News Preview/Discussion - WW3RP: STASILAND

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Baker

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Isuckatgaming

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Monarchist Insurgent group who is fighting to restore the Hohenzollern dynasty to the throne of Germany.

you say this as if an anarchist group that shits all over both NATO and Soviets isn't the ideal peak performance big brain group

nice try (((nebulous)))
 
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Roosebud

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Picked out some quotes I felt would be fun to elaborate upon, obviously we'll have a larger QA on the planned date.

passing yourself off as an MSS agent wouldn't be that hard with the right attitude and attire

Playing in to the entire subversion angle of the server, we're working on forgery systems to copy official documents/identifications, as well as having infiltration from either insurgent groups, NATO, Stasi or other unaligned entities play a larger role. We played around with the potential for a large unaligned insurgent group being infiltrated by every other faction, which would result in some sort of shadow three-way-conflict within said group.

fun stuff

A NATO taskforce compromised of some (or a significant majority) with these is also fine.

People never really understood that the "NATO Joint Special Operations Command" (NJSOC) was always an international cooperation of all NATO countries' Special Forces and Intelligence agencies. People always referred to themselves as 'NATO Soldier' despite NATO not being a country but rather a cooperation of multiple armies.

I was going to write up a full origin guide for potential NJSOC operators, but in essence members of the NJSOC can be members of any intelligence / special operations branch, provided it's from a NATO country and said organisation engages in foreign intelligence / direct action etc.

It'd be perfectly reasonable to see members with a CIA SAD background cooperating with SAS, SEAL, ISA etc operators as part of a larger NATO Taskforce.

I for one, believe that the Commissariat and Army should operate separately in the sense that they use different ranking structures and have specifically different roles. I'd also like to see a focus on the Soviet Army, and in terms of covert operations, KGB rather than Spetsnaz. If anything, I'd like to see Spetsnaz/Soviet SF in only special event circumstances as they're more likely needed in other regions the Soviet Union is facing.

As of right now there's zero plans to incorporate 'Soviet SF' into the mix, with the focus being on a regular Army unit in an away-from-the-frontline scenario, as well as the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) incorporating elements/liaisons of the KGB etc as a seperate entity co-existing with the Army, having a shared employed/allegiance but different goals. It'd be nice to have a degree of inter-faction tension and different priorities as a source of roleplay as well.


I'd also like to see a lot of attention being paid to how promotions are given and why they're given. Its' always a very subjective thing that usually gets messed up somehow or another. I don't particularly want people being rewarded for effectively winning scenarios over roleplay, but I also wouldn't want incompetent NCOs, and its' always a struggle to get the right balance and promote the rights ones while giving them fair enough time in between ranks to actually note that stage as a point of their life and experience.

Players should treat ranks as a function rather than just another collectible to achieve. I reckon for this setting to work properly people should expect to remain a certain rank for a long time, even if it's a private. NCOs have a specific function in guiding teams, officers have more of a political and management function and the enlisted are the main forefront of the faction.

Perhaps we need to put more OOC restrictions on freedom of promotion, such as stripping the ability away from people with a certain rank and making it more of an OOC process. People shouldn't do things with the mindset of being promoted for it. Again, ranks are a job, medals are a reward.

Commissariat are basicly MPs. I say this as an old lead of that sub faction. They should have their own ranking structure for game reasons but shouldn't be seperate from the army ranks as it wont make sence since MPs, atleast in my army, still share the same ranks as basic infantry.

On that note, we're not yet settled on how big of a role the 'commissars'/MPs should play within the Soviet faction, especially seeing the controversy previously surrounding them. The nature of the concept should allow for more corruption and infiltration to be present, I reckon I'd rather have a handful of investigators for that purpose instead of having a bunch of military policemen hunt for spies/pows on a daily basis as their sole function.

yeah that's cool but since all combat is pk people are gonna chicken out 'cus then they'll have to make new chars and spend weeks grinding for gear, which sounds uhm............................ familiar

I know that char adressed most of your concerns already, but on the topic of PK's I'd like to mention that I'd rather not have ALL combat be PKs, obviously we'd mess with the server balance if an entire armed force / intelligence entity would be able to be exterminated with a single lucky carbomb for example. I reckon we'd be enforcing PKs more often, but under specific circumstances.

S2K WW3RP is fun banter with the lads not good roleplay

Definitely a big concern, little we can do about it other than provide people with an environment and system in which 's2k banter' is structurally discouraged or made harder to achieve. Ultimately it's up to the people, if they decide to go in with a mindset of 'lets get these memes boys' we'll go downhill pretty fast.

One thing we stressed in our pitch on Monday there wad that access to weapons is readily available, perhaps lower tear weapons like melee, bows, pipe rifles et cetera. But given the action focus you wouldn't be lacking.

The concept of the Stasiland is that there is no government per-se, so peolle cannot rely on that. Instead on themselves and others, and the competing factions. In that sense it is the opppsite of HL2RPs very present apparatus of state.

Repeating this one for all ya'll people who don't read, I'm sure I adressed this more in-depth during the earlier pages of this thread.

to what extent is all this true, and assuming this will be occurring in Germany, how much of the occupying force will be Slavic Soviets, and how much will be Aryan/W.Euro Soviets? Will there be discrimination towards non-Russian/Slavic Soviets in terms of ranks, or KGB eligibility?
Rogue authorizations for Soviet characters?

No solid agreement on the shunning of certain characters part, however it's likely that members of the warsaw pact and occupied countries can join the armed forces seeing as it's a backwater unit stationed with peacekeeping duties in mind, rather than an elite frontline regiment. KGB'd obviously be a bit more specific.

As for rogue auths, I mentioned that the concept would allow us to tolerate corruption more, with everyone effectively in it for themselves. I reckon we can auth corruption within the army ranks provided it's done realistically and conform certain guidelines, obviously we're not gonna tolerate people shooting up their own base for the heck of it or selling the entire stockpile of weapons during graveyard hours.

Can we expect the server this year?

likely

I'm wondering how char and Roosebud managed to keep militia/civilian from being premium only, considering that's how it was on WW3RP, despite all attempts to change that.

Civilians / militia were sort-of shoehorned in as a premium benefit on the old ww3rp, towards the end I tried to flesh them out more and mentioned that I'd like to do a concept where they'd be at the forefront.

We dont really have much in the way of premium benefits right now, once again suggestions are welcome.



The theme of this thread, seeing as I had to answer a single concern/question five times already. Please take your time to read through this thread people, some concerns have literally been adressed in the OP already.
 

Samurai

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holy fuck i missed you. why are you in india.
Totally not helping the poos shoot down Pakistani jets. Missed you too buddy. I hope you i will get in on this as well.

It's just a script that I have that masks my presence while using my browser. Modifies incoming HTTP requests. Hides what browser I'm using while doing stuff with my IP. Nothing really malicious or anything.
 
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Rabid

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Personally @Roosebud the issues with MP's stemmed from when they'd literally whip out the IRL Geneva Convention and decimate any-and-all slightly questionable roleplay. Some MP leads were great, others less-so.

I think they could work well, just not if they go in and crush absolutely everything they see.
 
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Gabe

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.
On that note, we're not yet settled on how big of a role the 'commissars'/MPs should play within the Soviet faction, especially seeing the controversy previously surrounding them. The nature of the concept should allow for more corruption and infiltration to be present, I reckon I'd rather have a handful of investigators for that purpose instead of having a bunch of military policemen hunt for spies/pows on a daily basis as their sole function..
Tbh they should act like normal MPs that keep militery law within base, corruption should defo be a thing but I think that only high ups should focus on infiltrations and the excetera
 
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Deleted member 61

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Tbh they should act like normal MPs that keep militery law within base, corruption should defo be a thing but I think that only high ups should focus on infiltrations and the excetera
One could consider infiltration, a collective effort to prevent.
:cool:
 
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Gabe

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Also if I may add, the problem with some shit the MPs wanted or could do was people wipping out small shit from the geniva convention which come to think on it was cringe since I know that in some areas of a militery prison you'd get beaten to shit for minor things
 
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Deleted member 2304

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How much control will NATO troops have over thenselves? Will there be a faction lead to guide the overall faction or will the characters have full autonomy, for instance forming different factions of NATO exiles.
 

Roosebud

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Some thoughts:

Sabotage targets
It sounds like there's going to be agents working against the Soviet faction. I've seen this done poorly where the Soviet soldiers would simply be targets to pick off by sniping or backstabs, which destroys roleplay. In one particular case there was a journalist character that wanted to visit the base, but due to the lack of trust they were turned away, so in a culture where players exist to be killed you'll find potential roleplay opportunities being dismissed.

How do you promote the idea of players trusting eachother over a deathmatch culture? You could start off with a rule that protects interactions on a certain level. You can substitute the target of the Soviet soldier by offering other valid targets like unattended vehicles, power generators, ammunition dumps, all the way down to minor sabotage targets like tyres, jerry cans, or even just glass windows. If a rule existed that you couldn't kill a player without reasonable provocation, then you could still disrupt them in other ways.

The Soviet faction might not actually need jerry can props, but the point is that on a roleplay level the Soviet soldiers should act like they need those jerry cans. As a tool for roleplay, citizens that take part in low level sabotage shouldn't be summarily executed. The Soviets are there probably hoping to have some local citizens tolerate them, and in turn that might mean being somewhat lenient, making the need for arrests and trials over just killing any citizen that hints at standing up to them.

We've been working on aspects of the concept that would facilitate this more, one other issue we faced was how to make insurgencies being able to sustain themselves. We conjured the idea of having a variety of armories, outposts, stockpiles, smaller bases etc spread evenly across the map, with the Soviet faction being able to assign men to them as a means of keeping busy. At the same time, people'd be able to hit / raid / infiltrate these locations to acquire information, damage Soviet logistics or acquire more equipment for themselves.

A major pitfall we saw with SF infiltrations on old ww3rp was people immediately jumping on the 'unknown' guy that suddenly appeared in base, due to them OOCly recognising members of the faction, even if the infiltrators had a description in their color. It got absurd to the point where someone making a fresh jpvt character was not scrutinized, but a soldier pretending to be a new arrival was followed by 3+ MPs and constantly asked who he was. Perhaps we should look into making it harder to keep track of who's who, with people not immediately recognising one another for example.
Another aspect is the forgery/theft of identity documents and uniforms, as well as a cover system for the NJSOC / Stasi factions.

It's food for thought, and certainly a hot topic within development seeing as we want to capitalize on the fun and good rp we had with similar situations during ww3rp.

Lore broken down into events
Something that seemed to be a popular concept was the idea of breaking down lore-influencing events into even smaller events. For example:

The arrest of a local militant leads to information that he was connected to a defector. A search of the militants house reveals that the defector will visit a certain landmark at a certain time, and a scouting mission reveals that frag grenades would be a good method of assaulting the position from a ridge in a surprise attack. After some grenade training, they assault the point and capture the defector. The defector is processed by military police and put before a firing squad. Keeping all characters informed of each development can help immerse them in the storyline.

I reckon this can come to be through state-issued newspapers and underground info coming from the NATO to counter that, as well as the broadcasting and wanted person functions we added to organisations such as the Stasi. I can only hope that people go for a smart approach when dealing with these matters, instead of bumrushing head-first into situations and then being surprised when they don't last a day.

]
It's not really anyone's place to keep everyone else happy, but I do want to float this idea of helping prevent key people from burning out. People that had unique skills and motivations, that added a level of quality to the scene. Making them feel appreciated and supported could benefit the experience on the server in the long run. There's a lot of good people that left at some point, perhaps with valid grievances, and nobody could replicate what they did (they way they were doing it). Maybe we don't even need to solve all our problems to keep people happy, we just need to be able to vent about them...

This ultimately came from the toxic environment that ww3rp gradually became, I for sure can't promise it'd be any better, hopefully players'll be able to see past their short-term personal grievances and promote a more healthy form of voicing criticism etc.

Mono-culture
I don't really know how to articulate this point, but it's the sense that there are a mixture of different experiences you can have on a server like this, and different people lean towards different parts of that experience, so letting people do their own thing - focus on what they're good at, and not constrict them means we can have a range of different ideas working alongside eachother. Servers that were more monotone seemed to evaporate after a short time.

If I understand you correctly, I'd imagine this is what we've been going for with the freedom we give civilians to start their own stories and approaches to the concept, as well as splitting the Soviet force into more passive organisations and a hands-on action branch.

Rank tenture
A faction like the idea of a Soviet army stationed at an FOB is going to need officers for the sake of roleplay structure. If officers are getting murdered somehow (which I think is likely to happen in this lore) then to maintain the roleplay structure we'd need to see several officer characters. The idea of rank tenure here would be that if an officer is killed then to fill the void they left they can make a new character of a similar rank to the one they lost, although as a different personality.

Too many times I logged on to a roleplay server the day after an officer character was lost, to find that there were too few to actually run the thing.

Tricky dilemma that plagued us during every iteration. While yes, officers shouldn't be immune to PKs, it's difficult to find a fitting alternative. Mainly because
A) The faction doesn't fully well function if there are no officers.
B) If officers have to start over from private every time they die it's gonna be demotivating, as well as potentially less competent people 'inheriting' the position by means of succession.
C) Allowing people to keep their rank every time they get PKd will eventually result in people just making shallow copies of previous characters or general bland one-dimensional characters with the sole purpose of being an officer due to people not wanting to bother coming up with an entire backstory etc every time they die.

All in all it's difficult to find a fitting solution, a potential outcome would be certain criteria under which an officer (or military man in general) is PKd so that they remain fair game for assassination but with other consequences instead of a PK for that specific character. It's something we hoped to get more leads on by opening it up for discussion.

Characters encountering language barriers can be a mess. Can they all share a common language so that they can all potentially communicate with eachother? If my character encounters a language barrier then it might be realistic, but I quickly start to struggle with ideas for improv roleplay if I have no idea what to do. I'm just suggesting that idea in terms of keeping things running smoothly. I have no idea how popular/unpopular it would actually be. If you needed an interpreter character and there wasn't one available then you might both be standing around awkwardly.

The main language utilized by most factions will obviously be german due to the setting, I reckon the Soviet army would have russian as a main language but with a hefty amount of locals employed in their ranks. It could provide some interesting scenarios if a translator of a specific squad died and you're left with rampant miscommunication in a tense firefight.
I reckon we'll be relatively lenient with certain authorisations, as long as I don't see the dreaded 'man becomes fluent in a hard language by reading the dictionary a couple times over the course of a week' type 'learning rp'.
 
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Rabid

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Perhaps we should look into making it harder to keep track of who's who, with people not immediately recognising one another for example.
Another aspect is the forgery/theft of identity documents and uniforms, as well as a cover system for the NJSOC / Stasi factions.
Slapping up the "you do not recognise this person" CW-style thing as well as silent faction transfers would do wonders here.
 
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