[[MRP] Veteran Players 1+ Year [Topic2]]

What do you guys miss most about the MRP server/community; and hate currently (if you played recently). Please refrain frrom saying the "Players" because we are all aware the quality of player has gone down.

Also what would you guys change if you could?

 

This is a follow up to:

 

[[MRP] Likes and Dislikes Topic #1]

15 hours ago, shrimp said:

Hello everyone. I’ll spare the introduction because you all know who I am. Just to quickly address the opposing argument of my opinion being uninformed, it takes me about twenty minutes to get briefed on the state of everything, and not much has changed in the past months.

That being said, I’ve been spending a lot of time in my absence taking a tour of other places in our little neck of the woods we call Garry’s Mod and certainly been doing my homework. It’s my understanding that Gildarts wants to get a, while imperfect, grasp of the player demographics here in our own backyard. While this is something that should’ve been done a long time ago, it’s not something worth doing any longer. When it comes to the playerbase (not quality, simply quantity), you have to be able to look at it from three perspectives. The goal of server development should always be to appeal to the playerbase, but that term is always looked at through the lens of the current player population. The current players are always going to be the most vocal and responsive to attention from the server themselves, but two other populations exist and have always existed; Potential players, and past players. Past players include everyone who has participated in the server, and subsequently exhausted their interest, while potential players include all the people who have yet to join the server or commit time.

The method Gildarts used to acquire player demographics is not really ideal because it only draws data from the current population. However, the data does give us some really important statistical information. The trend in the data shows a prominent bell curve peaking at the ages of 16-18. This makes sense because many players typically drop off around this age due to life circumstances, mirroring the drop off in the data. This decay factor is the most important concept in maintaining the overall population. In my experience, Gildarts is of the belief that the current population is all we’ve got, because gMod is a dying game. Fact of the matter is, gMod is still one of the most populated games on Steam, and in the last few months I’ve had brief conversations with Garnet about certain to-remain-nameless communities springing up virtually overnight and consistently hitting max player counts despite all the crashes and bugs that come with a new server. I’ve seen several cases of this simply in the past few months, where previously non-existent communities reach an absurd level of interest simply by doing something different. By tapping into the massive population of potential players by appealing to those interests rather than that of a finite, aging community.

The reality is that the current population of MRP is just that; finite and aging. Going back to Gildarts’ poll, the proof is right in front of you. If new players aren’t being brought in to counter and overcome the natural rate of decay of the server, the population is going to diminish in quantity, which means less of a sample size to scour for officers and competent players. The new players are out there, they just have reason not to be here, and that reason stems from the longevity of the server. There was once a time when MRP was the hot new thing, but the concept that attracted the past population has seldom changed since. Statistically, the total number of people that are going to join and continue to play the server based on the long-term model (Timer-based, 3-OBJ, 2 Faction Wars) is limited, because only so many people that fit the criteria of having gMod, being interested by that concept, and having time to commit exist, and eventually less and less of those people will fall between the ideal age margin of 16-18 and the population for that model of server will cease to be seen.

Thus, here we are at a crossroads where the server is constantly questioning the viability of its own existence, and the players within are questioning the cost of continuing their time investment into said server. The crossroads the server has arrived at gives three options, to continue straight ahead, turn left, or turn right. The straight head path forwards the path the server has almost always lied upon, the awkward limbo state between a meandering FPS with mild RP and progression characteristics, failing at neither, but succeeding at neither. A path which has proven to not be sustainable over the years. The left hand path details the elimination of roleplay elements, and refocusing the game entirely as a shooter and attempting to optimize the game for combat. While we have never truly taken this route, it can be said with near certainty that it will not succeed. gMod is a game built upon an ancient engine, not built with mass player to player engagement in mind, and an attempt to compete directly with other high-performance shooters will offer nothing to the potential player population that cannot be found in much higher quality elsewhere. It would be physically impossible, and quite foolish, to try and go up against the CS:GO’s and Battlefield’s of the world on a platform like this when the other titles are already out there, and much more efficient.

To understand the right hand path, you must understand the overall appeal of the platform that is gMod, and that is the unique opportunities for gameplay that it presents. This is the appeal that brought many, if not all of us to MRP in the first place. The fact that it isn’t just a shooter, but something else entirely. Where progression isn’t judged by a level system with coded experience values, but by human operators and interactions. There is a depth to it that cannot be found in your typical Call of Duty, but only in an open-ended platform like gMod that can be improved and expanded upon.

I won’t delve into the specifics of what the right hand path entails, but the point here is to identify the factors that contribute to why it’s not only the correct option, but the only option to succeed in the current climate. Moral of the story, find something to do, and make sure that this server is the best one at it, in and outside of gMod.

Here’s a tl;dr diagram for the illiterate and/or lazy.



 

If you think this is going to be my only post, Wait for phase 2 and 3

[[MRP] Likes and Dislikes Topic #1]

To get a general consencous what do you actually enjoy, and hate about MRP. Please do not say playerbase. Also for statistic reasons select your age without posting your own age; just for geting to know what people want and around what ages want certain things. That way problems and solutions can be aimed correctly

[Sorry to everyone]

At least you came to admit your faults. Appreciated. But unlikely something like this will be forgiven easily; especially with the state of the server currently.

[Banned]

 

Quote

In-game name:
SteamID64 (https://steamid.io/):
Staff members in-game name:
Date & Time of incident:
Time zone:
Ban/mute Reason:
How long were you banned/muted for?:
Proof of Ban/mute:
What happened? (include any proof):
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Please use this

[DarkRP Update [10/20/2020]]

Why you importing my brick into the game?

Do i get this for free?

[I'm thinking it's time I re-write/revamp MRP?]

Well now I have a place to post me essay when its done