Serious HL2RP - Moving Forward

Merlinsclaw said:

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).

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I see your point but I meant it as in there were waaaaay less limitations on what you could do- hell I adjusted the ruleset myself to ensure players would have rules that allowed them to know what lines they could not cross and even so they could as long as they accepted the risk it entailed. Passive RP lives off the population who want some downtime, you can't have downtime without its counterpart. I really didn't mean anything in an offensive way, completely the opposite if anything.

Merlinsclaw said:

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).

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I played and lead it, hell, I was one of the people working on it at the beginning and for a good few months. I adapted the ruleset itself. It really had nothing to do with the previous iterations or HL2's base conception, it was a "what-if", and a really cool one at that if you ask me. I walked away from it but in no way it means I wanted it to fail, I was happy to see it continue to thrive. The reluctance didn't only come from Headstaff, mind you, and that's evidenced through other servers too- they still keep these things in their servers, and they still get players.

Merlinsclaw said:

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.

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Yeah but you can't just pull those devs out of thin air, and you can't force devs to work on something they don't want to work on either. I agree devwork has a LOT of pull in servers, even if it's merely visual, I remember every UI change or new gadget Zombine developed making people go nuts over it, and it's understandable. But it's also important to understand you can't just pull developers/mappers out of thin air, especially for Lua and Hammer Editor of all things. I am a developer, I thought about giving it a try, and I simply couldn't bring myself to do it. It's really just like that.

I know the ins and outs of that iteration, hell I loved it, it felt more engaging, people were more open about stuff, and overall it was more fun, but it was simply not your average, classic HL2RP, hell it wasn't even a modification of that classic HL2RP, it was something else entirely and that's why it was innovative and enjoyable.

The core problems any latest iteration we attempt are as follows

1: No consistent dev team. Iterations have had developers, but no teams of developers, which means if one developer has to go away for a while then you have no developers for the foreseeable future, which is a death sentence.
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2: Minimum appeal to new players. There is a broad reliance on the 'old guard' being the ones who come back. It's all about drawing back nebulous' players, getting them in, and whilst that's nice it's also damning the successes of the iteration. New players aren't given a focus or a draw, the gameplay laid out appeals to people like us but few else. We want to see new experimental, different things because we're all very used to the same old system and want change, but often things change too much and it warps the type of gameplay from something vaguely recognisable into something entirely different.

CityRP appeals to people because it's one of the first things you see in HL2, and it is the big setting. White Forest-esque RP only appeals to the fraction of people in comparison who've gone ahead and played through to Episode 2, or people coming from HL2RP having played rebels and wanting something more, or special.

Willard's system and approach is so wildly different to how ours used to be, that I don't get why there's been little push to return back to where we began with the classic HL2RP. Why not offer that kind of experience to new players, combat that isn't using a special turn-based system etc. etc. I'd bet money on there being an influx of new players if we effectively 'rolled back' and decided to run i17 as our starting map.
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3: Identity crisis. Each iteration is trying to be something new, or something old with such a new coat of paint that it struggles to resemble the original outside of a few ideas. 'Nebulous' was a serious roleplaying server, where it was dangerous to run outside and underneath the ground lay the rebels. Where you'd have to work your way up to get enough caps to either pay for a ferry through the gas or buy a blacksuit and filter of your own. Where the Civil Administration Board ruled below, making for both great mouthpieces for the Combine and for great targets for rebels to seek out and kill. Where the OTA were feared for their high health, high armour, heat vision, AR2s, and a lethal aim.

Where has all that gone? Where has the identity of nebulous disappeared to? In the pursuit to try something new, the foundations have been forsaken leaving behind something unrecognisable. If you showed anyone here what the server's looking like now and how its looked before the numbers iteration, and told them 'that's nebulous', you'd get laughed at.
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Nebulous doesn't feel like nebulous anymore. It feels like someone's avant garde art project.
If we're still debating things come september I'll gladly put on the mantle to try and properly help.

Sil said:

Where has all that gone? Where has the identity of nebulous disappeared to? In the pursuit to try something new, the foundations have been forsaken leaving behind something unrecognisable. If you showed anyone here what the server's looking like now and how its looked before the numbers iteration, and told them 'that's nebulous', you'd get laughed at.
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Nebulous doesn't feel like nebulous anymore. It feels like someone's avant garde art project.

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Those old times of booming CityRP on Neb like back in 2020 just won't really happen again without loads of work. As lots of people have said, they've either lost interest in CityRP, or have outgrown it. I mean, take 'Early Days' as a example, that was a attempt at (a admittedly slightly tweaked) CityRP setting like back in the day, and it failed horribly. There still are people interested in it, as shown by the small influx of new players when we switched back to CityRP, but I don't think they're the majority of players at all.

Changing things up isn't a bad thing, or a 'loss of identity'. I think the identity of a community is mostly based on it's playerbase and staff.

Sil said:

I'd bet money on there being an influx of new players if we effectively 'rolled back' and decided to run i17 as our starting map.

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Hard occupation city rp will work this time I swear guys.

In the like 2 years of being on this forum, I have noticed how people have been complaining for years about the state of the playerbase. And what I have noted is two groups, one group that says "lets try an event only formula, 24/7 isn't really working anymore people have lives" and another that says "lmao event only doomed to fail, 24/7 city rp like it was originally is gonna work i swear ong fr".

And the second group always wins

Sil said:

New players aren't given a focus or a draw, the gameplay laid out appeals to people like us but few else

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just gonna say that while hl2rp2 was pulling good numbers i know not just me but other players tried to integrate new players into rp even at a detriment. i know not everyone did that though (response to zethes checkpoint on boreas, some of you need self awareness)

Sil said:

I'd bet money on there being an influx of new players if we effectively 'rolled back' and decided to run i17 as our starting map.

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Sil said:

'Nebulous' was a serious roleplaying server, where it was dangerous to run outside and underneath the ground lay the rebels. Where you'd have to work your way up to get enough caps to either pay for a ferry through the gas or buy a blacksuit and filter of your own

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Sil said:

Nebulous doesn't feel like nebulous anymore. It feels like someone's avant garde art project.

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what? i17? ferrying? in 2024? current neb is avant garde? get real

constantdisplay said:

just gonna say that while hl2rp2 was pulling good numbers i know not just me but other players tried to integrate new players into rp even at a detriment. i know not everyone did that though (response to zethes checkpoint on boreas, some of you need self awareness)

what? i17? ferrying? in 2024? current neb is avant garde? get real

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he's a troll on god

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have absolutely exhausted all of my interest in traditional CityRP format after having already played so much of it over the past decade of my life.

where do i apply for civil protector? not sure where send app link please :D

harry said:

where do i apply for civil protector? not sure where send app link please :D

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hi harry

Rabid said:

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.

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@Dallas can't believe that your dee pixel event detective character getting pk'd caused the downfall of CityV.

harry said:

where do i apply for civil protector? not sure where send app link please :D

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can i join

Merlinsclaw said:

he's a troll on god

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ah well, its been nearly 8 years now and I don't even play much anymore (god knows I miss the old days but I know I'm a minority on that front)

Straven said:

Idk why nebulous has been constrained to HL2 RP for as long as it has, why haven't attempts been made to try other worlds (to my knowledge), or even other parts of the Half Life world like Black Mesa.

Clearly, a majority of people feel like HL2 RP as it traditionally is has been run dry and due to competition nebulous just doesn't have a place there anymore, so if there was a time to make the switch to GMod Roleplay in other worlds/settings (Fallout, Black Mesa, etc) it would be right now atleast in my opinion.

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i don't think neb can compete with WI right now in half life

give us something fresh, something that doesn't need a huge player base to feel active, and something that doesn't need much staff, staff that can have complete freedom over the setting

give us neb:respite

deathwolf said:

@Dallas can't believe

that your dee pixel event detective character getting pk'd caused the downfall of CityV.

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I'm not even trying to start shit or anything (hence the lack of tagging him), because it wasn't intentional, he was pissed and spoke out. People listened.

Big drama always knocked player numbers, in that case it just sent the server into a tailspin.

Rabid said:

I'm not even trying to start shit or anything (hence the lack of tagging him), because it wasn't intentional, he was pissed and spoke out. People listened.

Big drama always knocked player numbers, in that case it just sent the server into a tailspin.

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next iteration should have 0 OOC at all ever

that would solve the bulk of the problems (most problems are OOC so removing OOC should fix them)

Speaking of event formats and shit like that; I'm sure Neb could go down that route but let's also be blunt about it:

Most of the best event makers dont play here anymore and have no interest in doing so when they have their own setup to make events in whatever way they see fit without being beholden to anyone or anything else.

And while we do still have some event makers who do good stuff (and I hope they continue to do good stuff) would those people be enough to shoulder a full setup for however long things go on?

Rabid said:

Speaking of event formats and shit like that; I'm sure Neb could go down that route but let's also be blunt about it:

Most of the best event makers dont play here anymore and have no interest in doing so when they have their own setup to make events in whatever way they see fit without being beholden to anyone or anything else.

And while we do still have some event makers who do good stuff (and I hope they continue to do good stuff) would those people be enough to shoulder a full setup for however long things go on?

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he said most cause I’m still here 😎