State of FL

[Haarek]

I don't want to be that guy - positivity can go a long way - but I just want to quickly share some thoughts off the top of my head.

1. We had a great start with the economy rescale and accompanying updates, such as the new vehicles. Super good way of getting old players on. (Which was needed to boost our server score, and player count)
2. But descaling the economy and resetting vehicles won't get people to stay for the long haul, neither will updates such as changing the chat box.
3. However, giving players ways to invest in the game mode, such as updates to clans, perhaps passive income systems; rewarding things to manage over a long time; would provide the best opportunity to elongate that initial momentum, and give people something new to play for. However, the impact of introducing these systems is lessened once people have stopped checking in from the initial hype.
4. The main focus of FL should be getting new people in and retaining them. They're the future of the community, and they don't have the problem of burnout from 1000s of hours of playing. But, if the server's empty from a lack of engaged veterans, there's no social proof that FL's worth playing on, and, obviously, there's no one to play with.

A bit less of a structured answer than usual, but I think if we have any chance of reviving this thing now, it'll have to be a community effort.

FL was never designed for features to keep people into it. Updates like what we did recently have always been aimed at giving a kickstart on initial players as with servers like ours It's basically just players bring players. Very few people will join if they know the server won't get many on later or if there's not many on when they check. FL has always been made around players giving eachother stuff to do and features more supplementing that. We've sometimes seen random boosts even when we change nothing which sorta proves that.

There's a ton of stuff that can be attributed to our recent "death", but one thing that's clear to us is the core identity of the gamemode is no longer sustainable. We have some idea of what we can change which will be making FL more RPG like with progression, skills and quests. It's will be a massive change to FL but it's very clear it's neccesary. We essentially have the choice of sticking to FLs core identity and dying or adapting to how gmod has changed over the years.

You just seem completely resigned of the whole situation.

There is plenty of things to be done and improved.

FL was never designed for features to keep people into it.

Ehm, yes it was? Have you ever considered RP points, clothing, cars, money, ranks?



It's very sad to see this is the headspace of management.
Especially when there are plenty of people around willing to put in their knowledge and fix the server.