What happened to the server?

[L Y N C H Y]

Well its pretty simple, you do some big update to try save anything which probably will for best part of 2 weeks, you just do a big vote for the bare minimum maps, gun pack, n other stuff, or you just say enough is enough n shut FL down or do a Divey and sell the corpse

i'll bid

You as a owner i think id rather drown or burn to death

[Haarek]

There's a lot of things that can be done to save FL.

But it's not realistic for this team to get it done, unfortunately.

Agreements are few and far between - the will to try things is non-existent.
The wrong decisions keep getting made - making it harder to fix and do what needed to be done in the first place.

Management also seems inflated - the rank has lost it's meaning - those who decide in this community is the ones who are able to modify it.

I can tell very easily the staff team is in disarray. Un-coordinated.

Worse yet, people have completely resigned.

For example - Pollux - the person with the power to change everything - listen to the community and get shit done - has completely given up.

[Pollux]

There's a lot of things that can be done to save FL.

But it's not realistic for this team to get it done, unfortunately.

Agreements are few and far between - the will to try things is non-existent.
The wrong decisions keep getting made - making it harder to fix and do what needed to be done in the first place.

Management also seems inflated - the rank has lost it's meaning - those who decide in this community is the ones who are able to modify it.

I can tell very easily the staff team is in disarray. Un-coordinated.

Worse yet, people have completely resigned.

For example - Pollux - the person with the power to change everything - listen to the community and get shit done - has completely given up.

There's a lot that can be done for that initial spike, but not much to make it actually sustainable. The server has been on life support for quite literally over a year, with constant intervention and temp fixes to keep it going a bit longer. It's a genuine question as to how much longer we should keep it on life support, you have to understand how tiring it is for the team and just how much we've listened and tried so far. Any "way to save FL" is just a guess as to what may work, everyone has their own views on what's wrong with FL and often it conflicts. We have to make tough decisions on which ideas are most likely to succeed using data such as from the survey and then do them.

I'm being realistic. There's no quick and easy fix to make FL sustainable for more than a week or so at most. We don't have the manpower to do the drastic changes required to make it actually sustainable. We've tried so many things that were realistic to do. Most of the ideas in this thread have been reverts or V2D, we both know that's only a small spike from nostalgia and then we're back here in a week, I don't see how anyone can expect a different result. It isn't free for us to keep trying either, and we're almost out of effort for that.

FL will end one day Haarek, and while it is possible to keep it going for maybe a week longer or even a month I do genuinely believe we'll end up here as we have for over a year now. I'm not preventing the team from trying again or anything and this is all just my personal view in the end. Conn is the one deciding what will actually happen.

[Zecon]

-snip-

I do believe there is some truth in what you are saying, though I think a lot of things are rather hyperbolised. FL’s success isn’t completely dependent on its gamemode, sure, but to say that it isn’t a contributing factor at all is rather misguided.

FL’s gamemode is at the core of why many people decided to stick around rather than server hopping constantly. It completely differentiated itself from the mass of DarkRP and serious RP servers. You don’t walk around seeing people blasting rocket launchers in anime playermodels (sorry Arny), and equally you don’t have to spend half an hour performing basic tasks such as acquiring a car or obtaining food. It provides the perfect balance between realism and escapism.

In fact, I’d argue that FL has a much stronger dependency on its gamemode than most other communities. DarkRP servers have to differentiate themselves almost solely on the experience that the community provides because of how saturated that market is. FL on the other hand already has its unique gamemode, giving it the upper leg. This is most likely why over the past few years you have received such backlash for drastically changing core aspects of it.

I think you are misunderstanding people’s longing for certain updates to be reverted. It is stupid to believe all change is bad, and I doubt that’s what the majority of people believe. However, you don’t seem to realise the ramifications certain changes will bring and the reasoning behind them. Perhaps it’s due to a lack of consideration or testing, or maybe it is just genuine miscalculation in what the perception will be. Either way, there is a noticeable trend with all of these cases.

There are several examples of this but I shall just describe a couple. The recent HUD change was something that received a fair amount of negative reception. The issue is that something FL has (for the most part) been very good at is keeping a theme. That doesn’t just mean the same blue colours, but the same coherent styling and structure. People become accustomed to these things and appreciate the familiarity, and when you drastically change that are bound to be upset. Does this mean you have to stick with the same HUD for eternity to please the playerbase? Absolutely not. Elements become outdated and stale but need a refresh (in fact even the previous HUD update was quite poorly received). However, there are ways to conduct such changes that do not involve completely compromising the previous iterations that people enjoy. The 2014 update we had to the F1 menu was the perfect example of how such things can be executed. I have attached screenshots below for those who were not in the community at this time. SoulRipper put it best in his original post “We've tried to modernize the menu without making it a whole lot different. For the simple reason that the old menu was already working fine for most part”. Stick to this philosophy with things like the UI and you’ll have a winning formula.

Old F1:

Spoiler :

Updated:

Spoiler :

The second major example I can think of is the weapons. Like it or not, the combat mechanic and cops and robbers aspect of FL is a large factor of its appeal for a lot of players. There is a noticeable skill curve and with the cost and potential loss of weapons on the line, it is no surprise why these encounters are often tense and entertaining. However when MadCow was thrown out, this all gets turned on its head. Everything was back to square one and naturally those who have spent the time learning the ins and outs of those weapons aren’t going to be happy. If there are specific issues with MadCow, the solution is not to just chuck them out and adopt a completely different replacement. It’s like if you loaded up GTA one day and suddenly all weapons are from CSGO and require the same precision aiming. If the weapons look bad, change the view models and import some replacement sounds. If a gun is overpowered, turn down its damage or fire rate. Just because there are issues with a particular mechanic or system doesn’t mean the entire thing should be scrapped.

Not all updates are trash. New additions are usually well-received and so are minor alterations. However when you completely overhaul major aspects of the gamemode, please understand that people are not hating just for the sake of pissing you off. There are genuine reasons for being displeased with such modifications.

I must reiterate that I am not implying that FL can survive solely on bargaining its gamemode will be popular. I am merely stating that I think you are severely underestimating the importance it has in players’ willingness to rejoin the server.

There are, of course, several issues with the community itself that still need addressing. All of the controversies and toxicity has created a hard divide between the community. You pick your side as to whether you’re an aggressive player or passive and never shall the two meet. This is an incredibly damaging environment for the community. What made the server so enjoyable back in the day is that people used to partake in both freely without any prejudice and often the two would overlap. You’d have scenarios like a shop owner buying into Corleone protection who would then defend your shop from thieves or inspections, and so many others. There would be constant interactions between the entire server. Everything now just feels like closed-off unwelcoming groups hiding away in doomfort bases, which is incredibly off-putting for newer players.

[Nadrickk]

It's clear this staff team has given up. Sell ownership, revert the gamemode AND THE STAFF TEAM, and let FL glow.

[Haarek]

-snip-

I do believe there is some truth in what you are saying, though I think a lot of things are rather hyperbolised. FL’s success isn’t completely dependent on its gamemode, sure, but to say that it isn’t a contributing factor at all is rather misguided.

FL’s gamemode is at the core of why many people decided to stick around rather than server hopping constantly. It completely differentiated itself from the mass of DarkRP and serious RP servers. You don’t walk around seeing people blasting rocket launchers in anime playermodels (sorry Arny), and equally you don’t have to spend half an hour performing basic tasks such as acquiring a car or obtaining food. It provides the perfect balance between realism and escapism.

In fact, I’d argue that FL has a much stronger dependency on its gamemode than most other communities. DarkRP servers have to differentiate themselves almost solely on the experience that the community provides because of how saturated that market is. FL on the other hand already has its unique gamemode, giving it the upper leg. This is most likely why over the past few years you have received such backlash for drastically changing core aspects of it.

I think you are misunderstanding people’s longing for certain updates to be reverted. It is stupid to believe all change is bad, and I doubt that’s what the majority of people believe. However, you don’t seem to realise the ramifications certain changes will bring and the reasoning behind them. Perhaps it’s due to a lack of consideration or testing, or maybe it is just genuine miscalculation in what the perception will be. Either way, there is a noticeable trend with all of these cases.

There are several examples of this but I shall just describe a couple. The recent HUD change was something that received a fair amount of negative reception. The issue is that something FL has (for the most part) been very good at is keeping a theme. That doesn’t just mean the same blue colours, but the same coherent styling and structure. People become accustomed to these things and appreciate the familiarity, and when you drastically change that are bound to be upset. Does this mean you have to stick with the same HUD for eternity to please the playerbase? Absolutely not. Elements become outdated and stale but need a refresh (in fact even the previous HUD update was quite poorly received). However, there are ways to conduct such changes that do not involve completely compromising the previous iterations that people enjoy. The 2014 update we had to the F1 menu was the perfect example of how such things can be executed. I have attached screenshots below for those who were not in the community at this time. SoulRipper put it best in his original post “We've tried to modernize the menu without making it a whole lot different. For the simple reason that the old menu was already working fine for most part”. Stick to this philosophy with things like the UI and you’ll have a winning formula.

Old F1:

Spoiler :

Updated:

Spoiler :

The second major example I can think of is the weapons. Like it or not, the combat mechanic and cops and robbers aspect of FL is a large factor of its appeal for a lot of players. There is a noticeable skill curve and with the cost and potential loss of weapons on the line, it is no surprise why these encounters are often tense and entertaining. However when MadCow was thrown out, this all gets turned on its head. Everything was back to square one and naturally those who have spent the time learning the ins and outs of those weapons aren’t going to be happy. If there are specific issues with MadCow, the solution is not to just chuck them out and adopt a completely different replacement. It’s like if you loaded up GTA one day and suddenly all weapons are from CSGO and require the same precision aiming. If the weapons look bad, change the view models and import some replacement sounds. If a gun is overpowered, turn down its damage or fire rate. Just because there are issues with a particular mechanic or system doesn’t mean the entire thing should be scrapped.

Not all updates are trash. New additions are usually well-received and so are minor alterations. However when you completely overhaul major aspects of the gamemode, please understand that people are not hating just for the sake of pissing you off. There are genuine reasons for being displeased with such modifications.

I must reiterate that I am not implying that FL can survive solely on bargaining its gamemode will be popular. I am merely stating that I think you are severely underestimating the importance it has in players’ willingness to rejoin the server.

There are, of course, several issues with the community itself that still need addressing. All of the controversies and toxicity has created a hard divide between the community. You pick your side as to whether you’re an aggressive player or passive and never shall the two meet. This is an incredibly damaging environment for the community. What made the server so enjoyable back in the day is that people used to partake in both freely without any prejudice and often the two would overlap. You’d have scenarios like a shop owner buying into Corleone protection who would then defend your shop from thieves or inspections, and so many others. There would be constant interactions between the entire server. Everything now just feels like closed-off unwelcoming groups hiding away in doomfort bases, which is incredibly off-putting for newer players.

Agreed

[Pollux]

-snip-

-snip-

I do think you bring up some really good points, I don't think my view is entirely misguided though because I'm basing it on data we have from the survey. I know that it isn't obviously going to be 100% accurate, but I really don't see any better way to trying to understand what the majority of the community wants than the two surveys we've done in the past year and a bit. The survey showed that people find the gamemode fun (was around a 7 if I remember correctly), it's just the quality of RP was rated at a 1-2. That was the biggest issue identified in the survey, and one that is so difficult to really fix. The event team has been doing a great job at trying to kickstart RP and help out in that regard, it just unfortunately hasn't worked. A lot of complaints in the survey were that people no longer RP and just want to grind money, this is a general shift we've seen in gmod over the past few years and our updates have been in response to it - not the cause of it.

I'm not going to pretend we've made no mistakes over the past few years as that'd be stupid, but everything we've done to the gamemode has always been because the community says they want it. Dynamic economy was only added after a stupid majority (like 98%? All I remember is there were around 4 votes against) said they want a player-influenced economy. I would say there's a big divide between newer players and older, with older ones understandably wanting FL to remain true to what it was years ago and newer players wanting us to catch up to all the servers that exist today. That means no matter what we do, it's going to cause conflict within the community - something which ultimately destroys motivation for many. It doesn't help that we failed at controlling toxicity, with the forums really being an unwelcoming mess sometimes. It's impossible to please everyone in the end, and with a community as old as FL you usually have so many different viewpoints due to how many people have played. A good example is V2D, if you looked at the forums you'd think everyone wants it back. The reason we went V4B1 is because the survey showed us that V2D would annoy half the playerbase while V4B1 annoyed about 4 people. It was a no-brainer to pick V4B1 as almost everyone said they loved it, I doubt anyone would've not chosen V4B1 when presented with that data.

I do have to disagree with FLs success being dependent on the gamemode, as all it really offers is player freedom to do whatever. You mention things like the HUD, and sure while I understand people dislike it, it wouldn't be reasonable to say FL died because of a cosmetic change. We also only did it because we realised we need to start modernizing FL or risk it dying, as people mentioned it in the survey. We've done several similar cosmetic changes in the past and what we always see is an initial resistance before people warm up to it - likely as FL is somewhat known for being resistant to change. When I refreshed the F1 menu for example, there was initial pushback before people started to like it a bit after trying it, even though it was just the old design but a bit nicer looking. Now I don't think anyone would say it's worse than the old one after trying both. Another thing you bought up with the guns, I can't really comment as I wasn't on the team when we swapped to CW 2.0 (that was done by Tomo and Fultz if I remember correctly, or at least they helped). I don't think it was a bad decision though, especially as I believe it was due to a heavily supported suggestion. Definitely worth a try at the very least.

I don't want to rant for ages again so I'm just going to sum up what I'm trying to say here. I can definitely look to the past and identify mistakes we've made, but I also can't look at any as an obvious reason as to why we're in this situation today because I don't think it really has to do with the gamemode itself. It's also ultimately impossible for us to even see what was good or what went wrong, as the community tends to be very divided on almost anything we do. FL used to have a decent gamemode compared to others servers, but that stopped being true many years ago. We get stomped now by the innovation seen in some other servers and have had to rely on players and being such an old community to survive. Ultimately I would say half of the community would want us to remain true to what FL once was and the other half wants us to catch up and be more modern like all the other servers. In that situation, we simply don't win and piss off half the community no matter what we do - which is exactly what we've seen over the past few years. Obviously the old FL didn't work and that's why we had to update it to deal with what players now want, but that also doesn't mean the new FL is "better" - it just means it's alive for a bit longer. We chose to try modernise because that's our best chance at attracting new players, which is what we needed to try be a more sustainable as It's really hard for us to give someone with 4000 hours something to do. At this point it may be far too late to try save what once was, especially if it's all based on what is ultimately a "YOLO it can't get worse" attempt rather than doing what genuinely may help. I also really do think a lot of people are being somewhat blinded by nostalgia, which makes it so much harder to try push forward.

EDIT: I just want to add, the reason so many in the team have said no to stuff mentioned is because those in the team realise we don't have the ability to implement a lot of the things you guys suggestion or that they directly conflict with the survey. We only have a finite amount of manpower that we can dedicate to things, and with each failed attempt that ability becomes less and less. That means we have to prioritise things which seem "safer" or more likely to be enjoyed by everyone rather than cause yet more divide.

[Envy]

To be completely honest, I think the server is too far gone at this point. Its sad to see

[gin]

It's the attention economy. People just wanna grind for dopamine of seeing numbers tick up. Nobody has patience to RP. In conclusion: Tiktok ruined FL!
(Joking)

However, I think that the dire situation we see right now does not have a single cause, nor does it have a single solution. The amount of posts in here indicates a high interest in the community. Why aren't we all on the server right now?

[Rossi]

It's the attention economy. People just wanna grind for dopamine of seeing numbers tick up. Nobody has patience to RP. In conclusion: Tiktok ruined FL!
(Joking)

However, I think that the dire situation we see right now does not have a single cause, nor does it have a single solution. The amount of posts in here indicates a high interest in the community. Why aren't we all on the server right now?

Yes, we could all join and have a server of around 20 people, and then do what?

• Become the president that has no type of interaction or immersion? Just click "Become" on the F1 menu, put out laws and sit in an office all day?
  
• Join the SRU that have heavy restricts on the rules page and basically states that they are Nexus guards and can't do anything. And the actual only "SWAT" Regulated job is also a donator only option, so most can't even enjoy it.
  
• Become a police officer which just drive around since majority of the people are just standing around in circles, talking. There's no sort of police database or anything really immersion for police to do. 
  
• Become a secretary which is about as boring as watching paint dry.
  
• Join the fire department or paramedics which don't have much to do anymore and it's all just a waiting game. There is an NPC to get health from, health packs in the market, so paramedics are mainly useless unless someone is actually down.
  
• Fire Fighters just pull up, put out the fire like nothing and leave. There isn't an advanced system to fight the fires or some sort of an investigation system to figure out how it started or anything.
  
• Be a civilian to just stand around in a circle and talk to people? No one builds RP's anymore cause it's just plain boring make fake stores in today's age. It's time to add actual items so real shops can sell real items.
  
• Become a truck driver in a small map? I don't think really any gmod map should have a truck driving job that feels like you're driving the span of the size of a neighborhood. 
  
• Become a chauffeur which has absolutely no demand anymore, people prefer to walk and no chauffeur solicits their business anymore or anything.
  
• Be a black market dealer that has had the same items to sell to the public ever since the game mode came out? 
  
• Rebels and Corleone that have no gang progress? there isn't a gang store or just some sort of shared goal. There are times where the a good person who becomes the leader can make it fun, but rarely. 
  

All in all, the economy is terrible, all the jobs need a complete re work on how they operate to make them more fun. It's just all boring, even with a decent amount of players, cityrp just isn't played the same anymore.

I understand how it may seem that simple, KingStone, but I personally think the game mode needs serious changes to log on and have fun right away.