[MRP] Likes and Dislikes Topic #1

[Gildarts 166]

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

Edited October 26, 2020 by Gildarts

[Nutter 15,168]

Not sure if my input is worthwhile, but I started the server because I genuinely enjoyed the gamemode, and I genuinely feel as though my own server ruined what I enjoy about the server.

Officer quality throughout the years has been dwindling, people have become too reliant on the "WAR TIMER". I would genuinely enjoy the use of COMMS in RP to create hostile scenarios by which players will fight over an objective, as opposed to idle through a timer. If you have a tryout going on but a "WAR TIMER" is coming up, that is no longer an issue, as you can now mitigate hostility and resume until both parties are ready.

I want to see more players engaging in RP scenarios, and to stop prioritizing sole numbers within their factions. Or better yet, stop showing a bias towards friends within factions.

[Bozee 202]

better gun play, the gun play has had the same meta since ive joined and even through that, it just doesn't feel very good... I think variety and more satisfying gun play would go a long way! as far as the server, I think adding once again variety in everything, jobs, missions, rp, gunplay, player customization, attachments, vehicles, actual guns, weapon skins, classes, idk just overall a update with variety and a an unlock system to go with all that would be cool

honestly I really dislike my 3 slot, i have 17 knives 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Bozee

[shrimp 764]

11 minutes ago, Garnet said:

ruined what I enjoy

going to drop absolute bombs on this thread ttyl 

[PraetorDon 485]

Controversy incoming.

I like gunplay. Currently working on adjusting weapons and playing around with CW02 configs. The fact that the average player would rather see stupid shit like chess and the much meme'd "Brick", is more in-line with what I want MRP to be, a fun "controlled chaos" server where players have a good time.

I dislike the current state of RP. The current RP on the server is somewhat forced, and isn't really player driven. In my opinion, that's the only way RP is going to be successful.  I've played D&D for a very long time, and DM's that railroad their campaigns don't usually have campaigns for very long. Give players the tools to do RP, and you might see success. In addition, there's no overarching storyline that gives real weight to the RP events themselves.  In short, what's we're doing right now isn't working, and either the GM team needs more tools, or we need to re-evaluate how we're doing RP in general.

We had 80+ players easily before the GM system was introduced, and RP isn't going to improve officer quality.

tl;dr focus on the players and them having fun

I say this as someone who plays on the server every day, and I feel I have a good idea on what your average gmod player wants, feel free to disagree.

Edited October 23, 2020 by PraetorDon

[Bozee 202]

Just now, PraetorDon said:

Controversy incoming.

I like gunplay. Currently working on adjusting weapons and playing around with CW02 configs. The fact that the average player would rather see stupid shit like chess and the much meme'd "Brick", is more in-line with what I want MRP to be, a fun "controlled chaos" server where players have a good time.

The current RP on the server is somewhat forced, and isn't really player driven. In my opinion, that's the only way RP is going to be successful.  I've played D&D for a very long time, and DM's that railroad their campaigns don't usually have campaigns for very long. Give players the tools to do RP, and you might see success. In addition, there's no overarching storyline that gives real weight to the RP events themselves.  In short, what's we're doing right now isn't working, and either the GM team needs more tools, or we need to re-evaluate how we're doing RP in general.

We had 80+ players easily before the GM system was introduced, and RP isn't going to improve officer quality.

tl;dr focus on the players and them having fun

I say this as someone who plays on the server every day, and I feel I have a good idea on what your average gmod player wants, feel free to disagree.

I agree the average player just simply does not care for a pre determined rp scenario let alone have the knowledge of the server to complete said rp scenario, but say " hey were doing a tournament fight, were playing chess, or whatever" and people will come, I think stuff like this should be less frowned upon. because at the end of the day the goal for the server is fun, if it achieves it, i see no problem 

[Weeb_ 30]

I like the RP and the systems on the server. I greatly dislike the lack of things to do during peacetime. I think that the war timer should be removed and have it be constant war unless there is a ceasefire in place. this would really just enrich the RP and increase pop by allowing lower enlisted to do things constantly.

[King_ 23]

I would love to see an improvement in creativity/new ways of playing the game. Right now I feel that the server has gotten very mundane and it has been a never ending cycle. Different Playstyles, More Weapons, More/Different Factions, Improved Events... Just more things to break the cycle in order to make the server more interesting, appealing and less boring.

Edited October 23, 2020 by King_

[Soldier 168]

I was planning on making a thread giving my input on how to make players have fun, but seeing as this thread is here, might as well put it here. 

 

The motivation of every single PVT and enlisted (and even some SOC players) are to shoot things. This can easily be quenched by sims, raids, RP events, and a lot of other things. I would say that most officers at the moment do not use their power to its fullest extent, which is why the base faction population is low at the moment. News flash, CT training, teaching PVTs OC, and tryouts (sometimes) are boring and mundane and most PVTs wont pass. I think that most officers don't do fun things to entertain and engage the enlisted, and that's implying that some of them do anything. Long story short, if you have the power to do things (like raid, host sims, kidnap, do some RP of ANY kind that isn't forced), do it. And I GUARENTEE that pop will go up. 

 

7 minutes ago, Dorothy said:

I like clicking heads tbh

The most underrated motivation.

 

TD:LR Actually start doing fun shit during peacetime and players will stay. 

[Ozzy 1,992]

Likes:

A game that doesn’t dick down my average to below average computer. A game that has allowed me to build relationships that extend beyond the game itself. A game mode and community that has provided me with some of my favorite gaming memories where by the end of the night my cheeks are hurting from laughing so hard.

I like that the owner is much more involved than he used to be. Actively looking for criticism and how he can improve. 

 

Dislikes:

95% of the pop sitting and waiting for something to happen when most of them have the power to go out and make something happen. Too much following and not enough leading. Not enough ownership taken for mistakes and responsibilities.

Roleplay needs to change and the community needs to stop generalizing it. The current events have not gelled with what the community wants and that’s recently been stressed. However the community needs to not completely ostracize the idea of RP because of a handful of “boring af” events.

I don’t like that 6-7 guns are relevant and the other some-odd 25 remain unused amongst the better players. I understand meta’s will always exist, and people crying “you use a broken gun” is dumb. Yes the gun is strong, and yes it makes 100% sense in why someone would use it. However too long, and I’m definitely at partial fault for not getting to it sooner, have guns been all over the place in terms of their weapon class. There should be a time and place for every gun and that’s not the case atm. You use the sniper of your choice, and then pick one of AEK/A4/A5/Shotgun/Val. Everything else is practically irrelevant.

I strongly dislike when old heads come out of the woodwork just to start shit with 0 ounce of constructiveness in their intentions. If you’re gone, stay gone. If you come into channels or onto the server and say shit like “Gmod oMeGaLuL” or “Lmao who plays MRP”, get the fuck out of here. Not a soul cares who you are or what you did previously. People still enjoy the game and want to work towards improving the server. For people to stop bye just to shit on the efforts and start shit, it speaks volumes onto the type of person they are.

[Gythem 311]

For the purpose of this I'm staying away from anything that has to do with people and just looking at the issues

 

As for likes... at this point in time I like just the fun aspect of it, the reason I stayed was just the random stuff we'd do and I generally enjoy the PvP.

As for dislikes the list gets a bit longer and I'll separate my thoughts into groups: Combat and RP

#1 - Combat: I think this is the thing that sets us apart from other servers, for that reason it should be our main focus. A list of a few things I've thought of but simply don't have the knowledge or time to do myself include:
   - Models, taking all models and giving them the same dimensions and hitboxes. I know Garnet has expressed that he'd be open to the idea if he were able to find a modeler who wouldn't fuck him over. If we're going to focus on combat I think it should be an even playing field which leads me to my next point.
   - Weaponry, just balance weapons in general. Like Ozzy said it's kind of crazy that only around 5 guns are used. Even the possibility of giving base a sniper to better even the playing field I wouldn't have a problem with but I'd understand that others would disagree and that weapons should be better in SOC. In hindsight this makes sense and I don't mind either way I just think the gap should be closed so that skilled base faction members can compete without having to donate. Weapons in general also just need an overhaul in terms of balancing                                                                                                     - War, I wouldn't be opposed to infinite war but some changes would need to be put in place. You'd be undermining kidnapping, raiding, and tryouts so we'd have to find a way to incorporate these. I think just making war longer and/or peacetime shorter would be a good start. More war options is much needed in my opinion.

#2 - RP: I still continue to think that RP will help the server. That being said I think it's becoming a thing where it's just shoved down peoples throats. Less scripted RP is basically what I'm getting at. I seriously think it's fun running operations and missions. I know /missions was a thing for a short bit but it was often bugged and only had kidnapping missions so, as I've heard Ozzy state, we should work on this and improve the system. GMs as a whole should also have more permissions.

Edited October 23, 2020 by Gythem

[Captainswag 894]

As someone who doesn’t play anymore, one thing for me is (and I’m not saying this in a bad way, please read to the end or you won’t get my point) the community. I mean people are still nice and all, but personally, one thing that I used to enjoy were the people I used to play the server with. There isn’t really a fix to that I mean people leave due to lots of reasons and  it’s not a good thing to force them and stay, but that is one of the reasons I can say I stopped playing. So if you are trying to get people to stay, always keep in mind this might be a reason for their departure, and now onto the mechanical stuff that I have an opinion on!

Though when I did play, I did feel like the combat could get old pretty fast. I mean when you start and you have an AK or M4, you aren’t really thinking about sniping or metas or anything. I always stayed away from sniping in games like this and cod and I didn’t even use an SKS in game for about 5 months after I joined. I know shotguns were said to be fixed so I can’t really give input on them, but I always thought the removal of Slug rounds would be better for combat. As for rifles, I feel like those should be the main weapon people are using, SMGs dominate in close range and all and shotguns do too, but Rifles are overshadowed because combat isn’t done at medium range, you either snipe, or go for the CQB approach.

RP, I can’t really vouch for what GMs do currently, and when I was GM I had a concussion and couldn’t get on for a few weeks, so therefore I didn’t get to do any events. Though before I was GM I did host a few events and started a small story, which was limited by the amount of stuff I could do. The RP was hard though and I kinda had to tell people what to say in a kidnap and all, I mean, like people said, that stuff is hard to do when only one person is going for it, I think a lot more people are going to want RP if it is going to be a big thing on the server. (I mean I used to talk to people in a Russian accent while torturing them on CSCDesert in 2019). 
 

Honestly that’s about it, input from someone who doesn’t play anymore and I’m sure I’ll get a bunch of “HwHaat?!?!” Reactions for posting this (because I know how people feel about former members giving their opinions) but I figured why not send in my input. 
Anyways have good times on the server!

[shrimp 764]

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.



 

[Lex_ 506]

54 minutes 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.



 

[I wasn't gonna write a response to this originally, but why not, I'm bored]

 

You had me in the first half, and it dropped off immediately whenever you snuck in "roleplay is the best and only viable option" at the end.

I'm personally tired of the excuses from everybody about why this community will never, has never, and is not being successful. There are so many things happening at once for people to develop their opinions that often times clash with other people. I will not sit here and tell any of you how to think, nor will I judge you for disagreeing with my own opinion. But please do hear me out in what I have to say even if it doesn't change what you already think. Discussion is the goal.

Before people shit on me for speaking my opinion on a community that I spent years in because I'm not active now, I'm still here because I legitimately want to see the success that we, especially Garnet, have been working towards in regards to MRP. And not even just MRP but the entirety of GG, extending and expanding into other gamemodes in Gmod and other games as a whole.

First step: understand what the community wants as a general, broad idea. What do people value more, what keeps people around, what target audience do we want that can introduce new players, what differences and unique qualities can we show to people to choose us over another community? Do we want people to play casually but in a way that makes them generally active? Or do we want people to treat this as a career? These are important questions that the community needs to ask, understand, and form answers for individually.

The Source engine is not some shitty garbage can of an engine. Yes, it has limitations and yes it is old. We've seen studios create massive products using the engine, often times for online multiplayer. But it isn't meant for massive multiplayer and big environments with PVP. Except it can be. Examples include the obvious ones: CSGO, CSS, HL2:DM, and TF2. Need bigger titles? How about Titanfall 1 and 2, AND Apex Legends. Granted, the biggest limitation for Gmod is that we have to use Lua as opposed to in-engine C++, but for Apex Legends to be a big title battle royale running on Source is legitimately massive in its capabilities.

 

Let's talk potential paths, since you brought them up.

Combat-oriented gameplay with casual roleplay following (bare) semi-realistic military structure (nations, branches, officers + ranks, etc):

This is similar to what we currently have but is less of a kitchen sink nightmare with inconsistent and randomly valued goals. Creating a feature-rich, optimized base for gameplay provides what we need for an entertaining and engaging combat experience, topping that combat (and other player-driven events) off with a light passive set of roleplay - even if its goofy and unexpected of a "mil-sim". Most of us are here to have fun; for many people, serious roleplay kills that for them. What types of things that are needs or wants for this to work depends on what type of progression people look for. Do you want the roleplay to be background, where the story (and future content) is formed through normal, everyday gameplay as opposed to fancy events? Do you want to mimic AAA titles in becoming a cheap customizable large-scale shooter, with perks to master and cosmetics to earn?

 

Roleplay-oriented content based on a strict guideline:

This is what you're suggesting and have been suggesting for awhile now. While I disagree with this idea and think it'll flop (the current and potential playerbase find this unappealing, majority [will] want a relaxed experience as opposed to spending tons of time to get fucked over by something stupid), I'm still going to share how I think it could work if implemented. By developing a set of tools that gamemasters can utilize to make engaging roleplay content, sacrificing much of the 'jump-in-and-play' combat mechanics allowing for casual play, the community can create its own fictional identity. I'm talking a big storyline pushed along by fancy events; ideally freeform with little pre-written and forced outcome (although this won't ever happen, as seen by a lot of early SWRP and MRP events in which were planned to play out a specific way no matter what). The tools and lengths of which you'd cut off combat depend on the size and count of participants. Few to average playercount? NPCs / small player NPC team versus the participating community or whoever you intend. Above average to full server? A decently sized player NPC team (or even, for examples, participants from the two different nations). Spawning weapons, vehicles, and props. Events purely for story and no fuckaround.

 

Continue with the current trainwreck:

I'm sorry we're back to this. I'm not here to dog on Garnet or anybody else. I'm not here to blame anybody for it being this way. I don't need to explain why this is a bad idea. But I do need to explain why the community, including Garnet, needs to change how they view success, or how they may view potential and legitimate problems/concerns. As a business, your success is not based on a single number (often times, average playercount is the metric used here). There are other forms that you need to measure to get an idea on what things you need to improve on - a constant in everything. Even if you understand what I had just said, the next step is figuring out a way to be successful by improving those metrics. This is one of the biggest things that upset me recently, because many of you think that creating a new map is gonna magically solve all of the other existing problems. Or that a new map would give current player's the confidence in fixing those problems quickly and by themselves. Or that a higher average playercount (not including people who idle and bots) will automatically create something that draws people in and keeps them engaged, without providing the environment to do so in any realistic capacity. Your new map, while not a bad idea and a worthwhile development, is not your end-all solution. And I know that nobody intends it to be; it's that first, or second, or third step, in a growing plan to be better. But don't be disappointed when you get a spike and return to what it was like before, assuming the current cycle continues to repeat.

 

Some final suggestions:

- When it comes to updates: plan them out by size. I know its a bit of a given but it does allow you to be more productive and organized without killing your mental state.

New content inbound and big changes through suggestions? Set a soft release date for yourself and work on getting those things ready for release over that time - setting a final date when you're ready, as opposed to grinding out that stuff over a few days. Overworking yourself is stressful and will quickly tire you out of a project.

Small changes (quick weapon balancing, model updates, any type of fix for something that isn't considered urgent or game-breaking) can be done and pushed together on a set schedule. I'd say do those weekly, but with the amount of prep work it requires I'd steer more for every 2 weeks, staggering them in a way that doesn't mean you do work for all of the servers in 2-3 days.

And finally, urgent and game-breaking shit. Obviously do this as soon as you can without worrying about implementing anything from the above two.

[shrimp 764]

21 minutes ago, Fier said:

I'm bored

Me too, and I find these discussions to be very interesting and fulfilling to take part in despite there being virtually no payoff for me. It's entertaining to think about.

24 minutes ago, Fier said:

you snuck in "roleplay is the best and only viable option"

Let's get into it then. I first arrived at this conclusion a long, long time ago. We're talking years. At that point in time, it was biased in the sense that this was the type of experience that I as an individual preferred due to my various love affairs with games like SS13 and whatnot. Over time I pushed and lobbied for a variety of things that were both conducive to the RP experience or things that outright destroyed it due to my responsibilities at the time as a faction leader or otherwise and the ulterior motives therein. As the years went on and my affiliations changed and I got to take either in active role in handling these aspects of the server (Creating RU, GM stuff, etc.) or a back seat role (being completely absent), I've been able to see a variety of perspectives on the topic, but additionally, and far more importantly, I've been able to see how other communities operate from a very entrenched position. 

In my original post, I referenced briefly that I was talking about player quantity, not player quality, as Gildarts had requested we refrain from doing in the thread. As I also stated, I believe that player quality is directly proportional to player quantity. As a result of having a larger sample size of players, the number of players that display positive characteristics (leadership capacity, maturity, productivity) increases. When these traits are emphasized and rewarded, the portion of the active player base that can be deemed of good quality increases, and the community itself benefits. It should also go without saying that players that don't inherently display positive traits will be encourage to develop them in an environment where said traits are rewarded, in order to benefit. This is why I emphasize increasing the population, and how the "current population" by my definition is and always will be finite. That is an unavoidable fact, and coupled with the natural rate of decay, always poses a threat to the community, and therefore the community itself is always changing. New voices are coming in and old voices are leaving, constantly. 

Pure reiteration of population dynamics aside, and before we get back to what's happening elsewhere in the world, let's talk about the GG dynamic, and specifically the coexistence of DarkRP and MRP, and the differences between the two. There are two broad categories of RP server in gMod. The first, and most crowded, is DarkRP as a general rule. DarkRP is the standard metric, the players simply cycle between communities and their average duration of interest is a fraction of what you would see elsewhere because of the density of the category and options for the player therein. There is no real dominant community in category, but a large handful that do very well, GG being one of them over the years. MRP is a part of the other category, which is Niche RP servers that cover dozens of subcategories (HL2RP, MafiaRP, FORP, etc.), all of which categories typically have a clear frontrunner. The players that are spread out among the niche servers typically move laterally between them, but the time between transitions between communities is much, much longer than that of the typical DarkRP player, because the servers require a time investment to truly be rewarding. DarkRP can and often does require a time investment as well, but it's an investment dictated by the player and server (grinding money and such), whereas niche server are often dictated by interpersonal relationships and communication. Human operators. MRP is one of the much older niche categories, and GG has long since been a strong competitor in the category, however not a clear frontrunner as long as I've been around.

Having been a part of other such niche communities in the past months and years, I've had the opportunity to dissect the kings of their respective categories and determine, at a functional level, what makes these communities see a level of success that hardly seems logical. Garnet and I have personally discussed a handful of these servers, but for the sake of not advertising, I'll refrain from using specifics. The most important takeaway from my time in these communities, and the one factor that always stood out to me was the fact that none of the current frontrunners were the first to attempt to develop a server for that category, however they saw what their competitors weren't doing, and did it far better than their competition had the hopes of doing, mostly in the realm of custom content and unique features. Once you're in the lead, it's hard to lose it for reasons I don't believe need explaining and the rest is history.  Large interest brings good players, good players turn into competent staff and leadership, competent staff and leadership make a good server, a good server brings in donations, and donations fund further development of the unique features that got the server started. Again, I'd like to emphasize that it's the unique features that get the attention of people, not simply doing the same thing as other servers but slightly better. Once upon a time, the war timer was the unique feature that propped up this server, now it is a victim of its own design. 

That being said, this is why I feel that the RP path is superior than the other options available. Now, I've outlined the specifics of what that path entails in the path but I refrained from doing so in my post because I feel that it is simply my creative vision speaking, and not a structure formulated with any real research in mind. Is it something I feel would be very interesting? Yes, but it ends there. The RP path is just that, a path for the server to walk down, and not an immediate solution or answer.

With that out of the way, lets talk about the other two options.

1 hour ago, Fier said:

Combat-oriented gameplay with casual roleplay following (bare) semi-realistic military structure (nations, branches, officers + ranks, etc):

I believe this phrasing of the combat oriented model is more reminiscent of what we already have, rather than what I was referencing. When I say "sacrifice RP for combat", I mean truly to cut out a strong majority of RP, and even RP features to allow the combat function of the server to take precedence. This includes the elimination of things like the war timer, factions, anything that would hamper or subtract from the combat experience (maybe not this extreme, but these are really the only RP features remaining that I could think of). With combat at the helm, the player experience naturally suffers at the hand of the limitations of the engine. This is happening in the current model as well but not quite as severely because players still have the faction element to look towards when attempting to derive satisfaction from anything other than combat. So, when you have to sacrifice all these elements to have a "fun and relaxed" shooter, you lose the only things that make the server worth playing against everything else out there.

1 hour ago, Fier said:

Roleplay-oriented content based on a strict guideline:

Coming back to this, there a variety of things that need to be considered. Firstly, I'd like to state that the things I did and attempted to accomplish as a GM Director were initiatives designed to spoon-feed the community bits of quality RP and get the player base at the time accustomed to being in character. It was very strange to even try and do, as the typical player had very little experience in this sort of situation, and the hard structure of the server was not and never has been built to accommodate intuitive RP. RP, as I'm sure you all have noticed in recent times, isn't very entertaining when it's reliant on the player and their imagination. Most of the current and past populations have had very little experience in anything related to RP, so when the RP aspect of the server isn't built for it, it feels wrong and forced. 

What the roleplay focused path means is to just add content and unique features to the server. A lot of content. Content that makes roleplaying feel natural and essential to the gameplay, and not a chore. It may seem hard for a lot of you to believe but it can be done, and it's done often. The servers that do roleplay well do well in general. 

1 hour ago, Fier said:

gamemasters

Based on experience and my own personal feelings, GMs are non-essential to a good RP server, as functions and features of the server itself allow for RP to simply happen without relying on the player or an appointed individual. Making somebody do regularly scheduled events is a really quick way to burn them out. I've only seen one really successful server have GMs, and the server wasn't even close to dependent on their job.

1 hour ago, Fier said:

potential playerbase find this unappealing

Having dealt with the potential player population that prefers high quality servers with good RP and custom content, I can assure you that, well, they not only find it appealing, but tend to put up a lot of money for it.