Restraint - A commodity

[registry: brush him]

The Long Haul has gone on for a long time, which is shocking, considering it was not named "The Short Haul". It should be more aptly named "The Really Fucking Long Haul", since we've been across the Atlantic, the Void, Xen, and Horithoi... which is a part of Xen, but still. I mean, we've fought at least one godlike entity.

The climax of Chapter 4 - A Dark Interval was reached today, where the Red Army assaulted a massive Combine base. Their numbers thin, the battle all but lost, their activated one final failsafe - an absolutely HUGE shell that launched onto itself and obliterated it, leaving only scattered remnants and taking no lives. Unless you count Callum's leg as a life, and in which case, yes, it did take a life.

Now, after this, we were met with the following event:
"This map is now open to exploration. Take your time... the only thing that you should be worried about is the environment."

Knowing this, my character, Jacob, was approached by a few men. The two I remember were Salvador and Bill. I'm not COMPLETELY sure who plays them.

We decided to return to the rubble of the Combine outpost to search it for any salvage. And so, after a long and terrifying car ride hosted by Bill, we arrived at the scene.

Spawning by the threes, fast zombies practically instantly overwhelmed us. There must've been, like, twenty, right off the bat. Tens of standard zombies also appeared, as did a single poison zombie. We barely survived, and took a shit hit immediately.

We turned a corner, and found ourselves surrounded by poison zombies, fast zombies, and standard zombies. They spawned by the bushel. Manifesting from thin air on multiple occasions, we were barely able to hold them off. But eventually, the constantly spawning zombies and headcrabs, some even manifesting into thin air or around corners we believed to be clear, proved too much for us - Jacob fell, and I'm sure he wasn't the only one.

It wasn't an IC death - the two-life rule spared him. He was given medical RP, and I asked the staff to set his health according to Bill's MedRP.

10 health was administered to me, leaving me at a sorry 20 health. I was told to get back to base or simply die.

There was also the familiar sounds of an inbound Strider, which was the last straw for us. We got out of there on van.


So I got to thinking, what the fuck was that all about?

Why did the GMs expect us to fight such an ungodly amount of zombies, with such unbelievable odds, in such quick succession, with such unrealistic and unfair circumstances, especially considering that HL2RP is not inviting to combat, even with NPCs?

I realized that this wasn't actually the first time this had happened, either - the events of Chapter 3 proved to have similar consequences. There was a point where Long Haulers were trapped in the bank, holding off an endless stream of CP officers who had rushed back to the bank after respawning and basically bumrushed it.

There was a point when the Long Haulers were in the Void, and only four or five were online. Tens of Race X Shock Troopers would be deployed to pursue them.

In Chapter 3.5, we saw more aliens than I can probably count on a calendar. There was also a pit drone. And a gene worm. And another Advisor...



So, at this point, I'm starting to notice a theme. The theme is pretty simple -

THE STAFF TEAM NEEDS TO HAVE RESTRAINT.
RESTRAINT SHOULD NOT BE A COMMODITY.
PATIENCE NEEDS TO BE A VIRTUE.

In the events that lead to me making this post -

There was no warning, there was no hesitation, and there was NO regard for the value of the characters or our abilities to deal with the problems being presented us. I wondered why the staff team lacked such a fuck to give for our characters - my question was answered by DeNuke.


Which is really concerning of him to say, considering GMs are supposed to care about characters - their entire job is to interact with characters.

So, I wondered, was there, perhaps, some form of bias afoot? The answer was... well, yeah.

A lack of restraint.


If GMs lack restraint, their actions in the RP will be stressful, boring, and frustrating. If your GMing results in people being upset because they feel like you weren't GMing fairly, then there's nothing else to it - spawning 20 fast zombies? 3 poison zombies? An untold number of standard zombies? All at once? A strider, too?

HL2RP characters are, contrary to popular belief, not designed for intense situations with such a lack of patience. Having my long-lived, highly developed character nearly die to a swarm of rapidly spawned zombies is the result of such bad GMing - and the fact that the GMs in question claim to not care about their characters as anything but a statistic - i.e, "90% of characters should die" - is a problem. It needs to be addressed. The GMs need to be tamed, or roleplay will not be fun.

The first step towards maximizing the enjoyment of everyone on the server is having restraint. Having patience - and most importantly, having mercy.

If we can't even get that during SS, then our server is as good as dead.

 

[registry: brush him]

Post that started this whole debate;

 

[araskes]

I play 'Sal'. As soon as we got there, there had to be atleast 20 fast zombies, 2 poison zombies with the poisonous crabs all over them and about 10 normal zombies.

once we killed them all, they spawned in more and more. then made two striders come with no /event or no /it, causing us to return to base after they complained in looc.

even though "[*This map is now open to exploration. Take your time... the only thing that you should be worried about is the environment.*]"

 

[NaughtyNicholas]

Almost as if the GM's were lazy and didn't bother to give people a chance to roleplay but rather fight NPC's.
>kills off player-run OTA
>now you fight NPC's instead for the final event

 

[Mulky]

Greetings!

I'm a gamemaster, and I wasn't there during the time of this event. I will, however, after every single evidence and thing that was said at #short-stories-general, can agree with you. As a gamemaster, one should work for the betterment and overall fun of the story and shall work together to create a cohesive, memorable, and completely new way to capture the enjoyment of the community as well as the player base that you are attracting to said event.

I also, however, agree that there shall be challenges and that unsurpassable odds shall be in place to make surpassing it the most satisfying action to be done if you do wish to bypass through it. I also agree that fun and story shall be placed first in order to keep the enjoyment and overall satisfaction of your event.

I will say that if you were given a warning beforehand, then the result will be better than expected - however, due to the nature of the location (which is already filled with zombies and the such), I will agree with the fact that you should've been careful. What I disagree with what happened, however, is how a large horde was sent out to destroy the base, even though the 'fact' that zombies are a nature of the location existed but were low in numbers beforehand and during the time that you see them around.

Players of the Short Stories should all know the fact that we're trying all our best to try and create a compelling story. We are all working together to make the most out of this. You, the players, give us feedback to try and fix the problems we have on the server. We, the gamemasters and staff, create the story and the narrative and furthermore do something that we know you will enjoy in the long run. We are one with this, we are creating this story to lead up to the main server's 'canon'.

I personally don't agree with what happened and how it was executed, although I do see the Gamemaster's points leading up to why. We are all one cohesive community here creating something that we will all enjoy even though it is very strict and tightly woven, we shall at least make it fun and interact more with the community on their feedbacks.

I agree with your points here, and I can't really find a way to defend how DeNuke answered you on that. Although I do see his point, I just don't like the way he openly actuated said point. I do want everyone to realize however that creating the short stories series is stressful for both sides, us the Gamemasters and you the player base. I want everyone to realize that we have been working on this and practicing how events are done with choreography and such. We are filled with a lot of things especially during this pandemic, and I hope you excuse us for overreacting on certain things. There are battles we are fighting beyond your understanding, and I hope everyone ceases aggressivity against each other if events like this occur.

Here are what I would've done during the course of said event in which the zombies and striders attacked.

• I would've given a warning in the form of a /event beforehand to give them the chance to finish whatever it is they are doing.​
• I would've given the players a chance in order to get out of there, and only then throw an overwhelming force at them in order to force them away from the location (which was the objective of the gamemasters firsthand).​
• Stretch the infestation longer and further into the wasteland as to compensate for the time lost in giving them the chance to finish whatever it is they are doing. If you want to show an overwhelming force of both Xenians and Zombies after the destruction of the Combine Base that is able to drag you away, then you shall throw it through the long run and not through a single event.​
• Remove the inclusion of the Striders. Too soon, and no alerts. You could argue that the Zombies didn't need alerts to them, but the striders definitely needed some. You could hear them from far away, and the fact that they could stealth is not an excuse.​

I am sure there are far better ways to tackle the situation better than what I've listed, however, I hope you can see the points I've made throughout this statement.

I bid you guys good luck for the next Short Stories chapter, and hope you enjoyed this one during its duration!

Happy Weekends!
- Mulky

 

[AbeBatJes]

So in terms of the zombies appearing, I think there was SOMETHING that was said about it, however I'm not going to bank on that. From what it sounded like, you were intended to leave the area, however I feel like it was somewhat 'poorly' executed. If anything personally, I would've used a local event and been like, [the sound of thumping would emit from the distance, coming towards the base with haste...] giving some time for whomever in the place to leave, and if no one does, have the strider appear and do some S2M, with the threat of a cannon being used (again, S2M as a warning, but you get the idea).

 

[Robert]

Hello there.

I have read through and agreed for the most part with the majority with what has been said, aside from a few points which I do question or disagree with but let's get into it, shall we?

Now, after this, we were met with the following event:
"This map is now open to exploration. Take your time... the only thing that you should be worried about is the environment."

First of all, just going to state that this does not really imply anything other than: "Feel free to explore the map, we aren't going to stop you like the last few days.", it does not, however, state there would be no danger whatsoever as part of the environment of the map is the fact Zombies live and roam within it on a constant basis, even supported by Zonarch living in the area which we have set to only appear with a mass concentration of zombies in the area or at least nearby.

Also got the Antlions and all that on top of that which are also part of the maps environment and designed to be crazy difficult should you ever approach one along or with too small of a group. One could say they are impossible to solo without getting massacred.

Just wanted to clear that up to start off with.

Spawning by the threes, fast zombies practically instantly overwhelmed us. There must've been, like, twenty, right off the bat. Tens of standard zombies also appeared, as did a single poison zombie. We barely survived, and took a shit hit immediately.

Knowing source and the area in question: The Combine Base, this shouldn't have really happened, so I agree with you here. An area which has only just recently been destroyed, shouldn't have gathered that many zombies so quickly, nor should fast ones be spawned in high numbers to overwhelm a group of people.

I will agree that is unfair to throw people into such a situation if it was so instant you had no chance to see the threat beforehand, nor any time to react to it. Should've instead been warned that zombies were in the area to allow you caution, and should've been spawned some distance away, to give you room to observe and assess. So I perfectly understand this point.

We turned a corner, and found ourselves surrounded by poison zombies, fast zombies, and standard zombies. They spawned by the bushel. Manifesting from thin air on multiple occasions, we were barely able to hold them off. But eventually, the constantly spawning zombies and headcrabs, some even manifesting into thin air or around corners we believed to be clear, proved too much for us - Jacob fell, and I'm sure he wasn't the only one.

Again, this links with the above point but is unfair yes. Shouldn't have encountered so many fast or poison zombies. As you may of saw during Chapter 2 passive, we made sure the fast or poisons were not at all in high numbers. The only time they showed was when so much noise was made, that it attracted them or when the Zonarch appeared back then.

Not sure why so many poisons or fast ones even showed up. Nor why there were so many in such a short time to begin with. I would've at least expected a few zombies to be around, but not the amount you encountered nor how many specials ones you saw. Shouldn't have happened.

10 health was administered to me, leaving me at a sorry 20 health. I was told to get back to base or simply die.

This is the part I handled. Now not sure I remember anyone saying you will die simply because you are still wounded and need to get back, but I know I did not say that at least. As for the reason I set your HP to 20, I was told you were only given extremely basic medical treatment to keep you going for now based on the reports handed to me by another GM. I will be honest I should've asked you what the medrp was like, but trusted the GMs in the team to answer truthfully for what treatment you were actually given and set your HP accordingly.

Next time I will simply ask for what the players did and see the logs myself if I can find them at all with the number of logs that appear in such a short time. So partly my fault here and the fault of the other GMs involved not giving accurate info, this will be brought up among GMs.

There was also the familiar sounds of an inbound Strider, which was the last straw for us. We got out of there on van.

Yes, the strider came in after a short while, I think that was just a scouting party seeing what happened to the Combine base in the area. They did do a quick pass but overall, understandable why you may of felt you were forced to leave at this point.

So I got to thinking, what the fuck was that all about?

Why did the GMs expect us to fight such an ungodly amount of zombies, with such unbelievable odds, in such quick succession, with such unrealistic and unfair circumstances, especially considering that HL2RP is not inviting to combat, even with NPCs?

I realized that this wasn't actually the first time this had happened, either - the events of Chapter 3 proved to have similar consequences. There was a point where Long Haulers were trapped in the bank, holding off an endless stream of CP officers who had rushed back to the bank after respawning and basically bumrushed it.

There was a point when the Long Haulers were in the Void, and only four or five were online. Tens of Race X Shock Troopers would be deployed to pursue them.

In Chapter 3.5, we saw more aliens than I can probably count on a calendar. There was also a pit drone. And a gene worm. And another Advisor...

Right... this is where I think you begin to de-rail the entire conversation you are trying to start. The first half was good, and brought up each point reasonable well and addressed the issues... here you sort of go off into the realm of complaining and misunderstanding the purpose of the events from the past and present themes.

One thing I am going to mention here is that not all GMs are the same. Some create good stories and good narratives that players enjoy, keeping them fair at all times. Others do the opposite and run somewhat decent events with poor execution which some may dislike. In events like these where poorly executed events happen, people will obviously complain... but to flame about them... not okay. If there is a problem with an event, normally the best option is to go up to the GM if you know or go to the channel or even forums and say "Hey, I did not like this event because X, Y and Z. Please may something be done?" to which a GM, mod or even CM will respond and help you.

Just keep in mind, that not all GMs are going to always write good stories 100% of the time, sometimes there will be hiccups, but to say they are all unfair and following a pattern is actually a pretty strong assumption. If you are not considering what those events were designed for.

Chapter 3 was designed to be hard and for the first day, things went pretty well all things considered. The situation in the bank was a player-GM issue on that side of things as for one, a player had purposefully screwed the group over, setting the alarm off and all. And the Gms did not tell the CPs not to come back. Though, no one actually did fully die from returning CPs except for 2 people which was played by both Abe and Gr4Ss. Everyone else who died there was killed by the first wave CPs... 1 CP who never died beforehand managed to kill 3 people and injure a few others.

So the bank is sorta an invalid point as that was a surviving CP finishing some people off. The ones who came after the first wave, those deaths were voided and have long since been resolved, no issue with them ever appeared so not sure why to mention it now when that was fixed long ago and not as big as an issue compared to others. There was definitely not an endless stream of them. Just failed to kill a one who managed to kill a few haulers by themselves by the time the others got there, the players downstairs had escaped or were already dead by the sole survivor of a CP... who was killed afterwards by someone up top.

The void was also designed to be hard, though took into account the retardation of the NPCs and their low damage, that was actually pretty easy compared to past occurrences and no one was actually harmed back then. Not sure what part you are specifically mentioning though. You also had plenty of warning these were coming, so again sorta invalid. When warnings are involved, you have the choice to run away and avoid the danger.

3.5 was again designed to be extremely difficult. You were in the most hostile area you could ever go to, with aliens ALL AROUND YOU. This was warned about plenty of times, so the group knew what they were walking into and to be honest, no one really complained during this time as far as I remember, in fact, people liked it. So keep in mind not everyone has the same idea of an event as you do. They knew what they were walking into, and enjoyed beating the geneworm at the end of it all. We did make sure to make sure that not many people died, so we were pretty fair with deaths at this time. SO again, not sure why this is brought up.

So, at this point, I'm starting to notice a theme. The theme is pretty simple -

THE STAFF TEAM NEEDS TO HAVE RESTRAINT.
RESTRAINT SHOULD NOT BE A COMMODITY.
PATIENCE NEEDS TO BE A VIRTUE.

In the events that lead to me making this post -

With everything I said above, while this is pretty much true.. at the same time it only really applies to today's events and what happened for that particular instance. In the above, points referring to Chapter 3 and 3.5, these were warned about, had little to no consequence and everyone pulled through in the end as they were designed to be a challenge.

Events do not always go in the favour of the player, sometimes it is better to turn around and walk away, avoiding taking part to ensure your own survival. Though keep in mind, the event server is designed to be unforgiving and is nothing like the main server. On the main server, deaths and events will be much more fairer and 100% rp orientated in comparison to the ones seen in the event server. Event server is basically a form of hell and its rules work far differently than the rules and functionality of the main server. Something that may kill you on the event server, will not kill you in the main server. Something that may happen in the event server like a horde of zombies, will not happen in the main server. They work very differently from one another.

I can agree however the staff in charge of the combine base should've not thrown so much at you at once, took in a lot there. So I can say that much to agree on this point.

In the events that lead to me making this post -

There was no warning, there was no hesitation, and there was NO regard for the value of the characters or our abilities to deal with the problems being presented us. I wondered why the staff team lacked such a fuck to give for our characters - my question was answered by DeNuke.

Which is really concerning of him to say, considering GMs are supposed to care about characters - their entire job is to interact with characters.

So, I wondered, was there, perhaps, some form of bias afoot? The answer was... well, yeah.

A lack of restraint.

All points here understandable. For your above post, that is pretty much how we view SS, giving a lot of RP and the like and giving people warnings and fair situations for their RP while also keeping it full of action and making sure everyone is having fun.

Not sure where you got the idea of the GMs not caring for your characters from, but we do for the most part. Though there are some events which are made to be challenging so sometimes a character may encounter an event not suited for them and will simply have to run away from it unless they want to face consequences if they fail. Gms may not care about the character to the extent the player does, as there job is to mainly create events and ensure everyone has fine and may not know much of the character they are giving an event to. In fact, on the main server you will probably find events more suiting to your character... but here on the event server... not so much as it is designed to be challenging, putting you into tough situations, etc. Again though, this particular instance was unfair.

But does that mean you should say it is all bad because 1 instance... no. Is it right to really make an assumption that no Gm cares at all about anyone character... no. That is actually entirely incorrect, and for where ever you got this idea from... I would like to know as that is not meant to be the feel events should give off, if events are giving off that feel then you should point it out so we can deal with it. Staying silent only allows the issue to grow and you simply get angrier while we sit here throwing moderation warnings and mutes at you because we come to believe you are simply angry and flaming due to too much character attachment or misunderstandings.

NEver pointed this out before, but no GM as far as I am aware does not actually give a fuck about someone's characters. But what I can say is that we do have rules to follow on Pk's and carry it out accordingly to all players equally. So no matter how good or developed your character is, if it meets the requirements for a death, fails to get through something simple, runs up to a group of zombies and dies, etc.... then we have to say: "Sorry, but you will have to die and all development lost, next time, simply run away rather than heading into danger." This is just an example. If someone dies twice fairly or due to their own faults twice... or dies once to an RP scenario... then it is a PK no matter what. That is an example of the rules we follow and will always carry through regardless of who you are.

I will say the DeNuke could've handled this better and avoided saying: "I don't give a flying fuck about your character." when in fact the GMs do. They will just treat you the same as everyone else regardless of what your character is, who you are, etc. We do not discriminate and will not push for any double standard, we will follow the guidelines set in place for us to follow for the Event server. But yes, DeNukes words are wrong here and will be spoken to at some point, he is not the best person when it comes to PR.

Anyway, GMs do and will interact with characters and care about them.

If GMs lack restraint, their actions in the RP will be stressful, boring, and frustrating. If your GMing results in people being upset because they feel like you weren't GMing fairly, then there's nothing else to it - spawning 20 fast zombies? 3 poison zombies? An untold number of standard zombies? All at once? A strider, too?

HL2RP characters are, contrary to popular belief, not designed for intense situations with such a lack of patience. Having my long-lived, highly developed character nearly die to a swarm of rapidly spawned zombies is the result of such bad GMing - and the fact that the GMs in question claim to not care about their characters as anything but a statistic - i.e, "90% of characters should die" - is a problem. It needs to be addressed. The GMs need to be tamed, or roleplay will not be fun.

Now, here is another thing I disagree with or at least question. It feels like at this point you are taking this one instance from a singular GM and then reflecting it all upon the rest of them throwing them all under the bus because you got salty at one occurrence. This is an assumption and is once again... entirely wrong. You are also taking the words of 1 Gm and again reflecting that upon the rest on top of that, which is also wrong. This can easily come across as one trying to start drama within a community because they want revenge over a mistake... a common occurrence in HL2RP communities and its overall playerbase.

When you put it this way, it makes it sound like there is an issue with the entire GM team when in actuality... there is only 1 GM who has already been spoken with. Read all of the above before reading this so you already know what I said about GMs and their mission.

The first step towards maximizing the enjoyment of everyone on the server is having restraint. Having patience - and most importantly, having mercy.

If we can't even get that during SS, then our server is as good as dead.

Last and final thing, SS unlike the main server is far less forgiving. It will punish you a lot depending on your own actions and what you choose to do, what you choose to fight, if you choose to run, etc. All actions have consequence, sometimes not by you alone, but a single player can cause something which affects the entire group.

Also, this point is sort of invalid as if it was truly unfair... you wouldn't even be alive at all, much less have all the items you got. Most characters would've died in Chapter 2 even. The only thing that has changed since then and now, is that this time we have left the GMs and the SS manager completely in charge with me and Rad taking a step back, giving the GM's free rein. Also, the fact that PKs are harsher than before with the intro of the 2 life rule unlike before where it was entirely based on the GM's decision which was rare to produce a PK.

SS or the event server in general, should not affect your view of the main server, they are completely different entities functioning on 2 entirely different levels of gameplay and features.

Overall: Thank you for the feedback given, and it will be taken into consideration. At the same time, please keep in mind that no all GMs are the same and not all events are the same. GMs are only human, they make mistakes and small hiccups, but to view all of them as bad over one's mistake or the GM themselves for that matter is not okay. People have different views on how X and Y should be done and some will like what is given while others not so much. Also worth keeping in mind the event and the main server are not the same and function very differently.

You cannot please everyone.

That is all I have to say on this matter,
- Robert.

 

[Dej]

Completely unrelated but I gotta complain about the really fucky hit-registration for NPC's makes this a whole lot worse. Fast necros and headcrabs in general are practically untouchable because even though you hit them and see blood, fuck all damage is done to them unless you get a hitmarker, which is nigh impossible in my terms, forcing large ammo expenditure and a large amount of your awareness and focus to take out the annoying little shit that is chomping away at your health bit by bit. And it makes it all the worse though when the wasteland goes Walking Dead on you, just my 2 cents.

 

[registry: brush him]

Oh my fucking god, Shocky, THANK YOU for putting that to words. I was REALLY struggling to do that. Look, the bullshit hit registry and hitboxes in HL2RP are already a problem with STANDARD zombies, but I *cannot* fight fast zombies or headcrabs. Even regular headcrabs can prove to be a challenge with how nonsense the hit registries are.

 

[westender]

"There are battles we are fighting beyond your understanding,"
what?

also thank you for telling us exactly what you would have done in place of denuke mulky.

also the fast zombies were annoying, but i was mostly out of the way. a little excessive is my very menial problem that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things

 

[Mulky]

"There are battles we are fighting beyond your understanding,"
what?

Ah, what I meant was personal problems all of us have in our lives. Some people tend to try and suppress their anger when it comes to things unrelated to said problem, but failing when their head pops off a lot of steam.

 

[westender]

Ah, what I meant was personal problems all of us have in our lives. Some people tend to try and suppress their anger when it comes to things unrelated to said problem, but failing when their head pops off a lot of steam.

I think that's a bold faced way to say it. I think, as you just said, personal problems "all of us" have in our lives. You can put together fancy words, but don't think for a second that that doesn't sound condescending mate. I know this is way off topic but speaking to people in a way that CAN seem overplayed, dramatic or like I said 'fancy', it truly can come across like you're just being a cunt rather than addressing the issue of stress.

I don't think that but please, don't do yourself like that.

 

[registry: brush him]

Ah, what I meant was personal problems all of us have in our lives. Some people tend to try and suppress their anger when it comes to things unrelated to said problem, but failing when their head pops off a lot of steam.

You ought to put aside those problems for the sake of your side job. Everyone has personal problems - most of us come here to get away from that. This shouldn't be your respite, it should be everyone's. Don't mess it up by waiving responsibility.

 

[Mulky]

I think that's a bold faced way to say it. I think, as you just said, personal problems "all of us" have in our lives. You can put together fancy words, but don't think for a second that that doesn't sound condescending mate. I know this is way off topic but speaking to people in a way that CAN seem overplayed, dramatic or like I said 'fancy', it truly can come across like you're just being a cunt rather than addressing the issue of stress.

I don't think that but please, don't do yourself like that.

I understand, and I apologize if it seemed too overplayed or condescending. My point is that I'm just laying out the possible causes for the blow out given by DeNuke, and I'm in no way overemphasizing with anyone. I remain optimistic about most of the things here and I try to set out and acknowledge both side's opinions and statements on the issue. If it seems too out of place to say to me that it would be due to personal problems probably that they would lash out like that, then I apologize deeply. Cheers!

You ought to put aside those problems for the sake of your side job. Everyone has personal problems - most of us come here to get away from that. This shouldn't be your respite, it should be everyone's. Don't mess it up by waiving responsibility.

This I think all Gamemasters understand. It is listed under the first sentence of the Gamemaster's Guideline afterall that a GM must retain a sense of a laissez-faire attitude (the practice of non-interference in the affairs of others, especially with reference to individual conduct or freedom of action), in order to retain a value of fairness for each and all sides of the roleplay. We are here for the fun after all, which is then stated in the second sentence. I will say however that we attentively attempt to try and show ways to bring out a certain extent of creativity in every player to allow them to do actions that would be applicable to other groups of people to keep it fair.

 

[Robert]

You ought to put aside those problems for the sake of your side job. Everyone has personal problems - most of us come here to get away from that. This shouldn't be your respite, it should be everyone's. Don't mess it up by waiving responsibility.

I will make it clear once again that GMs do not have a "Job". If you read my last post to you on Discord in response to the "1 bad apple spoils the bunch" which I explained is not always applicable to people.

Anyway, here is my post from discord:

@brush him Yes, I have heard of that phrase, though don't tend to use it as it is not always true. It is 100% true for actual apples but for people... I would say it is more 50/50. Using that phrase tends to suggest that the bad habits that 1 staff member has will simply spread to all the rest, which is quite frankly false. There have been many instances time and time again where the good "apples", staff in this case stay true to themselves and do not simply become idiots simply because there is 1 or 2 in the team.

WE have already spoken to and dealt with the staff involved and in that post, I also did mention this was really only 1 instance of NPC spam, with the last 2 you mentioned in chapter 3 and 3.5 being invalid as those had plenty of warning and people knew somewhat of what to expect + knew they were already within hell itself of both Xen and the Void.

All staff are going to make a mistake at some point, some of our GMs are still new to the concept of GM'ing and we have allowed them in to train themselves.. afterall, how do you get new GMs without giving them a chance and a bit of trial and error. GMs are only human and sometimes fuck up, just like you do or anyone else in the entire world does. But overall, a bad mistake by 1 GM does not represent the rest is the point I am trying to get across, in all 11 years I have been playing HL2RP I have seen people say that "oh no, 1 bad admin, the rest must be shit too!!!!" has been proven wrong about 95% of the time. And the bad ones are normally dealt with and given chances to improve and if nothing improves, they get removed.

Also worth noting that GMs do this a hobby. It is not their job to deal with players, sort things out, listen to peoples drama, etc. They do this as a hobby, not getting paid for what they do. SInce I did see you at one point tell a GM it is "Their job to listen to the players bitching" which it is not.

Basically this last point here ^

It is not a GM's job to deal with this stuff. They do this as a hobby and just try to have fun while also providing fun to the players in the server. They do their own thing and are freely allowed to do their events and go on about their day... sometimes they make mistakes and sometimes they fuck with people on purpose, which in the case they are just on purposefully attacking a player, they get told off and potentially removed. Just like how many too many mistakes will lead up to a GM being removed.

We acknowledge each and every problem with events if one arises and improve accordingly, or in some cases take action against a GM if needed. But overall, GMs do not do this as a "Job" they do this as a hobby.

Just wanted to comment on the part where people keep referring GMs as "Needing to do their jobs" as they have no job to carry out. Anyway, as for an actual comment relating to personal problems and real-life stuff. I would say that if a GM is not feeling too up to it or has annoyances, etc. Then they should try to refrain from joining or at least refrain from running events so they don't make the mistake or faults which may annoy players.

 

[registry: brush him]

NPC spam isn't the only symbol of a lack of restraint. Some of the events we've done show off such a problem.

The swiftness of the transition from "300 minutes remaining" to "5 minutes remaining" at City One?
Catapaulted into the void for not being able to heal Wyatt fast enough?
The Long Haulers fighting an alien war in Xen, with few chances for actual roleplay to be conducted?

You need to understand that "the tipping point" isn't the only point people are going to be complaining about these. A recklessly fast pace almost all the time, even during "passive" days, just throws out all potential for real development.

 

[registry: brush him]

HOOOWEVER, I will accept this premise. I think you ARE trying, I just hope you'll be a bit more open to... well, chilling out in the future.