What happened to willard????

[Salty]

Take the DoB for example.
I'm sorry, DoB.

Nothing good ever came from the DoB. It mortally wounded storefront RP.
Neither did the OSI. It was a huge walking 'double standard' faction.

I miss when the businesses we solely owned and we had 2 permits per store, it made each store different and not the same. It also brought more rp to the stores and made more sense tbh.

 

[Neonity]

Overwatch was at their peak of activity, they were SCARY (albeit deployed far too often) and people respected the faction before the... incident with leadership.

 

[Craw]

What...Incident?

 

[VelmaDingus]

Nothing good ever came from the DoB. It mortally wounded storefront RP.

Not that I disagree, just wondering in what sense you mean this

 

[Sync]

I miss when the businesses we solely owned and we had 2 permits per store, it made each store different and not the same. It also brought more rp to the stores and made more sense tbh.

This

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

Not that I disagree, just wondering in what sense you mean this

It was the matter of which the DoB had operated. The primary focus drive for the DoB was to centralise a method to which people opened up their stores and produced the taxing system. But ontop of this came the record for watching every form of transaction made between stores and people purchasing various entities from food, luxury resources and industrial-scale materials. This in turn eliminated the prospect of a rebel storefront, and at the same time the tax system slowly caused business owners closing down due to being unable to procure missing payments.

But this cannot be 100% blamed on the DoB - business owners themselves became somewhat inactive and in which case, it made running a store become a chore rather than a privilege bestowed upon by the Civil Workers management and such. This merely contributed to a slow and painful 'shutdown' of the citizen front for businesses.

The only businesses that technically did survive were those centralised into the system through factions; IE the DoB itself, the Civil Workers or otherwise.

You had to be connected to be successful.

You also required to gain certain licenses that restricted what your 'business' specialised in. This can be seen as a good thing, because not all stores would be the same. But every store had a different atmosphere, and people at the helm, making unique identities. But like I said, even with the licenses, your businesses were always mechanically watched through automated systems linked with DoB. It was only recently removed a good while back and it improved the storefront privacy for its roleplayers. You were fucked the moment you bought something you shouldn't have.

The only company that managed to gain the monopoly was Kaji, ran by Aspect who were the only individuals that used the system to their own advantages, and proportionately used the system to lobby, eliminate, and overall manipulate the opposition and the DoB into a submissive standpoint. This is NOT a bad thing. Well done to everyone in Kaji for finding out how to use it to their own advantages. But it showed how First-Past-The-Post the system was.

The DoB was made to funnel the store establishment into a formal compliance with the Combine, being an extra oppressive tool in the system. But as always, sometimes it can nullify a bit too much. I don't blame the faction leads of the DoB, nor do I blame the players who took part in trying to make it an interesting and special faction. They did really well with it - but the layer of which the faction operated did, in my opinion, more bad than good.

 

[Leon]

​

View attachment 15380

Forever immortalised.​

Think we got the bad ending one.

 

[Sync]

In the community meeting last time there were not many solutions to how to improve the quality of city RP. Citizen's feel lost after a while and they don't know what to do with themselves if not join a faction. There isn't much to do as a citizen, of course you can interact with other citizens, but it becomes stale really quick. Playing a loyalist has become the most boring thing, they don't have any actual power, everything is decided by the LA. You can't do much as a loyalist besides walking around in nice clothes.

One way to improve citizen RP is to improve loyalist RP, which is another thing we need to find a solution for..

Loyalist RP could be improved by given them some sort of actual influence, then people want to grind their way up.

Rebel RP is a whole other disaster..

 

[Parsil]

When the Deliveries was around

If you think fondly of deliveries then you probably have stockholm syndrome, i have to say
And this is coming from the owner, i did the Mirai rebrand exactly because the business model old Mr. Joung created was, just putting it plainly, fucking stupid

Were things better/more active back then? Probably. The DOB/CBU as it was originally called was still a novel concept, so excitement and activity were very high at the time. Over time, as with everything, things get stale. And whether that be the fault of individual store owners, the associates behind the counter or the very system under which the stores were run, people simply became burnt out. Not enough creativity or originality. Maybe it's because we didn't put permit caps on victory stores, forcing everyone to get access to every permit to stay competitive, thus making selecting one theme for your shop be actively punishing for you.

Now that our ex-director left the discord without any warning, it seems that the fate of the DOB is sealed to die or merge with the CWU. If school didn't take up too much of my time to the point of having to make me temporarily leave Willard as a whole, i'd happily volunteer to bring it back to the same level of quality as those early days you and many others seem to remember so fondly. But it's not as easy as clicking the magic "Become active, reform system" button, as RAD-X mentioned above.

 

[Conundrum]

It was the matter of which the DoB had operated. The primary focus drive for the DoB was to centralise a method to which people opened up their stores and produced the taxing system. But ontop of this came the record for watching every form of transaction made between stores and people purchasing various entities from food, luxury resources and industrial-scale materials. This in turn eliminated the prospect of a rebel storefront, and at the same time the tax system slowly caused business owners closing down due to being unable to procure missing payments.

But this cannot be 100% blamed on the DoB - business owners themselves became somewhat inactive and in which case, it made running a store become a chore rather than a privilege bestowed upon by the Civil Workers management and such. This merely contributed to a slow and painful 'shutdown' of the citizen front for businesses.

The only businesses that technically did survive were those centralised into the system through factions; IE the DoB itself, the Civil Workers or otherwise.

You had to be connected to be successful.

You also required to gain certain licenses that restricted what your 'business' specialised in. This can be seen as a good thing, because not all stores would be the same. But every store had a different atmosphere, and people at the helm, making unique identities. But like I said, even with the licenses, your businesses were always mechanically watched through automated systems linked with DoB. It was only recently removed a good while back and it improved the storefront privacy for its roleplayers. You were fucked the moment you bought something you shouldn't have.

The only company that managed to gain the monopoly was Kaji, ran by Aspect who were the only individuals that used the system to their own advantages, and proportionately used the system to lobby, eliminate, and overall manipulate the opposition and the DoB into a submissive standpoint. This is NOT a bad thing. Well done to everyone in Kaji for finding out how to use it to their own advantages. But it showed how First-Past-The-Post the system was.

The DoB was made to funnel the store establishment into a formal compliance with the Combine, being an extra oppressive tool in the system. But as always, sometimes it can nullify a bit too much. I don't blame the faction leads of the DoB, nor do I blame the players who took part in trying to make it an interesting and special faction. They did really well with it - but the layer of which the faction operated did, in my opinion, more bad than good.

I mean the Pre-DOB experience was a revolving door of stores that would open, be manned possibly once or twice and then vanish. Often the 'three employee' rule for opening a store would just involve someone dragging people off the street with no prior affiliation. At least one employee was guaranteed to never sell anything. Only a select few stores stuck around for more than a couple weeks and invariably would afk as well, because manning a store desk is a chore. Then they would just sit on that store and try to keep the bare minimum illusion of activity so they can keep access to their secret loot rooms inside. Which it goes without saying it did not benefit Willard.

It was more than a chore for the CWU to manage, it was unpaid slavery in an OOC regard. I don't use the word to be dramatic, it is simply what the experience was like. The CWU had far too much to do already without their limited management being consumed by needing to overlook every catastrophe, provide regular workshifts to the population and manage that revolving door. People simply did not want to join CWU management as a result. The DOB was created to more reliable provide crafting goods to the population and make CWU management a less stressful position because depending on non-faction affiliated players to keep the crafting system going was resulting in economic stagnation and seemingly easily forgotten public outcry.

We genuinely considered just removing stores and setting up terminals for people to buy from, but came to the middle-man compromise as to not remove the human element. The faction was made not to stifle rebel efforts, but to better enable them. Since Rebels only created conflict if they had the resources to do so.

Individual 'ownership' was an unfortunate consequence of the system, but at the time it was wholeheartedly the best solution in regards to a lack of mechanical support. Specializing stores enabled more creativity, but only made the crafting system worse. You need adhesive? Unfortunately the most active store is a clothing one. Petition your nearest CWU Supervisor to throw out the inactive stores, only for it to repeat again. But now that vending machines exist and an economic update is on the way I think the DOB could undergo reforms. Although I am not certain of the true struggles it has faced in the last year, so I won't comment on what should happen, or even if it should. But the faction did initially exist to solve genuine issues (its very existence was reactionary to the very same problem that later plagued it - People do not want to keep stores open and active) and was primarily an experiment that hopefully could adapt over time to tackle new problems.

My point I guess is whether the DOB existed or not, there would have been problems that would cripple the system. The DOB was a solution to the CWU's. Now the CWU is to be the solution to the DOB's.

 

[ZeroPants]

I'm a little concerned about what the future holds, a bunch of people have started leaving, like Robert, KG, and sif.

 

[Conundrum]

Oh! Dob just has been removed, now its merging with the CWU. I bet the CWU lead is gonna improve businesses.

Haha...

I think Jinx was the only one who wanted the CWU to still control businesses and that was only because they had a bit of a power high. Towards the end even they refused to touch stores on their management character. I wish the CWU luck in coming full circle...

 

[Sync]

Full circle, lets see if it really repeats

 

[Salty]

It will

 

[Noodle]

I will also add a small thing:

Loyalists weren't allowed into the slums and people generally hated that concept. First time I see someone stating it was fun to restrict them. If that is the same vibe, then nothing wrong with reintroducing it. It just needs the majority's support. Also, RAD's comment sums it up

As for the DOB: They are merged with the CWU so now we are back to the old system. A new update will arrive to reduce the micromanagement aspect of managing stores heavily. The private market will come back. So we just have to sit tight and wait for that.

 

[Merlinsclaw]

alexa, post the little dark age futurist edit

 

[Deleted member]

alexa, post the little dark age futurist edit

 

[ShadoWiz4rd]

Enable global OOC, it'll fix everything!

please don't enable global ooc

Enable VC it'll fix everything

 

[Drspanksz]

So, I always wanted to make this thread, however, I always thought I'd just shoot myself in the foot, since I thought it'd just change rather quickly. Thats not the case no more, here we go.


So, a lot has changed whether it be for the better or worse. Gameplay wise, mixed bag. RP wise? More leaning towards the worse, in a way.
Anyone remember 2021 December of willard? When the Deliveries was around and the Pint was actually active? There were these Xen Crystals in the slums, they were rare, but they happened, that was fun, and such things like, Xenian aliens like Grunk, Slummer RP, CP's that were assholes but in a good way, and Loyalists that generally disliked the slummers, no loyalists in the slums either, enemies in the sewers. And most of all. FUN. What the fuck happened. All of this just fucking slowly vanished, but in a way where it was kind of hard to notice. Now, I know the enemies in the sewers was from the so called 'Hawkes Madness Episode', but that gave the sewers a reason to carry a weapon. Loyalists in the slums, that for me and I believe a lot of others doesn't feel right. CP's constantly sweeping, and these aux units in the slums, not fun for us.
The only good RP things that I've seen is GM builds and events, and Rebel leads (sort of). I just wish a lot of the stuff above, came back. Now, I know this also is due to the fact Willard is experiencing 'Lack of players syndrome', but this was brought on from the unhealthy lifestyle 'Literally nothing to do lmao'. If you have seen things other wise, tell me. I just wish the things above would be introduced back into willard.​

Because Hl2RP is only fun if you are a rebel with easy access to guns or are a Combine

 

[ZeroPants]

Because Hl2RP is only fun if you are a rebel with easy access to guns or are a Combine

HL2 RP can be great for citizens but only in certain circumstances, D47 was fun for citizens because the workshifts the citizens participated in actually changed things, players actually had an important role. Normal citizens could participate in workshifts to slowly rebuild different buildings in the city, there is a reason for players to log on each day (to see and explore the newly built structures or to participate in the daily workshift).

Players would get on the server to participate in one of the scheduled daily reconstruction shifts, they would RP and explore between shifts. Currently citizens don't really have a reason to get on, they could choose to AFK for hours on end in hopes that a shift might happen, but it isn't guaranteed.

I *really* want to do something similar to D47 in the future, like a mega event where a destroyed district is rebuilt.