Events mean nothing now.

[ozymandias]

It's so nice having suit connection, datafiles, relays, request devices, dispatch and radios be fully functioning again with a homemade antenna, isn't it? No. No the fuck it is not. I don't know who brought up this idea and executed it, but there was something not right with them when they planned this. We had a whole event that would disable OCIN. Rebels won that, and OCIN was disabled for about a week or two. Afterwards, thanks to a fucking antenna, the Combine now have all their communications again! Yipee!
There's no point in doing events where rebels win if it's gonna get voided entirely without anyone getting to know about it. The "antenna" wasn't even placed in-server, it was when everyone was offline and it was F2B. A "workshift" managed to fix OCIN with an antenna. The Combine are not THAT fucking strong, they're pretty weak in the games compared to what Willard depicts.

This won't change in V3 at all by the way, as the same management or team that made this decision is staying. There's also the matter of Combine mains knowing that this is wrong, but still doing anything to justify it as they don't want their side to lose. This is like the safe-zones in Hide & Seek.

Just end V2, say "rebels lose yall are fucking stupid" and that'll be much better than this fairytale shit made to fuel peoples egos. What happened yesterday should not have happened at all, and should have been completely voided. Also, no event at all for the antenna bullshit. Great.

I apologise for my aggressiveness in this thread, but this shit needs to fucking stop. It's at its peak dogshit state, and it's GOING TO continue in V3. This is just a spit in the face to any of the rebel players, AND the combine players, as they themselves know this is stupid.

The same management will talk about how V2 is in a horrible state, and how they can't wait for it to be over, but they're the ones making it worse.

 

[Kappatalist]

3. For over a week, Erama and the Metadynamist Body has been running circles around the rebel faction via infiltration, sabotage, espionage, strategic use of Overwatch, and various other avenues; All working in conjunction to let me know Taskmaster's orders an hour before his lieutenants do; All in completely in a In-Character effort to divide, weaken, and subdue The Insurgency.


I won't go into detail, as we all know the history the faction has with metagaming (cough cough liberators cough cough). What I will say though is that never before have I met such a (by most of your own admission) dysfunctional, disorganized, idiotic, meandering 'group' of characters I have ever laid my eyes upon. Of course -- not all of you are included in this bracket, or, perhaps none of you are, and what I'm referring to is simply the result of the societal, group-think geist that has been locked in a virtual concrete box for seven whole days (sorry @rae ).


I don't say this to brag or to rub it in people's faces (at least not fully), but to get you all to reflect and realize just how dire the situation for you really is. If you cannot organize the most bare, organizational functions of an insurgency amongst yourselves without help from ET, how can you expect to deserve a complete, rebel auto-win like so many amongst you seem to think you're entitled to? ​

The expedition server was hosting the vast majority of players from the server and there was no ability to vet these players ICly - In my opinion The Resistance have played their part just fine and as expected, what has fucked them over is an influx of 20-30 refugees who we can't control ICly, and I don't think it would make for good roleplay if we did from an OOC perspective, to the extent we could have avoided the problems that surfaced.

Now I don't understand the full extent of the infiltration but it has been brought up that some of these characters were perhaps throwaways and made for the ocassion, and to touch on the idea of infiltrating the rebel scene - It has already been the case for a long time that it's been outright banned ever since the shitfest that was OSI existed.

I have heard that one of these characters were hired the same day he was created, the other, 2 weeks, but with zero datafile activity in that time. I don't want to throw accusations at anybody because for all I know I could be wrong; but if I'd have done this for the Resistance I would have been banned. I have banned people for this.​

Not that I want rules to get in the way of good roleplay, but I don't think this was it. Finding infiltrators is not an affair that takes days, we have just as strict a PK criteria as Civil Protection if not moreso, and at the least Combine factions are given a plethora of tools and abilities to deal with suspected infiltrators in their factions - Simply the ability to remove them takes away any threat from themselves but this is not an option for the Resistance for many reasons, and to be frank, many of these ultimately are Out-Of-Character.

You are certainly right in some aspects, the Resistance have been disorganised in part and yes all of these problems existed and yes more could have been done - I know I could have done more personally ICly, and there are valid criticisms of the Resistance here.

But starting as a mindless rabble, within days we were able to at least form some sort of leadership, we were able to efficiently produce equipment thanks to the people who ran it, we had an effective medical and research branch, and a workable security team. If this was a two-week event, or longer, I'm somewhat confident these problems would have largely diminished and things would have stabalised. To be clear, we were thrown into complete anarchy and chaos, and instead of immediate civil war and all out fighting, we were able to get together and form some sort of organisation. The entire city was thrown into a bunker armed to the teeth, and told to govern itself for a week.

Clearly these events have been rushed to some extent, and we've had just about everything thrown at us in the past week which yeah, you have acknowledged that. But if there is some OOC level of disdain for the Resistance following the bunker, which I think there is even if not from yourself, I believe it is owed some creedance to the fact that despite everything it had to deal with the majority there did their best to work around it.

And that's mostly why I'm replying because I feel as if there is an opinion that the Resistance are just BAD, despite being given a pretty raw deal overall.

 

[RedHotGinger]

On the side of the OCIN relay event, I echo the sentiment in that OCIN as a construct is not destroyed, but more-so that S10 was cut off in that different cities cannot interact with each other, and sector administration is therefore heavily limited in exacting their powers on the wider sector outside of C24 where they are based.

At the end of the day, these are long-winded, "'lore" packed explanations to dodge the reality that absolutely nothing has changed. The difference between the tower being up, and down, lasted one week. After that, it was undone so that the Combine could, for all intents and purposes, resume normal operations. Its debatable it even remained different during that entire week-long period.

and I'd hope the wider staff team have no intention of discrediting the result on the narrative

Lets be real, it already has been undone. OCIN isn't just back up, but an even more powerful AI, made using duct-tape and straw, created by characters not even smart enough to do so, has been added to the roster

 

[Bounter]

The idea of an embryo that can auto-win an event based on S2K needs to be looked at. It's not an issue from your side, it's more so that there seems to be a lack of appropriate safeguarding in place to prevent such an item from becoming an instant win button.

I'd imagine it was hard to get? All the same there are definitely better ways to utilize it beyond, "haha, I win S2K with item that cannot be countered".

It didnt auto win. It was something we THOUGHT OF before OCIN event, and also, you forget we had an actual explosive to destroy the relay. The Embryo was just a bonus, to use our Chekhov's gun. And we used these after we won the fight. WHICH, if you were there, you know that as we began to plant explosives in the Relay, the reinforcements were announced. So if we DID NOT flank, we would have been cooked.

And again, we won S2K normally, and just used stuff to destroy the OCIN relay. The fact you insinuate we used it to win the S2K, implies you were not there, or did not read the logs, no offense.

 

[Rabid]

Blaming rebels for not being able to catch infiltrators is, to be blunt, fucking stupid.

Of course The Resistance struggles with infiltrators when the act of weeding out one person and getting auths to shoot them in the head can take literal months. The easiest option would be to just not let anyone get involved you don't know OOC to avoid infiltrators, but that would (rightly) get a different kind of complaint.

The Combine are an OOC faction you need literal auths to infiltrate, and the staff team/leads will always be aware of it. How is that a fair comparison to make?

 

[Kappatalist]

Blaming rebels for not being able to catch infiltrators is, to be blunt, fucking stupid.

Do you know what the Combine have? OOC rules and OOC backing as a formal faction. You literally cannot infiltrate it without red tape of some form. What do The Resistance have? None of that.

People - rightly - complained when rebels gunned down loyalists walking around like they owned the slums but want to blame them for not pulling every scummy tactic in the book to lock players out to avoid infiltrators? C'mon now. You can't have both.

Short of just straight up finding these people depositing items into a dead drop or actively sabotaging something, there would be very little we could do.

Anything we heard from these characters is not far different from the dozen or other so loyalists who've just left the city, short of gunning them all down, there just isn't a fact lot we can do. And to be clear the stakes for the resistance are always considerably higher than for the Combine when it comes to infiltration, yet like you say, only one has OOC restrictions. Nobody wants to be going around killing people, and depriving them of the last days of V2, because it's a possibility they're an infiltrator. Nor locking them up in a cell indefinitely, or exiling them to RP by themselves in the mountains.

 

[Mullet]

At the end of the day, these are long-winded, "'lore" packed explanations to dodge the reality that absolutely nothing has changed. The difference between the tower being up, and down, lasted one week. After that, it was undone so that the Combine could, for all intents and purposes, resume normal operations. Its debatable it even remained different during that entire week-long period.



Lets be real, it already has been undone. OCIN isn't just back up, but an even more powerful AI, made using duct-tape and straw, created by characters not even smart enough to do so, has been added to the roster

If that's what you'd like to believe then nothing is stopping you.

At the end of the day all we can go off of is the lore established before us, else we run the risk of contradictions, falsehoods and poor writing (and yes, I predict a snarky comment here about the writing having been poor regardless to which I'll counter that two wrongs don't make a right).

It was pre-established that OCIN has regional capacity. Erama will still have his own struggles with uniting S10 with OCIN down, and it won't just be a cakewalk for him to manage his affairs.

 

[Mullet]

Short of just straight up finding these people depositing items into a dead drop or actively sabotaging something, there would be very little we could do.

Anything we heard from these characters is not far different from the dozen or other so loyalists who've just left the city, short of gunning them all down, there just isn't a fact lot we can do. And to be clear the stakes for the resistance are always considerably higher than for the Combine when it comes to infiltration, yet like you say, only one has OOC restrictions. Nobody wants to be going around killing people, and depriving them of the last days of V2, because it's a possibility they're an infiltrator. Nor locking them up in a cell indefinitely, or exiling them to RP by themselves in the mountains.

OOC concerns don't hold a candle to IC. At the end of the day if you chose not to persecute someone you suspect to be an infiltrator based on the OOC knowledge that death could remove them from the v2 ending, then you chose to do it. The functions to kill someone infiltrating have always existed though - as has been shown by the mass of executions that occurred during the period, many of which were unrelated to infiltrators.

Infiltrators were held to IC requirements and communicated ICly on all matters, did their actions ICly on all matters, completed rolls. The rebels didn't commit to thinking outside of the box and setting up/looking at security feeds, rotating armed guards on patrol paths, and instead blamed OOC factors when I'd argue IC disorganization (by the scene's own accord) is to blame for the lack of meaningful action in sorting matters like the infiltration of Erama's agents.

EDIT: ... and if you say I'm blaming players for the actions of infiltrators, YES I AM. It's all IC in that regard. If you couldn't find them you couldn't find them.

 

[Mullet]

It didnt auto win. It was something we THOUGHT OF before OCIN event, and also, you forget we had an actual explosive to destroy the relay. The Embryo was just a bonus, to use our Chekhov's gun. And we used these after we won the fight. WHICH, if you were there, you know that as we began to plant explosives in the Relay, the reinforcements were announced. So if we DID NOT flank, we would have been cooked.

And again, we won S2K normally, and just used stuff to destroy the OCIN relay. The fact you insinuate we used it to win the S2K, implies you were not there, or did not read the logs, no offense.

Bounter, the reason I term it an auto-win is based on my understanding that you'd be able to plant it outside of the building if required and then grow it inside hence voiding the requirement to capture and hold the building for a period. If I'm wrong on this then please do correct me.

I think I've been quite clear on my wishes that the fact it was a rebel victory not be overlooked on prior messages, but if that hasn't come through than I'll reiterate that whilst I don't think the combine held fair victory conditions the rebels DID WIN the S2K fight based on what was in front of them. The event issues are hence not focused on the conduct or actions of players, but on the pre-meditated setup prescribed by staff managing the event.

 

[Rabid]

OOC concerns don't hold a candle to IC.

I don't think its fair to say "you should have just ignored the OOC angle" because thats not how any community works. People who seem to disregard the experience of other players for the sake of "IC is IC" are universally disliked.

You can't just lock new arrivals out of the roleplay or refuse to include them, even if it makes sense IC.

The rebels didn't commit to thinking outside of the box and setting up/looking at security feeds, rotating armed guards on patrol paths, and instead blamed OOC factors when I'd argue IC disorganization (by the scene's own accord) is to blame for the lack of meaningful action in sorting matters like the infiltration of Erama's agents.

While I somewhat agree, this doesn't change the fact that infiltration is far more easily solved on The Combine's side given their nature as a faction meaning they have more OOC coordination and red tape and the burden of proof inherently being far lower for removing threats.

Like its genuinely great that all of this infiltration was done IC but can you honestly say it would have been just as easy to do it the other way around? The Combine already have two different OOC barriers for infiltration before you even get started.

 

[Briggs Crumby]

Let's start from the beginning.
​

After the full blown destruction of I24, I, and the remaining members of the Loyalist Faction, were transported to C24; the Loyalist/CCA server specifically. My character, now 'Consul' Erama, was by all accounts the last remaining, functional, proactive member of the Administration. For an innumerable list of reasons, he -- my REAL, NON-EVENT CHARACTER -- has decided to stick with The Combine, along with everyone else who stands by him in his binder.


As such, he finds it in his best interests to ensure they win, and the first step to this; as proclaimed by Overwatch, was to get the minimum of OCIN back online, be it locally within City 24, or through all of Western Europe.

According to this, he elected to begin immediate work in setting up a series of miniature, local relay towers across the entirety of C24 to replace the now inert, Sector-10 spanning Relay Center that was destroyed several weeks prior...


"Now wait", you might be asking, "How come Mister Erama is able to ignore the valiant efforts of The Rebellion™ and use the remaining, re-organized assets of the Civil Workers Union to set up a Emergency DIY OCIN?? Isn't that unfair? An asspull, even?"
To that, I say

View attachment 50043

No. You never took out O.C.I.N.. You took out a relay tower that transmitted it across Western Europe from City 24. City 24 is still the home of Western Europe's Intelligence Network; a home that is still completely intact.

Not only is O.C.I.N. majority intact within the Citadel (look outside; it's still standing), but IRKALLA (the cannibalized remnants of SUMMIT 24 turned fortress district that takes up 1/4 of the city) is still standing, and in fact, in lore, has always had its own backup Artificial Intelligence for O.C.I.N. just in case the current scenario happening now occurred. (Sorry @Omega , the Interdimensional Slave Empire is a bit beyond 'Hubris' and, in fact, does have enough foresight to not centralize its entire security apparatus on Earth in a town in fucking Bulgaria).

So, to put it bluntly

View attachment 50044

Yes. We fixed City 24 with a workshift. A decree ordering said workshift to boot. That is to say; it (C24) was in such a condition that there shouldn't have been any need to have a workshift for it in the first place, yet we did it anyway. I delegated the work to what remaining foremen we had, what remaining citizens we had on our ~12 player loyalist server, and put up a rinky-dink, fucking antenna, to fix O.C.I.N.; all so I can send an E-MAIL (which, by the way, like a lot of other civilian functions, is not actually reliant on OCIN, or, at least I don't think it should).


So, sorry not sorry; the antenna is staying.


Of course, I'd be a fool to think that it was the only qualm presented here in the Thread, or that the IC worries about putting up an antenna are in fact where it ends. No, what's happening here is that players are worried that their efforts are being put down the drain -- even if legitimate. So let me help ease your worries.


1: The original O.C.I.N. Relay Tower event was a clusterfuck, and a railroaded Rebel Victory; one whos results I do not respect.


Looking past context menu-removed CMB helicopters, 20 minute delayed Combine reinforcements even past the wiping out of half of the garrison, Vortigaunts doing double their supposed damage (see Marco's thread), Overwatch not being permitted rifles/AR2s, and the presumed continued usage of the one-shot kill event APC: The event was rigged from the start with several rebel auto-win conditions, ranging from a "Rot Bomb"/Mass Explosive of some sort to Vortigaunt-Jedi tomfuckery using 'Extracctttt' and classic arcane wizardry.


Furthermore, there was no Combine win condition beyond "Survive". Everything in the event was considered to be placed under balancing, and when the rebels were sighted to be potentially losing (god forbid) many-a-gamemaster began to panic, throwing out ideas of, again; blowing it the fuck up.


This is, of course, unacceptable. As a player with no OOC positions I am against event railroading by uneasy, shadowy Admin hands at every turn, no matter if it leans in favor of 'my team' or 'the other team'.


2: The original Valente ICBM event -- while priced in beforehand -- was the result of player actions, and not that of Admin railroading like so many seem to believe.


To give summary as to what happened for those unaware; a day before the event, Francis Erama, utilizing info and evidence gained ICLY within the Administration, exposed the ICBM missile site and plot by Valente to destroy the O.C.I.N. Relay Tower himself with it in order to launch a coup on Orwell. Erama showed a recording of Enzo admitting it to Russel Makarov to F9/39, and was subsequently put in charge on the spot with setting up a sting operation to arrest him that very day.

Spoiler: Zhe Coup

View attachment 50045

This was a close call, given it was one day before Taskmaster and Company would be raiding said silo; which remained defended only by a small contingent of the Genevan Guard. Not to mention, Valente nearly fired the missile at C24 in a last ditch effort -- killing himself right after.


All of my efforts culminated in getting to the silo before the raid, and thus commencing a launch sequence to fire the missile at New Geneva -- dishing back what they had so generously dished out the week prior with the destruction of the O.C.I.N. Relay Tower.


Erama then left, bidding his great ally F9/39 good luck as he took control of the Overwatch forces sent on the ground to deal a finishing blow to the rebels trapped within.


Of course, our brave protagonists of TLM fought back, and forced a retreat, giving The Combine a pyrrhic victory.


3. For over a week, Erama and the Metadynamist Body has been running circles around the rebel faction via infiltration, sabotage, espionage, strategic use of Overwatch, and various other avenues; All working in conjunction to let me know Taskmaster's orders an hour before his lieutenants do; All in completely in a In-Character effort to divide, weaken, and subdue The Insurgency.


I won't go into detail, as we all know the history the faction has with metagaming (cough cough liberators cough cough). What I will say though is that never before have I met such a (by most of your own admission) dysfunctional, disorganized, idiotic, meandering 'group' of characters I have ever laid my eyes upon. Of course -- not all of you are included in this bracket, or, perhaps none of you are, and what I'm referring to is simply the result of the societal, group-think geist that has been locked in a virtual concrete box for seven whole days (sorry @rae ).


I don't say this to brag or to rub it in people's faces (at least not fully), but to get you all to reflect and realize just how dire the situation for you really is. If you cannot organize the most bare, organizational functions of an insurgency amongst yourselves without help from ET, how can you expect to deserve a complete, rebel auto-win like so many amongst you seem to think you're entitled to?


If you can let some guy preaching the Metadynamist Manifesto at a bar run free to in the future steal a tank; how can you be so sure that you're ''meaning'' anything.


If I can get an unnamed number of men to run around your base; pouring concrete in tank engines, putting fabricators on fire, disabling radios, and spreading dissent between groups; do you really -- honest to god -- think that you're winning?


Sure, I get that you guys have been swamped with back-to-back fighting, events, character development, and so on. I really do.


But


View attachment 50047


To call for a complete shut down of any infiltration roleplay on all fronts in the name of "not being assed to deal with it", is completely hypocritical. You simply cannot stand on a platform of wanting players to have freedom to develop, progress, influence, and manipulate the world whilst simultaneously asking for even more OOC safeguards to protect your interests.


And, finally


4. The Bunker Raid yesterday was... Complicated, admittedly, and there's far more of a case to be made here about Admins dealing a unfair hand to the rebel action (not that I am saying that).


To begin, what incited it in the first place was the rebel execution of Hikari Fujimori; a diplomat I sent to broker a ceasefire and to invite rebels to offer their opinions and or demands for reform to the Unification State in the near future.


Upon hearing about her death, Overwatch (Eviction Notice) nearly demanded that Erama take action, thus giving the go ahead for the ''preparations'' of an assault.


This was all in response to player actions, and done by player actions... For the most part. OOCly, I wasn't fully on-board with the option. I was quite enjoying the RP that came from the current skirmishing guerilla warfare I had Overwatch do under the command of Ranger 02 (Mullet).


Indeed, to my understanding, a decision was taken OOCly between ET and what not to evacuate the rebels on that day, as well as to have an attack in response; all to make way for more preparations for future TLM events.


All of this coalesced into the attack itself, which arrived just after the 'Shepherds' left on their own and right before the scheduled evacuation of everyone else from the silo.


..Do I think the fight was unfair, and rigged towards the Combine: No.


Do I think the battle shouldn't have happened at all: Yes.


It was like other things in this event line so far; rushed, messy, and not well planned. We should have given the insurgency more time within the bunker -- passive, time -- to plan, develop, and generally 'calm down'. Relentless events help nobody, and to hit them with this does seem like a bit of a bad job, though, there's not much we can do about it now. A mistake on both sides. So, Sorry, on the behalf of the powers at be.


However, I will say that as a technical member of the TLM team, who knows the future of the event line, that things are in the works that improves the war situation for the rebellion in a fair manner. Though, I think the biggest take away here by far is that we need to -- again -- for some reason say to staff (Nath included) that player primacy really must take the helm in these affairs. If they want to work to set up the intranet again, then so be it. So long as they put in a high amount of roleplay and engineer the scenario perfectly, there should be nothing stopping them from doing so. We should also give them more down time to facilitate these things. People are at their best when they're not being shot at.


For the future of TLM, I think all hands should be on deck to improve the rest of the chapters. I am not a pessimist. I believe fully that if the powers at be apply themselves, the event can be mended in full (I've seen what's in store, and retain high hopes because of it).

...But, do not forget this.


I ('Erama') am, in my full right to fight your efforts on every step of the way. I am a player. A character. The face of what's left of the Dream of Collaboration. I will do everything in my IC power to ensure a Combine Victory. I am your opposition. I am Evil! I am the guy who nuked a town of several thousand in the name of ideological Will. Do not think for a SECOND that just because there are more of you than there are Me that you are entitled to a free, happy ending whilst simultaneously attempting to destroy my own character's. All I have ever wanted was a fair (OOCly speaking in terms of rules and engagement, the rebellion obviously will have the advantage ICly) playing field to face the leaders of the enemy faction in what constitutes a great, strategic game for the future.


All of your ails and complaining can be chalked up to culture shock. For the first time in my years of playing this server, The Combine™ are, for once -- even if just partially -- led by someone OOCly willing to see them prevail. Am I glazing the Slave Empire? Sure. But that won't change the fact that I am not going to stop kicking your shit in through the most roleplayed (Non-S2K) of means possible.

View attachment 50049View attachment 50051
View attachment 50052
View attachment 50053
View attachment 50054

Good day.​

(stares at screen shots) ... I was the one captured Erama where is my Dropship Packert the shopkeep just wants to go hooooome lol

that aside.. reading this all sorta makes sense, I strongly agree with MAYBE we all should have been given more time. I too took a liking to the guerilla warfare stuff taking place even if I was just some random dude going on patrols by myself or attending the gatehouse.

Would have especially been interested in seeing how these peace talks would have played out.

That being said... Erama has become the New Dr. Breen? Erama Private Reserve when?

 

[Mullet]

I don't think its fair to say "you should have just ignored the OOC angle" because thats not how any community works. People who seem to disregard the experience of other players for the sake of "IC is IC" are universally disliked.

You can't just lock new arrivals out of the roleplay or refuse to include them, even if it makes sense IC.



While I somewhat agree, this doesn't change the fact that infiltration is far more easily solved on The Combine's side given their nature as a faction meaning they have more OOC coordination and red tape and the burden of proof inherently being far lower for removing threats.

Like its genuinely great that all of this infiltration was done IC but can you honestly say it would have been just as easy to do it the other way around? The Combine already have two different OOC barriers for infiltration before you even get started.

I think this as a frustration would be basically non-existent if infiltration had been more widely permitted on the rebel side of things in prior months before this escalation. Again, Nath or other ET leadership would be required to explain why this wasn't permitted or forward on to the individuals who initially blocked such efforts.

 

[Rabid]

I think this as a frustration would be basically non-existent if infiltration had been more widely permitted on the rebel side of things in prior months before this escalation. Again, Nath or other ET leadership would be required to explain why this wasn't permitted or forward on to the individuals who initially blocked such efforts.

Yeah no I do definately agree with you there and I'm not trying to blame you at all.

But I can understand entirely why rebels get frustrated when they're starting from zero all the time with infiltrators while the Combine get the good graces to be OOCly made aware of anyone who's trying it.

 

[Bounter]

If that's what you'd like to believe then nothing is stopping you.

At the end of the day all we can go off of is the lore established before us, else we run the risk of contradictions, falsehoods and poor writing (and yes, I predict a snarky comment here about the writing having been poor regardless to which I'll counter that two wrongs don't make a right).

It was pre-established that OCIN has regional capacity. Erama will still have his own struggles with uniting S10 with OCIN down, and it won't just be a cakewalk for him to manage his affairs.

What do I believe in, that is wrong? Care to... Elaborate? And I mean things I have stated.

Like, Embryo and bombs were planted after we won S2K with the flank. I literally gave it away as we were getting the place prepped to blow.

 

[nath1234567]

​

1: The original O.C.I.N. Relay Tower event was a clusterfuck, and a railroaded Rebel Victory; one whos results I do not respect.




​

This is extremely disappointing to see you type up this massive post where you essentially shit on any and all rebel players for feeling slighted by this obvious one sided storytelling while also taking massive stances against storytelling that went into their favor. I believe at this point you've proven to literally everyone that you're heavily biased toward a C24 win, to the point that it's an unhealthy mixing of OOC motivations being carried out through IC actions. Roleplay is not meant to be like this and you should seriously reconsider how you approach looking at it and how you engage with your fellow players.

The OCIN relay event was NOT a clusterfuck beyond OOCly motivated Combine mains absolutely losing their minds at the idea of their multiversal empire being able to endure a loss at any point. (This happens in HL2 btw guys!) I'll prove that you're one of them in a moment but I'd like to make some comments about the balancing of the event itself.

For weeks I was in contact with OWF leads related to the upcoming OCIN event. I held a meeting in which all the OWF leads and assistants were present so that we could go over the lore implications of what would happen to C24 post OCIN collapse, and what would happen to the underground if Combine won at OCIN. (they would all die, and post rebel OCIN win all of you are still alive, what a terribly rebel biased outcome, this cant be respected!! lmao give me a break oh no my combine got hurted ) More importantly, I was in contact with Eviction Notice and empowered him to handle the balancing of the OW forces present. I had literally no stipulations on what he could bring beyond the advice to make sure its at least somewhat fair and to not bring sniper rifles.

As for the controversy related to the inclusion of the vehicles, they were very explicitly planned to have a purpose in the expedition that did not involve major impact against the players, though this plan was hijacked by rogue Combine biased GMing that I was quite literally helpless to stop. The APC existed to blow open an entrance into the surrounding defenses. The helicopter existed to destroy the APC and was meant to minimalize its impact against players following that. HOWEVER..

The Combine helicopter went on to down 15+ rebels and ended up removing 8 of them from the fight all by itself. To say that the OCIN event was a railroaded Combine loss when they had this special unit go completely against the wishes of the plan to try and tilt a Combine win is so absolutely nonsensical it's hilarious. The entire time this was happening, I was trying to return everything to the scripted dynamics but was being refused by said GM. With this refusal to cooperate, everything essentially devolved into chaos. More smoke cannisters than were originally intended to fire were shot. All the careful planning I had done was essentially null. Despite all that, it shouldn't really matter. Rebels ended up winning and the story went into a shift that biased people like yourself that aren't even a part of the creative process and should be striving to approach these things ICly choose to write it off as nonsense because it doesn't fit the narrative that you've already written out in your mind for your character.

Now onto the more ridiculous end of your claims and behavior in this idea that the storytelling is entirely fair. You have a lot of complaining to share about a supposed railroaded rebel victory at OCIN and how it shouldn't be respected because it was railroaded. What about the MULTIPLE railroaded combine wins that have happened since then? I'll go over them, I even created one of them specifically for your character so to see this act is like a slap in the face.

1. Railroaded Combine win after OCIN within i24 following the collapse of OCIN, arrival of Freeman and subsequent mass desertions within i24 (literally everyone chose to flee or go rogue on their own without any push to do so beyond the story beats that happened) The rebel plan was to use i24 as an HQ/Staging ground for future operations considering everyone had left. Despite everyone having left, a sudden strider deployment forced everyone to retreat from the city, and following that EVERY PROP in the city was deleted so there was no point in trying to use the area as intended. Do I care much about this? No, it's a loss that we can easily write forward with and we did. It's still a loss in their storyline to consider though since an entire plan fell through.

2. This is the one that I worked directly with you on. The entire point of the missile silo expo was a plan by myself to give C24 and characters such as yourself a cool moment against the resistance and to heighten the stakes of everything for both sides. I think it went well for what it was but am extremely disappointed to see you take massive stances against rebel aligned wins (OCIN was written to be able to go both ways, Erama was always going to win at the Alps facility so its genuinely railroaded whereas the OCIN finale wasnt) in my storytelling while keeping silent about forced wins that benefit the C24 side of things. Seriously I don't know what else to say about this cause the entire thing was a railroaded C24 win that I did explicitly to give YOU a cool moment. I reassured you that Erama would have an escape and would have a long moment in the control room to speak to rebels and aura farm, basically made sure you'd get your cool villain moment so THANK YOU for acting like I'm a rebel biased POS cause of how OCIN went, really cool.

3. The entire stay within the Alps facility was a railroaded combine victory considering the absolute constant and nonsensical degree of City 24 admin being able to harass, target and infiltrate the facility by using sabotage or whatever have you. This isn't a win that was carefully orchestrated by the efforts of Erama like you are pretending it is. Each and every example of this is made possible by GMs who simply logged into the server and used their powers to create roleplay. I'm far beyond pretending these dynamics are natural as they're entirely made possible by GMs considering the separation of servers. If I wanted, I could have been connecting or sending GMs to do rebel infil and attacks on the C24 server and it wouldn't be any different to what happened with rebels. I could jerk myself off here like how you've done with Erama about how cool and smart Taskmaster is and how stupid the Combine are for falling victim to it.

4. After the aforementioned three rebel losses within the storyline, after constant GM orchestrated infiltration and attacks, we choose to end off the Alps settlement storyline with ANOTHER scripted combine win. They suddenly assault because the diplomat (who offered literally ZERO terms and delivered zero information or substance) was killed. This entire arc was basically dedicated to giving rebels absolutely zero ability to do anything while we force win after win for your character.
-----------------

 

[Mullet]

[...] I believe at this point you've proven to literally everyone that you're heavily biased toward a C24 win, to the point that it's an unhealthy mixing of OOC motivations being carried out through IC actions. Roleplay is not meant to be like this and you should seriously reconsider how you approach looking at it and how you engage with your fellow players.

... but like... that's his job? To try and get the Combine a win? He's not allowed to want the Combine to win, but rebels can want rebels to win...? I don't understand that line of argument.

3. The entire stay within the Alps facility was a railroaded combine victory considering the absolute constant and nonsensical degree of City 24 admin being able to harass, target and infiltrate the facility by using sabotage or whatever have you. This isn't a win that was carefully orchestrated by the efforts of Erama like you are pretending it is. Each and every example of this is made possible by GMs who simply logged into the server and used their powers to create roleplay. I'm far beyond pretending these dynamics are natural as they're entirely made possible by GMs considering the separation of servers. If I wanted, I could have been connecting or sending GMs to do rebel infil and attacks on the C24 server and it wouldn't be any different to what happened with rebels. I could jerk myself off here like how you've done with Erama about how cool and smart Taskmaster is and how stupid the Combine are for falling victim to it.

Infiltration was all done ICly by actual player chars. The length for which these chars had existed is questionable, but by no means were they GM chars as you imply here...

Erama logged on and was in a non-descript place, receiving the radio transmissions from his spies ICly. He then forwarded this onto me, again ICly by meeting my EOW on the loyalist server. In this capacity, I functioned as an OTA WL-holder to provide 'Overwatch' information (which is something that was cleared through my faction management as I asked for 'carte blanche' permissions on my EOW and was approved for such). I then took this information back to the rebel server having received it through IC channels to then effect OTA actions using both OTA-WL'ed players and GMs, resulting in a grand total of.... zero PKs, zero NLR-refund/no-refunds, and one kidnap wherein I took actions to ensure the player char survived. Oh, and I tried to perform passive actions first on that player but they shot at us first cus they got jumpscared by a soldier staring at them in close proximity, so understandably the soldier returned fire, downed him and then tied him up and applied medical before extracting for information, et cetera on that.

None of the GMs were involved in any actions relating to the infiltrators -- the only interaction between OTA and the infiltrators came in the form of a drop-off for the hard drive, and this was performed using WL'ed only.

4. After the aforementioned three rebel losses within the storyline, after constant GM orchestrated infiltration and attacks, we choose to end off the Alps settlement storyline with ANOTHER scripted combine win. They suddenly assault because the diplomat (who offered literally ZERO terms and delivered zero information or substance) was killed. This entire arc was basically dedicated to giving rebels absolutely zero ability to do anything while we force win after win for your character.

From what I've heard, you gave a green light for this assault to take place. Unless what I've heard from multiple channels is wrong, you hence said yes to the assault... and are now turning about to blame it on others, without taking responsibility.

Maybe I am wrong, but if you were involved in green-lighting that stuff then there does reside a level of joint-responsibility for the shitshow that came to pass...

The OCIN relay event was NOT a clusterfuck

Also curious as to how you found this out from the community, considering there wasn't a feedback thread...

 

[Curbalas]

fascinating

 

[Curbalas]

they done built antennas to fix a extraterrestial relay tower with no rebels to counter it

 

[RedHotGinger]

If that's what you'd like to believe then nothing is stopping you.

Nothing changed after the OCIN tower went down. The effects it once brought are now null and void. The Combine operates as if nothing had changed. The Combine, in some respects, are even more powerful now that it is down. Nothing has been taken into consideration, not manpower issues, not communication issues, not tactical vulnerability.

Many of these have been outright contradicted.

The only alterations you are begging justify it all, are irrelevant 'fluff' effects. If the argument is the tower never should have mattered because it never could have mattered, then why were rebels never given an objective that could? Or a string of them that could?

You can have it one of two ways

OCIN was supposed to be a big deal, but was undone, either through incompetency or willful bias towards the Combine, thus rendering the event and all effects nullified.

OCIN was never supposed to be an impactful event, and thus, rebels never had a chance and have simply been relying on admins to drag us from one meaningless event to the next. Because I24 certainly wasn't winnable. The bunker was unwinnable. So if OCIN was a big pile of nothing, then really none of this has mattered.

It was pre-established that OCIN has regional capacity. Erama will still have his own struggles with uniting S10 with OCIN down, and it won't just be a cakewalk for him to manage his affairs.

Yes, his struggles are major indeed.
Including instant communication capacity with his deployed Overwatch forces (he somehow commands) making full use of standard channels. The construction of a hyper-advanced AI, to rival or supersede dispatch out of nowhere.

I'll give Erama this - he's far better than Valente or Orwell ever could have been on the basis that he is an actual character, and not just a collection of forum posts. But that only goes so far at this stage when this whole conflict is tangled birds-nest of barely sensible cause and effect. If there is even any to begin with - which for the most part simply isn't.

OOC concerns don't hold a candle to IC.

And honestly - bullshit.

If rebels persecuted all of the citizens, and refugees, treated them at arms length and constantly stonewalled them from active participation, you'd have been ripping into them OOC. I'd have been ripping into them OOC. Everyone would have, and they'd have deserved it, cause its shitty behavior, and unfair to a huge chunk of players.

I'm no rebel dickrider despite my current role within it - I often find them to in the wrong exactly as often as the Combine factions are. Yet, even I will plainly admit this is a classic 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' moment.

Rebels either treated other players like dirt for the sake of operational security, and thusly get lambasted for being an unfair clique of poor RP'ers.
Or they do what they did, which is look passed risk for the sake of RP, and have to suffer Combine mains calling them stupid for not rooting out the spies. (Which only the Combine were allowed to deploy by the way.)

The rebels didn't commit to thinking outside of the box and setting up/looking at security feeds, rotating armed guards on patrol paths,

This is NOT a job. All that needs to be said on that.

 

[Curbalas]

It seems that the destruction of the OCIN tower didn't actually bring the Combine down to its last feet (especially after City 17 Citadel is you know, literally blown up.) Combine players should've adapted instead of letting them return to status quo BY BUILDING ANTENNAS!!!! DO you guys know how weird that sounds from a different perspective than the one blinded by Combine-to-win OOC motives!!

the ocin blew up... which means combine should NEVER get OCIN connection again... the combine is fucked the world is fucked... adapt to new rp situations man instead of trying to fix something unfixable with f2b and sometimes accept the loss...

 

[Kappatalist]

OOC concerns don't hold a candle to IC. At the end of the day if you chose not to persecute someone you suspect to be an infiltrator based on the OOC knowledge that death could remove them from the v2 ending

thinking outside of the box and setting up/looking at security feeds, rotating armed guards on patrol paths

This is just a poor point; roleplay is built around cooperation with other players, there's a reason we don't lock people in cells for days on end, or remove them from roleplaying with anyone else - It's not fun, and that's what we're here, for fun.

It's not that I suspected them as being infiltrators, it's that these infiltrators had no difference to the other dozen or so loyalists hanging around the place, were we supposed to lock them all up, kill them all, exile them from the event? Having played a rebel all whilst OSI existed, I wasn't going to do what we did then, which was exclude people and exist in some circlejerk. As I said, the security measures we would have to put in place to catch these infiltrators are just unfun, either for the rebels having to patrol the bunker 24/7 like it's some job, or for the refugees who would inevitably have to be excluded from anything vaguely important because one or two of them might be spies.