should be mostly corrupt. This is too much overhead, and you have to understand that there will be goody-two shoes and corrupt cops doing the same job. That's not the problem.

The problem is, most Civil Protection Units are not thinking on this train of thought: "How is my actions in this very important role, going to churn or develop RP for the other player." or "How will this interaction I'm having give this player a thrill, something for them to build a story on."

Most of the time, Civil Protection Agents, especially the new age ones, have a very mild, dry experience with a citizen, I've been a citizen in plenty of scenarios, and a lot of my encounters with Civil Protection were lack luster.

The officers engaging with my citizen didn't seem to care to create an entertaining time. Their mindset was "I'm the police, you're a subject, I'm going to humiliate you against your will and then maybe send you on your way."

When you put on the boots of a Civil Protection Officer, your job is to create engaging, memorable experiences for the players. We may as well be wearing a clown suit because we are entertainer at essence. Civil Protection is directly in charge of how much fun a player has on the server. The people you're interacting with will be the next generation of Civil Protection in the future when we pass, what you do on that street will develop a continuous generational understanding.

What made you all fall in love with this game? Every single person reading this, has logged into Half Life 2 RP, had an experience that made them want to come back and contribute to the game. Try to 10 fold your first experience. Make it something sticks, whether you're corrupt or goody two shoes.

On the subject of "Faction Management doesn't promote people based on RP"

You're right. They don't! And they can't! They're volunteers, Ozz, Clap, Ultima, and many, many others work around the clock, giving us THEIR free time, and they have to manage the progress of over 50+ accounts at a time. I don't expect everyone to understand faction management, but it's a PAIN IN THE ASS. Also they appear to be on European times, I could be wrong about that, but during 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵 ™ there was no commanding officers, thus no progress for those players, thus discouragement and burnout.

So what did management do?

Well, they heard the concerns, and they've looked at the problem carefully, and I truly believe that they worked together to create a solution for this problem. Players were gaining more STC's in the off hours, and they've graciously promoted me, and several other 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵ers ™
to Command unit, which I intend to use to solve this very problem you're describing.

I've been a part of countless communities in my years. I will say that after careful examination, the people pulling the strings here for Civil Protection really do care about what they're doing, and they work to really implement all necessary changes. They listen to concerns, and create solutions in a timely manner.

We simply got unlucky with the server going down for maintenance and rework, the solution you're looking for was already underway.

For the new generation of Civil Protection:

You should have open liberty to be whoever you want to be behind that mask, but never, ever forget. You are not here for you. You are here for them. You are here to entertain, you are here to create suspense, terror, fear, excitement. When you exit that Nexus, ask yourself "How am I going to make someone else really feel that they're here. In this place, a manufactured hell."

The biggest mistake I see new players making is they're not used to having Authority, really in most cases this is the most authority someone has in their life. They mis-use their authority to hi-jack, or over-control scenarios and subjects. Though authority is a part of the job, it needs to be calibrated and channeled in a way that creates an exciting environment for the true lifeblood of the server, the beloved citizen. However you decide to depict it, is up to you.

On traversing the ranks:

We got you for 100 years minimum, a month or two if i4 won't kill you. People need to stop worrying about ranks, if they have no intention to use the rank to assist faction management. A lot of people "want" to be i2, but exibit no leadership behavior or have a lack of an understanding of the fundamentals that create the exciting environment of this game.

But one thing for sure, I never, ever needed a rank to churn the game. Whether I go to recruit or RL, it's all the same. Play for the other person.

Thanks if you read this whole thing, I wrote it with my heart.

Holy moly what a fucking banger. Induct it into the OOC section of the CivPro guide, cause it hits a lot of things on the nail.

 

[Asimo1234]

What do I mean by this? If you don't roleplay an oppressive presence at all, the rebels who become rebels lose character because they have very little to rebel against -- if you go the full mile and make the city feel like it's in the midst of a Stalinist great purge, the rebellion will have a LOT more flavor, umph and pizazz to it than now. People whine about CvR and how both faction members are autistically at each others' throats OOCly, but that should NOT be the case. OOCly, they should be working in tandem to produce a cohesive, sensical, and realistic city under rule by a puppet government supervised by alien overlords.

Rebel players thus previously complained at length about how the Combine was too harsh, but that was just a play-to-win whining attempt to save their own skins and 'win' the game, when there's no winning in HL2RP. Now that these subversive community members are mostly out, we should really up the stakes and throw in the human element into our roleplay.

A problem we've seen for the past year or so is that well... Any form of personal opression by Civil Protection flares up the tensions and has the resistance grabbing their guns.
When you have a mob of cops taking "voluntairy donations" in the slums, eventually they'll have pissed off enough people with guns in their stash, that any cop in the slums becomes KOS.
The anonimity that protects cops also makes all of them targets. Rebels know they cannot target individual cops, they have no way of distinguishing one from another in a shotcop scenario.

An yeah, as you say, wowie opressive cops give rebels a reason to be rebels. Well yeah, and the rebel who gets pissed off by cops, will go to their friends, and there will be an attack. And it all started to happen a little too frequent to the point where we might as well have been playing uprising RP considering there was a gunfight every other day.

So what's the solution? Cops need to be nice so they don't get shot at? Well...
Regardless of what works on the server, the real picture of HL2 society is that 99.99% of humanity is fucked. Civil Protection are not the Tyrants. Rank Leaders aren't even the Tyrants. Civil Protection are the whip used by the lucky few at the top. Those people are the actual Tyrants.

For Combine society to function, the citizen needs to fear the whip. And the whip needs to fear being cast aside by the Tyrant. Cops shouldn't be comfortable doing whatever they please. Clearly, even on this server and not some schizo lore thought, cops kicking citizens will cause rebellions. The Tyrant would not be pleased.
However, that doesn't mean the Cops should get buddy buddy with the Citizens. They start talking to eachother, they start intermingeling, they start understanding one another... Yikes... The Tyrant would certainly not be pleased.

So, overall citizens need to be fearful of cops. An individual liking an individual here or there doesn't bring down the entire system. And in turn the Cops need to fear the Combine. Too many mistakes and they have some other cop blow your family's brains out. No more family? Sorry bucko, you're getting put down. This is why Dispatch is very important in these kinds of talks, they represent the cold hard standards of the Combine. Those scanners shouldn't just be flying around CZ once in a while to look for resistance activity. They should also be keeping an eye on units. The scanner is the implementation of Big Brother in HL2RP.

Regardless, to get back onto the main point of why cops are stuck in this hole of "if we're too opressive we'll have a morbillion shotcops":

The Tyrant cannot crack the Whip on the Citizen because the Citizen can bite back. The Citizen is not hopeless. And that's why it all collapses.

The citizen cannot be opressed if they are able to take out their opressors. A citizen with a weapon cannot be opressed. A rebel cannot be opressed. Broadly speaking of course.
Now I know there's a bunch of wipes coming in, but from what I have seen there is not actually going to be a big change in direction. Sure, we'll go back to the C24 status of sewer gassed and the like. But WN's gas plugin is VERY VERY accomodating. You can easily spend an hour in the gas as a bluesuit and walk out. Sure your screen will have a dirty overlay, but there's hardly any harm to your character.
The citizen can still build a weapon. They can go to places where they can get materials. The entry bar for a citizen to no longer be hopeless is very low. The entry bar for becoming a rebel might as well be in the ground.

Spoiler: Getting materials

Getting materials to build weapons/means of liberating yourself as a citizen are not just grind things. Like trashbags and crates. They're everything that allows someone to get a bunch of shit. If rations are too accomodating and give too much money, then citizens will have disposable income to arm themselves, should there be a market for illegal goods.
Or from a discussion earlier; CWU with their fabricators will be a goldmine for rebels. Because a single infiltrant worker can quite easily get stuff out.
Hell, even cops can contribute to this if they're dirty and end up losing their gun on purpose. (Rogue cops)
And it really doesn't take much to get the ball rolling. A couple guns and we'll be right back at it where rebels feel confident that 3 free vorts and a couple of scrap guns can shotcop the 5 cops on duty and steal their guns, filters, suits, armor, ammo, medical etc etc etc.

Truly, if you want this to work you need to go draconic and make everything so restricted that the majority of the playerbase will just have to get content knowing that most of their character's lives will not ammount to being a rifle wielding juggernaut rebel with 50 confirmed OTA kills under their belt. Nope. Most citizens might never even touch a gun, no matter how much they hate the Combine.

Spoiler: B-But muh player freedom!

As much as I like allow people to make and play the character they want to play, and if they want to be a rebel then I don't want to be the big bad server man who says "no fuck you".
But what we need to keep in mind, same reason we're doing the wipes, is that we're a CityRP server. And if your vision of a character clashes with what CityRP entails then maybe we need to stick to those words and indeed say "no fuck you". I personally don't fully like that idea. But there's a lot of merit in it.

The citizen need not fear becoming a rebel. For the weapon they make can be stashed away, and no civil protection raid on their home will uncover said weapon. The citizen doesn't need the Combine. Walking from the city to "The rebel area" has traditionally been painless. There is no surveilance who will mark you for death for leaving the city. There is no serious environmental danger to going out of the city. Hell, there won't even be creatures ripping out your guts unless there's a GM flying overhead.

The opressive cop will not work, because the opressed citizen does not exist. Unless one forces themselves to be helpless, there is an easy path to having power as a citizen.

The only way to change this is to swallow a big pill and drop the nuke on the resistance. Make it completely unviable for half the server to be a rebel with a gun, as was the case. A wipe won't accomplish this alone. It'll simply put the ticker on 0 for a short while.
You want opressed citizens? Severely limit the amount of loyalists with protection. Make permanent employment through the CWU and CMRU barely any better than being a regular worker. And finally, make it so that a citizen cannot free themselves.

Schizo rant that probably doesn't make much sense. But the tl;dr is that it is too easy to not be a citizen. And an i5 with a pistol is not threathening or opressive when you know you and your group of 6 other rebels can just do a shotcop whenever they feel like.

 

[Tsunami]

Holy moly what a fucking banger. Induct it into the OOC section of the CivPro guide, cause it hits a lot of things on the nail.

Thank you for the kind words. I am a clockwork OG so it just comes with the time. See you on the battlefield!

 

[Marshall]

Thank you for the kind words. I am a clockwork OG so it just comes with the time. See you on the battlefield!

You think you're old? I'm OpenAura HL2RP Old, beat that!!!

 

[Tsunami]

You think you're old? I'm OpenAura HL2RP Old, beat that!!!

I was almost certain to pick you out of this crowd and be a total douche to you for no reason, but since you're an OG I will change my mind about it and we're basically friends now.

 

[Botulism]

A long post.

This was not a schizo-rant at all, this was beautiful.


From what I gathered from this? If we want to really make the server have stakes again, we ought to limit stash spaces and make the gas fields in the sewers much more lethal. I'm talking they kill you without a gas mask after about a minute or something like that. Low-level resistance should be able to thrive in an environment like this and cops could theoretically rock just pistols and stun-batons because the resistance would rarely if ever get anything more save for special operations within the city.

Just a hot take because I'm at work and can't formulate too many opinions right now. Thank you Asimo, always a pleasure.

 

[BrennenW05]

This was not a schizo-rant at all, this was beautiful.


From what I gathered from this? If we want to really make the server have stakes again, we ought to limit stash spaces and make the gas fields in the sewers much more lethal. I'm talking they kill you without a gas mask after about a minute or something like that. Low-level resistance should be able to thrive in an environment like this and cops could theoretically rock just pistols and stun-batons because the resistance would rarely if ever get anything more save for special operations within the city.

Just a hot take because I'm at work and can't formulate too many opinions right now. Thank you Asimo, always a pleasure.

going to be honest, doing this would 100% kill rebel rp on the server, even low-level slums rp. Rebel RP is all about progression, going from random slummer gang, to resistance group. Making it harder and harder to participate just hurts the RP in total. You need rebels to create conflict. rebels are proactive, while combine are reactive. Rebel should also be able to get away with shit, "One Combine Mini Reactor in a shipment of 4000, their never gonna miss it." - Rebel Man Eli Vance.

I'll also say this, it isn't a question of if an uprising will happen, but when. At least for me, my main goal as a rebel is to prepare for that as much as possible. Spy networks, stash of weapons, ammo, food, armor, Outland bases, new technology, anything that makes our chances of winning better. I want the combine to be more oppressive, the more they oppress the more people come to me, the more men i get the better our chances.

And to the whole, telling players "no fuck you", i'll just say it right back, and will try my fucking hardest to do what the hell i want. (even trying to say that in my option dose make you a bad staff member)

 

[Botulism]

going to be honest, doing this would 100% kill rebel rp on the server, even low-level slums rp. Rebel RP is all about progression, going from random slummer gang, to resistance group. Making it harder and harder to participate just hurts the RP in total. You need rebels to create conflict. rebels are proactive, while combine are reactive. Rebel should also be able to get away with shit, "One Combine Mini Reactor in a shipment of a 4000, their never gonna miss it." - Rebel Man Eli Vance.

I'll also say this, it isn't a question of if an uprising will happen, but when. At least for me, my main goal as a rebel is to prepare for that as much as possible. Spy networks, stash of weapons, ammo, food, armor, Outland bases, new technology, anything that makes our chances of winning better. I want the combine to be more oppressive, the more they oppress the more people come to me, the more men i get the better our chances.

And to the whole, telling players "no fuck you", i'll just say it right back, and will try my fucking hardest to do what the hell i want. (even trying to say that in my option dose make you a bad staff member)

It didn't kill Rebel RP in Nebulous circa 2017 when the sewers killed you and there were little to no stashes whatsoever. All I'll say.

The thing that Willard staff will never understand is that players don't know WHAT the Hell they want. They complain and they'll give you seemingly solid answers, but they just don't, the gaming market discovered this long long ago. If you just stopped giving a fuck temporarily about player feedback and made people play in an old-fashioned, yet new-fangled and interesting way, they'd quickly adapt and find it a lot more rewarding and tense than the arcadey-style bullshit Willards has been doing before. Trust me, I know they would. And if they didn't in two week's time? Send it back and go back to the way things were done. It's really that easy, experimentation and flexibility goes a long way in an env

So far, Willard will never do that though since the staff are extremely afraid of change. I hope that changes, pardon the pun. Players won't stop playing yet because they've been given enough fan-service and Willards has little to no competition, but that could change, and I wouldn't like to see that go down.

EDIT: Was it Neb or Lemonpunch back in 2017? I genuinely forget.