Proposals & A Vision for V3

[ramen]

I ain’t reading all of this thread, but I’ll give my 2 cents, even if it’s in the main post or not.

I. There is a general fear of losing a character, even if the character is doing nefarious things. People are AFRAID to lose, when sometimes losing helps you in the end. LEARN from PK’d chars, correct mistakes, or start a new path with your next char. Take the chance for a fresh char to do fresh ideas.

II. I want to discredit and also sympathize with circlejerk rebels. I know what it’s like to lose everything, but when you sit in the slums all day and only talk with other rebels, YOU ARE NO LONGER A REBEL in my eyes. Rebels should be guiding civilians into the light, even if that civilian might leave and report them. You HAVE to take risks, that’s what being a rebel is about. If you take no risks, and only strike when you know you won’t lose, what’s the fun?

III. This goes for all civilians, TAKE RISKS. The other day on a char, I took the risk to try to lure a CP to a spot where I could ambush them, and I did. I knocked them out, took their gun, and killed them. Then, more CPs came, and I actually timescaled and role played in a fun way, we didn’t just all out S2K. I ended up dying, having a man attack me from the front, and a CP shoot me from behind, but I was OK WITH IT. I enjoyed the RP I had, even if I got PK’d. That’s what enjoying RP is. Taking the bad with the good.

IV. CPs now. STOP BEING FUCKING ROBOCOPS. YOU ARE HUMAN. BE DUMB. The CP I lured, they took the risk of following a civilian alone, and they paid the price. But, you know what? Even though I ended up killing them ICly, I will respect them forever OOCly. They did a dumb mistake, they died, THEY RP’D. I enjoyed my interaction, and the CP not being an auto, “<:: I have no backup. No thanks. Deal with it yourself. ::>” cop, I LOVED IT.
HE MESSED UP ICLY, AND THEN DIDNT WHINE THAT HE DIED. I LOVE YOU, TO THAT CP. THANK YOU.

That is my 2 cents,
Civilians/rebels; take more fucking risks, stop being scaredy-cat pissbabies afraid to lose.
CPs; Be human, take risks too, don’t be hive mind robocops.

Thank you, good bye, God bless.

 

[Merlinsclaw]

While this would be an interesting take on the CWU, and it has some RP potential, this is nowhere viable in a HL2 setting.

Do a strike? Civil Protection can, and will, strike you down.
The factory management stuff might be more feasable, so thats a usable idea if anything.

It’s a matter of creating roleplay and not killing it out. Things are feasible, and very much have been done, if people are willing to pursue the concepts. Civil Protection could be used by whatever powers may be to beat the fuck out of a picketline but they may not be able to force them to go back to work.

The problem is people refuse to do said concepts

 

[John Rico]

While this would be an interesting take on the CWU, and it has some RP potential, this is nowhere viable in a HL2 setting.

Do a strike? Civil Protection can, and will, strike you down.
The factory management stuff might be more feasable, so thats a usable idea if anything.

Merlin is trying to sell people on the endgame of each suggestion instead of the more mundane side of things. Strikes would still have to be a rare event, but I'd really enjoy the citizen-CWU interactions more if the Workers Union actually tried to function as a union, balancing the mafia/strong arm tactics aspects of it with the kind of creative politics that you would need for an organization like that to survive in a totalitarian regime.

Most of the times workshift roleplay is so mind-numbingly boring because the foreman acts like a literal cardboard cutout yelling instructions (who are usually compounded by your gang of SC grinders), any reason you can come up with to encourage more compelling CWU interactions in workshifts and outside of them will automatically make citizen roleplay as a whole way better.

 

[Merlinsclaw]

Merlin is trying to sell people on the endgame of each suggestion instead of the more mundane side of things. Strikes would still have to be a rare event, but I'd really enjoy the citizen-CWU interactions more if the Workers Union actually tried to function as a union, balancing the mafia/strong arm tactics aspects of it with the kind of creative politics that you would need for an organization like that to survive in a totalitarian regime.

Most of the times workshift roleplay is so mind-numbingly boring because the foreman acts like a literal cardboard cutout yelling instructions (who are usually compounded by your gang of SC grinders), any reason you can come up with to encourage more compelling CWU interactions in workshifts and outside of them will automatically make citizen roleplay as a whole way better.

yeah this

the mundane can be just as fun. you can't have crazy shit without the buildup, and sometimes the buildup is the best

 

[Conundrum]

Merlin is trying to sell people on the endgame of each suggestion instead of the more mundane side of things. Strikes would still have to be a rare event, but I'd really enjoy the citizen-CWU interactions more if the Workers Union actually tried to function as a union, balancing the mafia/strong arm tactics aspects of it with the kind of creative politics that you would need for an organization like that to survive in a totalitarian regime.

Most of the times workshift roleplay is so mind-numbingly boring because the foreman acts like a literal cardboard cutout yelling instructions (who are usually compounded by your gang of SC grinders), any reason you can come up with to encourage more compelling CWU interactions in workshifts and outside of them will automatically make citizen roleplay as a whole way better.

I honestly feel like in any situation where the Civil Workers Union is an independent political entity is one wherein they would hold too much control over city politics. The main reason Heartwick was elected as the City Arbiter (and later Administrator) was because the various factions not-so-subtly suggested their employee's within the Security Council vote against Casto. In terms of organic player drive, the Italian arguably should have won.

Now imagine for a moment if the CWU was comprised of the general skilled workforce without being beholden to any form of oversight to prevent extortion. The leader of the CWU would in essence have political weight rivalling that of the City Administrator, provided in this situation the Administrator can't just order anyone they dislike to be shipped away and never seen again.

Which is arguably the only way this would work.

 

[Rabid]

The combines Afghanistan seems to be moving towards the other end of the spectrum too much, essentially going from the one extremt to the other, with no happy medium in between. Yes I have re-iterated what DeNuke stated, but we spoke at length about it and I feel the same. The combine are a force to be reckoned with and shouldn't be sugar coated or negated in this manner.

The Combine having a looser grip on earth does not somehow invalidate the fact they are an incredibly massive interuniversal empire. It just allows more to happen within the scope of the conflict.

Like the Ceph (circa Crysis 1) are murdering both the PLA and US military in the game with their version of roombas strapped with gardening tools. They're literally alien botanists having to smash ants while the ants fight for their lives.

Why can this not apply to the Combine and still be interesting? We know they're not using the same force that conquered the earth in 7 hours. A lot of their current strength is made up of converted local species. It doesn't make the Combine weak to acknowledge that; if anything it makes them more terrifying.

I dont see a need for moving away from a hard occupation. Its working well enough at the moment, we just need some RP tweeks here and there to improve on it.

Is it really? A community that had faith in its flagship setting wouldn't be going into their third revision in under two years of being active. Its not 2021 anymore and WN isn't the hottest thing on the market even when it comes to hard occupation.

There are servers in the works that are going to really strain WN in that regard. Wouldn't it be better to reopen with a new view of the setting?

 

[Merlinsclaw]

Some other things that I've thought of regarding V3 and what should be done:

- 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.


If I think of anything else, I'll report it here.

 

[ShadoWiz4rd]

I hope we see a mafia infiltrate and puppeteer CWU either next iteration or during this one

 

[Merlinsclaw]

bump because I was talking about it

 

[translated_iron]

I agree with this post whole-heartedly. Your proposed changes are much needed and would be a far more fun take on an RP server in the Half-Life setting than the current one.
What'd also be nice for CWU (or any faction for that matter) is if the employees could elect their director every now and then. This is not my idea, I stole it from another long-standing willard player bc we talked about it.

It'd make sense lore-wise, as the Combine would rather not have the employees hate their boss as it introduces the thought of revolting / changing the system as a whole / straight up murdering the director. Additionally, it'd give the illusion of reform by allowing elections of pre-vetted candidates by the previous director (I'd propose all of management in this case who were of course instituted by the previous director in the first place).

And it'd mix things up for once and introduce new people to positions of leadership. It gets new ideas rolling and makes the server more lively and loyalism / collaboration more interactive.

 

[Headcrab]

No one asked for it, but here's my two cents on one of the ideas, feel free to debate it or hate it.

'The Combine's Afghanistan'

While I agree with some of these points, Earth being on the edge of the Galaxy shunted far away from the combine and being a backwater dirtball they barely can summon the existence to care for. Turning them to a generic Solar empire with limited resources is the exact opposite of what I think was always intended for them.

The Combine are powerful in that we never know the true strength of their numbers, forces, or what they can do. The Seven hour war is just that, a war that took earth's governments completely by surprise, and over the course of less than a standard workday for some office workers, they had practically defeated every nations military and begun bartering peace deals where they are the defacto controllers of earth.

Here's a counter-idea, a twist on your idea combined with some hard but brutal facts that'd make the dystopian feel that bit more inducing.

Spoiler: Proposal

What if the Combine, just didn't give a shit about earth?
They came, they conquered, installed a human-based government, converted most of the military population to transhumans bent to fight against their will, installed a police-force (again all-human) left them the schematics to make the basics such as gunships, striders, hunter, etc. And then pretty much let the resources come in as they came and forgot about it. A pin-prick in the background of their empire that sends them the occasional resource but nothing major. There's a few advisors left on earth to oversee things like an ambassador (Or a manager) but otherwise? There's nothing for them to care about on this backwater planet. Everything on the planet now? It's all humans fighting humans once more for an empire that isn't even around anymore outside of Advisors.

I mean, let's be real, over the course of the original games, do we ever fight the combine directly? Do we ever see Seven Hour war levels of synthetics and war machines dotting the sky even while the major de-facto city of the UU on Earth is tearing itself apart? Naw.

Maybe that's because they don't care. To humans, of course, we're taking the fight right to the combine, trying to push their influence off earth but, at this point, the combine have abandoned the planet, yanked what they wanted and are now leaving it running in the background without a care. It isn't till there's a threat of direct involvement, where the Advisors are being threatened that there's the possibility of the greater Combine getting involved again, and to quote Eli Vance. "It'll be the Seven Hour War, all over again. Except this time we won't last seven minutes."

 

[Merlinsclaw]

I agree with this post whole-heartedly. Your proposed changes are much needed and would be a far more fun take on an RP server in the Half-Life setting than the current one.
What'd also be nice for CWU (or any faction for that matter) is if the employees could elect their director every now and then. This is not my idea, I stole it from another long-standing willard player bc we talked about it.

It'd make sense lore-wise, as the Combine would rather not have the employees hate their boss as it introduces the thought of revolting / changing the system as a whole / straight up murdering the director. Additionally, it'd give the illusion of reform by allowing elections of pre-vetted candidates by the previous director (I'd propose all of management in this case who were of course instituted by the previous director in the first place).

And it'd mix things up for once and introduce new people to positions of leadership. It gets new ideas rolling and makes the server more lively and loyalism / collaboration more interactive.

Cool idea. I like it.

 

[George]

Just move to semi-serious clonewars RP everyone will love it

 

[Anthrax_PL]

What'd also be nice for CWU (or any faction for that matter) is if the employees could elect their director every now and then. This is not my idea, I stole it from another long-standing willard player bc we talked about it.

It'd make sense lore-wise, as the Combine would rather not have the employees hate their boss as it introduces the thought of revolting / changing the system as a whole / straight up murdering the director. Additionally, it'd give the illusion of reform by allowing elections of pre-vetted candidates by the previous director (I'd propose all of management in this case who were of course instituted by the previous director in the first place).

in character this absolutely makes zero sense

companies IRL don't let their employies elect their manager/director/boss so why would the workers union in a dystopian hl2rp setting do it




on another note i still miss your supervisor

 

[Deleted member 2717]

companies IRL don't let their employies elect their manager/director/boss so why would the workers union in a dystopian hl2rp setting do it

Companies dont, but Unions do. They're advocating for the CWU to act more like a Worker's Union instead of a company.

 

[Anthrax_PL]

Companies dont, but Unions do. They're advocating for the CWU to act more like a Worker's Union instead of a company.

I take that statement back then.

If the combine don't really care about earth then that sounds like an interesting concept.

 

[Salty]

I agree with this post whole-heartedly. Your proposed changes are much needed and would be a far more fun take on an RP server in the Half-Life setting than the current one.
What'd also be nice for CWU (or any faction for that matter) is if the employees could elect their director every now and then. This is not my idea, I stole it from another long-standing willard player bc we talked about it.

It'd make sense lore-wise, as the Combine would rather not have the employees hate their boss as it introduces the thought of revolting / changing the system as a whole / straight up murdering the director. Additionally, it'd give the illusion of reform by allowing elections of pre-vetted candidates by the previous director (I'd propose all of management in this case who were of course instituted by the previous director in the first place).

And it'd mix things up for once and introduce new people to positions of leadership. It gets new ideas rolling and makes the server more lively and loyalism / collaboration more interactive.

This is a really good idea. If you think about it make sure the current director is in line. Making them want to do good to constantly get reelected to the position. And ICly can promote strikes and etc if the director does something the workers hate and etc. A lot of rp that can be made from that.

 

[Fentsoldier153]

What we really need is how to fix the fucking timing out bug-

 

[Processed_Grain]

It's time.

 

[Khrushchev]

So this thread got bumped. This was my original vision when I proposed we wipe V2 and start V3. I think it's still relevant nearly 3 years later. But I want to address one thing that I think V3 should do, even now, if nothing else from here is taken into consideration:


- If the server is going to be set during pre-HLA (which I don't think it should), I think there needs to be a 'twist.' Something interesting that makes the setting and server unique. If Willard is just copying a bit before HL:A, I think it's going to be boring. You'd be better off to wait until HL3 comes out!