What are *your* thoughts on RP hidden-rooms?

[Deagantio]

(Legally required disclosure: not referring to hidden bases - I'm talking about small areas where group RP is impractical; instead perhaps up to one-or-two people, behind a not-magically-undetectable - but haphazardly hidden - door. Typically in stores or restaurants and used to store shit or move people to the sewers or slums VIA hidden routes)

I'm asking because I'm getting into hammer and I want to know if the greater community approves or disapproves of this absolutely archaic but traditional practice. I personally think it's better than flooding the underground with locked file cabinets but there are likely alternatives to this option.

 

[Robert]

Hidden rooms if done right is perfectly okay. The problem that hidden bases have were basically circle-jerking and the problem with actually knowing if and when you have "Found" one as there was no clear way to indicate whether you have met the criteria to know a hidden base exists. It really is random and just a pain in the ass for any staff member dealing with it on case by case basis since no one could ever prove they found one. In the end, it caused too much drama that hidden areas in general were left out of the picture. The third issue I just thought of is the waste of usable map space, by making hidden "bases" or large areas you create a "locked" zone of the map which only a minor percentage of the server can now use thus wasting map space on something probably better spent on RP hubs, making new escape routes, providing small zones to RP in away from the general populace, etc.

Small hidden areas on the other hand are something which could be okay as they have already fixed the first problem and the third problem of circle-jerking and taking up map space issue. While the second problem of how to know if you found them is still there, that I think can be remedied by having a very clear cut policy of saying you MUST do these steps and PROVE them all before anyone can acknowledge the area exists.

Just not though, hidden areas in general have always felt weird in RP because OOCly everyone knows they are there and at the same time, if an area is found and you need it to be forgotten, characters suddenly have their memory wiped but that doesn't really work as suddenly they can't do anything with the area they clearly once knew about and have 0 backstories nor explanation as to why they forgot it exists. It leaves a few holes in RP which cannot be explained other than "Because staff said so".

All in all, it can work. Just I don't think you can fix its confusion issue.

There is my complete opinion on the matter from my experience with them over the last 10-15 years

 

[Aspect™]

Dumb and gay
promotes people hiding away in their little bunkers and not actually interacting with other characters outside at all
not to mention all the metagame issues

 

[Sagsworth]

rebel rp has a fundamental problem in terms of risk

if the only place rebels can go to is at constant pk risk from sweeps, there will be no rebels it's impossible to survive. if there is no pk risk at all, everyone will be a rebel no one cares about the risk. hidden bases used to be the way you picked some rebels and said 'we're gonna give them a way to survive'. but this feels unfair, because not everyone has access to them - and as soon as you increase the access to them, cops will raid them and they'll be immediately destroyed. you might think 'well thats okay, because then you just have lots of rebels'. but you get the second problem which is that you massively split the playerbase, when 70% of the server are swinging guns around underground with no risk, there's no one in the city for cops or new players to interact with and the server begins to die out. so you need to force rebels to the surface to interact with players.

the solution to this fundamental problem has always been subtle rebel rp, but most server operators are not willing to do what it takes to facilitate this. to create subtle rebel rp you either need to allow for hidden containers (which there will be a stupid amount of), hidden bases (which require management and some feel is unfair) or publicly accessible containers.

the best all around solution so far has been publicly accessible containers, but for some reason the staff only put them in places that aren't useful - the middle of the city, or the middle of the underground. and never where they're actually helpful, the slums - where they can be a middle ground between rebel and city life.

everyone knows large hidden bases are bad, people should not be roleplaying in areas cut off from the rest of the server population. smaller hidden bases for the purposes of storage are convenient but require excessive management of the knowledge and information regarding these bases.

a nice alternative that doesn't quite do the same thing as hidden bases but does increase rebel safety are one way doors. by creating one way doors, especially hidden ones - rebels are able to outmaneuver cops and utilize alternate routes to escape sweeps.

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

The problem that hidden bases have were basically circle-jerking and the problem with actually knowing if and when you have "Found" one as there was no clear way to indicate whether you have met the criteria to know a hidden base exists.

Wouldnt taking a screenshot of the situation where all criteria is met solve this?

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

And welcome back @Sagsworth

 

[RogueSynapse]

Might as well be playing a Facebook game if you feel the need to be that secluded.

 

[Donavin Jones]

I think hidden base are fiiiiiiine but can be overboard, what I like is the base's that have secret ROOMS that have storage containers in them.

 

[Deagantio]

Dumb and gay
promotes people hiding away in their little bunkers and not actually interacting with other characters outside at all
not to mention all the metagame issues

Fully agree hence my prior disclaimer that I was just talking about rooms.
It's only seriousRP if its actually RP and not scriptwhoring clusterufucks.

Seriously, bases can go to hell - I'm just discussing small shit. Like one of my ideas was having some dilapidated vending machine open up to reveal a hidden cache. Or some bookshelf being moved to allow entry between stores. At most, a hidden basement like the grotto on indus-17

 

[Aspect™]

Fully agree hence my prior disclaimer that I was just talking about rooms.
It's only seriousRP if its actually RP and not scriptwhoring clusterufucks.

Seriously, bases can go to hell - I'm just discussing small shit. Like one of my ideas was having some dilapidated vending machine open up to reveal a hidden cache. Or some bookshelf being moved to allow entry between stores. At most, a hidden basement like the grotto on indus-17

Oh, so you just mean... small rooms to use as storage or something. I mean, I suppose. They'll still get metagamed, though.

 

[DirectorHomeless]

right, hidden rooms are a double edged sword.


should Resistance, civilians and everything in-between want to hide stuff, or indeed have a secret location, people find a way, realisitcally, there should be a shitton of areas the combine has forgotten about or has moved on from that could be secret boltholes for people.

By the same token, as seen in HL:Alyx, the combine are also pretty damn good at making inconspicuous supply points and such that are completely covert on the outside until you open a door.


So sure, you could make a TON of bolt-holes for people that you could restrict Combine/Resistance members from accessing depending on who uses them, but it would require a lot of work

 

[Deagantio]

Oh, so you just mean... small rooms to use as storage or something. I mean, I suppose. They'll still get metagamed, though.

Tbf, I've never seen the metagaming as a 'bad' thing. At least, so long as it's not minge-clipped through to get what's inside or some shit. Players just want to interact with shit like that with their chars.

Sure, on many of the older maps metagaming is an issue because the door mechanism would literally be a solid brick wall - something so bullshit that rebels would have to metagame just to find and use the damn thing in the first place unless admin-chars used them first (risking staff IC orgyfests)

I would prefer them to actually look somewhat more conspicuous - so much that CPs would probably find it in a sweep if they did their jobs right. Or that a citizen player could tell what they're looking at with further inspection. Meanwhile the people using these rooms and caches might be able to lock them to prevent curious minds. Hidden enough to be viable - visible enough to warrant it being locked or becoming something to constantly fret over - like the stash system we have now - except more immersive than 500 sewer file cabinets.

It encourages rebels to actually act covertly and constantly re-evaluate their own security, likely rotating their "good" merchandise around to places less trafficked. As well as giving criminals an objective - break into some guy's cache. While CPs become more hypervigilant.

IMO this gives more gameplay opportunities and prevents one guy from just sitting on and hoarding end-game level loot for the rest of his char's lifespan. Rather, the more shit someone has the more cautious they have to be since it might be found and broken into, even if they have a lock.

But this still a very early concept. IMO, more avenues for people to get invested in the better. But I do see that minges and metagamers will exist and persist to be an issue.