COMPLAINT ON SRC

[HOKI]

Cutting to the chase, the complaint involves some issues in which the SRC was involved; without being too metabait-y about it, it’s in regards to Bloke and the MCP.

The SRC is an organization that deals with investigating administrations around the globe and ensuring they are up to par. Understandable and grounded stuff.
However, the way they go about it reeks of dissonance with the general theme of HL2RP and what Willard seems to portray (hopefully).

The SRC seemingly cares about preserving democracy and fighting corruption in a regime where the acting police force encroaches on every conceivable human right on a daily basis when they’re not genociding the populace for “crimes”.
A regime where the expansionist alien empire mutilates dissenting humans, turning them into monstrous creatures used as slaves to maintain their infrastructure.
A regime where those who do cooperate can expect the end goal of their collaboration to be turned into mere cogs in the alien empire’s war machine – all while facing the possibility of extinction at any time should the alien empire deem their efforts null.

Needless to say, it’s the antithesis of what you’d expect in a HL2RP server, let alone one that has Willard’s many changes to accommodate more roleplay opportunities.

Barring the HL2 lore larp above, in a pure out-of-character but roleplay related sense, the problems in about the SRC are delineated below, but to summarize in a couple of words; it’s an untouchable organization that regresses progress and roleplay made by real characters in the interest of their own faction’s purpose and to railroad certain things. It’s nigh impossible to fight against it and it's composed of event chars that really have nothing to lose, further exacerbating the issues. Moving on…


INCONSISTENCIES
The SRC tried to relegate the investigation behind the Global Admin Adjutant’s death to the MCP, but when a report or reports in regards to nepotism and corruption within local administration/collaborator orgs crops up, the SRC is on it immediately, without verifying it with the local MCP in charge of the matter.

Granted, the MCP was involved, but the fact that the chain of command – notably Overseers, the people who rarely involve themselves in city matters (or MCP matters) and only step in when necessary – were completely circumvented, is extremely shitty. More info below.

In essence, the SRC is inconsistent, and thus shouldn’t have the power to punish real server characters even though, in general, event organizations shouldn’t ever, at all.
Forcibly guide them in the right direction without actually punishing them in a way that detriments all of their progress, letting real characters deal with it after? Fine.
Removing their position, or God forbid executing their character? Hell no.

There's nothing good in losing against an event character. There's a reason why event rebel characters are so limited nowadays. They sucked hard. This also sucks hard.

Anyways, in regards to their stochasticity… the SRC failed to interrogate everyone related to the issue before finalizing their punishment on Bloke. Most notably Obolensky, Bloke’s lieutenant, who was very involved with the matters that Bloke was fucked over for. Whether this was on purpose or a mishap is unknown to us.

This is shitty for the same reasons as above. It didn’t feel right to the receiving end. This wouldn’t mean much if it was player vs player, but it's not.
It’s player vs event character with Breen level power and how to fuck the aforementioned player over because the player didn’t know that a certain ideology was banned, etc etc.
More on that info below.


THE BREENISM ISSUE
Bloke’s ideology was primarily centered around Breen. Glorifying him, his ideas and presence and his actions. This was an apparently banned ideology. But, it was never written down, anywhere. There is no way Bloke, or the MCP who was backing him, could’ve known this. Needless to say this is incredibly shitty – to get fucked over by something you didn’t even know. Especially considering Bloke was also pushing transhumanist/posthumanist ideals too.

Only after the fact did Robert write a set of guidelines for the appearance of the SRC and pre-emptive restrictions on certain ideologies. It's a spit in the face of Quest, the player portraying Bloke.


HIERARCHY CIRCUMVENTING + REPORTING ISSUE
As mentioned above within the inconsistencies section, the reporters and the SRC circumvented the MCP’s hierarchy. They completely ignored Overseers, characters whose main goal is keeping the MCP in check on behalf of the Minister.

Now despite the fact their report potentially contained suspicions of the Overseers involvement, completely circumventing an organization’s hierarchy–- an organization which is entrusted with the ‘safety of civil society’ and investigating local administration in the stead of the SRC– based on a feeling of suspicion only to get event characters with near infinite power involved is not only circumventing player-led hierarchy, but circumventing player-created roleplay that can arise from avoiding intervention from -- gonna say it again -- an immensely powerful, event organization played by staff/event team members.

Reporting an entire organization for corruption, especially a trusted one such as the MCP, without very concrete, clear-cut and cold evidence, is something that shouldn’t be appreciated by the overall regime.
Conversely, there’s merit to the claim that if the MCP is so trusted, a claim like this would definitely catch the ire of the SRC, but the aforementioned still stands; the Overseers should’ve been contacted first in regards to the MCP. The SRC should’ve been the last resort.


THE ROLEPLAY QUALITY ISSUE
In the interest of not stirring malicious shit between us and the those who portray the SRC in regards to this, putting it lightly, they suffer with some problems in regards to roleplay quality, which directly affects how they and their actions are perceived. Consistent typos, peculiar character expression choices, etc. You’d expect a higher-level of roleplay quality from an organization like the SRC. Again, this is a bit mean-spirited in nature but the fact remains.


CLOSING WORDS
This whole situation has been a headache for all parties involved. The SRC, the ones on the receiving end, etcetera. It resulted in months of progress from real characters and players being reduced to nothing by immensely powerful event characters and out-of-character annoyance and bickering, hence this post. I hope this doesn't cause more problems than the initial situation has. We're aware of the changes that the SRC is undergoing after some back and forth in Discord, however this was made because of the emergency staff meeting on Wednesday and as a way for us to compile our complaints into one post.

Thank you for your attention.

 

[nora]

Suffice to say you're lucky in the fact that everyone has a character right now. Given the way the secretarial asset was killed, it was mentioned to go full AJW, meaning a char wipe, map change and everything else in between. The server council as a whole prevented this from becoming a reality, for the sake of RP and continuity.

I can guarantee you that this server would lose most of its playerbase if everyone was PK'd because EOWs are unable to look up. I fail to see how thinly veiled threats are helping your argument.

 

[George]

I can guarantee you that this server would lose most of its playerbase if everyone was PK'd because EOWs are unable to look up. I fail to see how thinly veiled threats are helping your argument.

 

[Inspector Orlok]

From an IC standpoint there were plenty of ways this could of turned out. Ways that could of provided much more roleplay to much more players on the server.

One thing I didn't see get mentioned, unless I missed it. Is the refusal of any sort of rebuttal on Blokes behalf. Bloke was backed into a corner by the SRC, them accusing him of blatant corruption, which I would still argue demoting a bunch of tier four loyalists isn't exactly corruption, but regardless, one would expect the SRC to give him the opportunity to either argue his case or otherwise. I mean, how exactly is he to disprove an accusation of this calibre, one would at least expect the SRC to be unbiased in their investigation.

This is personally the most irritating point as this could of been the perfect opportunity to hold some sort of trial, just like the one Orwell was in a few months back. The MOP should of been held accountable for their accusation, put on some sort of stand to act as witnesses so both parties can retaliate accordingly.

The RP here could of been amazing. . .

 

[JustWats]

Even the newest batch of civil protection units have been successful in snuffing out the lowest levels of nepotism between factions and those entering the Security Council. I can’t contribute too much to not bait out any meta knowledge. But the notion that this needed to be escalated to non playable event characters is just entirely incorrect. There are players, an entire internal affairs faction with the sole job of doing this. You’d be surprised how interesting things get when competent players obtain authority through narrative. But it seems like that privilege was gatekept in order to bring in something that was made from a mountain out of a mole hill when referenced to global authority. If the intent is for a creative narrative to brew, then you need to delegate and orchestrate it to an audience you know is capable of conducting it. Not hoping something spins off because some event characters weasel their way into a scenario that’s behind closed doors. It’s more destructive than productive.

 

[Furious]

I'm going to speak about the final verdict that was issued, regarding Bloke, The Security Council, and the OBD. Which in my opinion, is evidently the largest issue of what occurred. We need to stop for a moment and realize that we've continuously dishing out harmful and detrimental resolutions to some of the top providers of roleplay over the last two to three years, for quite literally little to no reason. There's a difference between active conflict and literally seeking the destruction of the opposing party in a conflict. Referencing the present and the past issue which was of course, the campaign to basically destroy the Futurist Party when it was active, at every turn imaginable.

The nuclear option that was undertaken with Bloke's removal alongside the OBD was a big fat mistake. It's rude and disrespectful to the people who've put work into it. To call it a spit in the face is an understatement, it's a kick in the ass and into the gutter. The outcome has sent a very stark message to everyone, because there a lot of takeaways from what transpired, and I'm more than certain we've just now dissuaded and reduced the morale of anyone trying to introduce change to the city and the scene via SECON. We're not going to see people put time and effort into providing roleplay, if this situation is resting on the back of their heads. The fact that it can simply go crashing down in a matter of a few days by third party entities, is going to send people turning away, not opting to waste their time nor bother.

Everything I've stated here has gone against and damaged what I've actively been trying to promote and reaffirm my support towards. The people who provide for Citizen Roleplay absolutely matter, and they need to be supported for the betterment of the community, to allow for the city to continuously evolve.

And to elaborate on that, I'll refer to something IC, because it does concern my stance as listed above and my agenda. The Consul (me) issued the stamp of approval here, purely because I saw it for what it was. A gold mine for the city, loyalists, and citizens. And it was, judging by the activities and very ambitious projects undertaken by Quest n co. The decision was made IC in the interests of OOC, a time where IC grudges/etc need to be stowed away so it can unfold into something, much more interesting.

For the sake of Political RP and Citizen RP in general. We need to stop resorting to shutting down these groups which breath life into the city and the server. They need to be promoted, and we need to seek solutions that doesn't involve totally destroying or removing them. Anything else for the verdict could've been chosen, but what was chosen was the single most harmful decision to the players. We're lucky to have these people whilst few in number, and they've done a service by trying to make RP interesting in their pursuit of power IC, as opposed to just wanting an armband. If this can't change, we're going to keep killing our own server until there's no-one with initiative left.

 

[ItsLiam]

I'm going to speak about the final verdict that was issued, regarding Bloke, The Security Council, and the OBD. Which in my opinion, is evidently the largest issue of what occurred. We need to stop for a moment and realize that we've continuously dishing out harmful and detrimental resolutions to some of the top providers of roleplay over the last two to three years, for quite literally little to no reason. There's a difference between active conflict and literally seeking the destruction of the opposing party in a conflict. Referencing the present and the past issue which was of course, the campaign to basically destroy the Futurist Party when it was active, at every turn imaginable.

The nuclear option that was undertaken with Bloke's removal alongside the OBD was a big fat mistake. It's rude and disrespectful to the people who've put work into it. To call it a spit in the face is an understatement, it's a kick in the ass and into the gutter. The outcome has sent a very stark message to everyone, because there a lot of takeaways from what transpired, and I'm more than certain we've just now dissuaded and reduced the morale of anyone trying to introduce change to the city and the scene via SECON. We're not going to see people put time and effort into providing roleplay, if this situation is resting on the back of their heads. The fact that it can simply go crashing down in a matter of a few days by third party entities, is going to send people turning away, not opting to waste their time nor bother.

Everything I've stated here has gone against and damaged what I've actively been trying to promote and reaffirm my support towards. The people who provide for Citizen Roleplay absolutely matter, and they need to be supported for the betterment of the community, to allow for the city to continuously evolve.

And to elaborate on that, I'll refer to something IC, because it does concern my stance as listed above and my agenda. The Consul (me) issued the stamp of approval here, purely because I saw it for what it was. A gold mine for the city, loyalists, and citizens. And it was, judging by the activities and very ambitious projects undertaken by Quest n co. The decision was made IC in the interests of OOC, a time where IC grudges/etc need to be stowed away so it can unfold into something, much more interesting.

For the sake of Political RP and Citizen RP in general. We need to stop resorting to shutting down these groups which breath life into the city and the server. They need to be promoted, and we need to seek solutions that doesn't involve totally destroying or removing them. Anything else for the verdict could've been chosen, but what was chosen was the single most harmful decision to the players. We're lucky to have these people whilst few in number, and they've done a service by trying to make RP interesting in their pursuit of power IC, as opposed to just wanting an armband. If this can't change, we're going to keep killing our own server until there's no-one with initiative left.

I completely agree with this, this perfectly sums it up for me.

 

[Muho]

This remembers me kind of to the start of the server when MoC etc. fucked up stores because of Rebel activity Restricting the RP.
Just let people play man, we all here to have fun. Try to give us the most fun options, the lore can be worked around it kings.
After all we just want to experience the HL2 universe since we are all nerds. Make it a nice experience for everyone.

Also OOC nepotism and friendships will never stop. Guys, just play the game. Don't butt in too much, don't spread hate.
Keep up the community. Solve things ICly as much as possible. AND if you do Nepotism to your OOC friends just remember that the actual RP that will be created out of it will be kinda biased and maybe steal others not involved their chance to prove themselves. Spread love <3

 

[Orphan]

This remembers me kind of to the start of the server when MoC etc. fucked up stores because of Rebel activity Restricting the RP.
Just let people play man, we all here to have fun. Try to give us the most fun options, the lore can be worked around it kings.
After all we just want to experience the HL2 universe since we are all nerds. Make it a nice experience for everyone.

Also OOC nepotism and friendships will never stop. Guys, just play the game. Don't butt in too much, don't spread hate.
Keep up the community. Solve things ICly as much as possible. AND if you do Nepotism to your OOC friends just remember that the actual RP that will be created out of it will be kinda biased and maybe steal others not involved their chance to prove themselves. Spread love <3

 

[Knight]

Imagine a timeline where the admins leaned into the conflict and used their power to throw gas on the fire and make the tensions between the bloke heads and the bloke detractors even larger and got more people involved but ultimately left it to them to figure it out

 

[fizzle]

I cannot believe that a clique 'who?' tier admin characters in impossibly high positions hijacked and derailed a grassroots political intrigue plotline. Stop creating ABC agencies that harp on peripheral corruption. What do you expect those people to do all day? Sit in an office every day until they develop deep vein thrombosis? Wake up.

 

[Khrushchev]

the Futurist Party

Futurism mentioned. Rant incoming.

When I first joined Willard at its launch, I literally shit myself in excitement. I had been playing HL2RP for like 5 years by this point and hadn't seen anything this high quality devwork wise. From its launch, I played Willard off-and-on for years. Past its first (rough) launch, into its 2nd launch, and more. Along the way I gave feedback, played in important positions, and tried to make interesting things happen. I can confidently say that 95% of it was fucking gut-wrenching.

Beginning as early as MONTH ONE of Willard, I already ran into problems with the admins. Literally the FIRST PK APPEAL ON THE SERVER is me getting PK'd by 3 Admins who played OSI (read: glowies/old SRC). It was already a clusterfuck. When the server launched a second time, I was the Press Lead for the BOE (read: MOE/CCDE). Within 2 months, I was PK'd on my Press Lead (by Robert!) for this newspaper talking about Moscow's conflict with rebels. From here, already fuming and with my character PK'd, I decided to pick up Futurism (a concept I originally intended to run as an event) and run with it. Oh boy, I wasn't ready. Over the next year and some change, I was stalled and stonewalled at every turn. Bar a few admins that actually assisted me, it seemed like every single person was trying to beat me down into the dirt. It was, by no means at all, fun. I could go through a hundred different incidents related to futurism alone about general toxicity, a play to win mentality, and anti-RP sentiments. I was SCREAMED at in VC a couple of times over menial shit. Admin characters would swoop in for no where, PK me or try to, and then fuck off.

Over the course of several years on Willard, I suggested a whole plethora of things. Most of them, in my opinion, were good ideas! However, 90% of them were denied only to be taken up by someone else, twisted around, and usually fail. Here's a few examples:

Loyalist Awards / Medals > Denied > 1 Year Later, Kamil took the idea, improved it, and implemented it.
'Underclass' Citizens > Denied > Months later, Noodle took the idea, changed it, and implemented it.
'Action Directe' as the Rebel Faction > Denied > LFC was implemented, failed horrifically, and then removed. (Completely removed from the idea, the lore was good)
C2 Megaevent Idea > Denied (as a result of my community ban)
Case Irkalla Event Idea > Denied (as a result of drama?)

As I digress for a few moments, I want to focus in on 3 different situations on Willard that made me laugh my ass off. First, my 'community ban' back in 2022(?) that lasted from Jan. 2022-June 2022. After drama building up for months, I was (pretty randomly) just banned across the community. When looking in the Discord, I was greeted by a literal ANNOUNCEMENT that my character (Casto, the C.A of Rome) was PK'd unceremoniously off screen. LOL! I got unbanned a few months later, but... cool! Just PK my character off-screen when I'm banned.

The second situation regards the dichotomy between Orwell and Casto. I was PK'd on Auro Casto for a few reasons, primarily revolving around my call for "War" against rebels. In short, I spoke about the situation on London, called the citizens to action, and started a few riots against people in the slums. Well, eventually this all crashed down on me and I was PK'd. When I was PK'd, I finally just bit the bullet and said "Okay", refusing to appeal it because I saw it as good RP, despite the fact that people had been trying to find a reason to PK for me months. (The actual catalyst for my PK was that I got into an argument in the street with an ex-supporter during a speech.) However, the overall reason was based around this and the general crazy shit I got up to. HOWEVER, Atle, the server owner, on his Ministry of Commerce character Orwell (1984!) literally called for war against another Combine City (C13), called for the death of a City Administrator (C13's administrator), and literally seized power (and was later couped!) but was allowed to keep every single position and get out without a scratch on his head because he's the server owner. LOL!

Finally, I'll mention 'Case Irkalla', an event that I proposed a few weeks ago and that was denied. It was supposed to be accepted, though in SECRET!!! because of Willard's "deep bureaucracy" and "bad faith actors."

Anyways, it ended up getting denied (for real) because my own community/project has people who shit talk willard (myself included sometimes, in all fairness.) Anyways, the reason I LOL at this situation is, also in part, due to the fact that the managers around the project (sorta) didn't like the idea of rebels attacking Irkalla even though there's a Dark Event around it saying "ATTACK ME OR BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!!!" I'd be willing to put money down that, infact, no one will attack it and nothing will happen from it. (Remember the ascension facilities?)







Anyways, I really just wrote all of this to say this isn't a new problem. I could probably write another 5000 words on just issues that I've ran into. There's a reason the "Good Roleplayers" have trickled out of Willard over the years and why Willard is the way it is now, its because this community literally fucking punishes its good RPers. It's an issue that's much, much deeper than just the "SRC" and won't stop when the "SRC" has been "fixed." So don't be surprised when, after like 4 years of just taking punishment after punishment, I'm a bit bitter at Willard lol.

 

[ultima]

Really is a shame how it's all written as "done and over with" considering how close Willard was to finally breaking away from the forced status quo only for the server council to immediately spring up a PTSD response that merlinsclaw has put into them with his futurism to the point it lead to everything being immediately shut down.

 

[Khrushchev]

Really is a shame how it's all written as "done and over with" considering how close Willard was to finally breaking away from the forced status quo only for the server council to immediately spring up a PTSD response that merlinsclaw has put into them with his futurism to the point it lead to everything being immediately shut down.

FUTURISM JUMPSCARE!!!

Rahhh!! It's all my fault!!

 

[Khrushchev]

Really is a shame how it's all written as "done and over with" considering how close Willard was to finally breaking away from the forced status quo only for the server council to immediately spring up a PTSD response that merlinsclaw has put into them with his futurism to the point it lead to everything being immediately shut down.

In all honestly if the "status quo" has been "upheld" because of "PTSD of me and futurism" despite the fact that I haven't played in 2 years then I think it might be you guys that are the problem. Willard has the ability to change itself and do whatever it wants but it refuses to do so time and time again. Every single issue that Willard has is always pushed away to "this [dev update/map change/new faction] will fix everything!" and then it doesn't.

The only people keeping up the "status quo" are yourselves, lol.

 

[ramen]

The will of the non-players to ruin the enjoyment of the consumer will always outweigh the average Joe’s will to do something worthwhile.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

Hello all.

Understandably, you've been waiting for an official statement for a little while and I've brought people in both the faction of the CCA, and people involved in this thread from the MCP into the staff meeting as promised. To mention - all of you are correct to voice the concerns as they have been stated. I've had about 25+ people in the meeting and it went, to my own surprise, a very extraordinary and much needed discussion on multiple fronts. Lets start from the beginning, so an open disclosure is omitted.

THE SRC
Correct, they overstepped. A very vast majority after a formal investigation in the meeting from:
- Myself
- Most of the Server Council
- Most of the Staff Team
- Invited ECHO-ONE Staff Members
- The people invited to this conversation.

Have agreed that the SRC has over-extended its authority and subdued the player-driven roleplay despite certain characters on the side of the investigation that legitimately and fell complacent with the SRC had in store / in mind for Breenism & the character Bloke. This is the given extract of the SRC's lore continuity segment:

The Regulation Committee of the Summit is the merged version of the old RED and RDD organisations.

Rather than two groups focusing on similar tasks, there is now one combined group that now works on the regulations of the Administration, carrying out the orders of the Sector Administration to keep their Administrative personnel on Earth in line. They sit just below the Adjutants of the Sector Administration and spend most of their time drafting, writing and publishing new regulations as well as enforcing said Regulations across Earth.

Members of this group tend to be cold, distant and uncaring for the rest of Humanity, as if part of their humanity was lost to time…

I asked a question to everyone to point out what was wrong with this parchment of text - each person mentioned it is not well explained or showcases that the SRC shouldn't have really gotten involved in the way the Civil Administration / Security Council conducted itself. While that's a continuity issue, it has been agreed after a survey vote to ask the following question:




The vote was inconclusive, and has therefore been left to the CT-Coordinators to handle with cooperation from other people in the community. It will therefore be reduced to a quest-guidance faction much like the CPRD and the CLC, instead of directly controlling the roleplay scenario unfolding before you. This means that we have decided to produce the following:








These are the decisions from over twenty five people in a meeting that, despite differing opinions, have all agreed to the following potentialities in regards to how your roleplay on the server is driven both narratively, and passively subjective by the people who you interact with.

We have come to the mutual understanding that the problems of this has culminated in regards to the following points:


To put this into perspective, I'm not going to have this sit and fester. I've brought a mallet and I'm going to ensure various changes taken into effect over time, will ensure the best possible experience given as feedback from yourselves.



Gameplay > Lore. The server, and you, come first.

On behalf of WN, thank you everybody.