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Let's talk about Launch and the Problems faced

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Madcombat

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Joined
Oct 20, 2020
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101
Part 1: Administration

Administrating a 75 slot server isnt usually easy, it can be a mess. Hell, I've been there and done it and some have it harder then others. For a owner or a manager it's easy, you know your own limitations whilst for a regular admin- its harder. You ask yourselves questions like:
"Whats our stance on roleplayed combat? Is /roll acceptable?"
"Is names like Tyrone Biggums really acceptable?"
"This dude is screaming nigga in the plaza? Is he roleplaying legitly? Do my superiors or fellow admins agree he's roleplaying legitly?"
"One guy is on a roof praising Jesus Christ in the middle of a S2K, is he trolling or legit?"
"Huh- a guy is being curb stomped infront of a CCA camera outside the Train Station and a Camera is watching? Do I have the authority to intervene?"
"Wow, theres 20 people all moving in one direction around the map, they've stuck together since they joined and home in locations together like a pack. Are they legit roleplayers or just a bunch of organised trolls?"


Theres times to take things seriously as well as times not to take things seriously. On one hand you have a group of players who're aggressive in their argument but mean no harm in their rp and they are actually alright at roleplaying and don't cause much trouble outside political drama. On the other hand you might have people who're offensive OOC'ly but again, they arent doing it to be offensive but just to have a laugh only for others to scream they need to be curtailed because it "Offends" them where in reality they're only doing it because the dude is screaming about how offensive it is to them and they find that ludicrus because in reality, these are just words and not infact hurting anyone.

There is also somthing more innocent however- a player that's new to roleplay and is pushing boundries to know his place. They name themselves Tyrone Deeznutz, can barely type, play a black guy, have a bad description if not any and are genuinely easy to figure out because they're doing everything lopsided.

But then theres a specific type of player who'll push boundries "Tyrone Niggums" who has a perfectly well defined description, roleplays properly but spends all his time beating people up and causing IC disturbances with his crew of "Bob Goods" and "I'm roleplaying as a newbie but I am actually in a discord with 10 other players trying to troll the server and I know how to clearly manipulate admins because I myself have administrated in communities myself and know how to do shit. Why do I do it? Because it's fucking funny."

Launch had a majority of the former players in it and most of the players that wanted to actually roleplay and enjoy the community were stuck waiting for a player to leave, including admins and civil protection players as well. Sadly, not many of these players who were on the server with the intent to just cause disruption were identified or yet I don't even know if some admins were even feeling secure to do anything to do anything about them.

These people were Brazen- Really brazen and yet very little was actually done about them.


Time for a quick history lesson.

Back in the good ol' golden days of 2011, what we concidered a lolwebel was just a dude who was too eager to join the resistance and fight. Today, you concider lolwebels to be people who scream in a apartment "FUCK THE COMBINE, ALEX JONES THIS SHIT. DESTROY THE REGIME RAAAAAAAAAAA!" - In my day, we called these people simply minges. They werent even close to what people concider a lolwebel is today. We barely tolerated these people, they're -clearly- cancer. At most you might call them a newbie, nothing to ban right? But damn, somthing clearly to administrate.
(Yeah, these people didnt get even administrative talking to's from my perspective as a player. This kind of behavior went on from the same people for hours undisrupted)

Back in the Good Ol' Golden Days of 2011, a Mingebag was someone who joined your server and just started prop serfing/punching randomly/RDMing/Mic Spamming/Etc
Today it's recognised as part of the "New player" group. New players don't join servers to just be obnoxius (Some do, but they're a high minority.) New Players make mistakes without KNOWING they're making a mistake. A Mingebag will be chaotic to just be chaotic. A Troll will be lawful and Chaotic, he'll play both cards to fuck with you to do it longer, such is the art of trolling.

-End History Lesson.



Know the type of player and know what they're attempting to do is usually painted obviously on the face of his actions.

Got a player called Tyrone Deeznuts? Yeah he's unlikely new, he's just here to fuck with you. His description is good and his name choice is bizzare, he's here to fuck with you.

Got a Player who's running around beating people up and being a nuisence? PM him and figure out if he's actually new or just a chaotic douchebag trying to cause trouble. If he's the chaotic varient, jet him from the server.

Got a player who's doing bad shit but appears receptive to your administration? Woooah you might have a new roleplayer, congratulations. Lay down the law and give leniancy. Set him on the path and if he fails- jet him from the server.

All of this never happened, why?

Well, I have a theory, that theory is that it's normal in the communities many of you came from to treat all of this as mostly acceptable (It's not btw, it's cancer and you should've caught on by now. Theres a reason most of the communities you came from died and had terrible quality in them.) But I am not entirely sure that's the issue, I rp'd with many of you game masters and found some of the rp wasnt too bad- so what was the issue here?

You're too lenient, you guys appear to not want to be that guy who slams that hammer eagerly on someones fingers and tells them to get the fuck out.

-You have to-
-If you don't, it's over, all that script work goes to waste. All that lore writing? Yeah it goes to waste.-

Please have less tolerance for bullshittery because you're only going to let assholes who have no respect for the effort you've put into the community and the money sunk into the community enjoy it more then the audiance you -want- to enjoy it.


Part 1.2 - The break Down of Why the Above is bad

I'll give you guys a very real example of today and why it's bad. Some of you GM's tried to run what seemed to be a event of a hostage situation? In the end a Judgement waiver was called. There is issues with this event but I'll explain those issues in Part 2-

When a JW is called, every citizen relocated to a apartment block, this means you get situations where you now have ALL of the trolls and minges mixed in with the roleplayers who're taking things seriously and their entire experiance of the event is no longer in the hands of roleplay but in the hands of how well behaved the Minges/Trolls are going to be.

We had people in the apartments being punch whored, spat on, racist remarks made out of place randomly, odd comments etc. No one was able to focus on your potentially good event admins because our attention the entire time was focused on what wasnt being administrated: The Trolls/Minges.

*CLAP*

Okay, heres another example of why the above is bad.

A new serious roleplayer joins the server, he's heard of good things about Willard and is impressed by the script etc etc. He spawns, takes a step outside the station only to see punch whoring, citizens surrounding MPF who're forced to fire on citizens indiscriminately because of the situation placed upon them by lack of administration on these nelfarious elements. Player then decides that the server is shit because the MPF appear clearly shit and that the playerbase seems clearly shit. He disconnects and never rejoins. You never see what he may've produced which could've been great. He also goes on to tell his friends to avoid the community depriving the community of other potentially great players who could've also contributed.

*CLAP*

Heres a new example.

A player is trying to play a loyalist, he approches the CCA to report information but is ENTIRELY ignored because the CCA has to deal with mingebags.
Said player just gives up.

The example here is special, notice how said player isnt DIRECTLY affected by the Minges but instead by the CCA because the CCA is so focused on the trolls/minges. His experiance is fucked INDIRECTLY by the negative elements.

*CLAP*

Heres a final PERSONAL experiance of mine.

Spend months organising a resistance group, hype the server up and advertise the server even for those who don't intend to play -my side-.

Join the server with them only to have them become disillusioned by what they are seeing despite the praise I lavished on the server.
This would've been my experiance IF I didnt repeatedly pre-warn them that day 1 was going to be a shit-fest and reduce that expectation for the first week. I wonder how many people did exactly what I did but didnt reduce such expectations.

----

You can see how disruptive this issue can be, please figure it out and solve it. I know I come across as harsh but only because I want this community to succeed. I'm not willing to argue with any of you that think there was any sort of disruptive elements, just please fix it. I have faith that you guys will do so.



Part 2 - All about Citizen rp but eh.. not really lol
Look, I'm not going to sugar coat you guys with this one. I've got to give the criticism raw and unfiltered and I personally don't want to be the one that says it- but fuck I got to say it.

For Months you guys have talked about "Citizen Centric roleplay and Events UNLIKE all the other servers out there in existance and if Willard is going to be unique for anything it's going to be that. "

This has been the mantra of many of the Game-Masters I've spoken to and well- great. Back it up. Because you barely did on Day 1 for your opening event and please do forgive me, I'm not trying to be a dick though I feel like I am. (Probably because I am a dickhead but I divulge)

You opened the server with rounding up all the citizenry for inspecting, you had them form lines and then go to the medical tents for inspections of a sickness. This intrigued me personally but then it just disappeared, the opening event ended like that. We were told about a strange potential sickness and it was over. "Maybe more later" I thought, it wasnt that bad in the sense of plot development after all. A climbing 5/10 for me, not bad, not terrible, but not great either. More informative then anything.

From here out however? Let's face it, it consisted of CCA vs "Rebels?" and that pretty much was it for the rest of the night.
I believe the CCA also got a chance to shoot necrotic elsewhere on the map where citizens couldn't even see what was happening, it was all background for us. Not a single bit of it was interactive. It was focused entirely on what you guys claimed you'd never focus heavily on doing- and you did it PLENTY on day 1 for the opening event. I guess I expected a little more from you guys since you made a big thing about wanting to focus on the citizenry.

And don't go "Oh there's plenty of things for the citizenry, like businesses!"

My entire goal upon joining was to run a bar and I joined to find a GM running a bar and for the Bar to be locked up for the rest of the Night after said GM left. (No Shade naturally on said GM, You RP'd fine. it's just that place could've been opened for regular players to run after said GM left.) but it wasn't. I wonder how many players had such experiences like myself where they couldn't even make roleplay centric hubs for citizenry.



Heres another example of somthing that irked me, one of my Resistance Operators was involved in this and I asked him to not make a big deal about it OOC'ly and to play respectfully due to the situation.

**Clap - Begin Story - Clap**
A character is in the apartments, he hears argueing on the 2nd floor and investigates naturally. He reaches the floor and finds that there is claims of a item being stolen from a apartment. Naturally he intervenes being the good individual he is on the side of the person who stole from him. A man who is the culprit minge pushes him out of the way and jumps 20ft down the stairs to ground level and runs off with his "I'm a great sprinter lol and a great fighter!" description. Suddenly, CP's burst into the scene, they move up the stairs and force those involved into the room where a 9mm pistol is found in the trash in said room. Meanwhile associates of mine observed from across the Hall where the MPF then open up on -everyone- in said room with the 9mm in the trash killing everyone.

Now, you can argue this makes sense for the MPF, but does it make for good roleplay? Well apparently not, because this is how the next scene played out.
My informants decide to use the situation to our advantage, we could acquire Social Credit points to push the loss of a operator to our advantage and as we witnessed the man leave the crime scene, we decide it is time to inform on said man. After all- it's for the greater good.

We approach the MPF, inform them about information intending to push our position in society only for it to go.... no where. No where at all.

Fun for one side- not really that fun for the other. Remember I told some people to take that on the chin rather then get annoyed and may I please remind you of the mantra you as a team have said for a while now. "We want to push citizen roleplay." but in this case, you killed it. Literally.

Who left that 9mm there? Why? Who were the people involved? What was the purpose of it? What was the plan of it's use?

We will now never know, did that Thief steal somthing more valuable from that room? We will never know and it will never matter to a ordinary citizen and his plot.

Please take more care with these kinds of things.


I don't intend to nitpick, I have zero intention of that. These are my core issues of Launch, please solve them.
Let's hope the best for tomorrow.
 
I wasn't able to play for entire thing. Though it mostly felt very aimless until I walked into an admin spawning weapons for himself in the street on a rebel char and offering me transit to City 24. The transition to City 24 also felt rushed and very sudden.
 
I haven’t read all the posts so I don’t know if this was mentioned. I was playing an event character, one of the smugglers henchmen. Outcast-wise things went well to start which I think it did too for citizen side, it was majorly noticeable that Willard’s launch event had a massive bullseye on its back. I know from speaking to people that there was friend’s getting people they knew from DarkRP and the such to join , it was what comes with a lunch this big.

After the smuggler (@TacticalToaster) was killed guns ended up in play which got rid of one gang but set things up for disaster, there was shootings in the cafe and bar which got them closed, massive (not very well played out) gun fights etc etc as we all know.

I think the problem was that the staff team (despite doing a great job under the circumstances) were not prepared to counter the trolls, minges etc that came from literally every corner of Gmod which completely derailed the plans I’m pretty sure that they had for the event.

The damage to the future player base is probably unrepairable due which is unfortunate because there was some amazing role play.

The solution to this for me was to not have an outcast start which allowed minge groups to form straight away from launch outside the city where they could mug for loot etc and fuck about. I think if things for the first couple of hours were contained to terminal with a high amount of CPs that any trolls and minges could’ve been dealt with. The second issue was the guns, I don’t know if CPs got mugged for them or if they were spawned in but it caused a massive war which derailed the server. For a start, I don’t think CPs should’ve had guns except for higher ranks so that units weren’t mugged for them; I also think there would’ve been benefit from haven’t present OTA but that’s just my opinion
 
Cops should have RP'ed with civies (i might be wrong and they did, but i didn't see it) and shown people that cps aren't mindless "<:: isolate ::>" zombies and interact more with civs
Didn't have much time for that, as I was busy with a low count of units to ICLY moderate the rest of the server. So most of what was done from my side was just bare cp rp.
 
Aside from the lag I had a lot of fun. Moderating was a bit of a pain due to 9001+ calls and every other staff member being busy with other things. Ceepees were heavily understaffed but did their best so that looked all good. There was some tomfoolery going on in Discord as well so I had to keep an eye on that. Everyone that had any sort of responsibility was stressed out of their mind. The communication from the event coordinators could've been better but it was more than expected.

All in all, could've been worse, the technical issues were the biggest gripe.
 
i got job and did rp!

only suggestion would be to listen to people reporting AFK players. people were just in the server doing nothing, but they'd alt-tab back in if they heard the chat noise or something like that. idk why, but after about 35 mins of watching, they were still there doing nothing and staff just refused to let an actual player take their place.
 
I will state again for the record: I personally had fun. I believe if you wanted to find roleplay, you easily could have, even by yourself. This is what is expected of an RP server and it was met rather well.
 
I will state again for the record: I personally had fun. I believe if you wanted to find roleplay, you easily could have, even by yourself. This is what is expected of an RP server and it was met rather well.
RP should be provided by the staff team
 
I will state again for the record: I personally had fun. I believe if you wanted to find roleplay, you easily could have, even by yourself. This is what is expected of an RP server and it was met rather well.
it wasnt an event though was it
I could have done the same thing on any hl2rp server
 
The solution to this for me was to not have an outcast start which allowed minge groups to form straight away from launch outside the city where they could mug for loot etc and fuck about. I think if things for the first couple of hours were contained to terminal with a high amount of CPs that any trolls and minges could’ve been dealt with. The second issue was the guns, I don’t know if CPs got mugged for them or if they were spawned in but it caused a massive war which derailed the server. For a start, I don’t think CPs should’ve had guns except for higher ranks so that units weren’t mugged for them; I also think there would’ve been benefit from haven’t present OTA but that’s just my opinion
they were spawned in by admins for certain rebels afaik
 
as aimless as it seemed, I had a good time towards the end of the first day.

I enjoyed playing with Equinox's vort and got some pretty good development in the end of the first day.

the environment of T6 fostered some roleplay if you found the right people, and I honestly thought it was worth the wait.
 
I feel like the complaints in this have been heavily split apart; and noticed, so closing. ❤️
 
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