Game Panel

[shrimp 764]

Hey everyone, shrimps again. I was goofing around with some things today and I had an idea to improve the state of some things around the server. 

The concept is simple; Create a staff-accessible menu to that allows them to easily do certain things to create the set-ups for small events on a single-faction level. 

In the past, especially with the SWRP server, Garnet explored a few options when it came to running events in the PvE environment, and one of the things implemented was automated events in which droids would repeatedly spawn around a central object that players would have to destroy to stop the invasion. It was simple, didn't require staff, but it got old quick as a server-scale event.

What I'm proposing here is similar, but very different. Instead of having automated events on a timer, staff would be able to conduct these small events at will through the game menu, instead of leaving the responsibility entirely to managers+, as typically they are the only ones with the power to run events. It's to my understanding that currently Admin+ can run events, but don't necessarily have the resources to execute them properly, and most events in recent history have all been attempted at a server wide scale.

Usually, it doesn't work out that well. At that size, players often expect a complex set up with a seamless execution and narrative, and that can be asking for a lot. By dividing up the workload, and issuing out events to separate factions, there's a lot less factors to consider and that should make it easier on all the staff to run good events, thus making the between-war time period a bit more entertaining, by popular demand. 

As far as the game panel itself goes, a simple UI that gives staff (Maybe Mod+?) the ability to have a few simple tools to work with when setting up an event.  Things like spawning 5 or so hostile NPC's on the staff member,  creating a little payload entity that players have to defuse,  and other scenarios like that. The options that staff are given wont allow staff to make events that are too RP heavy, because those don't usually work out well with this playerbase. This would be a small, easy to expand upon feature that would liven up things outside of war and give staff more opportunities to provide for the playerbase, rather than constantly punishing them. I can't imagine it being super code heavy, and whether or not Garnet wants to or has the time to work on this is up to him, but it's just something I think people would enjoy.

To give an example of how one of these events would play out on a super basic level;

>Staff goes to a building in the town, opens the menu, and scatters about a few hostile NPCs.
>Staff drops a box of ammo in the house.
>Staff goes on a class, sets their job to NATO CDR or some bullshit.
>Staff briefs a SOC faction on the situation in the town, and tells them to eliminate the threats and secure the munitions. 
>SOC members form a little task force, plan out their mission, and go do the thing.

Easy peasy, let me know what you think.
   

[KingOfCoochie1993 274]

+1 Sounds hella fun, we did this or something similar to it on another server that I was apart of and it was a hit. We can definitely make it work especially on this server. As I've said before in past suggestions, it'll stir things up on the server and make it interesting. 

[Harris 112]

9 hours ago, shrimp said:

Hey everyone, shrimps again. I was goofing around with some things today and I had an idea to improve the state of some things around the server. 

The concept is simple; Create a staff-accessible menu to that allows them to easily do certain things to create the set-ups for small events on a single-faction level. 

In the past, especially with the SWRP server, Garnet explored a few options when it came to running events in the PvE environment, and one of the things implemented was automated events in which droids would repeatedly spawn around a central object that players would have to destroy to stop the invasion. It was simple, didn't require staff, but it got old quick as a server-scale event.

What I'm proposing here is similar, but very different. Instead of having automated events on a timer, staff would be able to conduct these small events at will through the game menu, instead of leaving the responsibility entirely to managers+, as typically they are the only ones with the power to run events. It's to my understanding that currently Admin+ can run events, but don't necessarily have the resources to execute them properly, and most events in recent history have all been attempted at a server wide scale.

Usually, it doesn't work out that well. At that size, players often expect a complex set up with a seamless execution and narrative, and that can be asking for a lot. By dividing up the workload, and issuing out events to separate factions, there's a lot less factors to consider and that should make it easier on all the staff to run good events, thus making the between-war time period a bit more entertaining, by popular demand. 

As far as the game panel itself goes, a simple UI that gives staff (Maybe Mod+?) the ability to have a few simple tools to work with when setting up an event.  Things like spawning 5 or so hostile NPC's on the staff member,  creating a little payload entity that players have to defuse,  and other scenarios like that. The options that staff are given wont allow staff to make events that are too RP heavy, because those don't usually work out well with this playerbase. This would be a small, easy to expand upon feature that would liven up things outside of war and give staff more opportunities to provide for the playerbase, rather than constantly punishing them. I can't imagine it being super code heavy, and whether or not Garnet wants to or has the time to work on this is up to him, but it's just something I think people would enjoy.

To give an example of how one of these events would play out on a super basic level;

>Staff goes to a building in the town, opens the menu, and scatters about a few hostile NPCs.
>Staff drops a box of ammo in the house.
>Staff goes on a class, sets their job to NATO CDR or some bullshit.
>Staff briefs a SOC faction on the situation in the town, and tells them to eliminate the threats and secure the munitions. 
>SOC members form a little task force, plan out their mission, and go do the thing.

Easy peasy, let me know what you think.
   

Huge +1 I’d love to see small event or even large scale events like this, it’d be a lot of fun and give people something to do here and there, not only that it sounds really fun 

[shrimp 764]

6 hours ago, Harris said:

large scale

I kinda want to stay away from big events on the MRP server as much as possible. Unless done right with the proper planning and resources, they do more harm than good, trust me. Players will be more upset over a bad event than no event at all, and there's a lot of room for error when you increase the scale.

[Lex_ 506]

16 hours ago, shrimp said:

Usually, it doesn't work out that well. At that size, players often expect a complex set up with a seamless execution and narrative, and that can be asking for a lot. By dividing up the workload, and issuing out events to separate factions, there's a lot less factors to consider and that should make it easier on all the staff to run good events, thus making the between-war time period a bit more entertaining, by popular demand. 

This is essentially a replacement to the broken missions system (thanks Bizzy).

TLDR: It sounds like a great idea, but the execution of the idea would take a significant amount of planning and work to be done well.

---

I'm all for it - but depending on what Garnet (and the community) would like to be on that UI for event staffing, it could get pretty complex. The NPCs would likely be the easiest one out of all of your examples - and could actually be set-up in many different ways: sneaking past AI to steal some sort of entity, killing a specific AI HVT, and so on. The only flaw with the NPC part would be giving NPCs pathfinding and such, which could be a bit of an issue with a higher playercount. The payload idea is basically another war mode, but meant for outside of war, and likely would have a story like: Protect and steal these supplies. Would require an entity to be made, which would likely be accompanied by a UI as well.

To be honest, I don't know if Garnet wants to, or even has the time to, put work into such a project by himself. From VGUI, networking, and balancing what types of options are available for staff so that it isn't abused, it could get pretty complex; especially when Garnet is also focusing on performance on both the client and the server.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Torch
* I can't spell, yikes

[shrimp 764]

On 12/14/2019 at 4:08 PM, Torch said:

To be honest, I don't know if Garnet wants to, or even has the time to

I mean, I did say that in the OP. I'm quite aware. It's not something has to be fully fleshed out all at once. It's a platform to be added to and expanded upon over time.

[Nutter 15,191]

While it will not feature a unique menu, this feature will indeed be implemented once I sort a couple of other things. Hopefully in 2020 we will have regular gamemaster-ran events!