[Insert CJ walking down an alleyway meme]
Sigh.. again this topic rears its head and it it always the same thing "no one roleplays" "its staffs fault" "its the lack of content" etc.
These threads really confuse me on the account that, people look for every outside influence to blame before people realising that this is GMOD, not FiveM that has infinite amounts of things to do due to map scale, animations, jobs etc on modern engines, whereby we are working on an engine older than some of our players.
The thing with RP is simply, you HAVE to make your own RP, you cannot rely on everyone else, we can implement systems, but we CANNOT RP for you, after all this is not twitch.tv, you join the server to roleplay not watch someone else RP, people are constantly like freaking out about the state of RP then stand in a hallway and go "why should I try" or "I've done this before so why should I bother" and its simply just a shit mindset, I wont mince my words as I wont lie I am tired of seeing the threads and people then blame everyone else but never internalise it themselves, this is how I use to think when I started my journey in CN, when I was DoIA.
Hi Yeke, hope you're doing well. I am going to try and discuss some of these points presented because you have raised some good points about roleplay and I wanna offer the perspective of someone who is on the ground floor, playing every other day or so.
1. Research constantly requiring 400 levels of signatures and approvals to roleplay and if they do not get a signature they get job banned as a first result (Stop job banning people for minor shit, let them break IC rules and also stop with the stupid amount of signatures required)
Not sure how true this is from the UK's perspective, I was able to do sitewide roleplay with my RSD character without needing any signature at all. Recently, the Research Leadership Team (RLT) has loosened restrictions on cross-tests as well, necessitating less oversight and documentation in order to allow the player to "play more". That is the philosophy that Research wants to promote.
2. E-11 constantly leaving blastdoors closed 24/7 so people cant enter HCZ (Stop it, I do not care if you are undermanned, ask Site Admin to help supply other departments or security staff, this is literally what they are for, I do not care for these "agreements of sovereignty" that prevent working together)
In the case of E-11, the strategy we implement is to keep it closed
WHEN IT'S MANNED. Unfortunately, due to the nature of combat on the server, leaving it open while it is manned means CI will bulldoze their way into HCZ easily. However, if it is not actively manned, E-11 is instructed to leave the BD open to facilitate movement into HCZ.
3. Site Admin / FCOM constantly adding google doc policies and spending more time reading google docs than engaging in RP on their own server, or dealing with discord DMs like they are SSL.
I actually agree with this point. I think there should be less oversight in some aspects when it comes to SA. There are times where SA feels like they're micromanaging departments and it feels restrictive and suffocating. Not to mention that some members of SA adopt this attitude of looking down on other departments they oversee when they levy complaints. I hope the avenue for raising complaints against SA didnt feel insurmountable at times as some people would rather be quiet and suffer rather than speak up about issues.
4. CI have to learn that not everything needs a bullet to the head, and also its ok to lose an engagement and doesnt need an OOC fanfare or creating 400 staff tickets to make people afraid to RP with you so you win every engagement.
Unfortunately, this is an issue with the CI playerbase. They have cultivated a mindset where winning trumps roleplay. I am sure you've seen firsthand how CI levies feedback when changes are made for/against their favor.
5. Constant obsession for "Rule play" needs to stop, our rules are there to help with creating a cohesive and appropriate atmosphere, yes some rules are going to clash, but guess what, staff have the ability and discretion to ignore rule breaks if it helps improve the RP and doesn't cause issues (this does not apply to mixing before people are like "i wanna turn this into VR chat and talk about IRL stuff")
staff have the ability and discretion to ignore rule breaks if it helps improve the RP
I will be completely blunt here: This falls entirely on how staff are trained and how they behave. This is not to cast aspirations against anyone in staff or the mentorship process but I cannot recall a situation where this has transpired in recent memory. Perhaps staff aren't aware this is a thing or choose not to enforce it? Anyways, I agree that the obsession with ruleplay has to end... but then, what is the most effective way to ensure that the rules are divorced from the roleplay? That is for NL's discretion ultimately.
6. People need to remember, you are ROLEPLAYING a CHARACTER and NOT YOURSELF, so people need to stop getting so danm offended and bringing everything out of character and then personally having beef with people because something you don't like happened IC, yeah its hard, most of us are autistic or neurodivergent (lets be real) but everyone has to realise, unless they are literally talking out of character, then shits not personal and stop looking for ways to pain yourselves as victims because ISD arrested you for violating a policy or AO kidnapped you so you now end up hating them. (Also a ISD arrest is meaningless, it literally doesnt matter if you are arrested IC, if you are getting arrested IC, its just a mechanic)
I agree but this falls into the issue of the playerbase failing to divorce OOC and IC. What's the solution? Harsher punishment? Better onboarding? I have been roleplaying for years so embodying a character is not difficult for me... but what about other players, especially those new to RP? I think better onboarding of newer players could help nullify this issue... or at least suppress its influence.
7. Teamwork, the server is created to bring people together to work as a team, however all I see is people trying to find reasons to isolate themselves and push others away then wonder why no one bothers to RP with them, get out of your vacuum bubble and actually work with other departments etc rather than going "Nah i dont wanna work with GSD, they are minges" then wondering why you have no one new interacting.
This is a stigma formed by older players who hold negative experiences and are not capable of seeing growth in others. Bob 'Irishpotato' has a history of being a renowned minge and has turned around his reputation (mostly) and has earned CL4 positions, even interacting with roleplay. If players cannot let go of their dogma, are they divorcing OOC and IC? I have had interactions post info-reset where members of different departments assumed E-11 would jump to treason again despite it not happening post info-reset in any capacity.
8. Obsession with calling everything a minge just because you dont like it - STOP and think
Had to shorten this one cause it was ranty but let's tackle it together. What defines a minge/troll? Is it someone who is NITRP? Is it someone who is causing a general IC nuisance? Is it someone who is trying to skirt the rules as much as possible to inconvenience others and ruin their day? Some people play this server to intentionally behave this way, are they a minge? Is
Janitor Wedge McWilliams a minge because he keeps cleaning in places and its disrupting others? I am with you that many are quick to write off players as annoying and refusing to interact with them further but there IS a line here, what's the best way to handle it?
9. Obsession with playtime and then blaming staff that we "force people to work on their GJOB", the ideal playtime that is acceptable is minimum 1 day playtime in a week (providing thats not AFK and actually engaging in RP).
As I have started to grow more busy in my day to day, I have started to understand this point of view more and more. In fact, I had just about 6 hours of total playtime this past week.
I unfortunately also understand the flipside of this argument. When people take on leadership positions, they're expected to be active, right? When you start rising in rank, the concept of activity starts to become nebulous. The best metric to track if someone is playing IS playtime. This is a quantifiable number to show that someone is getting on and occupying the role their playing in some kind of manner to warrant them keeping it. The ideal minimum you mentioned is 24 hours spread over a 168 hour week... is that realistic? That would be a 4 day playtime over a month and many consider that unhealthy, on the flipside, some consider 2 days to be too low. What's the right balance? Is their a balance at all? Should the criteria of activity checking be changed?
10. CL5 Burnout, CL5 roles are not made with the intent of needing to be on your role ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, you can believe it or not, go enjoy other jobs, the envisionment of CL5 was to be; Go on, do your RP, once done and nothing else going on, go play another job for a bit and break it up.
If this was the vision of CL5 then it has grossly mutated into something else entirely. People solely play their CL5 role because the amount of responsibility levied onto them from an OOC and IC standpoint has restricted their playtime to these roles. A friend of mine who was formerly in a CL5 position bemoaned that they could not pursue playing in a different department as they were not confident they could give it the time of day while also balancing CL5.
11. Obsession with "I cant RP in a breach" or "I cant RP during a CI raid"
As an E-11 LTCOM and a general driving force for the regiment I am ready to say that I have tried my darndest to prevent this idea from spreading. I have tried time and time again to reinforce the idea that if a breach is isolated in HCZ, the rest of the site should be roleplaying normally. However I cannot be responsible for the attitudes of the player base! It is a self perpetuating cycle that will require change from the top down in order to fix. The Chief's Of Security need to beat it into the heads of everyone below them to allow testing to occur during codes and the rest of the site has to fall in line. I can't make this change as desperately as I want to. Perhaps it is time to look at it from a staff perspective to ensure the preservation of RSD's gameplay loop.
The rest of your points regarding RP, ISD, and the wiki are all valid and i have no rebuttals for them. I am open to further discussion as always.
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