The Current State of Civil Protection: A Critique

['77 East]

Way too long of a read for a point you could've gotten across with much fewer words
Also there used to be rl's who were bad at s2k or ran at like 5fps like Nicrobe

Guess what andrew, that isn't this iteration, the RL selection process is vastly different, and Nicrobe isn't here anymore either.

Through this I had gotten first-hand experience of what these PT's were like. Usually? Dead silent. Despite this I still came along with their PT's, why? I'm not sure.

Just to elaborate: they sit in a locked discord channel when they do these things. Sometimes they even abuse the transhuman arm channel and hide there, meaning no one can join or question them.

Which means there's no communication with anyone until they run into shit or turn back up at the base.

 

[STUCK IN A CAKE]

What's the point of trying to gain intel or plan things, or even fuck with the insurgents if some retard with authority shoots down the idea in favor of "just kill them"? What's the point of plotting events or trying to have some fun if it all boils down to a handful of people keeping everything in regression?

Unironically, the most fun I've had on OTA are when @OneClassyBanana flags on and says "Okay, here's the plan" and it's some plan to lure people to an area so we can attempt to capture them or some shit

And when it's pulled off, you get a pretty unique rp situation between a rebel and an overwatch soldier in some quasi-hostage situation or an interrogation that gaslights a rebel so hard they become a loyalist.

Shit like this doesn't happen if you just shoot first.

 

[Trains]

stupid bomb event

 

[OskarDemus]

stupid bomb event

what do you mean G-bomb events are my favourite

 

[Reggie]

she protection on my civil till I critique

 

[Gyarik]

I semi-frequently went along with these RL-Only PT's as @PeaceAndMagick89 put it, "save for one singular functionary" I was. Through this I had gotten first-hand experience of what these PT's were like. Usually? Dead silent. Despite this I still came along with their PT's, why? I'm not sure.

To add onto this (though not the same exact situation in that regard), in the current map I went onto an APC PT with a few RLs and JURY-7 (@Flop), moving up to the radar station. Once there, we laid out inside the building, dead silent; we genuinely did not know what was happening as said RLs did not communicate, and we defaulted to thinking they wanted to go Midnight since they apparently started sneaking around the building for whatever reason, so I joined the combine VC with J-7 (and a few other unrelated people) to express my (and his) confusion while trying to figure out what the hell was going on. In the end the RLs bum-rushed outside and started shooting, luckily we picked up on that and participated in yet another s2k against a few rebels before hopping on the APC again.


What irritates me the most is basically the lack of actual passive roleplay options with RLs, D-4 and D-6 being (personally) the only exceptions I've seen. I honestly did not choose to join Civil Protection just to s2k left and right, that's what made me hate C24 the most really. In some cases I am even repelled to try and RP with some of them, because in the back of my head I already know how it's gonna end up like.


Still, we keep talking about RLs, but this kind of 'culture' also influenced some non-RL cops, I'm not going to drop names or anything but clearly a few players flag on cop exclusively to go and s2k when it's about to happen.

 

[Alexander The Great]

What made 99% of my hl2rp rp experiences memorable,
is the actual of depth of passive RP i've experienced. with how it was orchestrated using Gmod's sandboxy tools, scenes, situations, and down to the very basic props.
people's interactions is what makes this gamemode deep n fun
That's the strength in text based sandbox rp gamemode, and if you experience deep cool rp scenarios, that ends up being fun n cool, and you come back for more.

plain generic pvp honestly, is often soulless (especially gmod pvp).
deep felt rp motive behind it, does not exist, because its an OOC interaction.
if i want pvp, ill honestly go to arma 3, it has much more memorable pew pew gunfight scenarios.

ALTHOUGH, S2K that happened FROM and due to a passive rp reason, has WAY MORE DEPTH than the casual faction vs faction murder, having a much bigger memorable impact.

There's a reason why Shotcops left such imprints on people back since lemonpunch, since every official s2k situation was often coming from a passiverp situation, that wasn't just a casual Fire At Will premade and assumed situation.
it had depth and meat behind it




ppl look for reasons of how to improve or what to change, but the simple reason for it all is that murder s2k gameplay is not rp,
it's the biggest weakness gmod hl2rp has.
Valve's hl2 never added any DEPTH on Combine side perspective of humanity in lore, and being an interactive being that a human is, that is the Civil Protection, other than an NPC. is lacking on that side.

So replicating Combine NPC behavior of being 24/7 mindless hostile for no reason, is a faulty choice because valve never added backround, an irl Human RPing from a mindset of an NPC leads to something unfun.
it may infact even be a mistake of us trying to fill in the gaps of missing in depth lore, just like universal union was, for years, until mark himself said "cmon bruh". then we sobered up about it.

THERES SO MUCH POTENTIAL BETWEEN CITIZEN/REBEL - COMBINE FACTION INTERACTION. It's not just about them and us murdering one another.
because a real human, thinks. you cant stop thought. even if you are brainwashed by machine.
if, when you talk you say I AM, when you say I AM HUNGRY.
means you think.

 

[STUCK IN A CAKE]

One thing I've been trying to do more on the field is casual chatter. I don't want to sit in silence for 10 hours, I want to shit talk, I want casual banter. Do some cool VC's - be a character and not just an extension of a factions utility

relying less on radio spam and just general conversations with people if nothing's going on

 

[STUCK IN A CAKE]

THERES SO MUCH POTENTIAL BETWEEN CITIZEN/REBEL - COMBINE FACTION INTERACTION.

Honestly? The whole point of the Combine is to try and suppress resistance fighters and hopefully bring law and order back under their thumb. But it's super counter-productive to just go to any potential refugees and potential civilian ally's and go "lol we don't need you here, go back to your housing block :DDD" because it shuts down one of the important avenues of RP; Bridging the gap.

Personally, I would love to see a return of something like Conscripts where we have lightly armed auxillaries under the watchful eye of combine soldiers who are ICly recruited from disillusioned resistance fighters and refugees. (This is an alternative as apposed to people becoming cops through IC means or PK'd as 'Stalkers'.)

It allows new players to join the combine side without an OOC whitelist, but also just sounds cool and fun to let happen. Have that conflict between ultra-loyalist Civil Protection and 'on the fence' loyalist citizens while Brainwashed Soldiers keep an ever-looming threat of punishment overhead.

 

[Trains]

i am not in the mood to write an essay, lifes too short

ic competition =/= ooc competition

please remember this


i see more and more brainrot every day and its annoying everyone

thank you

 

[Rabid]

Some of my all-time fave cop characters - especially when I got RL - have been (literal) brainwashed hardliners but I still went out of my way to engage and discuss shit with citizens and other faction members. My second K8 (who was my former LP rebel) was the sort who'd pull you aside for breaking the law before calmly correcting you for next time (at which point he'd beat the shit out of you) and people seemed to love that.

The problem with a lot of RL's go the reverse route; they find an excuse to make their OOC desire for a firm line into an IC one and you end up with the current problem where the IC is used to justify the OOC desire to win.

Wanting to win is fine, its natural. Wanting to win to the point you cause shit like some RL's have done this iteration isn't cool.

 

[Eviction Notice]

Through this I had gotten first-hand experience of what these PT's were like. Usually? Dead silent.

Disallow voice comms for use in RP. I've never known another server allow, even promote voice communication over in-game communication mechanics.

 

[MaXenzie]

nebulous mfers be like "S2K is the root of all evil" but still refuse any other alternatives out of sheer dogmatic stockholm syndrome

 

[Lewis!]

One thing I've been trying to do more on the field is casual chatter. I don't want to sit in silence for 10 hours, I want to shit talk, I want casual banter. Do some cool VC's - be a character and not just an extension of a factions utility

relying less on radio spam and just general conversations with people if nothing's going on

I genuinely enjoy using TAC in the heat of combat, using VCs is fun and adds to the atmosphere. Relaying frantic commands I'm character has always been attractive to me.

If you sit in a discord and don't talk in game you are a sad fucking loser

 

['77 East]

Personally, I would love to see a return of something like Conscripts where we have lightly armed auxillaries under the watchful eye of combine soldiers who are ICly recruited from disillusioned resistance fighters and refugees. (This is an alternative as apposed to people becoming cops through IC means or PK'd as 'Stalkers'.)

Yeah, give them a baton and crappy pipe shotguns, use them as fodder.

 

[Dan]

​

con·cur·rence
or.... "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Agree With Lewis's Post Above Me"


noun
noun: concurrence; plural noun: concurrences; noun: concurrency; plural noun: concurrencies

1. 1.
   the fact of two or more events or circumstances happening or existing at the same time.
   "the incidental concurrence of two separate tumors"
   
   • Mathematics
     a point at which three or more lines meet.
     "the number of possible concurrences in the diagram"
2. 2.
   agreement or consistency.
   "delays can be avoided by arriving at political concurrence at the start

INTRODUCTION:

one of the reasons i dont play cop is because i dont wanna go in discord during rp. i dont want to interact with anyone oocly. i dont even like when people use LOOC. everything falls apart if youre in a VC. if you make me get in a discord to play cop i am putting a shitty voicechanger on voicemod and either screaming "oh my god its the payday gang" or remaining 100% ic

CONCLUSION

Thats all i have to add to the discussion right now sorry

 

[Appetite Ruining Kebab]

​

con·cur·rence
or.... "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Agree With Lewis's Post Above Me"

noun
noun: concurrence; plural noun: concurrences; noun: concurrency; plural noun: concurrencies

1. 1.
   the fact of two or more events or circumstances happening or existing at the same time.
   "the incidental concurrence of two separate tumors"
   
   • Mathematics
     a point at which three or more lines meet.
     "the number of possible concurrences in the diagram"
2. 2.
   agreement or consistency.
   "delays can be avoided by arriving at political concurrence at the start

INTRODUCTION:

one of the reasons i dont play cop is because i dont wanna go in discord during rp. i dont want to interact with anyone oocly. i dont even like when people use LOOC. everything falls apart if youre in a VC. if you make me get in a discord to play cop i am putting a shitty voicechanger on voicemod and either screaming "oh my god its the payday gang" or remaining 100% ic

CONCLUSION

Thats all i have to add to the discussion right now sorry

 

[Appetite Ruining Kebab]

i will just say this - i've had a chance to be on both sides of this and one of the main driving aspects of OOC competitiveness is that its something that occurs on both sides

some rebel circles, particularly the ones that care about being efficient at s2k, continuously hurl taunts at the combine faction based on s2k that seem to have out of character roots and there seems to be no way for it to end with mutual respect. if the combine lose, they're often mocked for it, and if they ever happen to win, complaints of the game being unbalanced flood us in short order - until such a time we tweak things to swing it back in their favor, and the ridiculing starts again

the only way to prevent the faction from being reduced to punching bags under that kind of treatment is to appoint people who can put up a fight in s2k to the important positions

this is not to say there aren't people on combine side who won't try to instigate the same insipid back and forths - but it is easier to moderate these behaviors in a whitelisted faction than the other way around. but that's not going to happen until the other side makes it easy

there needs to be more sportsmanship on both sides. more "damn, we got fucked" and "shit, you got us good." people who try to ridicule their own faction members or the opposing side for underperforming in laggy cs go replica need to get out - there's a reason we stopped putting an emphasis on s2k to influence the story

 

[MaXenzie]

i say pull out the problem at the root and replace s2k with a conflict resolution system that doesn't rely on OOC skill

i offered to write up a system to @Numbers but until the playerbase stops being "woe is me" about s2k while simultaneously refusing any alternative idk why the fuck people keep complaining about a problem they then, in the same sentence, refuse to fix

 

[OskarDemus]

i will just say this - i've had a chance to be on both sides of this and one of the main driving aspects of OOC competitiveness is that its something that occurs on both sides

some rebel circles, particularly the ones that care about being efficient at s2k, continuously hurl taunts at the combine faction based on s2k that seem to have out of character roots and there seems to be no way for it to end with mutual respect. if the combine lose, they're often mocked for it, and if they ever happen to win, complaints of the game being unbalanced flood us in short order - until such a time we tweak things to swing it back in their favor, and the ridiculing starts again

the only way to prevent the faction from being reduced to punching bags under that kind of treatment is to appoint people who can put up a fight in s2k to the important positions

this is not to say there aren't people on combine side who won't try to instigate the same insipid back and forths - but it is easier to moderate these behaviors in a whitelisted faction than the other way around. but that's not going to happen until the other side makes it easy

there needs to be more sportsmanship on both sides. more "damn, we got fucked" and "shit, you got us good." people who try to ridicule their own faction members or the opposing side for underperforming in laggy cs go replica need to get out - there's a reason we stopped putting an emphasis on s2k to influence the story

I play on both Combine and rebel side, and I haven't really seen this happen in terms of the OOC making fun of each other. I could be wrong and it could be just be people I don't interact with.