the population pendulum swing

['77 East]

kind of go against the whole dehumanisation of the Combine thing which is why all cops wear masks, have taglines and are effectively encouraged to not view their enemies as human

And if we're following that train of thought, would have been forcibly transhumanised long ago even as things went to shit, because it's quite clear that any conscripted humans are a fallible link in the whole army. No cops are seen post-C17.

This is a server, we're here to have fun, not argue the definition of why the games were grim.

Not like some or even most rebels wouldn't also immediately execute the first metrocop they get their hands on out of combat even against efforts of people who'd rather not execute them.

That's been proven wrong before, just saying.

Internal faction RP is the only type of roleplay thats really viable.

Only viable in a climate that encourages relying on command hierarchies (when the command in question are a bunch of min-max types), yes.

Insurgents don't have the problem, precisely because people choose who they want to be with. No one gives orders without both people agreeing, or the naked use of coercion.

Someone threatens me to do something my character wouldn't, I can just shoot them dead if they press down on it.
You can't do that as a cop.

The schizophrenic scandi who made a conscious effort to stab a captive cop to death while people tried to pull them off of him comes to mind.

You expect @Ond to not commit warcrimes?

 

[Thood74]

And if we're following that train of thought, would have been forcibly transhumanised long ago even as things went to shit, because it's quite clear that any conscripted humans are a fallible link in the whole army. No cops are seen post-C17.

This is a server, we're here to have fun, not argue the definition of why the games were grim.

We’re not exactly following established lore as other Cities still stand with their own Cops being transferred into the combat zone with the IC intention of being transhumanised as an ongoing process. This was rather definitively explained and later added onto by an earlier QNA in a question about introducing things to the Combine such as the usual definition of conscripts and presumably other human support arms so I’m working within the context that the Combine are not intended to behave as humans but CPs are fine because they’re slowly becoming Overwatch whereas other humans aren’t. Numbers can totally backpedal on all that though.

Only viable in a climate that encourages relying on command hierarchies (when the command in question are a bunch of min-max types), yes.

Insurgents don't have the problem, precisely because people choose who they want to be with. No one gives orders without both people agreeing, or the naked use of coercion.

Someone threatens me to do something my character wouldn't, I can just shoot them dead if they press down on it.
You can't do that as a cop.

Look man, I’d love to kill all my Rank Leaders with a hand grenade because of them all being annoying things that get in the way of me killing people more effectively, but I can’t. And so long as the Combine continues to function as an actual military its not going to have the same freedom of insurgents in organisation and autonomous behaviour. Not to mention transhumans and the fact the Combine are generally going to be working under standing orders to kill or capture insurgents no matter what because anything else would create massive ludonarrative dissonance between the plot (trying to stop/cause the return of the Combine in a post-Freeman world) and the actual day to day going ons in the server.

This is something that fundamentally cannot be changed without overhauling an entire faction at its roots and ignoring the fact the Combine is aesthetically designed to be an oppressive, military first force with no regard for human individuality. Or addressing why people would be willing to give the Combine some peace with humanity on the line if they get lucky enough times.

That's been proven wrong before, just saying.

You expect me to believe one entire half of the server would not have a single person or group willing to work towards inciting violence towards the Combine and breaking apart supposed demilitarised zones on an S2K oriented server? Or the aforementioned Combine Command to agree to something like that in the first place?

You expect @Ond to not commit warcrimes?

No, in fact I expect even more people to commit warcrimes like him as established.

 

['77 East]

You expect me to believe one entire half of the server would not have a single person or group willing to work towards inciting violence towards the Combine and breaking apart supposed demilitarised zones on an S2K oriented server?

You're using a strawman here, I said nothing about 'one entire half' of the population, nor did I imply people should sit in circles and peacefully protest.

You talked about people who would avoid shooting a metrocop seen out of combat; I've seen it three times already in person.

Combine are not intended to behave as humans but CPs are fine because they’re slowly becoming Overwatch whereas other humans aren’t

Soldiers, no.

Cops are first and foremost, people, however. There are plenty with shaky moral convictions, genuine bloodlust spurred on by some sort of cultist mentality, etc. The few who act like caricatures are few and far between.

You want to play the "oh no my humanity is gone!!! ethos, fine, but it should not be the norm, especially because not everyone is transhumanised.

Not to mention transhumans and the fact the Combine are generally going to be working under standing orders to kill or capture insurgents no matter what because anything else would create massive ludonarrative dissonance

Any force in command that equivalently hands down "no exception, no matter what" mentalities should be stripped of their whitelist and booted from any and all leadership positions. Leaders who cannot recognize when advantages exist should not be leaders, period.

If you want to take risks and kidnap people, or coerce them, using informants or refugees, etc, it should be on the table.
We're in a setting where the Union has gone on the backfoot and the war of attrition has started.

Considering Mossman existed in the first place, the regime clearly never had compunctions about using people for their own advantages.
Why should the server be different?

 

[Rabid]

As I've said, I think there needs to be a common enemy that pushes cops and rebels into an uneasy alliance that can provide context for them to not murder eachother.

With cops, that leadership allows them to go "don't do x" and you'll see it followed. You tell rebels "don't do x" and you'll generally get at least one person who'll ignore you unless you're a head honcho who can back it up.

So both sides are nervous and any truces can fall apart quick for one reason or the other.

 

[MaXenzie]

As I've said, I think there needs to be a common enemy that pushes cops and rebels into an uneasy alliance that can provide context for them to not murder eachother.

With cops, that leadership allows them to go "don't do x" and you'll see it followed. You tell rebels "don't do x" and you'll generally get at least one person who'll ignore you unless you're a head honcho who can back it up.

So both sides are nervous and any truces can fall apart quick for one reason or the other.

third faction, rogue cops that've gone completely crazy

 

[FieldersNL]

third faction, rogue cops that've gone completely crazy

Deserters that can't reason with anyone else

 

[Keller]

i propose that the combine are scared of rebels and dont want to lose their scripts

how the turn tables

Thats just simman

 

[Keller]

Personally it could maybe be when events are done for both factions? Maybe CP/Combine events happen earlier, and Rebels happen later.

I know I log on periodically throughout the day because I know when in my timezone I typically see the most activity event/pop wise.

 

[Hunk]

MAYBE ACTUALLY USE REBEL PLAYERS FOR EVENTS INSTEAD OF RAGDOLLS WITH HIGHLY-ADVANCED POSES

 

[MaXenzie]

MAYBE ACTUALLY USE REBEL PLAYERS FOR EVENTS INSTEAD OF RAGDOLLS WITH HIGHLY-ADVANCED POSES

meh

imo if 1 GM can do an event on their own by puppetting several ragdolls and using /it and /event, then that's better than forcing several GMs to congregate just so do a single small scale even with 3 event chars

i'd rather have multiple concurrent events going on, each ran by 1 person, instead of a single event ran by the entire event team

 

[Hunk]

meh

imo if 1 GM can do an event on their own by puppetting several ragdolls and using /it and /event, then that's better than forcing several GMs to congregate just so do a single small scale even with 3 event chars

i'd rather have multiple concurrent events going on, each ran by 1 person, instead of a single event ran by the entire event team

ragdolls is lame as shit

this aint a private rp community

 

[Komchan]

I've gotten myself captured by cops for like, about 6 times and am directly responsible for the complete mess of the rebel frequency (do not trust me on stealth missions, you will LOSE.)

but like, 100% of the time it results in execution, or an attempt at stalkerisation, even if you cooperate, or give information, or attempt to bargain, or quite literally offer good leverage on yourself, even if you've got skills, where there's potential for say, idk, penal workers or otherwise, it's just a literal case of 'ok. pew pew bye bye'.

 

[MaXenzie]

ragdolls is lame as shit

this aint a private rp community

i disagree sorry

 

[Hunk]

ragdolls is lame as shit

this aint a private rp community

they are cool n stuff to a certain degree. TO A CERTAIN DEGREE

 

[Hunk]

i disagree sorry

the consequences of democracy

 

[Komchan]

I've gotten myself captured by cops for like, about 6 times and am directly responsible for the complete mess of the rebel frequency (do not trust me on stealth missions, you will LOSE.)

but like, 100% of the time it results in execution, or an attempt at stalkerisation, even if you cooperate, or give information, or attempt to bargain, or quite literally offer good leverage on yourself, even if you've got skills, where there's potential for say, idk, penal workers or otherwise, it's just a literal case of 'ok. pew pew bye bye'.

solution: bomb collars from fallout lmao

 

[MaXenzie]

they are cool n stuff to a certain degree. TO A CERTAIN DEGREE

the consequences of democracy

my suspension of disbelief doesnt break when i see some guy idle-posing and being controlled via /its

I'm ok with that for a 1-man event

if i was on the event team i'd be doing loads of mini events just by posing ragdolls

 

[Hunk]

my suspension of disbelief doesnt break when i see some guy idle-posing and being controlled via /its

I'm ok with that for a 1-man event

if i was on the event team i'd be doing loads of mini events just by posing ragdolls

i think they should be reserved for specific small-scale event scenarios if the ragdolls will appear as actual characters of the storyline.

bigger stuff especially if it involves multiple players, both sides should consist of actual people else its just a 1-sided thing with a predetermined outcome

also its giving out roles to people and people love taking roles in events

a perfect use of ragdolls in my opinion is npcs. just to fill the background of the scene.

 

[OneClassyBanana]

How did we already get into a tangential argument three pages in?

Anyway. I feel like some of the current slump can ultimately be ascribed to a degree of 'early days pains', but there's definitely more to it than that. As was pointed out earlier, the overall playercount hasn't actually changed much, but the consecutive overlap of timezones seems to be impacted by a few different factors. There's a lot of people that happen to be on LOA at the moment for a variety of reasons, for one, and I know certain portions of the globe are hitting some pretty intense academic and vocational stretches heading into spring-summer.

But on that note, one thing that's a bit more pervasive that I've noticed is that there's also this bizarre phenomenon where characters seem to exist in this ... vacuum of personality. I've seen very few people's characters undergo any kind of substantial change or loss or generally seem to give any indication that they exist in a grander world that lives, breathes, and moves on with or without them. Any events or changes that take place rarely seem to have a personal impact that lasts more than a day or two. I'm not smart enough to diagnose a particular reason for this, but ultimately, the majority of characters I've interacted with feel impersonal and generally seem to have little actual investment placed in their change and development as people.

And again, I can't really do more than speculate on the 'why', but things do probably wind up feeling pretty dull if your character and their circumstances, their motivations and their experiences - basically, if all the things that goes into making a cast of characters feel alive and interesting never really have the chance to grow or shine through. That in turn can come across to other people and, collaterally, similarly put them off from engaging, and you can see where these fuckin' dominoes are going.

TL;DR, I think we've somehow managed to trade a status quo of circumstance for a status quo of character. Which is just as, if not moreso, damaging to a playerbase's investment and connection to the wider story at hand. And apathy does hurt playercount, especially when people are unwilling to let go of the rails and take advantage of the sandbox provided.

 

[Thood74]

You're using a strawman here, I said nothing about 'one entire half' of the population, nor did I imply people should sit in circles and peacefully protest.

You talked about people who would avoid shooting a metrocop seen out of combat; I've seen it three times already in person.

I didn't mean to imply the entire rebel side would be unwilling to work with the Combine towards things like DMZs, but their extremely loose command structure and the Combine not being very forgiving by nature means that it wouldn't take many people to ruin the efforts of groups to create peaceful zones or even alliances (see below) with the right transgressions if they even come to be in the first place.

Soldiers, no.

Cops are first and foremost, people, however. There are plenty with shaky moral convictions, genuine bloodlust spurred on by some sort of cultist mentality, etc. The few who act like caricatures are few and far between.

You want to play the "oh no my humanity is gone!!! ethos, fine, but it should not be the norm, especially because not everyone is transhumanised.

What I mean is that they are intended to project the face of being inhuman drones, not actually being them even in the privacy of their own base. Hence them always speaking in code when in public situations outside of the occasional moment of extreme stress because they are admittedly still human. Having them openly fraternize with their enemy is something a bit too contradictory to that goal for their command to allow.

Any force in command that equivalently hands down "no exception, no matter what" mentalities should be stripped of their whitelist and booted from any and all leadership positions. Leaders who cannot recognize when advantages exist should not be leaders, period.

If you want to take risks and kidnap people, or coerce them, using informants or refugees, etc, it should be on the table.
We're in a setting where the Union has gone on the backfoot and the war of attrition has started.

Considering Mossman existed in the first place, the regime clearly never had compunctions about using people for their own advantages.
Why should the server be different?

I totally agree with this, since what I meant by "no matter what" was in the context of things such as DMZs involving open interaction between the two sides. Not using underhanded tactics to get an advantage, anyone blocking those things is stupid. Not that I can tell if thats the case because our leadership hasn't considered that full stop to my knowledge. They should!

Using refugees for some sort of support purpose (NOT frontline combat conscripts before someone accuses me of suggesting such, cops already fulfill that purpose) would bring a lot of good roleplay on the side of the Combine to people who aren't actively CP whitelist holders without diving into stuff like the interactions between the Resistance and Combine, though how much you'd consider that a fix or agnostic to the problem of Combine-Rebel interactions is up to you even if it definitely is one for citizens in general. Infiltrators/informants would help a lot too of course, not even considering the fact that if refugees being utilised by the Combine are included, infiltration on the side of the Combine would be possible again. The problem comes at introducing an overtly human element to the Combine side, but I'm honestly willing to sacrifice that so long as it stays off the frontlines.

Kidnapping people on the other hand is basically just capturing someone but without the surrender and I think thats always been on the table. Though their end fate will be the same once information is extracted from them, or getting their brain sucked if they had any REALLY important info that they wouldn't give up.

As I've said, I think there needs to be a common enemy that pushes cops and rebels into an uneasy alliance that can provide context for them to not murder eachother.

As for this, I'm personally still a little uneasy with the idea of introducing a third party that is somehow a bigger threat to both sides in some more than likely borderline omnicidal way even if only for the short term. Not to say playercounts wouldn't skyrocket the moment that happens and there would be no shortage of applications for a third party faction but it'd be a massive diversion from the established plot and not something that could be easily detransitioned from. Not to mention the effort to ESTABLISH such a faction with its own identity, location, organisation (more than likely) and appeal to players in the first place. We don't exactly have anything like that as is.

I'm sorry if I've come off as antagonistic or rude at any point during this, I'm just eager to have motivation to play the game again without losing some of the things that make one of its two factions so very unique, even if it makes an awkward situation when it comes to passive interactions that requires some iterating on to solve.