District One - General Feedback

[wysiwyg]

You know, Quasimodo predicted all this.

 

[atlassu]

I didn't play very much of it but I'll still throw an opinion

The pacing was nice, I liked how the story felt candid and the idea that it just so happened to have been done like that was the feeling, it felt immersive.

In my opinion the recap and story boards could've been done in real time as they happened (more specifically with information that was common knowledge in real time) and I think waiting until the end of a session to point out some of the lore changes wasn't necessarily the best choice of function.

I think there was a consistent problem with being in the know about what happened because most of the time for events, D1 Survivors role was pinged rather than the announcements, and I myself and some others have had a hard time actually getting the role at least in my experience.

I thought it was often times not easy to put yourself in the shoes of your character, especially when you're playing a character that's really meant to just be a person and not have protagonist mindsets I found it often times difficult to inch into conversations as most interactions were linear or A to B, which isn't necessarily a server problem but it is worth noting that the typical anti-social behaviors with most roleplay servers is still present in this one.

Some features were often times unused or simply wrong; some things during the early occupation were not properly un-combine-ified, such as the group locks, broken biolocks being in lootables and here and there you would see some graffiti around the map with stuff that doesn't exactly exist in the setting yet. Other than the occasional immersion breaking video game stuff, I often times really enjoyed the setting and atmosphere.

There were times where it felt like the roleplay was centered around the existing groups rather than the community as a whole, I found myself wanting to find interactions and openly roleplay out, but having to hang my coat for the day as everyone who was roleplaying was exclusively roleplaying with their group, rather than with people outside.

Overall a 5/10, big potential but I think it's a good step to get community feedback, even if some of it might be over the fault of the person and not the server itself

 

[Valeto]

I give D1 a 8/10 but there was room for improvement. At some point the event became extremly stale and relied on players to not afk and wait for events or such. At some point, I believe everything simmered down to a collective bunch- The gang warfare was not as big as I imagined, most of the gangs and precinct etc banded together with some plots behind the shadows here and there to instigate some form of conflict but for the most part it was quite much the same. The eason the 8/10 is given is because players did yield some good roleplay at least for me.

MY points for improvement would have been events that more actively expanded onto the entire server not select factions or people. I can imagine the top-tier players in higher positions (as in ministers, precinct, gang leaders) mostly salvaged whatever events were given and I have a slight belief that some players might have felt a bit on the outside.


For the staleness of the event somewhere after week two, D1 kind of fell off and it was mostly the same, a lot of people mainly waited for something to happen as passiverp can go for so long.

It was solid but people relied heavily on the event team as there wasn't much room for expanding one's character at some points of the event.


8/10. I hope the next part is a bit more active in terms of progression or has something that would at some point meet the player's expectations of the typical cityRP because afaik there is a part of the playerbase that would prefer to move on to that.

 

[Raymond the Rat King]

next time please don't add so many entities on the map, first 2 days were a nightmare of timeouts

 

[Lab]

didn't play d1 0/10

 

[Melonarche]

I joined Willard & started playing in the middle of the event, just a few days before cops starting to take action against the Clinic.

Overall, the event was fairly enjoyable. The Pit events were amazing. You can easily tell there is change in the air, both Willard as a whole (Afaik Willard used to less serious few years earlier) and IC. While sometimes I struggled to do much and find things to do, thanks to Kappatalist D1 turned to something very exciting.


1) Crafting is impossible if you don't already have some key supplies like adhesive.
2) Be it open/closed signs, be it loud radios or anything, there has to be a way to let people know your shop is open. Just putting a standing light by the window doesn't tell people that your place is open. In my experience people doesn't really check if a specific store is open or not, they just pass by it and if they notice it is open, there is a likely chance they'll visit the said store.
3) Kinda difficult to get into any pre-established organizations/groups but please also consider I am a completely fresh player who came in the middle of an event here. It's a bit of luck and hanging around certain people a lot, which is fair I suppose, can't have randos on the streets knowing about stuff you pull up.

I think that's it for my overall view. I quite liked D1.

 

[ItsLiam]

To start out with, I am speaking from a biased position, and a privileged position considering what I have done during my time on District One, and the fact I started out with a gang. Though, not everything is sunshine and rainbows, obviously.

All things aside, I think from an objective position this event, the prologue to V3, can be seen as a great event. You can tell that the people who ran the event put a lot of love into it, and that in general, the players also did.

I will start out with the negatives, considering that from my POV the positives far outweigh the negatives, and the negatives are not solely the fault of the event runners.

---

-At times it felt like everything was moving at 1000 KM/H, and so much was happening that it felt hard to keep up with.
I know that this is also partly due to the fact that it's an event, and we can't really let things last for 10 years.

-The crafting system, the loot pool from the trash, and the absolute monstrosities that the Salvage Company had to go through.

-It felt like the Precinct at time ignored some IC reasoning to act more as 'narrative pushers'. Which in itself isn't bad, but sometimes it makes it kind of confusing as to if you're roleplaying with an event character, or a real character.

---

Obviously, these are subjective to my own experiences and what I've seen first hand. I don't even think the last point was really bad, but it made for some confusing things.

Now, the positives.

---

-The trait system was used in an amazing way. I can't sing enough praises about it. My interactions with @Badger, @ashley, @Devistral, and undoubtedly many more were all amazing. Partly due to these people I've felt like I've hit some highs in terms of roleplay.

-The amount of player agency during the event felt as if we truly were able to do anything we set our minds to. Again, I'm privileged in the manner that I have been able to be a part of this, perhaps partly due to my position as pre-established 'mob boss'. However, I don't think that should discredit anything. Players who joined during the event, and never played before V3, they were able to get into positions of power due to grasping the opportunities present, and I think that is the perfect thing this event had going for it.

-The scenes were painted in an absolute masterful way. I can't sing enough praises about the amount of dread my character felt, to the point that even OOCly I genuinely didn't see a way out of District One until the very last day. The fact that there wasn't a /event above our head telling us to 'feel dread', but it was all in a natural way, it was just fantastic.

From the group of people I roleplayed with, not just the Appachi-Zoku, but also the non-members, the Ministers, the Precinct. Every last person was able to Roleplay this out so amazing, that it was genuinely a blessed situation to be a part. The fact that on the last week, everybody started just declaring their love for one another, because from an IC standpoint we had failed Plan A to Plan Y, and we didn't know how to ever get out of it, it was really funny to see from an OOC position.

---

All in all I had a fantastic time, and I think the event is a solid 8/9 out of 10.

 

[Cocohop]

Very cool event

 

[RickiShade]

I'd give it it a solid 6/10.
First week was good, rest wasn't good

-The roleplay interactions ive had with my own group and other groups such as the Laundromat or Arrivants were pretty good. Map that was used was decent, besides the stupid fucking doors, and the radio that would play yodeling 27/7.

-I loved the vibe of the whole event

-Political scene was meh

-Dragged it out too long by the final week

-Considering this is earliest we go in lore, the Early Occupation aspects did not rub off on me as "early". Civil Protection already given their HL2 look, Fabricators being introduced. I understand the concept of voiding these kinds of things but the fact that there was a whole story surrounding the fabricator at the time and how it set certain things off, its kind of hard to do so.

-Crafting system obviously sucked major nut so I won't talk about it.

-Whoever kept spawning GoldSrc NPC's needs to be jumped.

Overall, it was okay I guess

 

[lost&found]

got force fed politics

I felt like politics was forced down everyone’s throat to some degree and kinda’ overtook the gang RP.

introduction of politics essentially lead to the ruin of the event.

but I do not know why politics was pushed over gang violence and such,

I have to ask for the people who deem that politics were force-fed and what have you, when you say 'politics', what are you referring to? Because I see it as a major pain-point that everyone else mentions but it isn't like the politics...magically stopped the gang-warfare? If anything, we were left to our own devices, half the gangs died off/were disarmed, gang warfare could have remained, just nobody did it.

The Salvage-Company, Nadine's clinic, Freja's farm were all separate entities that worked closely with the precinct and were as official as the people made them out to be, we were just recognised as the people actually trying to further the district instead of work selfishly for self-gain in a district that, everyone in the ministry knew would die off with ease. Did the Precinct stop Ivar from doing what he did because Okada was a minister? No. They stood and watched until things got violent. The ministries were just 'gangs' that were playing the long game instead of smashing rocks against eachother, there was no competition, no one tried to one-up them. The only politics that affected the playerbase was Okada's tax. That was it. We had no special events done for us, we had no arc done for us bar what was going on ON THE SERVER, due to PLAYER DECISIONS. We had nothing special happen to us 99% of the time aside from 'Donald Trump please Save us.' to other districts (which we barely communicated with)

If you are referring to the captaincy, the representatives that showed up once into the precinct to talk-shop and discover D1, then that's another matter, but even then they showed up no less than 4 times. I believe it's best to inform everyone YOUR definition of 'politics', because the gangs had politics between eachother all the same, is that considered politics?

 

[joe moter]

Nadine's clinic

I believe you are talking about Lord Raymond Allen Coltons clinic.

I'm not a great complainer, I'll let someone else handle it. I'll let someone who writes better than myself.

 

[lost&found]

I believe you are talking about Lord Raymond Allen Coltons clinic.

I'm not a great complainer, I'll let someone else handle it. I'll let someone who writes better than myself.

I mean, your opinion is important I believe. And Nadine used her power to make the clinic 'public' after Ray disappeared/fucked shit up.

 

[Wraygun]

I have to ask for the people who deem that politics were force-fed and what have you, when you say 'politics', what are you referring to?

I'm referring to things that relate to the district administration. For example, after the two weeks, there were talks about elections. Realistically speaking, after the two weeks mark, it left very little room for the political scene to develop itself in a more meaningful way. I think the potential was there if we had elections during the first week of the server.

I do not really feel like anything interesting came after Milada's resignation that made any sort of impact. I'm not trying to dismiss any efforts here, but I genuinely cannot name one meaningful thing that was done by the person that played Vera, or the ministers themselves. Some names here and there pop up, they were involved in some good roleplay, but again: I didn't see any advances or any successes made on the political front.

Quite the contrary, I've seen a lot of bad choices being made, such as... taxing the food during a famine... when there isn't even a budget to begin with. I don't need to tell you why this is a bad idea. I think the political scene should've been left alone. Nothing was accomplished, nothing was changed, and I think the better move from a narrative standpoint would've been to let District 1 descend into anarchy and have its focus shifted on to gangs (that were rather poorly handled).

 

[Dej]

People are griping about politics.
I want to gripe about economy.

In regards to the economy, quite a lot of economic related problems stemmed from the lack of foreign currency injection and the failure to circulate funds.

What do I mean by the former?
Put it this way.

Initially when the Scrap Terminal was setup by the railway, it finally provided a means for the general citizenry to reliably make money to spend and such, however when the terminal was destroyed, the problems started pouring in.

WIth barely any money circulating around the internal economy through stores and the Salvagers paying for scrap, people started buying shit tons of supplies from Vox and the Railway. These entities in turn would accept barely anything to buy from citizens in turn, usually refusing to buy the most numerous scrap like glass.

This meant that hundreds of Francs were essentially disappearing into the void with a net negative amount coming back, resulting in the District slowly running out of money overall.

What makes this relevant to taxes and politics? Okada's taxes were meant to solve this, by forcing the Railway to pay taxes some money would flow back into the District at a much greater rate. The problem? Taxe hikes mean price hikes, a death spiral ensued where shipment prices practically tripled and people could afford even less. To compound this, the entire "Finance Ministry" was managed by one man meant that several things slipped through thr cracks. Several hundred francs were to be given to Satellite but never materialized (though my char was only a Sergeant, the amount might have been given to the LTs and kept quiet).

Pertaining to budget management, there WAS a budget, just not a hard SYSTEM. My good friend and local railway representative @Czesui can confirm that hundreds were paid to the Ministry as a result, but the trickle back failed as essentially almost all money sat unused in the 'treasury' (which in this case was probablu 1 man's wallet).

Is this an absolute doozy of a bender? Yes.
Does this accurately reflect D1s poverty status? Yes.
Does this somehow link back to politics?
Also yes.

I love muh willardia drama

 

[ItsLiam]

Salvage Company genuinely AFK'd the entire event, trying to fix something that lasted 2 days before the event ended.

It was never actually Nadine's clinic, she was a medical staff member, after we all died she was left with nothing and ran a shell of it before the event ended.

Your farm was probably the only impactful thing, though you didn't actually feed the server with it lol.

The Salvage company was spending 12 hours a day trying their best to deal with a system that was unanimously bad, the crafting system, and dealing with players that only came to them for loot. If anything they were the people that basically carried this event on their back.

'She was left with nothing and ran a shell of it', when in reality the Clinic was make a government-owned property and free healthcare got introduced, donation drives, people got more inclined to seek out medical help because they aren't forced to pay, or deal with literal cannibals/gangsters.

Freja's farm was single-handedly keeping most of the population (that actually RP'd out starving) from starving. The amount of times I've witnessed the character go in and out of the Precinct with an inventory full of food, the amount of times I've witnessed people going up to Freja to ask for business deals regarding a bucket of potatoes to be used for Vodka distilling, the amount of times I've witnessed people asking her for food, or just mentioning that they're hungry and then receiving food for free, is a big number.

I don't see the purpose in trying to discredit what people have done under a post like this. These people all spend hours and hours a day trying to Roleplay out something fun, and your comments are quite belittling, even if it's not supposed to be in that way.

 

[ItsLiam]

I want to gripe about economy.

I want to second some points about it.

My biggest issue with the event's economy was that it felt like ET couldn't decide on either trying to hard-push for a famine, or not trying to push for it at all.

---

What I mean by this is that on one side, you had the Railway Company who were letting you buy an UNGODLY amount of things for basically nothing:


You had the trash recycler randomly being spawned in, where people overnight made thousands of credits all-together, basically removing any and all economic hardships that the District was feeling/supposed to feel.

Then you had the Golden Tickets from Vox, where for 350-400 francs (That's what the first 3/4 people paid for it), you could get a large crate full of ANYTHING you wanted. From guns, to kevlar, to genuinely an entire large crate full of rations, or whatever.

---

Then on the other side, you had people making OOC events about the fact that there was a famine, the population was saying that we were in the middle of a famine, while the farm had enough food to feed the entire District a few times over. The Event Team was divided because on one side some said there was a famine, others said that there weren't.

It felt like there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and things were incredibly vague at some points.

Me and Czesui tried our best to work out a pricing sheet that could work, considering that the Railway Company didn't have one, and we couldn't really apply set tariffs if there wasn't a pricing sheet. Within a day of this, we quickly found out that prices did not just triple, but sometimes got 10x more expensive. We had to go back to the drawing board, and this basically happened for the remainder of the event.

---

If we take anything back from this, it's that the people running the event need to be more on one wavelength. We can't bounce between famine, no famine, economic hardship, no economic hardship time and time again, because it serves for confusion both IC and OOC with people.

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

It was never actually Nadine's clinic, she was a medical staff member, after we all died she was left with nothing and ran a shell of it before the event ended.

Your farm was probably the only impactful thing, though you didn't actually feed the server with it lol.

This is just weird and diminishing to say to a player.

What I'm saying with politics is, what type of politics were introduced genuinely made it so whatever resemblance of gang warfare was left could not partake. When you're literally being told you cannot kill these characters otherwise entities from outside of the district will kill us all, morally, it leaves you w/o being able to act upon something.

If you were told this, you were told wrong. If Pelletier actually cared for these Ministers, he would've given notice before dropping a Citadel on them. The Ministries received recognition only from other Districts, not the city itself. Rad-X summed it up best, not sure where, when he explained that the ministries were basically just a tool for him to retain power using the gangs as a backing force; otherwise, he probably would've died not long after he was deposed.

The Ministries were never a legitimate, legal force recognized by the city—presumably because they were created after Milada was deposed; however, because of their influence and size in District 1, the districts willing to engage with them saw them as the de facto administration, even if the legitimate one died with Milada.

Okada's tax doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective as there was no budget system for the district, which is probably why there was so much outcry for it.

Nothing was considered from a gameplay perspective when it was lambasted IC, and others were incited to go against Okada because of it. Everything was considered from an in-character perspective; if it weren't, there would be no justification to go against it OOC, since famines and IC desperation/beliefs don't reflect well in gameplay.

Nothing, imo, should be considered from a meta-perspective.

But the rest of it, like; what was actually achieved by forcing Ministers in for the previous two weeks, what did it change, what actually come of it? The answer from my POV is quite literally nothing.

Probably a lot? Admittedly, as mostly uninvolved players, we'd probably never be able to determine the scope ourselves, but to name a few, it led to the Minister meetings, the Railway Tax, dialogue with other Districts, elections, counter-broadcasts, the creation of a militia and the attack on the clinic, and introduced a whole bunch of other subtle, chaotic elements and dynamics that either aren't worth mentioning or are beyond my grasp to realize and explore as an outsider.

Roleplay tends to have a trickle-down effect, even if we don't realize that. I'm sure the Ministries made countless influential decisions that affected people in imperceptible ways.

I know it was fun for the maybe 5 people who participated in it personally, but for everyone else, we're essentially sat watching something because all of a sudden everyone is now cooperating and cops are on the side of these figureheads that no one actually cared about in the first place.

There were some opportunities for players to get involved outside the gangs, but I feel a large part of that was thanks to @niklas. I'm not sure how accommodating the gangs were going into weeks three and four, but I feel this is a classic case of player agency, not opportunities.

No D1er is gonna give a shit about some geezer who's calling himself/herself the Minister of Potatoes.

Kind of a moot point. It was mocked IC.

But it should've been gang politics the entire time, with cops taking one chair, then the other gangs taking the rest- but sadly we resorted to some weird pseudo shit C24 political system with ministers that doesn't make sense for the setting.

The Ministries made sense holistically once you realize they were never legitimate in the first place, but a way for Rad-X to salvage power and support after the coup/storming of the Precinct. Milada then become a figurehead/puppet, and then a week later, left. He's stated this a number of times IC.

It also doesn't help that the cops then went out of their way to protect the time you guys had together, which gives your characters purpose and meaning beyond that of anyone else, like the rest of us weren't getting protection. It gives you importance. It was just a case that no one did anything with it- whether the rest of the playerbase let you or not.

You take what you can get. I wasn't too demoralized when cops kept taking Apache's side and even tried to assassinate me when I was fomenting unrest.

Also for context, the entire mini-event led by Ivar was a setup the entire time .

Set up by Chuck Brier & the Precinct (IC).

To end off.

Rad-X creating the ministries actually made holistic sense when you think about it logically.

 

[Bighomer]

I have to ask for the people who deem that politics were force-fed and what have you, when you say 'politics', what are you referring to? Because I see it as a major pain-point that everyone else mentions but it isn't like the politics...magically stopped the gang-warfare? If anything, we were left to our own devices, half the gangs died off/were disarmed, gang warfare could have remained, just nobody did it.

The Salvage-Company, Nadine's clinic, Freja's farm were all separate entities that worked closely with the precinct and were as official as the people made them out to be, we were just recognised as the people actually trying to further the district instead of work selfishly for self-gain in a district that, everyone in the ministry knew would die off with ease. Did the Precinct stop Ivar from doing what he did because Okada was a minister? No. They stood and watched until things got violent. The ministries were just 'gangs' that were playing the long game instead of smashing rocks against eachother, there was no competition, no one tried to one-up them. The only politics that affected the playerbase was Okada's tax. That was it. We had no special events done for us, we had no arc done for us bar what was going on ON THE SERVER, due to PLAYER DECISIONS. We had nothing special happen to us 99% of the time aside from 'Donald Trump please Save us.' to other districts (which we barely communicated with)

If you are referring to the captaincy, the representatives that showed up once into the precinct to talk-shop and discover D1, then that's another matter, but even then they showed up no less than 4 times. I believe it's best to inform everyone YOUR definition of 'politics', because the gangs had politics between eachother all the same, is that considered politics?

I think politics was only enjoyable to the five people participating in it rather than the whole server.
I stand to belief most people didn't expect to participating in C24-esq' politics in any way shape or form when they were signing up for a gang oriented event, where there would be gang violence, mob politics, muggings and other things, but it essentially got derailed in a way that...
If your gang didn't participate in the politics or if you stayed away from it, you were essentially screwed since you wouldn't get protection from the precinct or be able to do much, what Ket exactly said.

In either case, I think the ministries were slapped together by @Imperator RAD-X with good intentions, but didn't consult any of the ET team or ICly with any other leads, essentially making a snap decision without thinking over it too much.

Politics didn't have a big hand in the event, but made it far less enjoyable for everyone else that didn't participate in it or looked at it from a distance.
When there was a chance for the rest of the server to participate in politics via the elections, it felt like the ministries were trying to rugpull the candidates, which left a sour taste in my mouth, personally.
In either case.

The event went well in terms of everything else and I think these types of discussions should be held in a separate thread instead of here.

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

I think politics was only enjoyable to the five people participating in it rather than the whole server.
I stand to belief most people didn't expect to participating in C24-esq' politics in any way shape or form when they were signing up for a gang oriented event, where there would be gang violence, mob politics, muggings and other things, but it essentially got derailed in a way that...
If your gang didn't participate in the politics or if you stayed away from it, you were essentially screwed since you wouldn't get protection from the precinct or be able to do much, what Ket exactly said.

In either case, I think the ministries were slapped together by @Imperator RAD-X with good intentions, but didn't consult any of the ET team or ICly with any other leads, essentially making a snap decision without thinking over it too much.

Politics didn't have a big hand in the event, but made it far less enjoyable for everyone else that didn't participate in it or looked at it from a distance.
When there was a change for the rest of the server to participate in politics via the elections, it felt like the ministries were trying to rugpull the candidates, which left a sour taste in my mouth, personally.
In either case.

The event went well in terms of everything else and I think these types of discussions should be held in a separate thread instead of here.

City 24-esque politics is just a mischaracterization. The only relation is that both were called Ministries. Beyond that, completely incomparable. #stoptheslander

 

[Bighomer]

City 24-esque politics is just a mischaracterization. The only relation is that both were called Ministries. Beyond that, completely incomparable. #stoptheslander

I believe the politics would've been more interesting if it was held in a more nuanced and careful manner.
Why I'm comparing it to C24 is because I have nothing else to compare it to, since it felt like something cobbled together rather than something planned out and written well in the long run. It might be a bit of a mischaracterization of what kind of politics we received, but I believe it doesn't take away the fact it wasn't enjoyable for the rest of the server.
Most people expected mob politics, but we got small town politics instead.
Still, let's leave it in a different thread to discuss over this, since having these discussions in a feedback thread isn't exactly right.