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

[PraetorDon 485]

2 hours ago, shrimp said:

Unfortunately, I’ve been getting the play-by-play of the server since I left because some of you just don’t know how to leave me alone. That being said, fuck you, I am up to date.

Here’s what I would do to fix the server, now that I’ve been name-dropped and requested to comment:

Step I - Burn It.

For all you stubborn skids who are so attached to some ideal form of the server than any change in any direction other than what your own personal vision is that you’d rather push down any other attempt to change and take steps directly backwards, stop.

Take a second look at the situation the server is currently, and it might eventually occur to some of you that this is an opportunity to break free of all the old ways of the community and turn it into something way better, to learn from the mistakes we made in the past and finally put together something good, something that will persist on an uphill slope, as opposed to the long-running downward spiral that’s been prevalent over that past few years.

The natural (natural as in ‘without intervention’) state of the server has always been a shitshow. It needs constant maintenance and oversight to run properly and stay healthy, regardless of the core server mechanics being entirely automated. The openness of the server leaves much to be desired, when it’s the responsibility of the user to come up with the content, or lack of content therein.

Point is; the server isn’t sustainable, and never really was. Things naturally just go to shit, and they go to shit a lot faster as of late due to the general subconscious of the community being a lot more resistant to change.

That being said, it’s time to burn it all down and start fresh. The benefits of doing so are as follows:
 

• The arguments in favor of donor advantages will be a lot harder to back due to it being a different server, which presents an opportunity to get rid of a lot of unfavorable donor perks with minimal backlash.
   

• The server can be rebuilt without preconceived notions or god-forsaken nostalgia. The community will benefit from this because they won’t be able to argue for reimplementing silly old features that typically aren’t as good as they remember them. No more running in circles and not really getting anywhere.
   

• We can really and truly learn from our mistakes and have an opportunity to abandon systems that don’t or didn’t work in the past with little to no repercussions. I’d like to reiterate that it’s a new server, where none of the shit from “MRP” as we know it applies. 

 

Step II - Foundations.

If we even get this far, as in if Garnet decides he even wants to reopen a server after taking down MRP, let’s talk codebases.

As of now, GG MRP runs on a modified DarkRP codebase, with D3A running as the administrative plug-in. Tally up the workshop content, sprinkle on the custom lua for good luck, and that’s effectively the server. In my opinion (Garnet will hate this), there’s not enough content on the server for it to be successful today. There’s (including the war system) not really much that makes GG special that the most basic of players can see at the surface level. I made this a huge point in the other massive document I made (was making) a while back, and the fact of the matter is the server has no depth. Once you log onto the server for the first time, it isn’t long before you’ve seen all the is to see, and it’s kind of always been like that, except once upon a time it was a bit more difficult to get to the top, but once you’ve been to the top, the server loses all its charm and you end up a forum lurker like me. The server’s depth now is in its politics, not its content. This is both bad and good for business. Drama keeps users engaged in the discussion, but it also is hyper non-conducive to the new player experience, hampering growth like you wouldn’t believe. Blame managers, blame staff, blame whoever, but that trend alone is single-handedly responsible for the situation we’re in now. Nobody wants to join a community where they’re immediately expected to pick a side, both literally and figuratively.

This raises the question; how are we supposed to detract from the pointless bickering about the state of the server?

Well, it’s actually quite easy in my experience. Improve the state of said server. Convolute and absolutely maximize the server itself so that 90% of players feel engaged enough to play and enjoy and be passionate about the server, but overwhelmed enough by it to not have the confidence to openly speak on it without looking like an idiot.

Okay, so where do we start? Easy. Nutscript (or Helix, which is way less janky). NS allows for a much more medium-high RP oriented framework that will allow for just that; RP. As it stands, the server peaks at low RP, and is otherwise entirely without it. Going from the ground up would really allow for roleplay in the server to be totally fleshed out and structured into an experience that is enjoyable for new and old players alike, one that is always rewarding players for their time and effort with quality roleplay. This is the kind of RP server that is able to sustain itself, as the players are always experiencing a unique scenario that isn’t carefully pieced together by a staff team. Right now, we’ve got TDM with extra steps, and, while automated, each war is not much unlike the one before or the one after. There are zero dynamics. The only changing element is the people, which is entirely OOC and the rapidly depleting playerbase really shouldn’t be a core “feature” of the server.

Step III - Building Blocks.

So we have nutscript, a very versatile framework that opens up a lot of options for how the server operates at a core level. The second step is to throw the idea of “war” out the window. It’s really, really bad to have an RP server that isn’t oriented around RP, but rather combat, especially if it’s on a shitty platform (ergo gMod). You’re not going to place very well in trying to recreate a high performance shooter in an engine less stable than Kendal’s mental state when you’re going up against literally any other game. Seriously, just pick one, and it’s probably better.

That being said, the reason people play these types of shitty outdated games (gMod, SS13, , GTAIV, etc) is for the unique experiences that can be had on these niche ass servers. Finding a niche to stand out in is how any gMod server becomes successful nowadays. In my time away from GG, I was able to take a look at a lot of smaller communities that had experienced rapid growth and were operating servers pushing 100 players on average over the course of a day. These servers were able to draw in crowds in gMod in the year 2020 not by doing anything better (fuck no), but by doing something different.

The common argument that I see (and one that I’ve even made) is that the timed war system is the thing that makes us unique, but at the end of the day, it’s really not that much of a difference from any of our direct competitors. In fact, it actually hampers us quite a bit. We really have to ask the question, how different is GG from, let’s say for the sake of argument, Icefuse? The answer; not much. Similar structure, similar faction operation, similar meandering gameplay, and identical circlejerking. With that, there’s no way we could just change the war system and expect to compete with another behemoth like IFN on their own turf. It’s just not viable, and we’ll probably just end up attracting a player base composed of (get this) Icefuse rejects.

So fuck all that, let’s actually do something different. Something that will really set us apart.

“Okay shrimp dick, where do we start?”

We start with the core features. The systems that are going to launch the server into the stratosphere. The things that are proven to work elsewhere, and keep players coming back, while creating an authentic and borderline addictive experience. Here’s what I have in mind, based on my experience and analysis of popular trends:
 

• Economy

  • WIth Nutscript, items and inventories and kind of a focus, where anything from weapons to armor to 7” dildos are traded among players for money or other items, and economies are typically established based on certain standards.
    
    With an economy, players are given a seemingly endless amount of options to pursue and avenues of gameplay to explore, as well as enjoy increased interactivity and (y’all ain’t gonna believe it) RP. For instance, taking full advantage of the CW system and creating weapons with retextured variants with different stats, attachments and rarity and using bodygroups to create armor types and so on. Players can be rewarded with a chance at rare loot for successfully completing an RP event (not fucking hide and seek or some shit), encouraging them to participate, and actually giving value to money. Donator perks would then be reoriented around the economy and items therein to make it more conducive to the system in play.
    
    With the below logistics systems, players could be rewarded for doing their chores on base, acting as medical staff, cooks, guards, etc. Passive RP roles that allow players to earn money for use in the economy
     

• Logistics

  • Part of any good military RP is the logistics at play during an operation, or just in general gameplay. A way to dramatically slow down the pace of gameplay and make it much, much more satisfying is by introducing mechanics that not only tell the player to value their life, but actually make the player suffer for acting recklessly. Systems we currently have in place that wouldn’t properly transfer to nutscript anyways, like medics spawning with medkits that they usually just use on themselves, or ammo crates that just sit in the base that are a source of infinite ammo, or the lives of the very troops that are fighting the battle. All of it, really, should be limited in a sense, so that players are more cognizant of what they’re doing, and more afraid to stand on top of a sand dune flailing around a .338 while twitching like a crack addict.
    
    A more complicated player experience is often more rewarding in the RP context, in fact, only in the RP context, which is what we’re trying to do here.
     

• Factions

  • Factions would really and truly need to be entirely restructured to be more complimentary to playing at the squad level (similar to how SWRP is done, but less gay and built for PvP). I’m not going to get into the specifics of even what countries would be on a server like this (another opportunity to get freaky) because we’re not there yet, so don’t even try to ask what factions would constitute factions here, but let me outline the basic premise.
    
    The core of the faction is the base or FOB. Each base, 2 or more, should be the primary hub for RP for a faction (on the country level).
    
    The way whitelists work in nutscript is a little bit different than DarkRP. In DarkRP, one player can play multiple jobs by opening the F4 menu and selecting one they have access to. In nutscript, there is no F4 menu. Each character (players can have multiple characters) can only have one whitelist. The whitelists themselves work differently, in that a faction doesn’t necessarily have multiple whitelists to give out (typically a member and officer whitelist). There aren’t classes, and any player can effectively have any loadout available to them so long as they are able to acquire what they need to fulfill a certain role. That being said, there’s actually a point to have a ton of different factions, that might have access to different things between them. For instance, a special forces group’s quartermaster will be able to distribute a higher grade of basic weapons and armor than the average infantry unit, and different special forces group’s may have “equipment” entirely unique to them that gives them a tactical advantage in certain situations, allowing for strategy and more RP.
    
    With our current system, it’s better to have less factions, and more people in each faction so that each faction is seen as active. In nutscript, it’s actually better to have more factions, so that when a rarely seen faction flags up, it intrigues even a regular player. This is called depth, and it’s something we need to maintain the longevity of a server. With nutscript, only Superadmins (typically) can even find a list of flags to indicate all the factions on the server, as there isn’t an F4 menu to scroll through. With that, nobody can really point fingers on activity, because everyone would be talking out of their ass. Having all these small factions popping in every now and then to compliment the larger bulk of the server allows for some really interesting cooperation, engagement, and RP. These factions have their quartermasters, which are vendor NPCs that distribute basic items in exchange for money (ammo, first aid kits, etc).
     

• Combat

  • Combat is last on this list for a reason. It should be there, of course, to compliment the economy and make a use for all the shiny toys players work for, but it shouldn’t be the primary focus, for reasons stated above. Combat should be regulated, and made to happen in scenarios that make sense, and should mostly be centered around the acquisition and control of supplies that bases would need to function properly (See: Logistics). Combat should not be frequent enough that players are able to get frustrated at all the flaws inherent to gMod, but enough to satisfy that bloodlust that landed most people on a military server. Let the RP happen, and let the GMs push it in a direction that makes it fun for everyone. Trust me when I say, the amount of effort that goes into making RP happen is proportional to the enjoyment everyone gets out. 

Step IV - Bureaucracy.

The chain of command in a present GG MRP is actually a joke. The O-11, the de facto leader of each country, is legitimately never treated like it. Most of the players on the server hardly acknowledge rank outside of their own subfaction, which really just promotes minging at the end of the day, but let's not go there.

The O-11 position has been historically undesirable because it’s a lot of work, an entry faction, and pretty much a worthless position for anybody competent enough to do it. If the desirability of holding a position like “Leader of Half the Server”, players will strive for it, and that is accomplished by giving the position more power, jurisdiction, and responsibility. A faction’s (country level) leader in the nutscript mockup would have full control over the issuing and assignment of mission, handling of the budget where money actually matters (no need for that budget system I suggested with G4S in nutscript, by the way), and the highest paycheck. From there, the chain of command just goes downward. Subfaction commanders submit their requests and receive a portion of the budget to carry out their duties and are free to manage it as such (squandering it will obviously have consequences, stealing it will have more consequences). It’s important.

Now that I’m looking at this, I think this is a lot more similar to GG back when it was USvRUvAFGvUK than it is now. lol 

With a few issues, that I would accept due to the overall idea, I actually agree with this.

I will say, there will definitely be backlash if donors are gotten rid of, but gotta rip that band-aid off sometime, right?

 

The main issue is the amount of dev time that would need to be put into this and the complexity of the programming required also seems high. I'd like to hear Garnet's thoughts on this specifically.

 

My personal opinion, is RP for the sake of RP never works with randoms, what you've done here is turned RP into something that has gameplay value, which I can agree with.

 

Overall, seems very interesting, but the probability of it being implemented from just the development perspective, not even the community perspective, doesn't seem particularly high. Hopefully I'm wrong..

Edited July 9, 2020 by PraetorDon

[Gildarts 169]

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

[shrimp 764]

22 hours ago, PraetorDon said:

development perspective

A lot of the things suggested in my post are default features of nutscript that just need to be properly configured, which is a lot less work than actually creating it. For instance, the item, vendor, whitelist, and inventory systems are all default components of NS.

Fortunately an experimental framework like Helix has a lot of free plug-ins available for use that would be very useful for building a server like I've described, they can be found here.

As far as I can tell from my amateur dev perspective, most of the work would be editing the UI's on all the fancy nutscript menus to be a theme more complimentary to the server. Once that fresh coat of paint it on, it's all down to porting and configuring the necessary addons, and deciding what needs to be on the server to make gameplay good. Lots of creative work on that end.

Edited July 10, 2020 by shrimp