saying trident killed competition is one of the most ironic statements i think ive ever heard but im not blaming you for the misconception.
nobody TRIED
the only two instances of a group popping up was that one on the beach led by a vort (which had an INSANE amount of internal conflict with trident that lasted a long time and gave off a lot of cool dev), and some other human-led one that we actually endorsed and tried to help grow but it never did
other than that, nobody actually tried
i agree with everything else u said tho. at the time it seemed to me like people were having fun but hindsight yadayada
the vort one is the order one i'm referring to, which was fun until some pk-hungry folks lured the high command through the aforementioned situation and basically killed the only antagonists/'internal strife rp' outside of the combine
and personally, i tried to get into rp around trident etc it was just, mostly stood around in bars and waiting for a rp situation to occur or event.
it led to 'leeching' as folks remained in the outlands and most people were there, leading to the city dying off quite a bit, along with loyalists (combined with the unmaintained loyalist system which was perpetually 'pending reform' + varyingly active / sporadically dickish CAB)
thing with city rp is, it's extremely hard to revive once dead, as there's a bunch of 'moving parts'.
CWU got discouraged as there were next to no workshift attendees so the number went down, so fewer people stayed in the city. fewer people also meant less stuff to buy from stores so more became just can-farms, etc.
