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.

 

[Someperson]

Honestly, I agree. The fact that an event group has the power to not only punish and overturn things that were done in RP (Promotions, demotions) with very little care - but also remove people altogether is kinda dumb. This is a RP server, and all this "RP" seems very rushed. Let RP changes occur naturally, not forced through event characters.

Frankly I've had so much RP destroyed. For the last 3-4 months, my character was geared towards hitting T4 as a loyalist. He resigned from the CMRU and joined the OBP, helping out politically full time, and finally after so much effort was brought into the party. Just to be ousted because Bloke's everything got overturned. Why? I feel absolutely no motivation to play that character anymore. The organisation is crippled, the people we worked under gone. Not even a party member anymore.

 

[Robert]

Will respond tomorrow in one final post from my POV as this whole thing has been a tiresome back on forth on Discord for the last 2 days already with it explained about 8 times to multiple people but does keep going. So will pop a message down tomorrow on the matter.

Though as explain by @Imperator RAD-X previously, voids are out of the question just for anyone not around in the SeCon discord who may of missed said comment. Just wanted to clarify before anyone suggests such.

Also please do kill each other, post any comments to egg each other on, or try incite any form of drama or attack against any individual. Stay civil and be mindful of how you sound if you are going to post or say something regardless of how annoyed one may be. Just wanted to reiterate what has been said by Hoki himself in his post and what Rad is asking for in regards to having a Civil Convo.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

For the record - I knew about this sort of thing being communicated to me IC as people were expecting the highest level of Combine authority to interject (which didn't happen but at the same time SRC pulled through instead from different people), however I had chosen to do nothing about it and let things play out as they should have for obvious reasons.




These points listed above are consolidated and sent to me from two players who I was communicating with and they were invited to the staff meeting by myself, so I'll mention I have personally organised a staff meeting way ahead of time but this has proven helpful to circumnavigate what ever cluster-fuck that people have their hands on.

Feel free to go over the above from different POVs.

 

[RedHotGinger]

Also please do kill each other, post any comments to egg each other on, or try incite any form of drama or attack against any individual.

You heard it here first gentlemen


Get to work.

 

[Knight]

For a moment I got excited that someone was playing someone that did anything to shake up the system but from someone who just plays casually, it often appears like the server's biggest haters are the people who have the power to make these sort of massive decisions that sweep entire tens of characters' goals off the table. While I'm not intimately involved with the day-to-day of loyalist roleplay, it was very cool seeing someone that was not the norm, but still perfectly reasonable to exist in the setting take power and begin to enforce policy.

I honestly do not know how any reasonable admin would think to not let this continue and play out as having these sort of large, long IC political drama scenarios play out are among the most interesting things that can happen on a server.

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

It's Bloever

 

[MazuzaM]

We went broke...

 

[Robert]

Right, I am at work so not going to give a super essay of a response but try breakdown what I can right now without access to the documents / Discords atm.

Starting from the top, I want to reiterate that the original plan was the MCP was going to be doing internal investigations regarding a few issues while S.R.C was going to be looking into the Adjutants Death and how it happened from the perspectives of both I24, C24 and C13. A collaborative effort between both French and English communities.

Now one thing people may not know is that the French do have a hand to play in the corruption allegations as part of cross-server Arc of City 13 takeover of C24 and its respective Industrial Assets. And while some may not be accepting of French influence into the English side so heavily, they are indeed a part of Willard. And their actions and our actions respectively effect the other, also playing a part in the whole Scene of MCP, corruption allegations and Bloke.

Another thing I wish to clear up before jumping is that I24 and C24 are not to be seen as 2 separate entities. While one could argue that I24 is some distance from C24 and thus its own entity, it does still entirely fall under C24 control, influence and a direct part of C24 itself. So there has been some going "Oh Industrial 24 is not a loyalty zone, just some shitty zone to work in so why would the Summit care?" is generally not true from a story standpoint given the above. Actions of I24 is the actions of C24. Everything of I24 falls under C24's blame and fault.

---

Getting into the main gist, I would like to break pieces down before my later post regarding the events of S.R.C. Note all investigation logs cannot be provided nor documentation given its still in progress and thus a META case if leaked which too backfires on not only us, but also the French Community.

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…

The S.R.C, previously known as RED which was previously RDD which was previously part of OSI, which was also previously BOI has existed since Willard V1. Its main goal is to maintain and uphold a certain level of decency among the Administration due to past instances of a mix of Corruption and other similar funny business causing the Combine nothing more than a headache and a mess to clean up.

Part of its goal is making sure that the Summit policies are met in most if not all cities (though in the IC sense, given it has around 100 members or less, very strained tying to keep tabs on everything at once) meaning cities are mainly under its watch. Normally it wouldn't of cared of whats going on in I24 and just left the MCP to deal with it, but I will get to that in regards to the other points further in the post going over the fact of MCP being ignored.

Overall, its key purpose as an organisation is to maintain the sociostability via the maintainence and following protocols and procedures for Administration assets around Earth. While one can say the Combine shouldn't give a single care in the world about Politics and Corruption, they do generally because such once more, causes major problems for them in the short and long run very easily. Even going back to Futurism, Casto, Heartwick, Orwell, etc etc.

Also despite S.R.C being 'Untouchable' they are actually quite easy to avoid, but in this case I will admit that Quest (Bloke) had no clue the SRC were even there for him and he had no clue of any wrongdoing he did which may of led to him not cutting off loose ends due to the fact they would understandably assume such would not be required as generally only CCA really know or have ever dealt with the wrath that is the S.R.C and know how to dodge it. So, complete unfairness to him there on the SRC's behalf of him not knowing anything prior.

But for future note, the S.R.C is easy to track and designed that way to protect one self from their observation.

---

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.

To break this down, the SRC was going to give it to the MCP while handling the C13vI24 case. That is correct. However, what stopped them from doing so was the MOP report which basically pointed out Blokes Positions and others involved within the MCP causing the SRC to think twice but was about to still hand it to the Commissioner, whomst was also present in the SRC meeting with MOP, until the Commissioner was acting extremely dismissive and suspicious, even getting into an argument with the MOP and later spoke to @M!NT's agent who reported the Commissioner trying to convince the S.R.C to suddenly leave.

M!NT relayed this to me and made the decision to bring in the S.R.C to begin its investigation though only M!NT and I do believe @Hiros were the ones investigating the case. While @Kranky Brickwall and myself went to investigate other parts unrelated to Bloke or the MCP. Them 2 did their investigation and a week later @M!NT came back with his report and findings which highlighted a few crimes committed by Bloke and 2 other members of the MCP.

Again Bloke did not know nor did the MCP know about S.R.C appearance so that needs to be done better next time. Though generally while we do allow INGAME factions to take precedent for doing these investigations and handling punishments, I do wish to note that yes- there will be times were an event faction or char can punish a server character. While it may seem unfair, I personally see it a case of circumstance and reasoning, and the fact they should not be by any means common or even uncommon. But more or less a super rare occurrence of proven guilt that ingame certainly cannot handle. But that is the only instance that comes to mind.

Reason why not many were investigated, and granted they should do regardless in the future, was the evidence build up very quickly in such a short timeframe with the limited few people who were interviewed in which the leading investigator decided that was what they needed. Of course, it was mentioned after the fact that all this should be written down- which is where I made the SRC thread regarding Summit active policies and mentioned that SRC is undergoing edits which turn into into a QUEST Event Faction for MCP like CLC and CPRD is to CWU/CMRU.

Wasn't on purpose to miss a bunch of interrogations, but more or less an oversight an mishap on the SRC behalf.

---

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.

Not much to say on this as already put it above while writing a few times, but this was noted and the thread was made in response to the lack of knowledge that should've been out there. The thread is a representation of all past Summit policies implemented by any and all Summit chars and CT such as the Futurism and Breenist bans, the old political ban which is currently inactive, Transhumanist promotion, etc. All made so the public can now see what the Summit has created.

Keep note the SRC doesn't decide what the Summit policies are, only enforces them with MCP. So the policies are from varying CT, Ex-Staff/CT members and currently members here today.

---

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.

Again, this is something covered through the post already so won't mention much on this point. TO clarify for TLDR. SRC invited to MOP meeting with MCP Commissioner. Commissioner acted highly sus and dismissive which only raised eyebrows for all present. As SRC leaving, MCP Commissioner requested that the SRC leave and let MCP handle the whole thing which given the allegations made only made SRC scratch its head and change plans. And yes, Commissioners are basically right hands to the Overseer, so naturally would alarm a level of mistrust. Hence leading to SRC getting more involved than it should have.

SRC was about to pass it on to them but Commissioner made the SRC think twice. Could've gone to a MCP Overseer in hindsight to some degree but at the end of the day some red flags were raised alongside the MOP Report.

---

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.

Not sure who this refers to as was present and the Quality of RP between chars was high in terms of RP for @M!NT
Could be Hiros whose English is not perfect, but overall not going to play a guess and blame game with this one as really unsure who it points out and refers to. As for myself, my interactions seemed to be going well and was mainly handling appeals and interviews for those with questions giving them all they needed before sending them on their way. Outside of that, again, can't say much to this as its a bit of a ??? when it comes to who and would rather not play a game of point fingers.

---

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.

Reducing months of progress down to nothing wasn't the intention, more or less wanting to remind that the SRC still exists and the Summit Policies are still at play, just like what happened with Casto, Orwell and the like (Though most people have avoided the SRC and Summit many a time) but went very wrong towards the end due to lack of involvement and the punishment being quite harsh against someone who didn't know about the Summit Policy.

We did keep Bloke alive and allow him to re-enter elections if he chooses to as per the SeCon announcement on the same day it occurred and for those demoted from T4 to appeal their case with MCP as to give him a chance, also left his OBP org intact as well.

I think thats it really. Though will say the thoughts of some Staff involved who gave their opinions and some CT which while most staff are against the SRC involvement into SeCon, one point was mentioned that yes, Bloke would've avoid punishment had:
A) the fact he didn't know about policy was acknowledged (fault of SRC) and
B) The fact that Loyalists were promoted and demoted all the same day including a few super young chars (aka 8 days to T0 to T4) been done differently with either stated reasons on PDA or done by different people / logged different days. Then it wouldn't of been brought up as corruption (fault of player)

Just wanted to bring that last part out for clarification as even the staff team is split 50/50 on this whole thing.

That is all for now.

 

[ultima]

The S.R.C, previously known as RED which was previously RDD which was previously part of OSI, which was also previously BOI has existed since Willard V1. Its main goal is to maintain and uphold a certain level of decency among the Administration due to past instances of a mix of Corruption and other similar funny business causing the Combine nothing more than a headache and a mess to clean up.

 

[Ozzekiel]

Commissioner acted highly sus and dismissive which only raised eyebrows for all present. As SRC leaving, MCP Commissioner requested that the SRC leave and let MCP handle the whole thing which given the allegations made only made SRC scratch its head and change plans.

I was playing the commissioner. I was asking questions, pointing out the MOP's inconsistencies and note taking. Listening for the most part. Even filled the SRC in on who Bloke was and the authority he had within the MCP. I was being interrogative. Passing all of this off as "dismissive" and "sus" is highly hypocritical seeing how the SRC seemingly ignored the Commissioner's- the lead representative Ministry of Civil Protection in the district- information, information that was relevant to the investigation because he was there.

Could it all of been a lie? Damn right. But who's the Summit going to trust? The Ministry of Civil Protection, the organization that literally dictates what's against the law and what isn't, or the Ministry of Progress, who performed an illicit investigation into the matter without even informing Civil Protection?

And no. The commissioner did not blatantly ask the SRC to leave. I pointed out several reasons why it didn't make sense for the SRC to take this and eventually made a compromise after the agent kept ignoring me and retorting with "Standard operating procedures." over and over again like a robot. The compromise being for MCP and SRC to work together on the matter. Something that, was, again, ignored.

 

[Rabithunter]

Lets have a go at wording my reply to this, given my own involvement as a character in game and ooc event stuff with the french community.

Way back before the opening it was planned to try and bring a sense of realism to the server, allowing the french staff and their players to have some tangible effect on the main server, as much as possible. This was going to help them with their servers status and player base numbers, inciting more to interact and play within willard as a whole.

A lot of time went into planning, Rad, M!NT, Bassil, Kreiger and I, all getting into a VC as and when we could to go over various details on how we wanted to tackle the debt problem in I24. This was initially going to be the only thing that could say a take over decision, allowing time in game for the city to either succeed in quelling the debt, or failing and the sector becoming liquidated. This of course is no longer the case, given recent in character actions from all those in play.

Moving on, we can fast forward one week from launch, The elections have started to happen, Bloke and many candidates coming forward to state their intentions to become the chair person. this was filled with a litinay of RP from both the MoP players and the MCP. Information was being funneled back into the MOP (Wont be saying what for meta reasons) and thus creating what we see right now.

Unrelated, an overseer was used, which does not conform to current lore at the time of use. This was played by Ozzekiel, without an auth from anyone in the CT/NT and presumed to be fine for the situation they had brought them in for. The premise as far as I can see, is this overseer originates from city twenty-four, the main city not the industrial sector. From my understanding the city is in ruins right now, derelict and mostly reduced in its functions. This overseer was used much like the SRC, as a character higher than anyone else to bring in a new rule, preventing the French staff and players from being allowed to enter the industrial zone and go through with the relevant RP with the MoC. This has in turn stopped a lot of cross server interactions and deflated their interest in this arc.

Further on with Ozzekiel, he also played a part as the commissioner, as mentioned here. I would argue against what he is stating, by saying the SRC would in fact side with the MoP in this argument. Yes indeed it could have been a lie, and faced with the evidence of corruption from the MoP, testimonies given to the SRC, why would the commissioner be trusted? You outright refuted the evidence in-front of them, stating it was all false and could not possibly be true, thus rendering yourself a target for investigation in my opinion, for trying to prevent the investigation from taking place from the start.


This event arc had been in planning for a long time, and the bottom line from me here is, you do silly things in character and get caught for it, expect things to happen from outside of your own control. For far too long, the SC and management have been walking over eggshells, trying to make events that dont cause people to become upset and disgruntled. This is unfortunately one of those times in which action had to be taken, as in character I could not go anywhere else. MCP, Bloke, The Consul, perhaps even officers were all in on it, with the OBP doing their things as well, aiding Bloke in his shenanigans. 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 have a lot more to say and bring up, though thats being left to the meeting on wednesday. Right now I am tired as this has sparked more arguments and debates than I care to mention, deflating me emotionally and mentally because people cannot, or refuse to allow CT/NT to do their jobs and give you a story.

 

[nora]

Hi, thankfully I'm not deeply involved with this mess aside from my character getting demoted from the Party by Bloke during his purge. I'm not going to talk about I24 itself, it's a tired topic and it's been proven in this very thread that the setting is inconsistent.

From a Loyalist perspective, it feels like a very cheap copout and a spit in Quest's, Beckett's and others' faces. Finally, the Party had something going for it. You couldn't make a single negative peep about Bloke without being audited and possibly demoted. New inductees had to go through a nerve wracking test to get in. It wasn't perfect, nothing is, but it was pretty fun for the short timespan it existed.

Then, all of the legislation was discarded, Bloke was arrested, a ton of people who got rightly and wrongfully purged were brought back. All in a matter of two-three days, with not a single chance for the average player to involve themselves. A few people got asked to speak about it, yes, but that's where player involvement ends.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with the notion that Bloke was running on borrowed time - after all, he demoted a lot of people with connections and was super aggressive about getting his way. Sooner or later, he'd get what was coming to him. I think everyone in this thread agrees with that. But:

1. It should not have been done by an event faction that was last involved in the server's story 3 years ago
2. Nor should it have been done in such a ridiculous fashion
3. At most, the SRC should have incited, manipulated or hired players to mainly contribute to Bloke's downfall

Much like the debt arc, this situation boils down to a few staff characters and people in high ranking positions talking with one another, deciding on something crucial and not giving players a single crumb of participation.

 

[Knight]

The nature of Bloke’s arrest also feels like it was intentionally done to be so dramatic with so many witnesses that it would be nearly impossible or really awkward to OOCly void or retcon.

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

​

 

[Robert]

And no. The commissioner did not blatantly ask the SRC to leave. I pointed out several reasons why it didn't make sense for the SRC to take this and eventually made a compromise after the agent kept ignoring me and retorting with "Standard operating procedures." over and over again like a robot. The compromise being for MCP and SRC to work together on the matter. Something that, was, again, ignored.

I just went off what I was told in that matter, but if thats the case all I can do at this point is shrug since I long left at that point leaving it all to M!NT to do the talking. Like to me, the matter has been and gone. And sure it was shitty, even more so if that was the case but I just went with the flow and story as relayed to me and the provided documentation through the 2 members carrying out the investigation, which one of them later delivered the verdict, the other deciding what the verdict should be.

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

A story that has otherwise left most people involved dejected, much including yourself, or outright bitter at the result. Not all stories are positive, and not all stories are especially good or healthy for the server. The Casto debacle, for example, while somewhat spurred on by out-of-character shenanigans between the players involved, seriously demotivated and nearly killed any major interest in player-driven intra-political maneuvers.

If you feel emotionally depleted, I can only imagine what Hoki, Bloke, Beckett, and many others feel right now; if the effete Creative Team, who doesn't exactly have the best reputation among the player base, has the cockiness to exclaim they're "creating a story" by culling weeks and months of effort from passionate players who've dedicated themselves to curating an entirely player-ran arc at the chagrin of the Creative Team whose brilliant achievements include destroying half of City Twenty-Four because of some Antlion arc and completely banning political roleplay onto to repeal it later on because of how stupid it was, I'd be pretty miffed too.


Conversely, according to you, you had the entire Security Council, Ministry of Civil Protection, the Consul, Civil Protection, and a myriad of other factions involved in abetting Bloke in some way or form, and in staff's infinite wisdom, they sought to encroach on what was effectively supported by most of the server's CCA & mainstream factions and end all that roleplay? If true, you're effectively stymying a server's worth of conspirators/collaborators who support Bloke's actions over the SRC.

Granted, I don't think the conspiracy is that widespread, but could it be said you've exhausted your options so much that you had to rely on event characters, characters whom only people close to Robert and the upper-echelon of staff are familiar with, and because of that proximity, are privy to the ins and outs and the capabilities of their organization, to invasively inject them into the affairs of a player-run event? How were Maesroe, Tischer, and all the other people who were coincidentally also staff knowledgable concerning the SRC where MCP & other faction leads were not?

And just a personal grievance, the way you say how we're lucky to even have a character is just very pretentious and personally irritating because you're effectively proving their point with how out-of-touch staff are with player-driven roleplay, having a never-before-seen Summit character arrive out of nowhere, created and managed entirely by staff, and because of their assassination, threatening to kill every player in the district and their characters.



This is my fault; I wanted to bring as many people to the meeting because, surprise-surprise, I like roleplay, and if there's something to criticize, I leave it for after the roleplay.



While I wholly forgive and support the existence of an entity like the SRC, I still cannot find myself supporting their removal of Bloke, particularly because of how much bad faith there was, even if unintentional, levied in the preliminary investigations, and because, well, you're ruining something for a lot of people; in this instant, I don't think this was the correct move.

I generally try not to let this kind of stuff affect me, but it did, and this mental baggage of tomfoolery has made me pivot away from playing Willard for the next few weeks.

 

[HOKI]

I won't bother with meticulously responding to every single argument provided in your posts (Robert & Rabithunter), it'd be too long of a post and we'd be going in circles because we disagree on the topic. So, I'll simply do this;

Robert, I appreciate your response and willingness to change things. It's admirable and I truly respect it.
At the very beginning of this whole debacle, I was expecting this to be a shitfest of crybaby arguing from both sides, but I'm glad I was wrong. There's not much to say in response to your post without much unproductive back-and-forth like in Discord, but I will say one thing.
I think you're very, very wrong with saying that event characters should be able to punish real characters. I'll explain more about it after I address Rabithunter.

---

Rabithunter, what you're saying in the beginning -- I don't see how it correlates to this complaint. The English MCP and our French counterparts have done nothing but foster roleplay between each other, from meetings to sharing reports. We even established an IC transmissions channel between our respective detachments.

Moving on, I don't know where you, or the other server council members pulled out the "fact" that Overseers don't exist. Although, it was already established that it was a total, utter Willard miscommunication moment. This to me seems like a cheap attempt at undermining my argument by saying "well they dont exist!!!", despite the fact literally everyone, even CP leads, thought otherwise, for LIKE A YEAR. I was genuinely bewildered when this information came to light, and doubly bewildered right now that you're using it as ammo for your argument, despite the fact it's a clear and cut communication issue that occurred between CT/NT and CP leads.

Anyway, ignoring that exemplary instance of Willard Networks communication, onto the striking part of your post -- the vague threat that all of us are lucky we even have characters, especially after the death of . . . an event character. I don't have to say much, since I think people will undoubtedly agree with me when I say that if this happened, the server would be having a major, major problem.

These threats don't get anyone anywhere and they just echo back to archaic times in HL2RP when the owner's edgy planetary commander administrator character with Combine assassin guards dies so he forces an AJW to PK everyone's character in some form of chudrage. I mean it's ridiculous. There's no way this would've gone through without never before seen backlash in the server's history. I hope at least.

---

Now onto my disagreement with Robert about event chars punishing real server chars. I'll simply raise you this. Event characters, to my knowledge, cannot PK anyone, or do any significant damage to their progress.
E.g, an event rebel cannot PK a real CP, NLR results in no derank, all in the name of not regressing progress. Why should there be an exception for the SRC, or any event character organizations for that matter, have the ability to regress progress done by real characters?

Event organizations should only serve to guide roleplay forward. Not take away from it. Punishments, if they even happen, should be only for the extreme instances. Like a CA causing shit between cities. An Overseer being rogue and somehow funnelling Overwatch equipment to rebels. Stuff like that.
Otherwise, the only form of punishment should be a stern warning, confirming who's in charge and if that stern warning is not heeded, then there's no problem in dishing out heat. Regressing any form of progress as the first response, especially to something relatively minor in this case, is very bad for the affected players' fun and roleplay in general.


Sorry if this post has some typos or strange grammar, I whipped it up as quickly as possible to keep the thread moving.

 

[bravo]

I'm not thoroughly versed on the MCP and SRC plot and all that, but I really just can't see what the upside to this situation was. To a degree, I think the server genuinely missed out on something really cool and long-term if Bloke had rose to more power and assumed more and more control over the city. At least from my perspective it was making for interesting drama and roleplay, and I really have to question if quashing that with what is apparently a seldom seen, pure admin faction is really the right decision here.

I think some of the admins aren't realizing that this is actually the opposite of developing a story. Would sector-level administrators really step in to demote this guy for what is basically minor corruption? Is shutting it down completely really the best choice for facilitating RP? I don't think it is, and ultimately, that should be the main consideration over anything else for a roleplay server.

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

I'm not thoroughly versed on the MCP and SRC plot all that, but I really just can't see what the upside to this situation was. To a degree, I think the server genuinely missed out on something really cool and long-term if Bloke had rose to more power and assumed more and more control over the city. At least from my perspective it was making for interesting drama and roleplay, and I really have to question if quashing that with what is apparently a seldom seen, pure admin faction is really the right decision here.

I think some of the admins aren't realizing that this is actually the opposite of developing a story. Would sector-level administrators really step in to demote this guy for what is basically minor corruption? Is shutting it down completely really the best choice for facilitating RP? I don't think it is, and ultimately, that should be the main consideration over anything else for a roleplay server.

Anyway, ignoring that exemplary instance of Willard Networks communication, onto the striking part of your post -- the vague threat that all of us are lucky we even have characters, especially after the death of . . . an event character. I don't have to say much, since I think people will undoubtedly agree with me when I say that if this happened, the server would be having a major, major problem.

These threats don't get anyone anywhere and they just echo back to archaic times in HL2RP when the owner's edgy planetary commander administrator character with Combine assassin guards dies so he forces an AJW to PK everyone's character in some form of chudrage. I mean it's ridiculous. There's no way this would've gone through without never before seen backlash in the server's history. I hope at least.

Preach, brothers. What I said, and I concur.