Lets talk about our population...

[Nutter 15,177]

Hello nutgamers, 

TLDR; 2 of my favorite servers are struggling and I'd like to make changes, but I have not been able to determine the cause (StarwarsRP and MilitaryRP)

 

Today I'd like to start a topic about a thread that I have been shying away from as I am entirely lost, but I think it is worth exploring. The covid-19 pandemic hit and unfortunately everybody was quarantined, during this time our servers' populations skyrocketed (expected) and has actually dipped down significantly going into summer, as people were no longer forced to be home. While a dip WAS entirely expected and this is nothing new, we opened a SWRP server which did fairly well, while also maintaining our MilitaryRP playerbase at well above 90 players at peak.

Throughout the month of June with finals and stay-at-home orders lifting in some states, our population dropped on StarwarsRP, leaving us with 20-40 players for the entirety of June, while MilitaryRP has been averaging 50-60. Throughout this duration of time, I have spent more time than ever learning more about development (creating/improving content) as well as some extra mapping experience on the side. We have now gone 30 days and all of our servers have mostly stabilized, while I genuinely view StarwarsRP as a complete utter failure as we had only hit 30 players on 4th of July, and 13 on the 5th.  MilitaryRP has still stayed at 50-60, but fails to peak at 8PM as it did in the past, and instead, the population simply starts dropping much earlier in the day.

Throughout this process, I've been keeping up with implementing everything found in the suggestion areas for each respective server as necessary, and I have reached out to some members regarding needed changes and implemented those. I have asked around, and haven't been able to receive any answers from anybody regarding what's going on, so please, if anybody is aware, please share with me why is it that as our servers had gone up in quality, it seems that our population has  seemingly gone down? - I am only asking because I genuinely would like to fix any issues. Whether it be a complete server overhaul/complete map revamp/major changes.

I have heard from countless people this could be a result of leadership, however, this isn't something that I can directly help in the situation in which a long time Manager or SA decides their time has come  I would like to assume that if we ever have a struggle with a server's leadership, it is documented and reported on the forums.

[Entity 357]

For StarwarsRP, one of the main things I've always wished for were things to do other than wait for the events, and the Gamemaster hosted events aren't entirely gamechanging either. I think Conway will change that eventually for the better. In terms of leadership, some leaders of the batallions aren't entirely serious with their roles. They promote someone for just being in the batallion (Personal experience). Order should be made that people must participate in events or trainings in order to be promoted. I thought this was already a thing though.

I believe changes should be made to Gamemaster held events to be more exciting, such as building the events instead of using the map. There's not very much you CAN do though since the servers can only handle so much. If this is possible I hope we can add new event props or enemies that would give people a reason to stay active or attend events.

I'll be posting some suggestions in the proper forum once I compile a list of useful ideas. I've been trying to gather details in order to enhance the playerbase because I'd like to see StarwarsRP thrive one day.

[Nutter 15,177]

2 minutes ago, Entity said:

For StarwarsRP, one of the main things I've always wished for were things to do other than wait for the events

Thank you for this response, because that is something I have wanted to bring up. Please do not just ask for "something to do". Clarify what it is you would enjoy doing. I hear people on MilitaryRP rant all day about how there's not a whole lot to do between once, but not once have I gotten back an actual effective idea at creating fun roleplay.

4 minutes ago, Entity said:

I think Conway will change that eventually for the better. In terms of leadership, some leaders of the batallions aren't entirely serious with their roles. They promote someone for just being in the batallion (Personal experience). Order should be made that people must participate in events or trainings in order to be promoted. I thought this was already a thing though.

Conway is a new leader, and he more or less got thrown into the position as me and him have been very close in the past, and he is the only major/long-time Garnet member who was left on StarwarsRP with Phantom and Bishop leaving abruptly. I have no doubt he will get in the groove of things sooner rather than later. Finally, yes, as you have mentioned, it should already be that way (and it was in the past) but it is very hard to enforce with hardly anybody to fill a faction's roster.

5 minutes ago, Entity said:

I believe changes should be made to Gamemaster held events to be more exciting, such as building the events instead of using the map. There's not very much you CAN do though since the servers can only handle so much. If this is possible I hope we can add new event props or enemies that would give people a reason to stay active or attend events.

We have event props staff can use to "build" events, as well as utilize the Advanced Duplicator tool. Our server is more than capable of it. This is definitely something that could get brought up with the GM team.

6 minutes ago, Entity said:

I'll be posting some suggestions in the proper forum once I compile a list of useful ideas. I've been trying to gather details in order to enhance the playerbase because I'd like to see StarwarsRP thrive one day.

That would be greatly appreciated

[Homast 377]

1 minute ago, Garnet said:

this isn't something that I can directly help in the situation in which a long time Manager or SA decides their time has come

I don't think it's really about when they leave, I think it's more about what their strength while they are here.

I know that some people are dissatisfied with the recent Managment team, (Recent being Gildarts to now) and mainly blame lack of activity while holding the title of Manager/SA,  or the thought that someone could be whispering in their ears.
 

MRP Side

I said this in a discord that just so happens to have a lot of garnet gamers in it, The main thing that people are looking for, who currently play, is integrity from the staff team, and not serving any potential agendas or catering to friendgroup;s.

as for newer players, I'm going to attempt to put myself into their shoes, I get on the server, after maybe a 10 minute download, with decent wifi, and no prior knowledge of the workshop, then once I'm actually on, I spawn in a closed off room with a sign that only exists if Jim is notified of it missing after the restart, If I see that sign, I switch over, and at most I've seen, 15 minutes recently, Because nobody takes initiative to train sometimes.  And when they do get trained, sometimes there's no RP aspect, and I've heard of Recruiters on both sides, just giving out the whitelist, and the trainee doesn't happen to remember the person who gave them the whitelist.
From there, They know nothing about what to do, what the rules are, And what ROEs are.
Another thing, and well, You're aware of it as much as I am Garnet, There's not much to do inbetween Wars, Sims are only so fun before they get boring, and Tryouts are sparce at the moment due to the lack of playerbase in a twisted feedback loop of sorts.

How do we fix it?  that's something as a community we've been discussing amongst ourselves constantly, We don't want things to be like this, but not very many people can come to a consensus of what the problems are, and how to fix them.
Some people have suggested replacing faction leaders, some have suggested forcing people to do things during peace times despite it being a video game where people don't want to really be FORCED to do anything they don't wanna.

I have a feeling that because we don't have too many active players, and countries are essentially divided into Friend group 1, and friend group 2, where the two sides don't mesh often, Players don't see their friends online, so they don't hop on, and that ripples outwards for majority of the players.

As for Fixes for what we know we can deal with, You're already hard at work doing something in that regard,  being nothing to do inbetween wars.
1 Proposed change we can do, is something I've discussed in the previously mentioned discord, is changing how we operate our factions.
Be gone with that tier system that we've been holding onto for far too long, because while you know.... It's cool to feel "Like the best" but it only inflates egos
What I suggested was more of for us to cater to different kinds of attitudes, for example, Serious attitudes, Laid back, things like that, but again, that's factionside and not Management side.

As for management side, I feel like there needs to be more oversight into what Both servers are doing, The Docs are good, but only provide the tip of the iceberg, and not a day to day insight of what happens staffside on the servers.

 

[Xavier 43]

For Military RP Please Fix the Models that are broken and Base camping alot of US are base camped a lot I dont care if im RU in SSO or what even in my SOC Faction our COL tell us we have to stay on OBJ as PDSS,GRU,or Vega go and basically make it impossible to go to OBJ I have experienced this first hand with some CO's and fellow Enlisted in SSO in my opinion its killing the player base not allowing people to actually have a chance in winning 90% of the time RU wins all wars yes I enjoy it but it hurts the US which is the other 50% of our player base

 

[Nutter 15,177]

20 minutes ago, Homast said:

MRP Side

So I did read your entire post, and it does seem at the end of the day that you are the side that goes out to say that it isn't inherently a problem with the server, but rather, the management (as you've said: nobody initiating roleplay between wars, management catering to friend groups, and factions being mishandled, and hell, friendgroups existing in the first place.

20 minutes ago, Homast said:

What I suggested was more of for us to cater to different kinds of attitudes, for example, Serious attitudes, Laid back, things like that, but again, that's factionside and not Management side.

^

I do genuinely have some hope as I'm not sure of whether or not this is in your interest to become an SA, but you have always been solid in reaching out to me when anything is needed, so I hope you plan on sticking around long enough to make some major changes.

 

 

19 minutes ago, VBourbon said:

Garnet this is the time to be honest. A lot of the community feels you have not given any or at all a bit of attention to the MRP community. It’s been the same system, nothing new. For years now! Mainly not staying in touch with that side of the community is a big trigger for most. As for in game, a lot of the problem resides with base faction officers, and afk staff. Other than that  I would suggest playing MRP for the day and asking around what people want done. 

I assume you missed the following:

26 minutes ago, Garnet said:

Thank you for this response, because that is something I have wanted to bring up. Please do not just ask for "something to do". Clarify what it is you would enjoy doing. I hear people on MilitaryRP rant all day about how there's not a whole lot to do between once, but not once have I gotten back an actual effective idea at creating fun roleplay.

Thank you @VBourbon for making an empty post. "Same system, nothing new. "Well, did you suggest anything new?

It is physically impossible for me to "stay in touch" to the degree you'd like with "that side of the community" when I have multiple servers to divide my attention among. Whenever a MilitaryRP manager (at this moment it is Jim) requests of me to push for an update/new content, I begin working on it IMMEDIATELY. I am not here to get on the servers and babysit/yell at people a decade later. I'm sorry. Why would I ever get on the server and ask individual players what they want done when I had given them the most optimal tools to doing so? I created the suggestions subforum SO people can voice their ideas and receive INSTANT community feedback from other players who play as to whether or not its a good idea. Making a post takes 10 seconds.

[Ozzy 1,992]

1 hour ago, Homast said:

as for newer players, I'm going to attempt to put myself into their shoes, I get on the server, after maybe a 10 minute download, with decent wifi, and no prior knowledge of the workshop, then once I'm actually on, I spawn in a closed off room with a sign that only exists if Jim is notified of it missing after the restart, If I see that sign, I switch over, and at most I've seen, 15 minutes recently, Because nobody takes initiative to train sometimes.  And when they do get trained, sometimes there's no RP aspect, and I've heard of Recruiters on both sides, just giving out the whitelist, and the trainee doesn't happen to remember the person who gave them the whitelist.
From there, They know nothing about what to do, what the rules are, And what ROEs are.
Another thing, and well, You're aware of it as much as I am Garnet, There's not much to do inbetween Wars, Sims are only so fun before they get boring, and Tryouts are sparce at the moment due to the lack of playerbase in a twisted feedback loop of sorts.

How do we fix it?  that's something as a community we've been discussing amongst ourselves constantly, We don't want things to be like this, but not very many people can come to a consensus of what the problems are, and how to fix them.
Some people have suggested replacing faction leaders, some have suggested forcing people to do things during peace times despite it being a video game where people don't want to really be FORCED to do anything they don't wanna.

I have a feeling that because we don't have too many active players, and countries are essentially divided into Friend group 1, and friend group 2, where the two sides don't mesh often, Players don't see their friends online, so they don't hop on, and that ripples outwards for majority of the players.

This is straight up the truth. The new player experience has never been worse. Player retention is at an all time low. I’d reckon that 75% of the population at any given time has been here at least a year. Base factions need a kick in the ass to get their act together. Army is doing better than 2GA but neither is good. Already had conversations with Jim and I believe his ideas (already being implemented) will pay dividends. As for SOC factions, GRU and Green Beret need to go back to being the entry SOC Factions they’ve been when the server was at its’ peak. Jake has had GB for at least a week, maybe more, and he hasn’t added a single new member. GRU’s roster ain’t looking better. I see Eggdog and Deviluke but the rest (like 2 or 3 people?) I see maybe once a week and who the fuck is Willie Nelson?

 

Garnet, I’ve reached out to you about what I feel will help increase the breadth of experiences that we can offer as a server. I’ll keep those conversations off the forums until given the green light.

 

EDIT: Another thing I’ve noticed from talking with individuals from all walks: they are getting tired of incomplete projects and missed deadlines. Weapons skins, Titan Exp boost, etc. I think that’s something that would fit on your plate as opposed to management. No one expects an omnipotent coder or for you to pump crazy hours into these projects, but if they are being scrapped, notice of such would be appreciated. And updates on progress in general would always be appreciated. I can understand if you want to keep some things under wraps for shock value, but I think I can speak for the MRP community when I say we enjoy seeing updates regarding the progress of your projects.

Edited July 6, 2020 by 0zzy

[Bortnik 451]

I haven’t been on SWRP lately, due to a few reasons(but not boredom). So I can’t really speak on the current situation, anyways from my experience, we go in the right direction, but then all of a sudden our pop just drops. And I can never understand why. We have all these awesome features being added, and constant updating, only for the pop to disappear. And that got me thinking about any changes we can make, but most of them have already happened. Such as getting new management(Conway)and adding more jobs(in-progress). 
 

On another note, I heard we were re-opening almost all of the factions, which is good, but the problem we had is that it was too un-coordinated and annoying to do events since there’s more batt’s, but less people in them. And some valid points that were brought up in the discord being; Lots of the playerbase is burnt out of Gmod, and it becomes a chore to play. Most, if not all of the current swrp guys have been here since the start. And I’m sure a few of them think that, but don’t really realize it, and end up leaving out of the blue.

Finally I think it’s important to talk about some donator items, I feel the stuff we have can be improved upon, maybe like more ranks, such as a $50 rank, and maybe a $5 rank. Also maybe add some other weapons to the portal. I’m not exactly sure what guns, but if you’re interested in expanding it, I can definitely look into it.

[AceSWRP 22]

Personally speaking for SWRP and what I've seen in the four months I've played there. We don't really retain players because it gets extremally boring. Yes, I understand that officers/commanders can ask GM's to spawn stuff in and do mini-events etc. But that's not always possible as we still only have a few active GM's. I recommend adding in more content that would push the playerbase into other avenues of engagement like I understand that you want to keep it PVE but the way it's setup right now requires that a GM be on constantly in order for players to be able to do anything. And that passiveRP only goes so far as-well. The last two weeks or more I've seen many players just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen and getting bored and leaving. I'm going to collect suggestions and ideas from my 501st boys and see what we can come up with. Otherwise this is just my general thoughts.

Edited July 6, 2020 by AceSWRP

[Josh 22]

BRING back cs_desert as well as afghan, population will flood back

DO NOT only bring back cs desert without afg because no one likes russia

Edited July 6, 2020 by Josh

[Snapper 36]

I think something we should do for SWRP is change the way it is listed on the GMod server page. Right now it just says "Daily Events" and doesn't accurately reflect that it's a semi-serious server with a large community. I also think that GM's should get the ability to set jobs or even create a Senior GM rank that can as when Gamma, Phantom and Bishop were the admin team, almost every event had unique event characters. Right now the only person who can do that is Conway, and since he is manager, the GM team around him shouldn't be forced to bother him in the event that he isn't on or drag him out of bed (sry abt that lol @Alex Conway). I would love to have event characters in my events as they could make events more interesting. As we start to get into having more off worlds, this along with bringing in more types of NPCs would mean events aren't just Clones vs CIS, and have some component of PvP like when events consisted of having teams of event characters attacking the clones. Currently, my events follow this format:

- I set up droids and props at outpost 

- I send a unit on patrol, they get shot at by NPCs

- They report what the found at the outpost

- Everyone goes to another outpost for a bigger fight with NPCs

- End of event

I want to do so much more with my events but not being able to set jobs really hurts it. We could potentially have something like two on worlds and one off world a day, but the GMs being so limited makes it difficult to come up with new ideas that are fun to make as well as fun for the players. I'm sure I can speak for other GM's when I say this: MAKING EVENTS THAT WE KNOW PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GET BORED WITH FUCKING SUCKS. As I've been rebuilding the 212th, I've had first hand experience with the low pop. I've had 7 new recruits, only one has shown any sign of wanting to stay, and one has already been kicked out for being a minge and fucking with the generator too much. If we can get new players that have the mindset of this being a committed server, they will contribute. If we can get new players who want to play and we can give them fun shit to do while they're here, they will stay. Yesterday's 4th of July event was our biggest event in a while and that would have been nothing compared to what we had in May and early June. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Snapper

[eli_ 641]

StarWarsRP does need some changes for sure. I started a doc a few days ago and am currently brainstorming some ideas to help the playerbase. I'll be posting them in the SWRP suggestions either on discord or properly on the forums. 

By chance we make donator classes free, we will be needing a new active Commander Colt to hold/uphold ARC tryouts. Which is extremely obvious. Someone could 2nd life this because they could hop on just to run tryouts then hop back to their main battalion role. 

Adding on, the new roles you and Conway are planning on implementing will be great. Will make more RP sense, and will just make the F4 menu look much better and cleaner then before. Especially with the lore characters. So I think that may help for new players because if someone likes Waxer or Boil for instance, they have something to look forward to. But as stated by several people, we don't need to piss off people who bought T3 and refunding them would be a disaster for you.

212th and 501st to me should be the most appealing battalions to new comers. Will most likely be making a suggestion about how we can do this just haven't given it much thought until now so look out for that.

I know this has been suggested a shit ton but I'll say it again. We could use some sort of thing to get up to high places. Whether it's a climb swep or a grappling gun. Will just help in the long haul. I believe these ranks could receive them. 
T1 - T3, Snipers, special forces, things like that. 

Will be editing this post most likely tomorrow because I'm tired asf right now. 

[Viva 201]

IMO (MRP): 

• It's a snooze fest in between wars. You may say "Well, just create your own RP!". Even then that is not fun for a lot people. There is only so much you can do on a Garry's Mod server that isn't churning out consistent updates. A vast majority of people will play war for the 30 minutes, then hop off and queue and play other games with friends. 
• The server is basically a simulation of IRL politics. Everyone is at each others throats all the damn time. The server is just SO divided between US and RU. Sometimes RU would play on US for a war and go to a US TS channel for callouts. The channel would get tense and become quiet. That's just a small example. I know it sounds so cliche but "A house divided against itself cannot stand" - Abraham Lincoln. The community just doesn't seem welcoming to newer players. 
• The work of faction leading far outweighs it's rewards. The appeal to faction leading for some people was a guaranteed reserve slot (assuming you weren't a retard). Now that that's gone, what's the reward? Clout in a forum signature? For others, it is having your own faction that you can hang out with friends in. Why not just play other games with friends? A 30-min DM server gets boring after a while.  Then for some people, it's being able to have more control of the RP you want to create. Like I said previously, there is only so much RP you can do on a GMOD server without consistent updates. If there is no appeal to faction leading, then (new) players are going to be less likely to stay active and work up the ranks. Most people don't want to come home from school/work and deal with imaginary problems. 
• Becoming staff is a waste of time. I spent 7-9 months-ish working through the staff ranks, eventually making it to Head Admin. I was then demoted 3 ranks to Head-Moderator for "not voicing my opinion enough; too quiet". If that's not demoralizing, I don't know what is. I am in no way trying to play the victim card. I have since gotten over it and don't care anymore. All I'm trying to say is that no one appreciates one-another in this community (especially staff). It seemed like all the sits/work I did for the server was just forgotten and tossed aside like a dirty rag. Everyone has their own agendas and could care less about others. I'll probably get shit on for this bullet-point in particular but guess what, I'm voicing my opinion . 
• Garnet. You are stretched too thin. We have like 50 rust servers, some being in Europe. It just seems like you're continuing to add new servers without fixing the problems on the current ones. From the outside looking in, you are juggling: coding, map-making, donation support, being more involved with the community, IRL responsibilities, etc...  I think consolidating the servers and putting more resources into hiring developers/mappers will be more beneficial for population. 
• Suggestions don't work. Most of the suggestions are for adding new content. Which is just unrealistic because of the lack of developers, so they are simply denied. The server has essentially the same content since I started playing in January 2017. I feel as if people have exhausted all the RP options in this drought of content. New content = More RP/players.
• To be blunt: It's 2020, GMOD is a dying game.

I rarely post on forums, but I just felt like I had something to get off my chest. Hopefully it's valuable criticism, Garnet. 

[Jared Cox 651]

2 hours ago, Homast said:

What I suggested was more of for us to cater to different kinds of attitudes, for example, Serious attitudes, Laid back, things like that, but again, that's factionside and not Management side.

To add on to that, I think this mixture of different attitudes in appropriate circumstances is the main reason why I played MRP continuously when I was a newer player. The majority of the MRP community in 2016-17 was this mixture of attitudes that Homast mentions. Things on the server were somewhat serious when you were roleplaying and generally playing on the server most of the time, and things were chill as fuck when you were just talking to your buddies in TS sharing a laugh or two or saying some out-of-character shit in-game. I remember how roleplay was implemented often by the officers and faction leaders, creating this semi-serious vibe, and I also felt that this seriousness made wars very fun to participate in. When you won a war back on cs_desert, you felt like you made your officers proud, like as if losing a war meant 3 hours of PT jogging around the base, so you felt like you HAD to win, like these officers were so cool that you HAD to make a name for yourself doing some “heroic act” in a war. As cringey as that sounds, that’s exactly how it felt to me.

Is it just me or has the seriousness of MRP just completely evaporated? Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that making a faction laid back is bad, but why not add some semi-seriousness into the mix? Maybe it’s just because the MRP community as a whole has changed significantly to this laid back vibe, because the veterans who left a while ago fit this serious vibe and now the newer players don’t? Maybe it’s because I’m not new to the concept of GMod MRP anymore and I’ve just gotten bored of the game? I’m not certain. But I do miss the feeling of things in a roleplaying server mattering somewhat.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Jared Cox

[Moabkilr45 28]

The Thing with MRP is that their isn't much to do during peacetime or on Tiga. While kill house is a thing, in my opinion it is way too long and way too complex, especially for new players. but then again, during an hour of peace time their isn't much to do either. What I would suggest is decreasing peacetime to about 50 or 40 minutes, Or incorporating an indefinite war system where players can go outside and skirmish among themselves and claiming areas is a way to not getting killed outside and such.

Either way, the server get VARY boring during peacetime, and while i know its used for tryouts and what not, at this moment I feel it is better we:

A) Make peacetime shorter and wars longer

Or B) Incorporate an indefinite war system, whether it be the one I talked about or something else

While I understand Sims and tryouts are up to the officers of 2GA & Army, The thing is with 2GA, Our officers are either demotivated, burnt out, just bored of the server or inactive; And as for Army, I can't speak on their behave because I don't go over there. Their is only so much we can do during peacetime that eventually we would have done what can be done and it just gets boring, and enlisted members on both sides can only entertain themselves for so long that they either leave or Mass RDM.

Seeing as the server is more combat orientated I feel that an indefinite war system is much more preferable than a hour of peacetime; Though if anyone has any other suggestions to add on to this or if yall wanna criticize me you can, these are just some suggestions I think garnet should look into.