TnB Terminator RP's biggest pitfall was the fact that one of the two factions in the server consisted of noncharacters; a problem I spent two years trying to fix as a player, then as an admin, then as one of the community's leaders, and ultimately gave up. One could argue that some of the issues were largely a result of Dave Brown sticking to his guns on some things I think many would have wished he hadn't, but I think Terminator is more or less engineered in that way given the nature of SkyNET in the setting.
As a result, you have a server that is nonautonomous: Rather than Half-Life where a mutual opposition between the Resistance and the Combine colliding with one another creates its own roleplay, its own plots and its own goals, Terminator is entirely on manual; requiring constant pushes from the administration to keep it going, something that I have always found to come with diminishing returns and almost entirely results in eventual ritualistic burnout. The big reasons TnB's TRP lasted for as long as it did despite the server being on manual was because the servers that were put up alongside it for its duration failed for unrelated reasons. While I have many fond memories of TRP, its longevity was honestly a result of those servers offering intermission and reprieve from the setting time and again, which made a return to TRP wash away the boredom and repetition that had set in prior. That dumb luck kept TRP going for nearly three years more than anything else, really.
The server's overall day-to-day experience depends on people playing as setpieces for other player's enjoyment, but since the Terminator player's own enjoyment is secondary to that of real, tangible characters, you sow the seeds of frustration later on when the Terminators feel that their threat to players is ultimately illegitimate. It feels more akin to the administration of the server is a bunch of dungeon masters in a Dungeons & Dragons game, and the Terminators are the mobs.
Perhaps Nebulous could tackle that issue a bit better than TnB simply because of how much weight TnB places on the concept of a character and thus PKs outside of negligence are typically a result of willful surrender of one's own character arc. To do otherwise would be counter to the rp culture that TnB has fostered over the years, so perhaps a community with a far different perspective on characters and roleplaying overall may strike a better chance of making the setting work.
I've no idea if this is genuinely being considered or if it's just to kind of shoot the shit and see what sticks as far as new settings for Nebulous, but if you do try Terminator RP I wish you guys the best of luck. Don't take my words as discouragement, I'm still just somewhat sour that I couldn't "fix" TRP in our go of it.
