Nothing ever happens: A rant.

[MisterMysteryMan]

​

Not too long ago, I made a discussion thread on whether or not we should have a gear wipe going into V3, where I argued in favour of this position, stating that extreme rebel activity going into V3 will disrupt roleplay and make life for the average slummer much harder. In hindsight, this was an absolutely TERRIBLE decision for me to hold because the reality was the complete inverse. Ever since the beginning of V3, there has been little to no action between the Combine and the Rebels; nothing has happened because the server won't LET anything happen. Hear me out:

(NOTE: I will be arguing from the rebel main point of view since I haven't played on CivPro in over two years. So I hope and expect some clarification for CivPro mains.)

SECTION 1: THE DEATH OF SHOT-COPS:

As mentioned above, there has been essentially zero conflict between Civil Protection and the resistance members of City 24; it feels almost as if Loyalists receive more flak from CivPro than suspected terrorists do these days; both factions are content with simply ignoring and just tolerating each other's presence. You'd think with the extremely obvious and horribly hidden rebel bunker that the Combine would at least investigate? Especially with all the people waltzing in and treating it more as a tourist attraction rather than a base of operations. So far, there hasn't been a peep about it, and I'm unsure if this stems from OOC reasons to just leave the place alone, but there's also IC justifications for the bunkers' negligence, that being that Rebels so far haven't really done anything to warrant a response from CivPro. Outside of a very fringe all all-Russian group, Shotcops have been very scarce on main, why is that? Simple

It's. Not. Worth. It.

For a moment, let's compare the average rebel to the average Civil Protection unit. If our Rebel relies solely on his Crafting skills, he'd be able to whip up a Tier-1, 25 armour kevlar for himself, a gasmask, maybe a crowbar, and his two choices for a firearm will come down to either a Popper or a Makeshift AKM as literally everything else he COULD make is complete dog-shit. Now let's look at the average Civil Protection officer, which, if we take into account every single Combine unit, would probably be an i5. The i5 would have a USP, an inaccessible pistol without a blueprint auth, that's objectively the best one you could make, and 50. Fucking. ARMOUR, what the fuck? Why on earth - wait, who am I kidding? I already know why they did this! Remember the Partisans, ladies and gentlemen? Because I do. Long story short, the Partisans were running amok, so the Devs raised the standard armour from 25 to 50 and then spammed sweeps until they were dead, which is the equivalent of turning on God-mode on a boss you can't win, but I mean... It worked?

Okay, now that the partisans are all dead, why is it still 50?! This should've been a temporary solution to a temporary problem! You have an additional 25 armour, 50% more than what rebels can make, AND the best pistol in the game. The Power disparity between the average Combine unit and the average Rebel is overwhelming. In a 1v1, the i5 takes it 9/10 times, with the only loss coming from a frame/skill issue.

>"B-but Mystery Man! i5s HAVE to have 50 armour so they don't get shit-stomped by rebels!"
Okay, when was the last time the Combine faction suffered an extremely humiliating, embarrassing defeat on main since the Partisans were wiped out? Struggling to remember? Thought so.

Now, let me offer a solution to the problem of over-equipping the Civil Protection units could possibly be to have set "Tiers" in response to rebel activity. Similar to the system of STABLE-MARGINAL-CRITICAL, we have now, just long-term. It would be set by a ratio of rebel activities to Combine defeats. So, for example:

Low RA/CD: 25 armour, standard weaponry
Medimun RA/CD: 50 armour, standard weaponry
High RA/CD: 50 armour. better weaponry.

As you can see, this is in a very rough draft phase. I would just like a system to establish to prevent Combine leads from slapping on Riot gear and assault rifles whenever they feel like it.

The rebel also has much more to lose if he fails to win this fight; if the i5 dies, he loses his rank (Or just remains an I5, Doubt they force him to be a recruit again) and some cash. If the rebel dies, he loses EVERYTHING and has to start over again. Is this inherently a bad thing? No, he took his chances and went ahead with the attack, knowing that there's a good chance he would've died, but I'm merely highlighting how much more is at stake for the rebel compared to the Civpro officer. In summary

When you're shot-copping your facing:
-Enemies that, at their lowest, will often be better equipped than you
-Will outnumber and swarm you (I believe there's a rule that says if four cops go down, you need to retreat)
-Have a lot less to lose than you and suffer fewer consequences for doing so

This isn't even taking the recent ammo nerf into consideration, which further punishes you for doing what you're supposed to do as a rebel. You used to get a box of 120 SMG rounds, now you get 45, that's almost 1/3 of what you used to get. What am I supposed to do with a clip and a half? That's absolutely nothing. With the odds weighed extremely in the Combine's favour, why even shootcop? What's the point in risking an entire army storming into the slums because you want a free MP7? It's just not worth it, and it's why Rebels relegate their bloodlust to the weekly quests Nath or Cocohop holds since it's far less risky and rewards decently.

>"I mean okay... But what's so important about shot-copping anyways?! What are you, some PK hungry script-whore that wants to play COD on a roleplay server?! Why do we NEED shotcops?!"

Because HL2RP, at its core, is about the struggle for humanity's liberation, which "PREDOMINANTLY" Includes engagements and skirmishes between the two sides, the rest mostly being espionage. If you remove this from the equation, then what exactly are you left with? Boring, mundane city roleplay and "Politics". If this is what you're left with, why even HAVE Civil Protection? what are you protecting them from? Themselves? Without rebel intervention in the city, Civil Protection units turn into glorified mall cops that are just kinda mean to you on occasion. So if this conflict is so important, why don't rebels do anything?

SECTION 2: Nothing ever changes.:

​

Remember that little feud between City 13 and City 24? Y'know, when their president or whatever got assassinated and the city broke out into chaos with constant shellings and riots? Within that week, around 10 officers were killed in S2K ALONE, not even factoring in the other off-screen deaths from CivPro suffered around this time. You'd think that with casualties as high as this would place a great strain on their numbers? Nope! This series of catastrophic events had no effect on their forces whatsoever (At least visibly). If this is the case, why even bother to shoot-cop if you don't even put a dent in their numbers?

>"B-but Mysteryman! The Combine has a large number of units at its disposal!"

No, they don't. The Combine doesn't have a secret cloning lab (They probably do, now that I think about it) or an infinite supply of recruits. The population on Earth is probably less than one billion, and out of that number, how many do you think signed up to be a Civil Protection unit? The Citizen to CivPro ratio is immense. Even more so for Overwatch units, which is why when a CP dies, it's not enough that they just get de-ranked, because that's at worst an annoyance. There needs to be MORE IC and OOC punishment for failure, the Combine has your family as hostage for Christ's sake.

I've toyed around with the idea of facing a De-Whitelist for getting PKed as a CivPro/OTA unit (With getting WLed again being much easier than someone who never got the WL in the first place). I know that the French Server does something a little similar to this, with recruits playing on Iron Man mode until they rank up. But losing some cash and one rank is not good enough; there actually needs to be some weight behind their deaths. otherwise, what are they shot-copping for? Loot? Go do an Expo, it's much safer, and the rewards are about the same.

>"But MysteryMan! What if I want to cause bodily harm that'll scar a cop for life!"

Sure! Unless, of course, they have an insurance token, magically healing all of their wounds and basically making them unkillable, but you go do that!

The problem of nothing ever changing doesn't just stop when it comes to CivPro deaths, but to city life itself. Blow up an RDT? fixed within a week. Want to spray some graffiti on the Nexus? Cleaned and forgotten within a week. Want to blow up a camera? CivPro equips riot gear and spam sweeps until the group is wiped out. The labs on C24 V4 were blown up TWICE, and nothing came of that; contrast that with what happened on I-24, when the lab was blown up once, and that caused a serious xen infestation for 2-3 weeks. Now look, I understand that the Server council wants to maintain a status quo; the last time any meaningful change happened was when the LFL and the Krah blew out some thumpers and forced a map change. I can understand how frustrating it can be for some shitrebs to throw a wrench in your plans and scramble for a new map. But if none of the actions I take on the main have any meaningful effect... Why bother? I really want to hammer this point in about the doomer mindset rebels are in right now. Rebels these days just PassiveRP in the meta bunker and wait for Expos. This is not good for the overall server health, and there needs to be some changes soon.

In summary:
-CivPro players should be punished more for deaths/failures
-Actions taken on the city need to hold more weight
-A suggestion I heard was that if too many OTAs die in a short period of time, they're unable to deploy for a while since their numbers are extremely low compared to CivPro. I like this idea and think it should be looked at.

MISC COMPLAINTS:
(for complaints that don't deserve their own thread)

Credit Tax:
This has been irking me for so long, and I just really gotta moan about this. Whenever you make a purchase, you get taxed a couple of credits each time you do it... WHY?! Credits are a completely fake and worthless currency; they're just numbers displayed on a screen, so why the hell do they need to tax me?

>"Oh, so they can use that money to pay workers and -"

With the money THEY make? It's so stupid and clearly wasn't thought out at alll. The only logical explation for this is that the Combine just want to spite you, even then, it's still a completely shit reason as they have many other ways to do this, so in conclusion:: #TAXATIONISTHEFT.

Blueprints:
I understand that Blueprints are basically in their infancy/testing phase, but regardless, the system currently is not good. The only things you can make with these blueprints are pistols. With one of them being the clear meta, correct choice. That's not even that much better than the choices you originally had. There are plans to make blueprints for mid-tier items like SMGs and T2 Kevlar, which is good. I talked about this idea here:

Implemented Post in thread 'Weapon Schematics'

Mar 5, 2025

Hi, I'm an actual acreddited gunsmith for both the U.S Military and my civilian life. You can call me a beta cuck if you wish.


The scrap AKM, and VSK are what hurt me on a spiritual level as makeshift firearms would mostly consist of simplistic designs unless given proper access to riveting, tolerances, the ability to bend receiver flats, drill presses, et-cetera. Not that it isn't impossible to make a scrap AKM, (The VSK is a little more weird). Though, any quality made firearms would mostly depend on specific fine-tool machinery outside of things like revolvers, and low pressure...

• MisterMysteryMan

Oh, and while we're here. Any chance we could have something like the MP5 take pistol ammo? Makes it a little more versatile and helps with the great ammo depression we're going through, thanks to the nerf.

VORTS:
I touched on this topic a little on the Rebel discord, but essentially what I was saying was Vorts are incredibly clumsy and do a lot of stupid shit, but the problem is that these Vorts can't really be held accountable for their actions or told "No" because they will absolutely stomp any rebel in a 1v1, regardless of the gear they have. Also doesn't help that because of their hive-mind, if you have beef with one of them, you've got beef with all, so it simply isn't worth the hassle to try and control them. So I guess nerf Vorts...? I dunno, more of a player thing then a server thing I guess.

That's all, folks. Enjoy arguing in the comments.

 

[Eviction Notice]

Go do an Expo, it's much safer, and the rewards are about the same.

You've sort-of pointed towards one of the main contributions for your concern in a roundabout way.

 

[MisterMysteryMan]

You've sort-of pointed towards one of the main contributions for your concern in a roundabout way.

I did mention over-reliance on Expo as a problem, however I probably should've touch on it a little more, but "wait for expos" is definitely the mindset rebels are in rn

 

[melodicwaste]

Remove all guns from the game and reroute the server to full-on political RP at all times

 

[NanCi_]

 

[Goulashnikov]

tl;dr for below: Factions lack goals because they're not allowed to change anything about their circumstances, meaning players only care about their individual characters and not a wider storyline, and as a result will prefer to avoid engaging in any roleplay that might cause them to lose their characters.

The setting of Half-Life 2 is honestly a really bad one for roleplay. All of humanity is hopeless to rise against a force with practically unlimited resources until a messianic figure arrives and collapses the entire thing in a handful of weeks. Because Willard is set in the time period between Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2, you cannot majorly change the story because that would mess with the canon of the actual game. Because of this, the rebel faction in Willard cannot actually make a noticeable change on the server, since

Since our server is set before events of Half-Life 2, the player's actions on the server cannot change the canon, otherwise HL2 wouldn't occur and we'd no longer be an HL2RP server. For this reason, the server must operate off of 4 unchangeable facts of the setting:

1. The rebels must fight a better-armed and better-equipped faction with unlimited resources.
2. The Rebel faction may not capture the city or force a change in the political situation, because then the Combine, which possesses unlimited resources, would quickly crush them with overwhelming firepower.
3. The Citizen faction’s characters are always one misplaced cough away from being PK’d, because the Combine plan to kill off the human race anyway.
4. The Civil Administration faction may not shift the politics or loyalties of the city as a whole away from anything but total obedience to the Combine; otherwise, they would be executed or destroyed with overwhelming force.

Because the server's setting is before Half-Life 2, no significant changes to the political landscape may occur, and the Rebels cannot achieve any actual goals. Otherwise, the canon story of Half-Life 2 would be altered. This leaves the majority of factions without any end-game goals:

• Since the Combine are still around and cannot be removed from the city, the Rebels' only long-term goal is to survive.
• Since the city will always remain under Combine control and they don't value life, the citizens' only long-term goal is to survive.
• Since the city government is still beholden to the Combine Overworld, the civil administration's only long-term goal is to survive. Best way to do that? Never develop any coherent politics outside of "Combine good."

This leaves us with only the Civil Protection and Overwatch with any sort of goal, which is some kind of vague "keep control" and "fight rebels." Both of which you don't really have to do because you can never lose control nor can the rebels ever take over the city.

Back when V3 was being designed, I suggested setting the server several years after Episode 2.

• City 24 has lost contact with the Overworld and can no longer rely on reinforcements.
• Lambda has collapsed into regional rebel groups with the disappearance of Gordon Freeman (see Laidlaw's Epistle 3).
• Several cities across the globe have either fallen to one of the many new rebel groups, been destroyed in the fighting, or gone rogue as city-states that look to hold onto their power.
• Most cities still pledge loyalty to the Combine, either hoping they will eventually return or perhaps attempting to revive teleportation technology to facilitate their return.
• The Combine's genocide against humans, the ecological damage done to Earth, and the years of fighting in the post-Ep 2 era have led to humans becoming an endangered species in a sense. Suppression Fields continue to exist in many places across the planet, with city governments unwilling to destroy their citadels to shut them off. The value of human life has now grown exponentially.

This fixes numerous problems:

• Rebels can now work towards removing the Combine from City 24.
  • If the Rebels somehow take the city, congrats, the Combine are now the rebels.
  • Also have fun dealing with the politics of nation building. (Legit, have fun, imagine the rebel politics and infighting that would result.)
• PKs for citizens are likely to become less common since the excuse that the Combine are just going to wipe all humans out anyways no longer applies.
  • Meaning citizens no longer have to kiss ass 24/7. Imagine the CWU going on strike for better pay and not just being gunned down immediately.
• Civil Administration can actually play politics, with different factions rising to decide the city's next course of actions, attempting to hybridize human and Combine ideologies, etc.
• The Civil Protection and Overwatch now run the risk of losing control of the city.

When I suggested this on the lore writing team, it was immediately shut down and I was told it would never happen with no explanation aside from "it wouldn't work."

 

[mmate88]

 

[RedHotGinger]

Wont beat around the bush with my take here, but here's what I think.

One of the inherent challenges with rebels in a City RP setting, is that they exist in direct opposition to literally every other faction and entity sharing it with them.

Every other factions exists, in some form or fashion, to keep the city chugging along. 'Status Quo' is thrown around as a derogatory term, and rarely people are correct to use it in some contexts, but mostly its just how things are cause its the way that things work in.

So, if rebels get the advantage, which the servers gameplay systems are inherently setup for this to happen eventually, they'll pretty much dismantle the setting piece by piece from that point. Like it or not, give a bunch of rebels max armor, rifles and the ammo to use them and the meds to stay alive ; they will use that to storm over every other faction. Because that's why those items exist, on a gameplay level. Which runs counter to what we'd prefer as an RP server.

It's why, I'm guessing, there's all these new roadblocks like blueprints. Or weapons being turned uncraftable, or limitations on shotcops etc. It's because there isn't really any 'perfect' middle-ground.

Rebels are either too weak and thus unable to act. Or they are too strong, and abuse their capacity to act. Even if a hypothetical total balance was reached, community mindset would swing one way or the other depending on who won or lost the latest laggy S2K fight.

Hell, for all the limitations put on rebels, they still have more narrative and server relevance than any non-CvR faction. Just as Civil Protection does. S2K is the primary driver for the Willard story, more often than not. Our map switches have been at the backing of an uprising more often than not, remember.

Not saying its perfect, or even good. Just wanting to inject some reality into this. CvR is a snowball effect that eventually spins itself apart.

 

[Lab]

The rebel also has much more to lose if he fails to win this fight; if the i5 dies, he loses his rank (Or just remains an I5, Doubt they force him to be a recruit again) and some cash. If the rebel dies, he loses EVERYTHING and has to start over again. Is this inherently a bad thing? No, he took his chances and went ahead with the attack, knowing that there's a good chance he would've died, but I'm merely highlighting how much more is at stake for the rebel compared to the Civpro officer. In summary

Remember that little feud between City 13 and City 24? Y'know, when their president or whatever got assassinated and the city broke out into chaos with constant shellings and riots? Within that week, around 10 officers were killed in S2K ALONE, not even factoring in the other off-screen deaths from CivPro suffered around this time. You'd think that with casualties as high as this would place a great strain on their numbers? Nope! This series of catastrophic events had no effect on their forces whatsoever (At least visibly). If this is the case, why even bother to shoot-cop if you don't even put a dent in their numbers?

Though I disagree with much of what's been said, these two points ring true. Civil Protection can be trounced and instantly replenished at full strength, making their losses meaningless.

This isn't just a problem for CvR, it bleeds into and affects roleplay as well. It's difficult to take a character's death seriously in the CivPro if that player immediately creates a new one, especially if that new character shares a similar personality and they gravitate toward the same characters without IC reason. It kinda removes all salience to that death in a way.

I'm not quite sure what the best solution is to the RP side of things are. Temporary faction bans? I don't know, but this has been a problem for a while and it deserves an attempt at remedy.

Regarding the equipment side of things that Goulash pointed out: The only solution I can think that would definitively solve this is an extremely meticulous system of 'City resources' that follow trends of generation and downfall as resources are 'spent', destroyed, and created respectively. Weapons, etc would be finite, and regeneration would occur after Administrators spend money to create or purchase guns from abroad (the money is then 'destroyed', cut out of server circulation). This would require a mind-numbing amount of clerical effort, brainpower, and coordination to work, but it'd give meaning to money and material, Civil Protection having to manage what they're given carefully, advocate through the MCP to make requests for larger equipment stipends, etc. Because at the moment stuff seems to spontaneously pop into thin air. Meaningless.

----

That being said, what Ginger said is true. The nature of the rebel faction and their 'goals' is anti-RP. They're disruptors and reactionary, not offering much more than dismantling established structures of roleplay or engaging in rushed and unnuanced acts of violence like bombing the CMU, which only serves to further their reputation as the 'bad guys' (which shouldn't be the case).

The only way to give rebels a meaningful goal is through a multiple-ending arc spanning the course of several months or even a year, which would again, have to be organised meticulously by the event team. Otherwise, rebels exist as a directionless antipode to City RP. When rebels win big, much of the time, RP for everyone else suffers.

----

These solutions proposed are incredibly lofty and idealistic. But I am a utopian. I really have no other realistic fixes, besides continuing the never-ending ebb and flow back-and-forth of restricting then burgeoning rebels when people inevitably become unhappy again. As the others have mentioned, HL2RP is an imperfect gamemode with imperfect dynamics, with the only conceivable remedy being intense top-down management to include everyone in a narrative where everyone can creatively win, and every action has an effect and lends itself to a satisfying conclusion. As much as this is something I'd like to see, it's unworldly. A utopian fairytale with its own new host of problems.

Enough yapping on my end. Would love to hear your thoughts.

 

[melodicwaste]

tl;dr for below: Factions lack goals because they're not allowed to change anything about their circumstances, meaning players only care about their individual characters and not a wider storyline, and as a result will prefer to avoid engaging in any roleplay that might cause them to lose their characters.

The setting of Half-Life 2 is honestly a really bad one for roleplay. All of humanity is hopeless to rise against a force with practically unlimited resources until a messianic figure arrives and collapses the entire thing in a handful of weeks. Because Willard is set in the time period between Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2, you cannot majorly change the story because that would mess with the canon of the actual game. Because of this, the rebel faction in Willard cannot actually make a noticeable change on the server, since

Since our server is set before events of Half-Life 2, the player's actions on the server cannot change the canon, otherwise HL2 wouldn't occur and we'd no longer be an HL2RP server. For this reason, the server must operate off of 4 unchangeable facts of the setting:

1. The rebels must fight a better-armed and better-equipped faction with unlimited resources.
2. The Rebel faction may not capture the city or force a change in the political situation, because then the Combine, which possesses unlimited resources, would quickly crush them with overwhelming firepower.
3. The Citizen faction’s characters are always one misplaced cough away from being PK’d, because the Combine plan to kill off the human race anyway.
4. The Civil Administration faction may not shift the politics or loyalties of the city as a whole away from anything but total obedience to the Combine; otherwise, they would be executed or destroyed with overwhelming force.

Because the server's setting is before Half-Life 2, no significant changes to the political landscape may occur, and the Rebels cannot achieve any actual goals. Otherwise, the canon story of Half-Life 2 would be altered. This leaves the majority of factions without any end-game goals:

• Since the Combine are still around and cannot be removed from the city, the Rebels' only long-term goal is to survive.
• Since the city will always remain under Combine control and they don't value life, the citizens' only long-term goal is to survive.
• Since the city government is still beholden to the Combine Overworld, the civil administration's only long-term goal is to survive. Best way to do that? Never develop any coherent politics outside of "Combine good."

This leaves us with only the Civil Protection and Overwatch with any sort of goal, which is some kind of vague "keep control" and "fight rebels." Both of which you don't really have to do because you can never lose control nor can the rebels ever take over the city.

Back when V3 was being designed, I suggested setting the server several years after Episode 2.

• City 24 has lost contact with the Overworld and can no longer rely on reinforcements.
• Lambda has collapsed into regional rebel groups with the disappearance of Gordon Freeman (see Laidlaw's Epistle 3).
• Several cities across the globe have either fallen to one of the many new rebel groups, been destroyed in the fighting, or gone rogue as city-states that look to hold onto their power.
• Most cities still pledge loyalty to the Combine, either hoping they will eventually return or perhaps attempting to revive teleportation technology to facilitate their return.
• The Combine's genocide against humans, the ecological damage done to Earth, and the years of fighting in the post-Ep 2 era have led to humans becoming an endangered species in a sense. Suppression Fields continue to exist in many places across the planet, with city governments unwilling to destroy their citadels to shut them off. The value of human life has now grown exponentially.

This fixes numerous problems:

• Rebels can now work towards removing the Combine from City 24.
  • If the Rebels somehow take the city, congrats, the Combine are now the rebels.
  • Also have fun dealing with the politics of nation building. (Legit, have fun, imagine the rebel politics and infighting that would result.)
• PKs for citizens are likely to become less common since the excuse that the Combine are just going to wipe all humans out anyways no longer applies.
  • Meaning citizens no longer have to kiss ass 24/7. Imagine the CWU going on strike for better pay and not just being gunned down immediately.
• Civil Administration can actually play politics, with different factions rising to decide the city's next course of actions, attempting to hybridize human and Combine ideologies, etc.
• The Civil Protection and Overwatch now run the risk of losing control of the city.

When I suggested this on the lore writing team, it was immediately shut down and I was told it would never happen with no explanation aside from "it wouldn't work."

Have you considered making a server of your own? I would love to see this idea in-action, specifically in some of the lesser-used (never) regions of HL2RP, like Africa or Asia.

Maybe a industrialized Chinese sector with a high loyalist count disconnected from the rest of the Eurocentric City/Terminals with the only real contact being with the Japanese and Korean sector's, who equally trade resources and hold out hope for recommunication. They could allow further liberties to avoid total anarchy, or maybe more ascensionist and hardliner faction struggle to take over for the bout of control, perhaps funded by Tenzhen Industries(or any other country)?

The rebellion could be a mix of Communist-and-otherwise radical factions squabbling with each-other over petty differences - the main reason the City hasn't been fully liberated by Lambda (or what's left of it) - and the players together will have to overcome ideological restrictions to take over the walled-in City, maybe the CCA could be comprised of flagrant ne'er-do-wells, brainwashed collaborators and otherwise power-hungry despots who, although making some concessions to the common people, still hold some authority over the City- and could be directly leading Civil Protection with a more hands-on approach.
This is just off the top of my head.

 

[NanCi_]

Regarding the equipment side of things that Goulash pointed out: The only solution I can think that would definitively solve this is an extremely meticulous system of 'City resources' that follow trends of generation and downfall as resources are 'spent', destroyed, and created respectively. Weapons, etc would be finite, and regeneration would occur after Administrators spend money to create or purchase guns from abroad (the money is then 'destroyed', cut out of server circulation). This would require a mind-numbing amount of clerical effort, brainpower, and coordination to work, but it'd give meaning to money and material, Civil Protection having to manage what they're given carefully, advocate through the MCP to make requests for larger equipment stipends, etc. Because at the moment stuff seems to spontaneously pop into thin air. Meaningless.

You also have an issue with that is because most faction leads don't want to deal with major damage to an area lets say the CWU warehouse to starve out production. You physically can't as FLs can simply just say no so the only way you can cause damage is through Expos where you attack the trains to burn / steal the resources for something huge while still choking out the city for essential resources. You also have to remind yourself that credits are not worth anything to some extent so if the Server Council / gameplay team or whoever is managing the city fund credits can just... replenish it through some bull shit IC means.


before you had gutsy doing crazy damage to the city that would force the server to switch without any notice and now you can't even pull off anything like at all.

Since our server is set before events of Half-Life 2, the player's actions on the server cannot change the canon, otherwise HL2 wouldn't occur and we'd no longer be an HL2RP server. For this reason, the server must operate off of 4 unchangeable facts of the setting:

1. The rebels must fight a better-armed and better-equipped faction with unlimited resources.
2. The Rebel faction may not capture the city or force a change in the political situation, because then the Combine, which possesses unlimited resources, would quickly crush them with overwhelming firepower.
3. The Citizen faction’s characters are always one misplaced cough away from being PK’d, because the Combine plan to kill off the human race anyway.
4. The Civil Administration faction may not shift the politics or loyalties of the city as a whole away from anything but total obedience to the Combine; otherwise, they would be executed or destroyed with overwhelming force.

Because the server's setting is before Half-Life 2, no significant changes to the political landscape may occur, and the Rebels cannot achieve any actual goals. Otherwise, the canon story of Half-Life 2 would be altered. This leaves the majority of factions without any end-game goals:

• Since the Combine are still around and cannot be removed from the city, the Rebels' only long-term goal is to survive.
• Since the city will always remain under Combine control and they don't value life, the citizens' only long-term goal is to survive.
• Since the city government is still beholden to the Combine Overworld, the civil administration's only long-term goal is to survive. Best way to do that? Never develop any coherent politics outside of "Combine good."

This leaves us with only the Civil Protection and Overwatch with any sort of goal, which is some kind of vague "keep control" and "fight rebels." Both of which you don't really have to do because you can never lose control nor can the rebels ever take over the city.

I do agree with the realistic lore from half life but we've already fumbled that in several cases with the complete destruction of several C-24 & the liquidation of I-24 by C-13 and the combine. The only reason we are actually touching C24 is because we are pretending that the city is still healthy and Orwell did such a good job of not getting killed by the combine for completely fucking up the entirety of C24.

I think the actual problem is that the server council wants to milk a map till its all bones so anything you do is done to a really small scale so we don't need to swap maps. :

So, if rebels get the advantage, which the servers gameplay systems are inherently setup for this to happen eventually, they'll pretty much dismantle the setting piece by piece from that point. Like it or not, give a bunch of rebels max armor, rifles and the ammo to use them and the meds to stay alive ; they will use that to storm over every other faction. Because that's why those items exist, on a gameplay level. Which runs counter to what we'd prefer as an RP server.

And if we keep thinking like this, then the server will die anyways because every single rebel will be so equipped that they don't want to leave their confines except during expos where you can't die anyways.

Someone did mention that the french server have nearly 0 rebels or rebels that are in hiding 24/7 and the reason for that is that the CPs and OTA are actually competent players unlike willard main CPs who consist of concrete chewers and "roleplayers".

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

The only solution I can think that would definitively solve this is an extremely meticulous system of 'City resources' that follow trends of generation and downfall as resources are 'spent', destroyed, and created respectively. Weapons, etc would be finite, and regeneration would occur after Administrators spend money to create or purchase guns from abroad (the money is then 'destroyed', cut out of server circulation).

Honestly thought this is what the GoI update was gonna do - CWU actually having to supply Civil Protection with ammo, guns and etc. Obviously, it would put incredible strain on the faction, so the idea of delegating it to import management is much better.

This would require a mind-numbing amount of clerical effort, brainpower, and coordination to work

Well, could just use the GoI stock mechanic. Add something akin to the CivPro ration machine (the one that lets you take rations out of city stock to reward people) and just switch the contents to ammo. The CWU terminal allows purchasing stock from other Cities, so you can spend your faction's budget on buying ammo and etc. All you'd need is to add it to the list along with all the other items, I assume.

 

[NanCi_]

Well, could just use the GoI stock mechanic. Add something akin to the CivPro ration machine (the one that lets you take rations out of city stock to reward people) and just switch the contents to ammo. The CWU terminal allows purchasing stock from other Cities, so you can spend your faction's budget on buying ammo and etc. All you'd need is to add it to the list along with all the other items, I assume.

This. Could make some sort of Quartermaster role for CPs who manage ins and outs of equipment including the management of the production with the help of CWU allowing potential RP as well as making a similar tab for bartering for the CPs but instead of credits they use STC or have a credit to STC conversion.

 

[NanCi_]

@MisterMysteryMan If nothing comes out of this , can you sign this please?

 

[MrTuki]

Okay, when was the last time the Combine faction suffered an extremely humiliating, embarrassing defeat on main since the Partisans were wiped out? Struggling to remember? Thought so.

PARTISANS MENTIONED
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[TheGamingPlumber]

CWU actually having to supply Civil Protection with ammo, guns and etc

We're banned from fabricating ammo

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

We're banned from fabricating ammo

Yeah, hence why I'm talking in past tense.

 

[Rabid]

CityRP's biggest problem is the status quo needs to stay solid to function. That's why you can't ever really have the Combine (or, Cops, mainly) actually 'lose' or suffer attrition. Push it too far and you end up in an Uprising and then the server ends and resets.

Which would be fine, but Willard relies on CityRP to stay afloat and a reset risks pushing people away because they lose all their progress.

The downside of this, though, is it makes rebels feel like they can't do anything or make major change - which on a grand scale, beyond personal narratives, they can't.

 

[mmate88]

CityRP's biggest problem is the status quo needs to stay solid to function. That's why you can't ever really have the Combine (or, Cops, mainly) actually 'lose' or suffer attrition. Push it too far and you end up in an Uprising and then the server ends and resets.

Which would be fine, but Willard relies on CityRP to stay afloat and a reset risks pushing people away because they lose all their progress.

The downside of this, though, is it makes rebels feel like they can't do anything or make major change - which on a grand scale, beyond personal narratives, they can't.

In my opinion, the CityRP's rebellion should operate like the IRA did or other terrorist cells.
Instead of a direct gunfights, they should use underhanded tactics to get their way.
such as sabotage, intimidation, kidnapping, and political violence, heck, maybe a shotcop from time to time if the cps push their luck around the slums.
I can't make myself clear enough when I say "time to time", and "push their luck around the slums"
I think a little more attrition would be beneficial, but nothing crippling because as you mentioned it risks an uprising.

 

[Malic]

At this point we're on the back half of a 5 plus year long stageplay incorporating something like 10 thousand characters. I understand by nothing you mean nothing major, but whenever I hear this sentiment I always think back to the same scene from Adaptation.

​

I guess from a loyalist player perspective it really doesn't seem like nothing. It's been a very eventful week I feel! Though with playing a well connected character orchestrating the goings on of a Ministry it's probable I'm just seeing the after image of a great number of more dramatic beats than any one rebel character.

I think at this point in my Willard career my primary focus is as simple as it's ever been, in a great big game of improv how do we "yes, and" with the best of em? The day to day struggles of keeping an insurgency running in a sci-fi dystopia I would hope can make for an appealing narrative day by day. An altercation with officers or an impactful attack seems like the possible end of long storyline.

People behind attacks in the real world rarely escape and live to tell the tale. Such is the fate of going so squarely against the grain of society as it stands. Personally I think my favorite attack of the last arc was the symbolic one one the Breen Statue. The supports made to keep it upright really made v4 feel unique.

I think maybe a goal of rebels could be to focus on attacks that leave impacts that last through the duration of the map. Really scar it up for the duration of play so as to most make the most unique playthrough of v3 it can hope to be. In a lot of ways this week I think we're already seeing that.

I hope you can find yourself involved in scenes where something happens gamer.