Hudson
Electron
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2016
- Messages
- 766
- Nebulae
- 4,873
During the LemonPunch era I felt that WW3RP was getting out of balance, and looking back at BnT this was clearly not a new issue:
"I'm sure on the first day we would have lead a few patrols, and had a few engagements. The big issue that always came up was the shoot to miss policy. Bascially people could use these weapons to shoot clear across the map and kill people, and so policing that was a nightmare."
Interview with Brawler
In the balance between deathmatching and roleplay, efforts were made to protect the serious roleplay angle of the gamemode from day 1.
My experience of the LemonPunch culture years later was that one faction would take an aggressive stance, and as a result the second faction would take a defensive stance. The more defensive the second faction got, the more aggressive the first faction became, which produced a cycle of competitiveness that would end up hurting roleplay.
"Alpha patrol headed east of base to check for movement, mines, and firearms. Alpha recovered a lost item in the eastern pond and returned to base with nothing to report. All members followed orders satisfactorily."
Report 11
Part of the motivation for patrols at the time were to create short roleplay stories to engage players with, especially new players. Was a local area cleared of mines? Under friendly control? Littered with abandoned firearms to recover? Each member could be given individual instructions, and I think roleplay thrives on the little interactive parts like that.
The good conduct of patrol members in these roleplay moments were noted in short field reports with the names of characters involved for future reference in promotion applications/recommendations. Poor conduct simply gave an opportunity for further on-base roleplay after getting back to base.
Over time I felt the competitiveness eroding the serious roleplay culture of the playerbase, which in turn gave rise to an increase to all the inside jokes being shared in OOC chat.
When I made the LemonPunch 2014 montage video I kept a strict aspect ratio of 16:9, but when it came to the 2015 montage a lot of the content was letterboxed because I was cutting out so many memes from the screenshots. The increase in memes over time were a clear symptom of the problem in my opinion(not that I'm against memes, I just didn't want them in the serious montages).
I'd written a few posts over the years like conservatism in firefights out of that concern that things were getting unbalanced. The use of teamspeak as an in-character channel was becoming more prominent, and in later years I felt that patrols were little more than a few players looking to get kills.
Some particular people involved were getting frustrated, and they didn't always channel thier passion for the gamemode constructively, but I trusted their intentions. I thought it was a shame that they seemed unappreciated, or outright unwelcome.
People with genuinely selfish intentions enjoyed the fact that the staff were lenient. I do think leniency and forgiveness are good things, but I felt the culture had taken a wrong turn, and the thing that makes the server different from every other FPS experience was the serious roleplay aspect which was being lost.
The roleplay structure was partly broken, off-base roleplay seemed to disappear, the immersion suffered, new roleplayers weren't finding roleplay to engage with, and the motivation for old roleplayers must have been thinning.
I'm not surprised if there were very few people left in the end, my motivation to connect to the server had run out long ago. Finding balance in a gamemode like this is difficult, but there's clearly a lot of people still interested in its potential.
I'd love to see a slow paced WW3RP server again, even if it wasn't realistic. Something that might attract new roleplayers, and give them an environment to grow in. The occasional Generations event could spice things up.
I spent so long advocating for roleplay that I imagine people think I don't like deathmatching. I actually enjoy deathmatching. I won a Counter-Strike LAN tournament in 2003. I think you can generate roleplay from some deathmatching in WW3RP, it's fun to be in a battle, but when it comes to roleplay I think you have to stick to the goal-orientation of the firefights being done with roleplay in mind.
"I'm sure on the first day we would have lead a few patrols, and had a few engagements. The big issue that always came up was the shoot to miss policy. Bascially people could use these weapons to shoot clear across the map and kill people, and so policing that was a nightmare."
Interview with Brawler
In the balance between deathmatching and roleplay, efforts were made to protect the serious roleplay angle of the gamemode from day 1.
My experience of the LemonPunch culture years later was that one faction would take an aggressive stance, and as a result the second faction would take a defensive stance. The more defensive the second faction got, the more aggressive the first faction became, which produced a cycle of competitiveness that would end up hurting roleplay.
"Alpha patrol headed east of base to check for movement, mines, and firearms. Alpha recovered a lost item in the eastern pond and returned to base with nothing to report. All members followed orders satisfactorily."
Report 11
Part of the motivation for patrols at the time were to create short roleplay stories to engage players with, especially new players. Was a local area cleared of mines? Under friendly control? Littered with abandoned firearms to recover? Each member could be given individual instructions, and I think roleplay thrives on the little interactive parts like that.
The good conduct of patrol members in these roleplay moments were noted in short field reports with the names of characters involved for future reference in promotion applications/recommendations. Poor conduct simply gave an opportunity for further on-base roleplay after getting back to base.
Over time I felt the competitiveness eroding the serious roleplay culture of the playerbase, which in turn gave rise to an increase to all the inside jokes being shared in OOC chat.
When I made the LemonPunch 2014 montage video I kept a strict aspect ratio of 16:9, but when it came to the 2015 montage a lot of the content was letterboxed because I was cutting out so many memes from the screenshots. The increase in memes over time were a clear symptom of the problem in my opinion(not that I'm against memes, I just didn't want them in the serious montages).
I'd written a few posts over the years like conservatism in firefights out of that concern that things were getting unbalanced. The use of teamspeak as an in-character channel was becoming more prominent, and in later years I felt that patrols were little more than a few players looking to get kills.
Some particular people involved were getting frustrated, and they didn't always channel thier passion for the gamemode constructively, but I trusted their intentions. I thought it was a shame that they seemed unappreciated, or outright unwelcome.
People with genuinely selfish intentions enjoyed the fact that the staff were lenient. I do think leniency and forgiveness are good things, but I felt the culture had taken a wrong turn, and the thing that makes the server different from every other FPS experience was the serious roleplay aspect which was being lost.
The roleplay structure was partly broken, off-base roleplay seemed to disappear, the immersion suffered, new roleplayers weren't finding roleplay to engage with, and the motivation for old roleplayers must have been thinning.
I'm not surprised if there were very few people left in the end, my motivation to connect to the server had run out long ago. Finding balance in a gamemode like this is difficult, but there's clearly a lot of people still interested in its potential.
I'd love to see a slow paced WW3RP server again, even if it wasn't realistic. Something that might attract new roleplayers, and give them an environment to grow in. The occasional Generations event could spice things up.
I spent so long advocating for roleplay that I imagine people think I don't like deathmatching. I actually enjoy deathmatching. I won a Counter-Strike LAN tournament in 2003. I think you can generate roleplay from some deathmatching in WW3RP, it's fun to be in a battle, but when it comes to roleplay I think you have to stick to the goal-orientation of the firefights being done with roleplay in mind.
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