Serious HL2RP - Moving Forward

Hi there, West here... Gonna try to put in my view as a relatively recent player and someone who barely knows some C.

Devwork is mentioned here and there. I consider it to be a possible helper in keeping some server healthy. Then so, it's not the end all be all factor. People will be baited in by devwork, but their time being worth spent here is what keeps them in. I will say though adding new things for QoL to the framework would be ideal rather than revolutionizing the entire thing. Such small things add up for a more pleasant experience...

Next, may I say I was hooked to HL2RP^2 for quite a good while because I felt like I could do almost anything I actually wanted to make in storytelling ideas and just making small stories within a bigger one. I felt severe demotivation and lack of investment upon sensing the CityRP formula in it where losing everything and just getting your story cut off without a proper resolution severely jarring to myself. Then I of course stopped hopping on when I started feeling I was going to strain my Integrated graphics PC to waste my time doing absolutely nothing. We are not in an era where people have nothing better to do. We got jobs, studies and whatnot. Our free time is very limited, so what you want is an experience you feel is worth more than bloody scrolling through insta, watching Youtube or whatever. The recent Ricsow's events gave me the feeling of doing something quite entertaining, and even got my mind jumpstarted on new ideas.

In regards to HL2RP being dead, well... I do not think HL2 as a story setting idea is quite dead. One can stilll make some curious idea or two for some campgain (see: HL2: Afterlife idea from Pepic). But to do what in essence ends up being the exact same execution of a "story" (aka cityrp being what i call darkrp but with extra steps) as before is very much a bad idea. People still got juice around here, but I think some of them feel restrained or fear trying to do things in another manner. Of course what may come next doesn't need to be HL2 based.

All I am asking for for whatever comes next (if it comes) is something that will feel like it's worth wasting a portion of my short life at for both players and staff.

okthenbye

There's another reason I think some people are overlooking in days gone, and its something Afric himself highlighted a few years ago before he quit:

If certain people endorsed what you wanted to do, it would thrive here. If they didn't, it was basically DOA short of a miracle.

City V is the example that comes to mind. 50-60 players a night, people praising the changes and having fun. All it took was a bad situation with some PK's and those people airing it on the screenshot thread and saying it wasn't worth playing for that to drop to 30 the next night and 10 by the end of the week. It was dead the week after.

That sort of thing could make or break your project or event or whatever.

At the end of the day, I stand by the fact that Neb has had its time trying to chase old highs. WN is enjoying the exact same setup we had in our first four years, with active devs and a dedicated playerbase and shit. They basically run themselves the way we used to back then. It is what it is.

Rabid said:

City V is the example that comes to mind. 50-60 players a night, people praising the changes and having fun. All it took was a bad situation with some PK's and those people airing it on the screenshot thread and saying it wasn't worth playing for that to drop to 30 the next night and 10 by the end of the week. It was dead the week after.

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i don't know the exact situation but this sounds like a general issue with the server rather than anything. people don't just leave because of a single situation involving PKs; at least not 20-30 people

fofa said:

i don't know the exact situation but this sounds like a general issue with the server rather than anything. people don't just leave because of a single situation involving PKs; at least not 20-30 people

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They do if the person in question was one of the most popular in the community and tells people they're pissed, the PK was a joke (it was really silly but would have been easily overuled had an appeal went in) and it was a waste of time to get involved with the server anymore.

I know that genuinely sounds like hyperbole or an excuse, and if I hadn't sat through the entire thing I'd call it into question myself but it went down exactly as I described. The next night after the blowup on the forums, 20-30 people stopped logging on and the number just kept ticking down from there over the next week or two.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying every server we've done failed due to this sort of thing. Certain events or ideas absolutely did, and in one case it killed the server, but it certainly was a factor in some cases.

Rabid said:

I know that genuinely sounds like hyperbole or an excuse, and if I hadn't sat through the entire thing I'd call it into question myself but it went down exactly as I described. The next night after the blowup on the forums, 20-30 people stopped logging on and the number just kept ticking down from there over the next week or two.

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lol then tbh the server has always had a massive problem of dick riders

Señor Jaggles said:

Sorry is this implying a Gmod gamemode or does VTM:B have a multiplayer?

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I was suggesting it as a possible world for us to use, given people were discussing the potential of another setting. I just figured we'd suit the setting pretty well.

ride on the high of the show and do a fallout server

Señor Jaggles said:

Putting Gordon Freeman into Call of Duty doesn't make it Half Life 2 does it

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Sib please this is vexing me beyond belief. Are you saying the stories of HL2RP2 had nothing to do with Half-Life at all?

Señor Jaggles said:

I'm not saying it was a bad thing, or that it wasn't cool, or that RP didn't exist, but if we had made some slow-paced passive roleplay iteration with little to no combat involved, no fast-paced stuff and nothing of that, do you seriously think it would've gone anywhere? Sorry to say, but no it wouldn't.

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Just because I dislike PvP doesn't mean I dislike fast-paced or combat-related stuff. Hell, some of my personal highlights were the masses of zombies I carved through with fellow rebels and vorts when we were escaping from Kingpin's domain, or when my rebel got flung aside by a soldier synth's punch, or when we defended our positions during the last battle with Gene Worm. If the server hinged on rebels and Combine players shooting each other in the most dysfunctional mimicry of Counter-Strike, I would've never even played it.

Tinbe said:

Sib please this is vexing me beyond belief. Are you saying the stories of HL2RP2 had nothing to do with Half-Life at all?

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I'm saying we strayed from the original setting of Half Life 2 (even Episode 2) by making our own twist. Is it the same universe? Yes. Does it actually have anything to do with the canon of the game? Not really, not at all. We made a post-occupation setting like many others that could've been imagined.

I don't see why you find an issue with it though, I don't see why HL2RP² should have an identity crisis now of all times.

Tinbe said:

Just because I dislike PvP doesn't mean I dislike fast-paced or combat-related stuff. Hell, some of my personal highlights were the masses of zombies I carved through with fellow rebels and vorts when we were escaping from Kingpin's domain, or when my rebel got flung aside by a soldier synth's punch, or when we defended our positions during the last battle with Gene Worm. If the server hinged on rebels and Combine players shooting each other in the most dysfunctional mimicry of Counter-Strike, I would've never even played it.

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I didn't say you dislike it, I'm saying it's unrealistic to believe if we hadn't added that more relaxed twist with more events, exploring and open confrontation/interaction between factions (be it S2K or else) unlike our previous iterations, population would have tanked hard.

The whole point of the discussion (which I find pointless to begin with as I don't think we could pull off a new classic-HL2RP iterarion unlike ^2) is if HL2RP "just like the old days" would've been possible under different circumstances. Classic HL2RP, not HL2RP² which had nothing to do with how classic HL2RP works (and that's honestly why it worked well).

The server didn't entirely hinge on the S2K, but it was a good power to bring people online who would before or after said action roleplay and participate in other things. Events were also a good way to bring people on- but as sad as it sounds the open firefights and encounters that were possible across the map added to the thrill of it (and the sense of "freedom with risks") and got people on. If ^2 was a classic HL2RP setting with events you would've produced approximately what we had in previous iterations that happened after Blackquill's, which heavily depended on constant influx of quantity over quality events and active, powerful developer work.

I'm not saying or implying you "dislike" PvP, I'm only asking if you seriously believe if these PvP free confrontations didn't exist the iteration would've survived- and the answer is no, it wouldn't.

I'm one to say that HL2RP will probably never? feel just as right as HL2. Mainly because its lot involves more personal work and stories and closed off stuff. Even with the amount of stuff we had in HL2RP2 I don't think I ever got the feeling of HALF-LIFE still, despite everything. It had things from it sure but just wasn't HL. Half-Life Deals with elements of body horror, horror, high octane action and set pieces, story telling and world building as well as huge focus on sci-fi. HL2RP can't exactly replicate it to a T due to limits of it being of a roleplay setting, technically more "grounded" and having to be more personal, unlike the games which are just first person shooters.

Flop said:

I'm one to say that HL2RP will probably never? feel just as right as HL2. Mainly because its lot involves more personal work and stories and closed off stuff. Even with the amount of stuff we had in HL2RP2 I don't think I ever got the feeling of HALF-LIFE still, despite everything. It had things from it sure but just wasn't HL. Half-Life Deals with elements of body horror, horror, high octane action and set pieces, story telling and world building as well as huge focus on sci-fi. HL2RP can't exactly replicate it to a T due to limits of it being of a roleplay setting, technically more "grounded" and having to be more personal, unlike the games which are just first person shooters.

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I mean it's not about being purely HL2, but HL2RP in its original conception (mid-occupation roleplay set in cities/outlands)

HL2 purely itself is "impossible" to roleplay in, technically

Señor Jaggles said:

I mean it's not about being purely HL2, but HL2RP in its original conception (mid-occupation roleplay set in cities/outlands)

HL2 purely itself is "impossible" to roleplay in, technically

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Fair enough

Unreal Engine 5 remake

This thread is like socrates dialogues discussing hl2rp and all its flaws and positives

Alexander The Great said:

This thread is like socrates dialogues discussing hl2rp and all its flaws and positives

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We are all partaking in the cave allegory staring at the shadows, yet none of us have bothered to get up and go outside

Valtorix said:

Unreal Engine 5 remake

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Ive said it a long time before, I know the unlikelihood but I personally don't think HL2RP can continue on has it has been. Honestly, it's a shock that Neb has been able to ass-pull so many creative new angles and updates to remake the game into something fresher. Though you can only refresh it so much - might be time to get a new rug entirely instead of just spraying different brands of febreze on it. Just sayin' lol

its not like people arent interested in half life anymore either

its still got a huge community on social media, other games, and just generally in culture

but i dont think people really wanna sit on gmod for hours every day collecting cans and walking in circles anymore

Trains said:

its not like people arent interested in half life anymore either

its still got a huge community on social media, other games, and just generally in culture

but i dont think people really wanna sit on gmod for hours every day collecting cans and walking in circles anymore

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I /med firing 70 bullets from my 15 bullet magazine pistol onto you point blank for owning 2 bags of non UU chips please respond

Gonna level with you: I (and probably a bunch of other people) simply aged out of HL2RP. When it was just me, I had all the time in the world and I was le active CWU man. Now, I have responsibilities, people who aren’t me I have to look out for, and my free time has straight-up evaporated. I want something I can pick up and play, not walk in circles for an hour picking up cans and waiting for my next ration to dispense so I can maybe hope the specific person I’m waiting for can flag up so I can pay him for ammo I will never use.

Señor Jaggles said:

I'm sorry Tinbe but the reason HL2RP² thrived was precisely because it had

1. Nothing to truly do with the original setting, not even with outlands in ep2

2. A way less serious, more lax mentality presented with a lot of combat and action involved, more freedom and a reduction on dependence on passive roleplay

People logged in for the shooting, flagged off afterwards, and so on. Sure, some stayed, but it wasn't a 50/50 sort of thing, outside of events and some specific players' plotlines of course.

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So you've said a few things about hl2rp^2 that I disagree with. Alot of this is going to be my personal opinion so take it with a grain of salt.



You said that hl2rp^2 only thrived because it was more lax, less serious, etc. I wholeheartedly disagree with that. HL2rp^2 was a serious server and came along with everything that you'd expect from HL2RP. It was by no means "less serious" nor was the dependence on passive RP really reduced. (Infact, I'd say passive RP was more emphasized due to the 'downtime' between events while with 'hard occupation city RP' there's more stuff to do other than sit at base).

I legitimately want to know if you played the server because I feel like this is sort of a bastardization of what HL2RP^2 was. You saying it had "nothing to do with the original setting" is crazy too, ngl. Personally I feel like this highlights the attitude of headstaff(?) in moving away from serious RP (ex: GTARP) and also the general reluctance in exploring things that aren't strictly following the original HL2 setting (ex: Alex denying the idea of maskless cops in a new iteration).

Anyways, you said below that HL2 isn't possible to roleplay and I sorta agree. HL2RP's original conception is just that, a conception, and for some reason we've decided to cling to it.

Señor Jaggles said:

I mean it's not about being purely HL2, but HL2RP in its original conception (mid-occupation roleplay set in cities/outlands)

HL2 purely itself is "impossible" to roleplay in, technically

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Anyways, I do agree with you that HL2RP^2 couldn't have survived without the PVP aspect of it but that's because there was nothing to supplement it with. I recall Numbers saying Nebulous could've been pulling in Synapse numbers if there was actual effort/devwork put into the server and I have to agree.

Also, on a final note.

Blackquill said:

I just remember talking about ways to improve shit/suggestions all the time back on the tailend of my time. Obviously before then as well but that's like the period of time that sticks out in my memory where suggestions were being mentioned internally a lot. It's why I said I felt disappointed because I felt like I'd tried everything and things didn't seem to work out. At least that's how I felt at the time

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I feel like this is a little silly. While I agree with you that alot of these suggestions were trying to "fix problems" (think of the rebel RP and supplies) and resulted in more issues or w/e, I don't think this is the entire story when it comes to suggestions/devwork.

Alot of these "suggestions" or "devwork" would've been simple changes that built ontop of pre-existing systems. These suggestions could've brought more people in and kept existing players around. I'm talking about simple devwork stuff here. New citizen terminals instead of the full-bright CSS TV screens, implementing the minor devwork (change citizens to spawn with 50 LP instead of 0) for a loyalist reform, etc. Yet none of this stuff came but it's w/e.