My (Hot?) Take on Willards Rebel Problems

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

Hidden bases are fine as long as you have an exhaustive list of who's base they are, and require screenshot evidence of your access to the base to enter. If anyone is challenged on their knowledge of the base, and they can't present a screenshot of being given access by the owner of that base (or sneakily seeing someone get in) then they don't have knowledge of the base. And finally, bases have to be temporary places to visit to store gear and hide from sweeps, not permenant safezones to circlejerk in all day. I'm not going to lie, I never saw hidden bases being used for the "hide away from citizens all day" thing during v3, so I don't think that was a serious issue back then.

Yeah, I dont get why we didn't go the screenshot route in the first place, instead of thinking the only way with hidden bases was arguing that one saw it. I at least took screenshots of everything.

 

[Sagsworth]

Yeah, I dont get why we didn't go the screenshot route in the first place, instead of thinking the only way with hidden bases was arguing that one saw it. I at least took screenshots of everything.

i am always right you see

do what i say and the server will thrive

next step, i need rogue OTA authorization

 

[Rabid]

Overall, Hidden Bases were removed out of staff unhappiness with maintaining them all the time. Now that seems like a terrible idea in hindsight.

Hidden bases will only exacerbate the current problem imo.

Either people will sit in them 24/7 or they'll have to be balanced around the idea that when you cause something that nets a response, you can't instantly bail back to them and hide (say for 15 mins or so) in which case people won't do things that risk them being caught out to begin with.

 

[Sagsworth]

Hidden bases will only exacerbate the current problem imo.

Either people will sit in them 24/7 or they'll have to be balanced around the idea that when you cause something that nets a response, you can't instantly bail back to them and hide (say for 15 mins or so) in which case people won't do things that risk them being caught out to begin with.

This rule already exists, the way it works (if it hasn't changed) is that you have to wait x amount of time before getting inside a base after fighting cops, and cops have to wait like 15 mins between sweeps so generally if you survive enough rounds of cops sweeping you can hide. but the amount of time required to get into a base is the same as the amount of time to flag off, so it's got no tangible benefit in that regard. just waiting long enough to dc is the same effectively. and when we used bases before, they weren't used for roleplaying inside all day seperate from the population. not sure what was done which made that not happen, just a culture thing we got right.

 

[Speedbt]

That's a good thesis question actually.

Does the advent of RPG style mechanics (Ease of access to weapons, emphasis on script collecting, and leveling) harm roleplay quality?

My personal take on this as someone who has done The RP (TM) for a few years now is that yes, it absolutely does harm the quality of roleplay. I've had experience with servers that make looting incredibly sparse and barely profitable and players will still prefer to mingerun around the map to grab scripts, the only way to make sure your players are at least talking to each other at minimum is to make scripts earned through RP. However I've run into servers that also implement this and have a problem with players either AFKing until the server pop rises or refusing to join until the server pop rises (both of these are counterproductive.) The final conclusion I've come to after all those years is that the average person playing a seriousrp server will avoid rp for one reason or another, my shortened version of this statement is either "Players just hate RP." or "Fuck RP."

You may be asking about servers that in contrast, make scripts plentiful and therefore make looting almost unnecessary. My experience with this server is divided into 2 separate categories: looting system or no looting system. My experience with such servers that also have looting systems is that players will STILL engage in looting to stay on top and always have the "best" scripts, even if they already have said scripts they will still loot just to watch their money counter grow. On the contrary, my experience with said servers that have no looting system is that players don't run around looting but also follow the same behavior as mentioned before: AFKing or refusing to join till serverpop rises. However, these 2 types of servers have something in common and that is since players have nothing to lose, they will simply pretend they're John Rambo until they burn themselves out or get PKed and stop playing out of frustration. This is called "Main Character Syndrome" sometimes.

I know there are people out there who don't care too much about scripts and just want to RP, but I theorize that there probably aren't enough of them to keep a server running for very long. All of this is to say I'm not here to provide a solution because in complete honesty I think the community gmod attracts isn't really interested in RP and any of the solutions I've thought up are passing thoughts because I don't let this 2004 sandbox game live in my head rent free. I've incorporated a lot of them into Short Stories ideas I've never brought to light because I don't know how to execute them or what planning would be required (also don't have the time to manage them myself which I'm pretty sure is required.)

Keep in mind this is all from personal experience and none of this is being brought up to insult, call out, or make generalizations about players on any server, all of this is based on admittedly biased observations.

 

[Rebel RP Philosopher]

The final conclusion I've come to after all those years is that the average person playing a seriousrp server will avoid rp for one reason or another, my shortened version of this statement is either "Players just hate RP." or "Fuck RP."

This may be due to Gmod being mainly targeted to a younger audience of players who have many hours on their hands and seek recognition & achievement by hours spent into the game through virtual materialism. The contrast to roleplayers on the other hand often tend to be an older audience seeking a form of escapism.

Best you can do is to create a gamemode structure that harmonizes the interaction between these players.

 

[SkinVest]

This may be due to Gmod being mainly targeted to a younger audience of players who have many hours on their hands and seek recognition & achievement by hours spent into the game through virtual materialism. The contrast to roleplayers on the other hand often tend to be an older audience seeking a form of escapism.

Best you can do is to create a gamemode structure that harmonizes the interaction between these players.

bro just bodied the whole community

 

[Speedbt]

This may be due to Gmod being mainly targeted to a younger audience of players who have many hours on their hands and seek recognition & achievement by hours spent into the game through virtual materialism. The contrast to roleplayers on the other hand often tend to be an older audience seeking a form of escapism.

Best you can do is to create a gamemode structure that harmonizes the interaction between these players.

I think what makes roleplay such a hard thing to nail down is the fact that unlike a DnD campaign there aren't any Questgiver NPCs. Any and all adventures or activities have to be made by the players or the gamemasters (usually the latter.) This is why I generally hold the philosophy that staff members should do the best they can to allow players to do whatever they want within reason, if a player asks for something unreasonable your first question should be "How would you do this?" You never want to just completely shut down a player's ideas with no explanation or compromise. I hold this belief because I know staff members alone cannot entertain an entire server for many hours a day and if they try they'll burn themselves out and go on LOA until they regain motivation (And you never know when they'll return or if they'll return at all.) And then the server itself begins to stagnate and die.

When referring to "staff members" I'm not pointing out Willard staff specifically, this applies to the admin team of any RP server on Gmod.

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

To what @Speedbt said, imo a solution could be looting periods, where either weekly or monthly the amount of loot you can find in the sewers fluctuates, therefore making the ones who just grind keep playing and possibly roleplaying as they wait for more grind, and vice versa I guess.

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

Actually no that isnt that bad of an idea, @Robert what do you think? ^

 

[DirectorHomeless]

TL;DR = Very little amount of groups succeed in becoming major things because IMO bases of operations have lost meaning.

Mhmmm, because snitching exists.
The other day 4 people were having a chat, one guy snitched and 4 CP's wandered in fully armed, it was fucking stupid.

 

[DirectorHomeless]

Going to present a small and sweet document soon with all the ideas gathered so far for everyone to comment on. From what I am getting so far, it seems we want to head into a more original style of the CW days where item gathering is not as easy as just using some skill system, but rather via rewards the use of other characters, where being a part of the resistance was something granted to you, not dubbed onto one's self simply because they hold a gun. The days when connections with people were important to enter the scene of the Resistance rather than being solo'd via some trash and an NPC seller.

That is what I gather so far. Another thing I have gathered from Discord and here is PK's feel imbalanced and for some, too soft. They prefer something in the middle where all sides are equal but at the same time, events can be partaken in with a fair amount of risk which is equal to its reward.

Finally, I see people are asking me to make the grind slightly longer again and a bit harder to add on to the above points given in the Bottlestreet era, players RP'd more due to the fact Items weren't as easy as solo walk the entire sewers, sell off your breakdown earnings and have enough to become rebel in just a few days but to instead take far longer and require the use of people to earn your first gun, where it feels more of an honour and reward rather than something given to you simply because you buried your head in the 40 or so trash bags on the map.

Have I missed anything, please do let me know. (And yes, I am aware some find the DOB to be a problem when it comes to stores since the life of Stores since their appearance has been... less than appealing and for some, finished stores off for good. That is a separate issue being worked on by another individual other than myself who is working towards Citizens and fixing the Stores thus trying to revive the appearance of stores like Sunrise and Dutchman which were good RP hubs and nice resistance zones for trade at the same time.)

a really easy way to prevent the keep is to have certain items require a high crafting skill...and the blueprint FOR the item itself.

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

Mhmmm, because snitching exists.
The other day 4 people were having a chat, one guy snitched and 4 CP's wandered in fully armed, it was fucking stupid.

Not because of that, its because CPs can just choose to waltz in and find people they're looking for who didnt expect a sweep or wearing gear indoors. Read le large post.

 

[DirectorHomeless]

Not because of that, its because CPs can just choose to waltz in and find people they're looking for who didnt expect a sweep or wearing gear indoors.

also if you are that person, or you have friends with you who would defend you, your fucked, because that patrol INSTANTLY becomes a retaliatory sweep if you raise weapons against them, which i find to be a stupid rule.

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

also if you are that person, or you have friends with you who would defend you, your fucked, because that patrol INSTANTLY becomes a retaliatory sweep if you raise weapons against them, which i find to be a stupid rule.

Indeed.

 

[Kappatalist]

Mhmmm, because snitching exists.
The other day 4 people were having a chat, one guy snitched and 4 CP's wandered in fully armed, it was fucking stupid.

Out in the open? Because if so; skill issue.

 

[DirectorHomeless]

Out in the open? Because if so; skill issue.

a little more secluded than that.

also the snitch was a brand new character

 

[Merlinsclaw]

cringe snitches: new characters made with the sole intent of SC

based snitches: your rebel group has been infiltrated by 50 spies. you can't trust any of them. 'should we shoot first?'

 

[Sagsworth]

if you're getting snitched out then you fucked up, you're being too open or trusting too much. the only exception to this is if people are breaking the rules (e.g. metagame). you're never going to convince people to not snitch other than by killing snitches.

 

[DirectorHomeless]

if you're getting snitched out then you fucked up, you're being too open or trusting too much. the only exception to this is if people are breaking the rules (e.g. metagame). you're never going to convince people to not snitch other than by killing snitches.

i'd argue creating character not even an hour old to go and get people PK's is not in the spirit of SRP and thus shouldn't be on the server.