idea for narrative

[Provingmedusa]

Counter argument, we should remove rebels. Make the rebellion entirely event-staff driven and instead roleplay as a marching combine army. Moving the advisor and other assets around in a desperate attempt to survive and preferably regain control or communication.

Perhaps due to the more limited means the transhumans become more and more human in action as they remain farther away from frequent stasis, perhaps some slowly get driven insane by it. The procedure for trans humanization is still maintained though slowly more brutalized or desperate meaning not every soldier comes out perfect and some suffer defects that might get solved in time or spell their doom.

So... fvuckingg...... bzades...

 

[WstStranger]

As a preface, and as a first time cop (And a crashing down city cop ) I really like this idea as the very concept of player faction vs player faction is not the best way to have RP between factions without a good third party (Citizens kind of did that but there was a competiviness anyways).

I had said in the discord server that purely Staff Combine is something that is not very desirable. In this addition, I suggest that OTA can be played by players in the sense of being directed by Staff (Which is probably what is happening anyway), and in general they should be in S2M/P2L. I suggest it as mostly there is something from the OTA that attracts in the RP perspective, hence why in reality I applied for cop (Not really the S2K advantage).

This is an idea on rough, I want this idea to be enjoyable by all as I look for gaps and trying to fill them.

Can someone dumb down the suggestion for me?

Basically, the suggestion is that we introduce a third major faction to the server. Be in the case of combine splitting off from CPs and OTA (Now OTA/Synths used to push the narrative). That in essence is the idea. So now cops have a choice on going against the Combine, rebels, or both.

Perhaps due to the more limited means the transhumans become more and more human in action as they remain farther away from frequent stasis, perhaps some slowly get driven insane by it. The procedure for trans humanization is still maintained though slowly more brutalized or desperate meaning not every soldier comes out perfect and some suffer defects that might get solved in time or spell their doom.

I also like this idea, but maybe this is not the time yet as the Combine (To my knowledge) still has the infrastructure to maintain so maybe as the war goes on, this could be foreshadowed and introduced. Maybe this is a way to introduce the third faction from Insanity/corruption, or a way for transhumans to be more human. After all, the transhumans gave up everything for the privilege of being dependent on the war machine.

 

[RedMan]

Counter argument, we should remove rebels. Make the rebellion entirely event-staff driven and instead roleplay as a marching combine army. Moving the advisor and other assets around in a desperate attempt to survive and preferably regain control or communication.

Perhaps due to the more limited means the transhumans become more and more human in action as they remain farther away from frequent stasis, perhaps some slowly get driven insane by it. The procedure for trans humanization is still maintained though slowly more brutalized or desperate meaning not every soldier comes out perfect and some suffer defects that might get solved in time or spell their doom.

I think we should allow people that want to play as rebels to participate as a conscripted force that underwent a series of major memory replacement after being captured. Responsible for performing mential and dangerous tasks that otherwise we would not spare losing a unit in doing so. This should resolve the problems associated with "competitive roleplay" and allow for more "cooperative roleplay" in the long-term.

 

[Thood74]

well unfortunately mate HL2RP struggles as a competitive RP a la WW3RP, because any changes made by staff that aren't completely bipartisan in nature will fuck off basically exactly 50% of the playerbase.
either the rebels will get upset that there's combine favoritism, or the combine get upset that there's rebel favoritism.
and one of the actually plausible ways to solve this is to just make a side non-playable for the majority of the players, and instead make them NPCs played the staff who have no obligation to get upset whenever they lose an encounter

so yeah, the suggestion is to remove the combine as a playable faction entirely and allow the current CP players an out by effectively becoming softcore rebels

I'm sorry if you think that's dumb mate but unless something changes we're going to be stuck in the eternal status quo of:
- new map
- rebels and combine have a base that'd equidistance apart
- some opening skirmishes and fights accompanied by plenty of OOC drama and whining
- big map change event
- the events of the previous map are never brought up again

For that very reason, your solution isn't one. Its cutting an entire half of the playerbase out with no remedy for an entire side outside of partaking in S2K from time to time

Come up with something else. As for the events of prior maps not being brought up again, I do agree it would be more interesting if the events we were partaking in would be adding up towards some sort of serious long term. Having us work from the POV of only one faction won't innately fix this, and a lot of the solutions for the problem could be implemented with two factions working against eachother to accomplish their narrative objectives across the server

Hell, we've entirely forgotten about that bit with reestablishing a connection to the Combine Overworld.

Counter argument, we should remove rebels. Make the rebellion entirely event-staff driven and instead roleplay as a marching combine army. Moving the advisor and other assets around in a desperate attempt to survive and preferably regain control or communication.

Perhaps due to the more limited means the transhumans become more and more human in action as they remain farther away from frequent stasis, perhaps some slowly get driven insane by it. The procedure for trans humanization is still maintained though slowly more brutalized or desperate meaning not every soldier comes out perfect and some suffer defects that might get solved in time or spell their doom.

I like this idea slightly more because its for the faction I actually play and would be a subversion by flipping who the protagonist faction is, but its still innately flawed because its a lot less fun to be fighting an uncharacterised horde of Lambda insurgents consisting more than likely of players who just had it springed on them that their faction is no longer considered a leading, autonomous part of the ongoing narrative and will be working under staff instruction

One immediate concern is about new players and existing non-Rebel citizens - do they instantly become/get conscripted into being civi pro 25s without the vetting of applications, or do they stay as citizens employed by Overwatch ala the Combine Engineering Core or Infestation Control and get to apply from there? What about the Security Council or the previously mentioned workforces?

 

[MaXenzie]

I think we should allow people that want to play as rebels to participate as a conscripted force that underwent a series of major memory replacement after being captured. Performing mential and dangerous tasks that otherwise we would not spare losing a unit in doing so. This should resolve the problems associated with "competitive roleplay" and allow for more "cooperative roleplay" in the long-term.

you put them in quotation marks like they're buzzwords i just made up

@Erkor describe Warfront

 

[Thood74]

I think we should allow people that want to play as rebels to participate as a conscripted force that underwent a series of major memory replacement after being captured. Responsible for performing mential and dangerous tasks that otherwise we would not spare losing a unit in doing so. This should resolve the problems associated with "competitive roleplay" and allow for more "cooperative roleplay" in the long-term.

You are talking about stalkers except with their limbs intact. A conscripted citizen workforce alongside cops that isn't just the beta conscripts has always been a fun idea which reminds me of the citizen corps, but having them all be mindfucked former rebels who have no future prospects such as recruitment is kind of a poor implementation.

 

[RedMan]

but having them all be mindfucked former rebels who have no future prospects such as recruitment is kind of a poor implementation.

There is that unofficial element in which those who had undergone memory replacement can partially break its effects after being exposed to a series of information that may have otherwise been missing or contradicting to them. This obviously puts a lot of trust on the individual not to run away after having been told a singular minor piece of information that is likely irrelevant to them.

 

[Rabid]

Removing either side would genuinely kill the server in record time. Part of what has allowed this concept to last is that players are doing the heavy lifting of the conflict itself by populating both sides.

If you put the staff team at the helm of needing to run every encounter? That'll burn them out and whichever side you focus on will quickly grow bored.

 

[MaXenzie]

Removing either side would genuinely kill the server in record time. Part of what has allowed this concept to last is that players are doing the heavy lifting of the conflict itself by populating both sides.

If you put the staff team at the helm of needing to run every encounter? That'll burn them out and whichever side you focus on will quickly grow bored.

ngl rabid im feeling the stagnation at the moment, every map I've played on has basically been the same thing in a different locale
there's no real story being told because the moment we change map nothing comes with us except our own characters

why are we fighting a war if the end result is just "we change map and go back to status quo"

 

[Erkor]

Warfront

Warfront
n. A feature in World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth in which players of one faction fight against AI-controlled enemies in a large-scale battleground. In the purview of roleplay, Warfronts are typically zone-sized roleplay venues in which players of two opposing factions are pitted against one-another in Player-vs-Player roleplay. Players are encouraged to battle one-another in large-scale combat events, convene to make tactical choices for their forces to undergo, and set up outpos it's ww3rp in wow

 

[MaXenzie]

Warfront
n. A feature in World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth in which players of one faction fight against AI-controlled enemies in a large-scale battleground. In the purview of roleplay, Warfronts are typically zone-sized roleplay venues in which players of two opposing factions are pitted against one-another in Player-vs-Player roleplay. Players are encouraged to battle one-another in large-scale combat events, convene to make tactical choices for their forces to undergo, and set up outpos it's ww3rp in wow

now give me your opinion on warfront roleplay and tell me whether you would consider warfronts to be competitive RP
competitive RP meaning that both sides aren't playing for the story but are in fact playing solely to "win" at roleplay

 

[Rabid]

ngl rabid im feeling the stagnation at the moment, every map I've played on has basically been the same thing in a different locale
there's no real story being told because the moment we change map nothing comes with us except our own characters

why are we fighting a war if the end result is just "we change map and go back to status quo"

There are ways to shake things up and change the formula into something cohesive without guaranteeing things crumble in record time by axing half of the current playerbase is all I'm saying, y'know?

 

[MaXenzie]

There are ways to shake things up and change the formula into something cohesive without guaranteeing things crumble in record time by axing half of the current playerbase is all I'm saying, y'know?

but the core problem will always be that the server is innately competitive in nature

as long as half the server is fighting the other half we will always have these problems

 

[RedMan]

but the core problem will always be that the server is innately competitive in nature

There is nothing wrong with competition on its own. The problem occurs when it becomes a 'competitive shooter'.

 

[Erkor]

now give me your opinion on warfront roleplay and tell me whether you would consider warfronts to be competitive RP
competitive RP meaning that both sides aren't playing for the story but are in fact playing solely to "win" at roleplay

the core narrative usually entirely hinges on either side winning because it's made for that. that said, it is absolutely competetive RP

 

[Rabid]

but the core problem will always be that the server is innately competitive in nature

as long as half the server is fighting the other half we will always have these problems

You're right, but at least its something people want to play - or that's how I see it, anyway?

I understand where you are coming from in that yeah, axing half of the playerbase would inherently solve the "us vs them" problem but you'd also be down half the playerbase which creates a lot of problems and frontloads the experience to the point you now have a timelimit on what is otherwise a very successful experience (and usually not a good timelimit either).

 

[Subeh]

i havent read everything yet but im seeing a few ppl say "but muh ota char tho" and yeah i get that

but like i said (and i think people are missing it?) there's 100% the opportunity for ota, while being narrative tools, to still get rp. they could go out on patrols effectively whenever they like and in the process of that could go and speak to the cops at their leisure. they havent totally lost their marbles like the others have, but theyre still loyal enough to the overlords that they don't 'defect' entirely; think of the relationship between cops and rebels rn - cops can speak to rebels whenever they like at some risk, and be sympathetic to them, but wont defect to their side.

i mean shit, imagine the sheer potential for rp there; ota sneaking out of the combine base on the map to go and see the cops, give them food/water/munitions, rp with them, update them with what's going on internally and shit. as time goes on u could even see ota's 'brainwashing' deteriorate for whatever reason and so they become even more inclined to do it

there's (again) a lot to take from terminator rp here. terminators used to, of their own volition and without any staff input, hop on their terminator characters and just.. head out. they'd walk around, search shit, with their only two stipulations being (iirc) that they had to be lenient on spotting humans if the humans made an attempt to hide and they werent allowed to go into the human main base

ota/synths could do the same

when i say 'staff narrative tools' i mean they get used to peddle the narrative. 'staff narrative tools' =/= character death

 

[Flop]

There are ways to shake things up and change the formula into something cohesive without guaranteeing things crumble in record time by axing half of the current playerbase is all I'm saying, y'know?

Essentially this, there is a lot more you can do/try before resorting to something entirely new imo

 

[Merlinsclaw]

I generally think this is a horrible idea and more of a backlash idea to remove OTA/Synths after the complaints from rebels yesterday (really funny)

Genuinely shouldn't do any of this in my opinion. The idea of a 'third faction' has already been floated around ICly. It doesn't need to be forced on OOCly.

 

[MaXenzie]

I generally think this is a horrible idea and more of a backlash idea to remove OTA/Synths after the complaints from rebels yesterday (really funny)

you've misread it

OTA/Synths would become the forefront even more than before, not be removed