HELIX 4 SEASON 1 CIVIL PROTECTION: DECLASSIFIED

[Simman102]

just seems odd to post it this late

I do mention it in the thread that I was inspired by some recent argument about the server which I was sent screenshots of.

Also, I think it had to be made this late.
Without sufficient detachment from the server's reality and enough time having passed to allow me to have a proper retrospective, it would've never been as good, I don't think.

 

[john]

Whilst I would agree normally if this was a regular rebel who got caught up in a sweep. I was there when we caught him, he was a highly known rebel, and was the head of a Rebel cell. We assaulted the main rebel base as a retaliation to an earlier attack.
-
At this point over the week we've had our PT's and assault teams killed and called out by hackers (actual ancient evils that got banned almost immediately), when we attacked the cave we managed to sneak across the entire map without getting caught to be met with a group of rebels hiding in the cave. Warren Barr played really well, he didn't throw a hissy fit about being caught and roleplayed with us really well.
-
The same can't be said about the other rebel who was in the cave who refused to talk to us and only responded to us in LOOC with something along the lines of " I'm not actually here, I'm not responding to you I don't care."
-
So you can imagine how annoyed the Civ Pro players were when, their one in a hundred chance of dealing a major blow to rebel faction that took a better part of the day to plan and execute, escapes because haha funny entity barnacle single /me escape.
-
to clarify, I don't blame Barr for doing this, an admin supervised this and allowed it, its not his fault I woulda done the same thing

It's written from the perspective of apoc. Nowadays I do agree with you that keeping prisoners around just sucks but you have to consider the context.

The ruleset was one the first things that'd been announced about the server, including the surprisingly long prisoner ruleset which mentioned operations of taking prisoners back and in case of sensitive targets even kill raids (better to kill our own prisoner than let the enemy have him). I imagine that, at the time it was written, the impression was that the server would be far less combat-oriented and probably overall slower (the Combine ruleset in the beginning also reinforced this notion as it mentioned 25% rankpoint units not being allowed to deploy).

This hyped the concept of prisoners up to many of us thinking it would be one of the pivotal systems of the server and the Warren Barr situation was a clash of this expectation with reality which was a huge letdown for many of us, as were the situations mentioned in the asheville chapter.

We eventually did come to the conclusion that there's no desire for people to suffer consequences from organically occurring conflict and we fully accepted the notion, it just wasn't communicated by management.

yeah fair enough

 

[Blitz0012]

governing over a city that didn't have citizens

There was actually a good chunk of civilians, max about 8-12 guys on at varying times. They didn't group up much and mostly RPed with each other, I think the only times they interacted with cops properly was when a huge group of them built up they all got slaughtered by cops trying to cross the bridge (well, standing at the start of it) and it instantly tanked the population of CWU and civvies, the couple new guys just never came back and others just left the city for rebel RP at low pop. I don't quite know why that evacuation was planned, but I think it was all player led. ARK said the massacre wasn't supposed to happen and the civvies were supposed to be called back into the city, but the cops called to amputate before he could type it out. Not really the cop's fault, I do think it was KOS in that section at the time. As ARK said, he just wasn't quick enough to call in on the net about it. Cops probably expected to be engaged by 19 rebels any time.

Thinking to the city, I'd say there certainly wasn't any lack of trying to RP in it. The S2K situation just destroyed an potential roleplay with cops, OTA or CAB. The most actual cop-civvie roleplay was either the rare workshift or "get inside". There was a relatively fun time when a couple cops (I think they were mostly lower ranked?) started funnelling civilians to that large bar near the bridge, which became a shelter of sorts for a couple days. It was decent RP between civvies and the odd cop, got boring after a few hours so people plotted new stuff which lead to the evacuation attempt I think? It went really under the radar cause most of the civvie groups formed during S2K patches, because that was the best time to actually see something as a civvie (or you died in s2k and decide to civvie, or you were on civvie before s2k and can't switch). I think that meant CAB or Cops barely knew about the civilian gatherings, and even if they did couldn't spend more than 3 seconds interacting with them before they got shot at or got called to a fight elsewhere.

The ceasefire saw a small surge in civvies and so did the agreement that refugees could enter the city for safety, but those collapsed when the mega S2K kicked in a week or so later. I think I was one of the only active civilians, yet alone collaborators, through-out the end of city 24 and until the coast map with the refugee camp.

All-in-all, just a side effect of the s2k focus, as people have said. Cops territory was always the S2K zone, RLs couldn't prioritise RP, CAB didn't know when the gatherings would spawn, and civvies naturally made their way into rebel RP. Excluding the CAB thing, it ran the same on every map. That or the lower cops wouldn't know what to do with civilians and actively sent them to the rebels.

 

[Simman102]

There was actually a good chunk of civilians, max about 8-12 guys on at varying times. They didn't group up much and mostly RPed with each other, I think the only times they interacted with cops properly was when a huge group of them built up they all got slaughtered by cops trying to cross the bridge (well, standing at the start of it) and it instantly tanked the population of CWU and civvies, the couple new guys just never came back and others just left the city for rebel RP at low pop. I don't quite know why that evacuation was planned, but I think it was all player led. ARK said the massacre wasn't supposed to happen and the civvies were supposed to be called back into the city, but the cops called to amputate before he could type it out. Not really the cop's fault, I do think it was KOS in that section at the time. As ARK said, he just wasn't quick enough to call in on the net about it. Cops probably expected to be engaged by 19 rebels any time.

Thinking to the city, I'd say there certainly wasn't any lack of trying to RP in it. The S2K situation just destroyed an potential roleplay with cops, OTA or CAB. The most actual cop-civvie roleplay was either the rare workshift or "get inside". There was a relatively fun time when a couple cops (I think they were mostly lower ranked?) started funnelling civilians to that large bar near the bridge, which became a shelter of sorts for a couple days. It was decent RP between civvies and the odd cop, got boring after a few hours so people plotted new stuff which lead to the evacuation attempt I think? It went really under the radar cause most of the civvie groups formed during S2K patches, because that was the best time to actually see something as a civvie (or you died in s2k and decide to civvie, or you were on civvie before s2k and can't switch). I think that meant CAB or Cops barely knew about the civilian gatherings, and even if they did couldn't spend more than 3 seconds interacting with them before they got shot at or got called to a fight elsewhere.

The ceasefire saw a small surge in civvies and so did the agreement that refugees could enter the city for safety, but those collapsed when the mega S2K kicked in a week or so later. I think I was one of the only active civilians, yet alone collaborators, through-out the end of city 24 and until the coast map with the refugee camp.

All-in-all, just a side effect of the s2k focus, as people have said. Cops territory was always the S2K zone, RLs couldn't prioritise RP, CAB didn't know when the gatherings would spawn, and civvies naturally made their way into rebel RP. Excluding the CAB thing, it ran the same on every map. That or the lower cops wouldn't know what to do with civilians and actively sent them to the rebels.

I know. Funnily enough I was one of the most prolific workshift attendees after the city got mortar'd.

I also interacted with CAB on my loyalist which is what lets me say this with such confidence:

The scope at which CAB was trying to operate was simply unbefitting the state and populace of the city. It had way too many members.
Not that I blame them for it or criticise them in any way, I just think they were also a victim of the unfortunate circumstances at the time.

 

[STUCK IN A CAKE]

Worry not, friend, we knew.

Like I said in the thread, I don't blame anybody for switching to OTA. Better guns, better stats, grapple. On top of this, the past exclusivity of the OTA. The entire aura of being a OOOORRRAAAAHHHH soldier rather than a beat-citizen-with-stick cop.

I well understood that an easy way to becoming OTA was a selling point of the server. We never held anything against the individuals, we were simply bitter about a system harvesting the best players from us.

Not only this. And I think Erkor shares this sentiment. But the fucking blacksites and underlining 'dehuminization' storyline for Cop Turned OTA characters was probably the coolest fucking thing on that server, Period.

I had a dogshit PC back then, and could barely hold my own in s2k. But the storylines built in the background kept me around.

 

[hewrrra]

i remember reading ark's thread about the narrative of the iteration and being amazed by how good and well thought out it was. i just find it crazy how such a well-crafted story was seemingly wasted due to the server being call of duty on gmod and people failing to communicate with each other - something that has plagued the community since its inception

 

[MaXenzie]

i remember reading ark's thread about the narrative of the iteration and being amazed by how good and well thought out it was. i just find it crazy how such a well-crafted story was seemingly wasted due to the server being call of duty on gmod and people failing to communicate with each other - something that has plagued the community since its inception

no shade to ark, but it was a mix of administrative failings (namely many many MANY parts of the server being completely dependent on ark specifically) and ark being "a bit abrasive" at times that led to a complete collapse in the narrative after he got removed from staff

once ark was gone the narrative quickly just became the adventures of the blacksite squad, looking to destroy every blacksite in the world, which wasn't anywhere near as narratively fulfilling

so much of the plot being dependent on S2K shootouts was also a huge roadblock since many rebels, at least myself and likely tinbe along with others, were apprehensive towards s2k at best, or actively avoided it at worst, meaning we usually had to sit in our base during major events

 

['77 East]

Whoever's car I pulled over, hijacked and drove into a fully fueled tanker (@Trains?), just know that I'm not sorry and would do it again.

 

[Numbers]

there are some things i will admit i had faults on this iteration, it was the following decisions:

-capitalizing on the "hoaah ota" elitism was an intentional selling point of the combine so it could cultivate players in the early phases while also giving a decently half life grimdark feel, but this elitism came with the baggage of previous iterations' us vs them, cop main vs rebel main, etc.. in a sense, i seeded that negativity from the start and it was a mistake to do so, especially when i knew i could not finely control the rebels side as much as i could handwave the combine with draught like restrictions (battery, apc, deployment, whatever) and i frankly had more investment on the combine aesthetically that i saw myself as a biased decisionmaker, and i wonder sometimes if I overcompensated for that perceived bias by giving rebels more, and putting cuffs on combine consequently

-deciding to launch whatsoever without confirmed developer support, unreliability from gary and ron (who were unpaid anyway, bless them for even bothering in the first place) would lead to the server's demise mainly because i knew staff intervention was an unsustainable mechanism of running a server and I remember discussing that part with simman very early on. that said, despite its unsustainability, it lasted a lot longer than i expected it to. i have experienced in the past few months these smaller servers who do nothing but run staff led events and those last only a few months, two or less, tops with 10 to 30 players, and we went on for far longer than them. all i know is, we could have been more consistent in playercount and longevity if a proper developed game system was made for us

-this server was run in a way that removed all the restrictions blackquill put down on the previous servers (guns, event styles, degree of s2k being hosted and frequency of map changes etc.) - and i removed them without actually understanding the implications of removing those restrictions, creating a lot of burden for myself and the others trying to run the server with me. this fucked up my management style and it was especially difficult to juggle during university (waking up to like 700 messages sometimes and that's no exaggeration) so i basically brought the trouble on myself. the restrictions were removed because I wanted a rapid fire iteration where more memories could be generated in a shorter timespan than the extremely long slow burn format of older servers which people claimed nobody had the time for anymore. it's no surprise that I wanted it this way too, considering I was told that this would be the last hl2rp server nebulous would host

and speaking of memories, past all the difficult communication the iteration had, there were plenty to be made

i'm already nostalgic about a good chunk of our maps regardless of the troubles I faced in them, so yeah honestly I am proud of the iteration even if I made a lot of mistakes

 

[deathwolf]

there are some things i will admit i had faults on this iteration, it was the following decisions:

-capitalizing on the "hoaah ota" elitism was an intentional selling point of the combine so it could cultivate players in the early phases while also giving a decently half life grimdark feel, but this elitism came with the baggage of previous iterations' us vs them, cop main vs rebel main, etc.. in a sense, i seeded that negativity from the start and it was a mistake to do so, especially when i knew i could not finely control the rebels side as much as i could handwave the combine with draught like restrictions (battery, apc, deployment, whatever) and i frankly had more investment on the combine aesthetically that i saw myself as a biased decisionmaker, and i wonder sometimes if I overcompensated for that perceived bias by giving rebels more, and putting cuffs on combine consequently

-deciding to launch whatsoever without confirmed developer support, unreliability from gary and ron (who were unpaid anyway, bless them for even bothering in the first place) would lead to the server's demise mainly because i knew staff intervention was an unsustainable mechanism of running a server and I remember discussing that part with simman very early on. that said, despite its unsustainability, it lasted a lot longer than i expected it to. i have experienced in the past few months these smaller servers who do nothing but run staff led events and those last only a few months, two or less, tops with 10 to 30 players, and we went on for far longer than them. all i know is, we could have been more consistent in playercount and longevity if a proper developed game system was made for us

-this server was run in a way that removed all the restrictions blackquill put down on the previous servers (guns, event styles, degree of s2k being hosted and frequency of map changes etc.) - and i removed them without actually understanding the implications of removing those restrictions, creating a lot of burden for myself and the others trying to run the server with me. this fucked up my management style and it was especially difficult to juggle during university (waking up to like 700 messages sometimes and that's no exaggeration) so i basically brought the trouble on myself. the restrictions were removed because I wanted a rapid fire iteration where more memories could be generated in a shorter timespan than the extremely long slow burn format of older servers which people claimed nobody had the time for anymore. it's no surprise that I wanted it this way too, considering I was told that this would be the last hl2rp server nebulous would host

and speaking of memories, past all the difficult communication the iteration had, there were plenty to be made

i'm already nostalgic about a good chunk of our maps regardless of the troubles I faced in them, so yeah honestly I am proud of the iteration even if I made a lot of mistakes

still had the most fun in this iteration

 

[Blackquill]

and i frankly had more investment on the combine aesthetically that i saw myself as a biased decisionmaker, and i wonder sometimes if I overcompensated for that perceived bias by giving rebels more, and putting cuffs on combine consequently

This is always a worry when in the SD hotseat. For me it was probably my belief of PK systems being the superior method of handling conflict that led to this worry because it tilted things in the combine favour because of how the faction operated. It was one of those hot topics that got debated back and forth over the server's lifespan.

It's also part of the reason why I abstained from taking part in a lot of RP/situations in the server itself. So i could try to be as impartial as possible whenever shit hit the fan and went OOC (Which we both know it did a lot lol).

-this server was run in a way that removed all the restrictions blackquill put down on the previous servers (guns, event styles, degree of s2k being hosted and frequency of map changes etc.) - and i removed them without actually understanding the implications of removing those restrictions, creating a lot of burden for myself and the others trying to run the server with me.

I think it's worth remembering that a lot of those rules and restrictions were built upon years of foundation and a lot of trial by fire. I'm not gonna say it was 100% objectively the best way to do things all the time but for a while it felt like we had found a good balance/found a good way to keep things going the way we wanted it to.

Hell when I was SD I was surrounded by a lot of people who had been at LP for years and they helped me out a shit ton with figuring stuff out when I initially took on the role and long after I had settled into it.



In the end though as long as people had fun, made some good memories and didn't get too bogged down with OOC drama I think that's enough for me. It's also good to reflect on this stuff

 

[Antloin]

there are some things i will admit i had faults on this iteration, it was the following decisions:

-capitalizing on the "hoaah ota" elitism was an intentional selling point of the combine so it could cultivate players in the early phases while also giving a decently half life grimdark feel, but this elitism came with the baggage of previous iterations' us vs them, cop main vs rebel main, etc.. in a sense, i seeded that negativity from the start and it was a mistake to do so, especially when i knew i could not finely control the rebels side as much as i could handwave the combine with draught like restrictions (battery, apc, deployment, whatever) and i frankly had more investment on the combine aesthetically that i saw myself as a biased decisionmaker, and i wonder sometimes if I overcompensated for that perceived bias by giving rebels more, and putting cuffs on combine consequently

-deciding to launch whatsoever without confirmed developer support, unreliability from gary and ron (who were unpaid anyway, bless them for even bothering in the first place) would lead to the server's demise mainly because i knew staff intervention was an unsustainable mechanism of running a server and I remember discussing that part with simman very early on. that said, despite its unsustainability, it lasted a lot longer than i expected it to. i have experienced in the past few months these smaller servers who do nothing but run staff led events and those last only a few months, two or less, tops with 10 to 30 players, and we went on for far longer than them. all i know is, we could have been more consistent in playercount and longevity if a proper developed game system was made for us

-this server was run in a way that removed all the restrictions blackquill put down on the previous servers (guns, event styles, degree of s2k being hosted and frequency of map changes etc.) - and i removed them without actually understanding the implications of removing those restrictions, creating a lot of burden for myself and the others trying to run the server with me. this fucked up my management style and it was especially difficult to juggle during university (waking up to like 700 messages sometimes and that's no exaggeration) so i basically brought the trouble on myself. the restrictions were removed because I wanted a rapid fire iteration where more memories could be generated in a shorter timespan than the extremely long slow burn format of older servers which people claimed nobody had the time for anymore. it's no surprise that I wanted it this way too, considering I was told that this would be the last hl2rp server nebulous would host

and speaking of memories, past all the difficult communication the iteration had, there were plenty to be made

i'm already nostalgic about a good chunk of our maps regardless of the troubles I faced in them, so yeah honestly I am proud of the iteration even if I made a lot of mistakes

(i had to do it)​

 

[NightLock]

Man this is insane to have a read through from something I never actually interacted with, the last time I played on HL2RP being from wayyy back a few months after the switch from CW to helix. I remember seeing this iteration/iterations start and being apprehensive at best, viewing it as a bit of a WW3RP (which I never really interacted with but heard far too many stories about.)

Looking on everything laid down, I kinda wish I had put a bit of time into this iteration, just to have more of a viewpoint than the scraps I pulled together from continuously lurking. I always saw the cps getting shat on and saw it business as usual, but this is actually insane from all that had to be put up with. Still too S2K focused for me, but I’m sure someone will TRY to revive it in a few months xD

 

[Simman102]

(Screenshot from the staff discord.)

(Screenshot from the staff discord.)

Updated with these two.

 

['77 East]

(Screenshot from the staff discord.)

I got involved with two mini-events on my cop where I could have shot @philmypillow and @TedHatty but didn't.
People did make events involving cops but they often weren't public signups.

Yeah, event team drifted to the insurgency more often but that was down to:
a) no random murder sprees (like certain cops shooting people on alps just because they wanted to spam the funny vc)
b) more players who wanted to play characters and not self-inserts with a gun (outside of orsted / armband circlejerks)

 

[FreeSpy]

cynical take, but this thread solidifies to me that there should be no opposing/competitive factions that are led by different people who aren't in regular communication with each other

it will inherently lead to cliques and a us vs them mentality

i remember a break happening at some point and ond was like "hey guys maybe you should just do a one sided RP experience maybe that'd work."

hindsight is a helluva drug tbh

 

[PilotBland]

Worry not, friend, we knew.

Like I said in the thread, I don't blame anybody for switching to OTA. Better guns, better stats, grapple. On top of this, the past exclusivity of the OTA. The entire aura of being a OOOORRRAAAAHHHH soldier rather than a beat-citizen-with-stick cop.

I well understood that an easy way to becoming OTA was a selling point of the server. We never held anything against the individuals, we were simply bitter about a system harvesting the best players from us.

can u ask skyshield if he'll queue faceit with me i need somkeone to play cs with

 

[OskarDemus]

a) no random murder sprees (like certain cops shooting people on alps just because they wanted to spam the funny vc)

Wrong Season, that occurred like 3 - 4 months after this message, and this message from numbers was during the peak of CivPro roleplay so this comment makes zero sense.

b) more players who wanted to play characters and not self-inserts with a gun (outside of orsted / armband circlejerks)

This is just you malding, Orsted was probably one of the most open groups to interact with and easy to join. Where as armbands would announce if they were going to go do something and asked people if they wanted to join them, at which point people who repeatedly went out with them or helped them out. Got accepted into the group.

 

[Simman102]

I got involved with two mini-events on my cop where I could have shot @philmypillow and @TedHatty but didn't.
People did make events involving cops but they often weren't public signups.

Yeah, event team drifted to the insurgency more often but that was down to:
a) no random murder sprees (like certain cops shooting people on alps just because they wanted to spam the funny vc)
b) more players who wanted to play characters and not self-inserts with a gun (outside of orsted / armband circlejerks)

East sees evidence of a systemic issue causing faction inactivity backed with hard cold numbers and the Server Director acknowledging it and trying to counteract it and replies with "I was in an event and didn't shoot my ooc friend"

I used to think you're doing this out of malice or maybe fear of being irrelevant but I'm starting to think you're just stupid

 

[Blitz0012]