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Merlinsclaw
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I was asked to present a vision for HL2RP and Version 3.
This presentation includes quotes and ideas from several posts, reforms, and ideas over the past few years.
I present this as something for other people to argue for.
This does not take into account certain problems like RP Quality.
:Server Mentalities:
This section primarily puts up some baseline ideas around server mentalities that are the core fundamentals to later parts of this vision.
This presentation includes quotes and ideas from several posts, reforms, and ideas over the past few years.
I present this as something for other people to argue for.
This does not take into account certain problems like RP Quality.
:Server Mentalities:
This section primarily puts up some baseline ideas around server mentalities that are the core fundamentals to later parts of this vision.
Focusing on the Citizen & Player:
Foremost on the issue of focusing on the citizen. The server needs to focus on making the DAY to DAY gameplay of the citizen interesting. Inherently, the CORE of the server is the citizen faction. All other factions (CP, CCA, BRI, CWU, DOB, etc.) all builds around the citizen. To quote: "With a strong citizen focus, the server should become more active, new characters can (on day one) have loads of options that don't require writing an application, buying some rebel gear, or getting immediately murdered for a minor crime on the server like assault."
Ironman Mode:
Encourage a one life approach to PK's and lives. Appeal only if a rule has been broken or there's been a glitch. In the ideal world, if someone dies they take the loss and move on. It's a hard mentality to cultivate however.
Play to Win Mindset:
Both Rebels and the Combine, but moreso the Combine, suffer from a play-to-win mentality. The Combine inherently 'have to win.' Instead of promoting RP, the general consensus is to shut it down and 'win' against the rebels. The same mentality exists on the other side, but generally, this needs to be broken. More on this will be explored in the Setting/Lore Section (see; Combine Afghanistan).
:Setting & Lore:
This section will focus largely on the lore and setting. It's primary emphasis is towards a less lore-heavy server and a different setting.
This section will focus largely on the lore and setting. It's primary emphasis is towards a less lore-heavy server and a different setting.
'The Combine's Afghanistan'
"The Combine view Earth (Sol 3) as a distant and restless backwater, a constant thorn in larger, unknown plans, and an endless drain on resources that are needed elsewhere. An alien Afghanistan. The Combine hate Earth, not for any spiritual or philosophical reason, but because they are annoyed by it. Mildly inconvenienced by skirmishes on the distant edge of their empire, unwilling or unable to figure out an exit strategy to this seemingly endless occupation." Half Life Zero: An Alternative View of HL2RP
The first major change in the setting needs to be to waive this belief that the Combine are this huge infallible, infinite force. "The Combine wants you, the player, to think their state’s resources are infinite. After all, that is what every empire wants to show their enemy, as we have seen in Afghanistan..." The Combine, on Earth, can be beaten. The initial invasion of the Combine from the 7 Hours War is gone. What has replaced it is a loose, occupational government that is inherently ran by Humans (CCA, Transhumans, Metrocops, etc.) with minor support from the Combine's technology and some oversight (Advisors, Striders, Hunters, etc.) In HL2, the Combine don't call in reinforcements until the Citadel has collapsed and been destroyed. It's clear by the hasty retreat of the Advisors themselves that even an uprising as big as the end of HL2 seemed to believe the situation was under control. Earth, in this vision, is a backwater, restless, and distant colony. Uprisings are common across Sol. III. There's been a war on the Amur River that's been going on for years. Cities, at times, are in open uprisings. The Occupational Government infights, often. The Combine, ultimately, are not infallible and, more often than not, lose.
Refocusing on the Half Life aesthetic.
This section is brief. Refocus on the Half Life aesthetic. Have the Combine always working. Striders hauling this or that. Dropships flying over head. New structures being placed. A wall here. Cables hanging. A massive depot with green energy (such as the HL:A Vault) shooting green energy from here to there. Random poles being turned into Combine structures. This or that. Utilize what the Combine does and hone in on it. Beta or HL:A aesthetics. Don't just play off a 'we have infestation control' or this or that as the only way to display Half Life 2 style.
Moving Away from Hard Occupation
Hard Occupation, by definition, is generally defined as the 'middle' of the occupation. It's not Early Occupation nor is it Post-Occupation. It's the period where the Combine have full control and are at the peak of their power. In V3, or this vision, this would change. My personal opinion that the server should take place in the waning hours of the Occupation, after the fall of the Citadel, but in an occupied City. The Combine are on the retreat, backpedaling, and can easily lose BUT they still control the City that the server takes place in. Put the servers setting far away. North America, for example. Contact is cut with Europe. Something is going on. But it's not a WW3RP-esque setting. It's City RP with a twist. It also gives rise to interesting gameplay or events. On the flipside, you could set it during the early occupation, though the same sorta thing may not be done.
Lore: Show, Not Tell.
The lore should exist in only what the player can see. This notion is controversial, but ultimately, it should be true. The Lore Map (and the extensive lore that Willard has had and built on since 2019) has resulted in a mass of problems. Some lore is horrific and hard to read. Some of it is good. But it also constricts the Creative Team and players. A place may be constrained to a certain lore that may, infact, never be used. Rehauling the lore is a fucking massive pain. And a player may be constricted in the type of character they play due to X or Y being or not being in the lore. My suggestion is this: Remove the loremap (I know, a heretical act) and instead have a small writeup about the general consensus on lore. Important dates, information on here and there, and all done by the best writers. If something specifically is done (ala an event in Alaska), it will be committed to lore internally by the CT/Lore Team. Instead show lore through newspapers, broadcasts, and character stories. Furthermore, don't do a time rewind. Do a new timeline and have people pick out what they want.
:Factions & Gameplay:
This section will goes over factions. I'm going to cut down on this slightly but, it's wanted, I will explore it more.
The Map:This section will goes over factions. I'm going to cut down on this slightly but, it's wanted, I will explore it more.
Pick a small, compact map. Set it somewhere that isn't Europe or Japan. Per HLZ: Limit factions to small, semi-permanent HQs (Factions setting up shack stalls in the plaza or bombed out buildings). This applies to cops (and CCA) too, who have a shitty set of a couple of rooms in something like a mostly collapsed apartment block.
Citizens & 'Rebels'
Citizens, the focus of the server, are made up of a whole variety of classes. Loyalists. Regular people. Criminals. Rebels. All of these need to be examined. In particular, I believe that citizens should steer away from storefront RP and the like and be steered towards different forms of RP that don't require auths, becoming a rebel, farming, or getting insta-killed for assault. The mentality shouldn't be being afraid of doing crazy shit, it should be encouraging it. Gangs should be operating in broad daylight, without cop intervention, in the slums as they fight over gray markets that are overlooked by the State because, ultimately, the Combine are more concerned about resistance against the regime itself, etc.
On Loyalism: "Being a collaborator for an authoritarian alien regime shouldn't be an easy thing. At a certain point, you should be selling your soul to the regime for benefits but, alongside it, losing your freedoms of not being under the direct light of the regime. This reform, Gradient, seeks to scoop out the deeply rooted 'farming' to be an easy loyalist. You should be benefited with loyalism by developing your character rather than grinding. Alongside this, the very definition of Loyalism (at least how we usually look at it) should be reinvented. Conformity, or general acceptance of the Combine, (ala showing up to workshifts, generally following laws, etc) should be heavily contrasted to Loyalism. Loyalists should have genuine belief in the Combine. They should be beating their fellow citizen, burning books, attending rallies, and ratting out their neighbors. Furthermore, there should be a great disparity between the top and bottom. The ability to differentiate between the Loyalists and the lowest of Society should exist. With any luck, this 'class difference' will also help create RP." Willard already does this fairly well to a degree but I think the real killer to the grind would be the removal of SC from things like workshifts and the workdesk.
On Rebels: The term rebel (terrorist, freedom fighter, protester, insurgent, etc.) has been lost to instead mean someone with gear that sits in the slums and does nothing. I will call out names (because I don't care): Pathfinder & Devi are the two characters that shoot to the top of my mind when I think of circlejerk rebels that do nothing. The "resistance" does nothing outside of events or quests. Go infiltrate the Combine. Go start a riot!! Do something!! We need to encourage this instead of the weird circlejerk that exists, and I think, the best way to do this is by having rebels be inside the general city population. A wipe would also be beneficial (which is actually coming!)
CWU, DOB, CMU, and BRI
CWU: Changes detailed below. The CWU are not the workshift machine. They are a trade union that doesn't always get along with the leadership of the City. They'll go on strike. They'll shut down production. They'll do this and that and aren't just le workshifts.
- "A trade union that will advocate on behalf of workers to the city's leadership and civil protection. An organization that supports private business. A collection of tradies of varying quality.
- In general - workshifts are a terrible way of engaging with citizen players, the majority of them will avoid at all cost unless they are after a loyalist point. Try the other things instead of workshifts - and if you want to run a factory then recruit a roster of actual employees for the factory, that can have all sorts of character building over the usual workshift bullshit." - Citizen.
CMU: Use a poorly funded clinic model of RP. Shitty place but overall and alright faction.
BRI: "Adopt the Union Medical model and become broke. Have you been to real life labs? Most departments don't have a lot of resources. The science done here should be not-so-sleek or professional, it's a hangover from the willard days of space lasers, get right back to a mindset of a severely underfunded regional lab, some provincial institute of science made from some old eastern block university." - Citizen.
Civil Protection, OTA, & Dispatch
I played cop for the first time the other day and while I'd say it went fairly well, I did have a moment where I was just like 'what the fuck.' That moment came when a transaction appeared on the CP Hud and the Cop standing beside me checked it because it was in the slums. I think I nearly shot myself.
There's already some threads where these ideas have been discussed:
the actual working structure of the civil protection as defined by me, who am i?
THE OFFICER A beat cop, dime a dozen slucker without any other employable skills than a hatred for humankind. Nothing keeps them in line, some follow the rules as written and do the job the almighty benefactors defined for them and they end up dead two weeks later because their partner didn't...
willard.network
Basically here's my tl;dr:
- No Dispatch / Very Limited Dispatch that can be manually turned on and off.
- Desk Sergeant that acts as human dispatch. Corruptable.
- Rehaul Punishments. Make the only thing you are getting shot over be Combine tech, having a gun, or something along those lines. The default should be 'beat someone, take a bribe, extort them, etc.' (that means riots too!!)
- Encourage cop infighting. Fragging your fellow officers, etc.
- New taglines?
- Detectives
- Riot Cops & The Police Chief
- OTA are an event faction.
CCA
The CCA is alright but it promotes the status-quo. Heartwick and Mulligan being in power for five quadrillion years hasn't helped anything. I'm going to give three outlines for what the CCA could be:
1. Electoral C.C.A
This C.C.A is meant to be wildly political with varying power. Ideally, every three months the position of C.A would go up for election. The individual would come from the District Congress / Loyalist Congress / whatever the fuck we call it with some quality control. Either the Congress itself or the entire City would vote (via the forums) on the issue. (note: you have to make the vote public to look out for alts, nonplayers, etc.). From here, the C.A is elected and is in power for three months. It gives variety and some crazy political shit can go on as people go for the highest position possible. The CCA Lead (and Co-Lead?) would be the Sector Administrator and/or Arbitrator.
2. District Administration C.C.A
This C.C.A would have less amounts of power but would be wildly different. In this model, a map would be split in 2-3 districts (such as the Terminal Map rn) with each 'District' having a District Administrator. (D.A) Each D.A would control a predetermined section of the City (slums, normal area, loyalist area, w/e) and would have complete control in their district solely. They'd have no power over each other or otherwise. Maybe one section has prohibition and the other doesn't. Maybe one D.A controls the C.W.U factory and uses them as leverage against the others. It allows infighting and cool scenarios. In this system, the CCA Lead and Co-Lead would be the C.A and V.A, just in another district.
3. Junta C.C.A
The Military Junta C.C.A, like other factions, would operate out of a 'temporary H.Q' like a bombed out building and may fit in some setting better than others. The Junta would have a great deal of power and membership would vary based on the players. Civil Protection Rank Leaders, Influential Citizens, former CCA members, or whatever else anyone could think of. There'd be no application process and no predetermined leadership. The Council would be as large as the Council, and the server, allowed it to be. The Junta would have supreme control but their power, inherently, would come out of the barrel of a gun. They'd be encouraged and expected to utilize CPs on their payroll or a militia of their own to secure power. The man with the biggest stick wins and once they secure power, they'd be de-facto leader of the city. However, leadership only goes as far as people are willing to support it. You may be able to control the CPs or you may not. You may be the 'leader' one day and the next day a guy with an armed militia rolls into the building and overthrows you. The entire purpose is to give conflict that bleeds out to the rest of the server. (maybe give coupons for sterilized credits that cops can redeem?) The CCA Leads would likely be OOC quality control.
Other Changes
I'll add to this list if I think of anything:
- Add a physical currency. Maybe 'Tokens' that can be stacked (like metal/plastic/w.e) in stacks of 100. You could have some exchange terminal to turn S.C into Credits and vice versa. This promotes a gray market that can't exactly be monitored.
- I think a permanent move away from TBC would be beneficial.
- The edit of the combat system around moving away from TBC (ala, change guns damage, etc)
- The removal of radiobob, bonk soda, etc.
- The removal / renaming / restructuring / addition of the drugs. Add irl drugs too. Maybe a new drug system?
- Possibly rework how food works. Remove any stat boosts from food and solely have stat boosts come from drugs.
Ok. Thanks.
Argue below.
Argue below.
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