Serious Stasiland: Imagine if you will

[Deleted member 4795]

Introduction
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I've spoken with people, lots of people about Stasiland and the nature of its existence. Despite a tremendous amount of support and hype surrounding the initial announcement, a critical failure sent the server to an early grave in less than a month.

There have been attempts at discussing the problems and how they could have/can be corrected before, but I wanted to do so in a more digestible way. It's an injustice to all the hard work and potential that exists within the Stasiland schema to just accept the issues as an immovable obstacle that can't be explored or understood. Even if Stasiland never sees the light of day again as the server we wanted it to be, I still believe the server is owed more discussion and exploration.

The Server is Announced
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Around 2019, it came into light that we would once again have our fun in the WW3 RP genre as Stasiland was a common topic of chat among many groups of friends around the community. Then on March 12th, 2020, we got an exact date which the server would launch on. 14-03-2020 at 7 PM GMT. Many of us can still remember the whistles of the hype train. Not only was this something new that all of us could explore together, it touched upon several key areas that made us happy to be seeing.

1.) WW3RP Vets were happy to return to a familiar game mode.
2.) Many of the history buffs among the nebulous community found a real world setting that they could divulge into and have fun with. (90s atmosphere, real world history as apposed to Sci-Fi).
3.) A reprieve from the typical HL2 setting.

And many more. Regardless of who you were, you had something that you could latch onto the server and get hype about. And this snowballed greatly with question threads adding to the pile and causing expectations to rise even more. Things were looking better than ever.

Player Speculation
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Stasiland was showcased as being a continuation of the CW:WW3RP timeline that the vets were familiar with, but with some seemingly major deviations. Unlike the earlier WW3RP experiences, Stasiland showcased CirtyRP mechanics with policing efforts, logistical components, political gameplay, and multi-faction conflicts. Extremely ambitious and great sounding on paper, but here in itself it would seem one of the earliest cracks begins to take shape.

On one hand you have older WW3RP players that were after the combat, the typical faction V. faction warfare with tanks and explosions and what not, while on the other hand you had a different group of people who had a focus on the other aspects of the server like the new Stasi systems with citizen and insurgent RP. I even vividly recall many times people saying over TeamSpeak and discord "So it's going to be like Half-Life 2 RP but in the WW3RP timeline?" The direction seemed to make many end up scratching their head on what exactly we were getting. Were we getting a Military RP with light supremacy mechanics thrown into the background or were we getting a CityRP with amplified combat mechanics? It was hard to tell. But nevertheless, we were excited to learn more at launch.

The First Sign of Problems​

The server opens and the population is through the roof. Stasi, citizens, Soviet Army, all are high in population as everybody explores and comes to learn about this new server. Stasi are absolutely swamped with things to do, citizen inspections, responding to dog attacks, keeping order, the works. Soviet Forces also seem to keep busy for a while but ended up falling prey to repetition as the local police ended up handling most of the action around the city. The citizen faction however has been the point of a great deal of discussion to this day.

When the server opened, there was realistically nothing pre-prepared for the citizens. Unlike the Soviets and Stasi which had buildings propped, forum documents laid out, and in game supplies configured, the citizens were within the mix up of it all with nothing really figured out. All citizen really knew what that if they wanted something like the start of a business or a place to live, they had to go to the Stasi. This seems to have been done in an attempt to make most of the Citizens Systems made ICLY but it proved to be a massive blunder that cased CitizenRP to bleed our very quickly. All of the things HL2RP had preconfigured such as housing systems, medical care, business licenses, were all absent on day one. Without any sort of groundwork or foundation for the citizens to interact with or RP with, everything felt empty and difficult to work with for citizen RP. It would seem that far too much responsibility was placed on the Stasi to be the arbiters of CityRP and the success of it. I spoke with @Merlinsclaw many times about his thoughts on the matter and he had this to say.

"I went into the Stasi thinking it was going to have an emphasis on Spy RP. Instead I was swamped with permit and license distribution. I knew that was going to be apart of the job but never did I think I was going to be swamped with that as my main purpose."

The issue in this particular case was that for the other two factions to succeed and obtain any sort of stimulation, the Citizen faction needed to be great. Without citizens, what were the Stasi to do? There would be nothing to oversee. Without citizens and the insurgencies they were to generate, what were the Soviet Army supposed to do? If this is a hard concept to grasp, imagine if you joined a new HL2RP server that had no CWU, no UM, no UIL, no housing systems to obtain property from, or any businesses to interact with. Imagine what that would do to citizen population and the other factions interaction with citizens?

Even before the whole citizen charade you had some players that were upset that they weren't fighting NATO and were stuck doing OccupationRP to a less than fruitful society. To the Vets, this was not the WW3RP they had envisioned. But you didn't even have to be a Vet to be upset in this case. Many people were just distraught that the hype visions that they had been getting excited with their friends over the past several months were nothing but a vision. Where we had hoped for nights of raves in the Kremlin night club with LSD drug deals in the bathroom while Stasi agents are in the parking lot outside waiting to make an arrest, we got confused citizen roaming about unclaimed properties being told to try to contact a Stasi officer if you want a business license.

Death
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Without the healthy relationship created by a stable citizen faction, the other factions soon succumb to the inactivity. Later attempts to revive the server saw a full bore shift into what you would come to expect from a WW3RP server. A linear combat set up between NATO and Soviet forces. But by then it was all too late. Even if the server came back to life through the revival attempts, it wouldn't have been Stasiland. Just WW3RP. And yes, there need to be a definitive difference that we explore and talk about.

Now Imagine If you Will
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We do it right. We lay the ground work for CitizenRP to thrive and become something special. We keep the military factions in which can interact with the normal citizen population but also have a healthy dosage of staff events as well. Here are some examples.​

Medical Faction: Creates RP jobs and gives characters a place to go if they get bused up. Self explanatory.

Logistical Faction: Locals that assist in the application process for businesses in the area. Also deliver supplies to businesses. The Equivalent of the CWU.
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The key here is to have these factions prepared before launch, get the set up with forum documents, good faction leadership, and solid systems that are fleshed out and easy to use. Having these factions in existence allows more player made factions and businesses to grow from them. It was clear that factions like these are what people hoped players were able to throw together with the Stasi systems but that didn't work out.

If this server even comes into existence, it should be Stasiland, like the books it's named after. Combat is fun and great but the conflict shouldn't be the fallback in the face of hard times with CityRP. I know I'm not the first person to make a post like this. I know Roosebud made one too and it seems as if we agree on some parts, but the main point of this is to get people talking.

In other words...

 

['77 East]

While I can agree with the sum of your debate, most of it from memory stemmed from the lack of established systems (as you said), conflicting playerbase demands and veteran players shitting on the server 24/7 because it wasn't the exclusively faction v faction s2k dynamic that they wanted. Server felt like it was torn between two worlds most of the time and wasn't satisfying either, and new players really weren't showing up.

Of course when the switch to linear NATO vs Soviets was completed, the 'veterans' who were whining about it didn't bother to show up anyway, so it was a moot effort. I think more people joined the two-day event than we usually had back in that period each day.

 

[Subeh]

 

[Roosebud]

The big misconception was that it was supposed to be some kind of cityrp thing. It wasn’t, that ‘part’ was supposed to be a thin entry-level layer to set the stage for combat groups to develop themselves. The stasi more or less being the ‘first line of enemy’. With the freedom to make own groups of opposition against established military factions.

I believe I wrote an entire essay in which I reflected on the entire concept, so I’m not gonna type that again. But tldr it was because one side wanted it to be cityrp and the other ‘side’ wanted it to be full on s2k without the requirement to actually play a meaningful character. While it was supposed to be somewhere in the middle.

It wasn't given a proper chance as a large group of players actively sought to undermine it because they thought it was "hl2rp with guns" and thus a threat to 'their server'. While another group actively sought to turn it into their s2k fix, thus ruining it for those invested in the deeper roleplay side.

 

[Deleted member 4795]

The big misconception was that it was supposed to be some kind of cityrp thing. It wasn’t, that ‘part’ was supposed to be a thin entry-level layer to set the stage for combat groups to develop themselves. The stasi more or less being the ‘first line of enemy’. With the freedom to make own groups of opposition against established military factions.

I believe I wrote an entire essay in which I reflected on the entire concept, so I’m not gonna type that again. But tldr it was because one side wanted it to be cityrp and the other ‘side’ wanted it to be full on s2k without the requirement to actually play a meaningful character. While it was supposed to be somewhere in the middle.

It wasn't given a proper chance as a large group of players actively sought to undermine it because they thought it was "hl2rp with guns" and thus a threat to 'their server'. While another group actively sought to turn it into their s2k fix, thus ruining it for those invested in the deeper roleplay side.

But what if it was some kind of cityrp thing? What if it had a focus on the citizen experience and multiple faction? Sure the s2k hungry players won't like it as much but as far as longevity and actual RP are concerned, why not play off more of the Stasiland part of the name and less of the WW3RP. Or even more controversial, have Stasiland be it's own brand of Wine and not rely on the WW3RP backing as much.

 

[Roosebud]

But what if it was some kind of cityrp thing? What if it had a focus on the citizen experience and multiple faction? Sure the s2k hungry players won't like it as much but as far as longevity and actual RP are concerned, why not play off more of the Stasiland part of the name and less of the WW3RP. Or even more controversial, have Stasiland be it's own brand of Wine and not rely on the WW3RP backing as much.

One of the few initial concepts on the drawing board was something like that. With a walled-off city being the main stage and there being a surrounding area that contains the war between insurgents/nato and the soviet army on a relatively small scale. The story’d be about the city under siege and the struggles that come with it.

Eventually we decided to scrap that because:

• We didn’t need another “you’re a poor citizen living under harsh rule” server
• We wanted it to be conflict focused and continue the lore of ww3rp
• We figured we’d quickly get stuck in progression as the setting isn’t really flexible / suitable for frequent map changes or events
• It wouldn’t attract enough players to make it a viable and sustaining server concept

In the end, we never got to the stage where the stasiland server concept reached its full potential. Quick choices had to be made that sacrificed core gameplay elements and progression as a measure to keep the server alive, because people got upset they couldn’t get the instant satisfaction of quick s2k among dozens of other reasons.
If we had managed to progress the story of the earliest version for a while longer, we’d have eventually turned the player-created main resistance group into an official faction, and slowly expanded NATO involvement to aid them. The ultimate concept being assymetrical war between the warsaw pact and an army of insurgents with NATO specialists as a sub-faction, and civilians in the middle trying to maintain their player-made concepts (eg red cross, town communities, fire brigade etc.)