Denied Starvation, Hygiene, Citizen RP, Why I don't play on Willard

[Takyon3]

The biggest topic of debate across all HL2RP servers is citizen rp, and how to add content/depth to it. Ultimately we cannot add "fun" activities to the server because of the nature of the combine. So we must create fun out of difficulty. It should be an impressive achievement to survive for irl weeks, let alone days on the server as a standard citizen. While hunger and thirst is programmed into the server, it only affects skills. So death should be enabled, as it is in many other survival genre games. As some people may know, I don't play on the main willard server, and spend my time with short stories instead. Part of the reason I don't play right now is the lack of difficulty on the server. Merely surviving in City 24 isn't rewarding. CPs have no issue as long as you don't bother them. You can stand around and do nothing, and you will still be alive for weeks on end.

I've made a similar suggestion like this a few months ago, and was received with mixed opinions. I want to see if people are open to adding the basic necessities to the server. Willard Networks really should take some pointers from Aurawatch - a difficult city environment, where you must plan ahead to secure food and water for yourself. Where you are constantly scrutinized by Civil Protection. Curfew every night. Ultimately Aurawatch replicated the original HL2 atmosphere more accurately than Willard, and they have set the bar for HL2RP in my opinion.

Tl;dr: You want to improve citizen rp? Make the game harder.

 

[HOKI]

I know for a fact curfews will end up being citizens facing walls while cops search them and prosecute the occasional offender, unless something is done to make it more interesting.
I like the idea of starvation upon death because it elevates how important food is and makes ration distribution being closed a bigger punishment.
Hygiene would be a cool thing, but I'm not sure how it would be implemented and seems like a bit of a stretch, tbh.

Civil Protection being incentivized to be more oppressive would be great. Perhaps something like a beating quota or an STC reward.

 

[Rabid]

Willard Networks really should take some pointers from Aurawatch - a difficult city environment, where you must plan ahead to secure food and water for yourself. Where you are constantly scrutinized by Civil Protection. Curfew every night.

This may have been fun in 2013 when everyone was on the Beta kick but I can guarantee you that trying to replicate this level of 'realism' just isn't fun anymore for the vast majority of people - it isn't even in line with the source material.

Its certainly fun for the cops - who don't have to worry about food or water, who can walk around beating people and generally 'enjoying' roleplay versus every other faction who's forced to scrounge for food and water. Citizens certainly aren't starved in HL2; in Alyx some even have pets. That doesn't seem like a setup where the average citizen has to spend more time worrying about necessities than providing for the Combine.

There is no way to make this sort of setup 'fun' for citizens, because it never is.

 

[Gyrann]

The biggest topic of debate across all HL2RP servers is citizen rp, and how to add content/depth to it. Ultimately we cannot add "fun" activities to the server because of the nature of the combine. So we must create fun out of difficulty. It should be an impressive achievement to survive for irl weeks, let alone days on the server as a standard citizen. While hunger and thirst is programmed into the server, it only affects skills. So death should be enabled, as it is in many other survival genre games. As some people may know, I don't play on the main willard server, and spend my time with short stories instead. Part of the reason I don't play right now is the lack of difficulty on the server. Merely surviving in City 24 isn't rewarding. CPs have no issue as long as you don't bother them. You can stand around and do nothing, and you will still be alive for weeks on end.

I've made a similar suggestion like this a few months ago, and was received with mixed opinions. I want to see if people are open to adding the basic necessities to the server. Willard Networks really should take some pointers from Aurawatch - a difficult city environment, where you must plan ahead to secure food and water for yourself. Where you are constantly scrutinized by Civil Protection. Curfew every night. Ultimately Aurawatch replicated the original HL2 atmosphere more accurately than Willard, and they have set the bar for HL2RP in my opinion.

Tl;dr: You want to improve citizen rp? Make the game harder.

While I see where you are coming from and what you mean. I believe this unforgiving system has next to zero chances of being implemented on this community. It might work on Aurawatch but here people are different (not necessarily in a bad way, mind you) and want different things.

It's just the way it is.

 

[swagile]

Citizens stand around doing nothing because nothing is happening in general.

No festivals monitored by loyalists and implemented by CCA, no greater goal that the city needs to strive for, no corruption overall to participate in, the CCA in general is dead due to inactivity (the leaders are busy IRL and mostly event chars so they are insulated from risk), the list goes on.

Adding superficial features like death on hunger and water also won't fix things because the rebel system is broken; junk sucks ass right now, getting even the simplest of gear takes weeks, so if you want citizens to find alternative food sources its next to impossible. Don't even get me started on smuggling and NPC issues.

There are so many deep setting issues the server and its management need to focus on before even TOUCHING death by hunger / water.

 

[Atle]

On paper it is interesting however I fear it will alienate a lot of the players who already view our system as rather brutal. People lose all their crafting ingredients, skill levels and such on death, plus the hunger system reduces your skills to -100% and -80% stamina if you don't eat.

We have actually considered adding death after a while if you do never eat, however that still needs to be planned out more and made to function without feeling brutally unfair. So at least on that part you may eventually get something you're looking.

I will deny this at the moment, given we do not plan to add a full death starvation system just yet.. However it is something we may add in the future.