Future of FL

[Rowan13]

EDIT: and for the love of Christ bring back evocity_v2d
This "giant map where the community barely interacts" meme is half the fcking problem

Are you aware that v2d has been on the server for like 3 weeks

stop gaslighting me

[Doctor Internet]

EDIT: and for the love of Christ bring back evocity_v2d
This "giant map where the community barely interacts" meme is half the fcking problem[/size]

[Rowan13]

EDIT: and for the love of Christ bring back evocity_v2d
This "giant map where the community barely interacts" meme is half the fcking problem[/size]

[Awestruck]

It's been said and said again. Fearless obviously isn't what it used to be and it's become somewhat stale. After so many years, it's honestly to be expected. This doesn't mean we should give up hope but, it definitely offers more opportunity for major adjustment. Clearly player retention is at a low (or zero depending how extreme we wanna go), but I'm so glad that we haven't given up complete hope. The team, developers mostly, are going to be putting in time (their own free time) to attempt to bring something new to the table.

After being a part of this community for so many years and in so many roles (lol meme), I've seen all sides of the dice and understand the difficulties of each role. Not everyone can be made happy and even when you try to make the unhappy ones happy, that doesn't even work when you give them what they want. Obviously, it takes a group effort from staff and players alike to revive the community but, if no-one wants to play then that all fails. I will come out and say that Fearless is boring. Maybe that's just how I feel due to the length of my stay and a bias that a new player may not have, but I feel that older players should be able to enjoy it as much as any new player.

From a position of experience, the team has drastically changed and has a huge effect on how a server is run and how players perceive how well a community is handled. Older players notice this change in dynamic and may not always agree which can be a huge turn-off. Unfortunately, that is just how things go and you can either accept it and work with it or, move on. We all want this to work out. We all care about this community as it's something most of us have grown up with and been a part of our lives, as cliché as it sounds. Everyone has a sense of ownership in a way.

Some of the toxicity I've seen is genuinely just a set-back and helps no-one. Don't get this confused with genuine suggestions and constructive feedback. I can't wait to see the new things we plan to produce and the effort put in to get the ball rolling once again.

Stay safe all.

[5p carrier bag]

thought I'd chime in, as a long time player that's mostly been in the background.
I've been playing on fearless for over 11 years on and off. But after mostly leaving gmod in 2018, ever since I've looked back at the server listings fearless has been in at best single digit players ever since. It's a shame since I've recently returned to Gmod, and greatly miss those fearless days.

The primary issue is most likely simply people do not play weird custom gamemodes anymore. Like has been said previously, the main gamemodes are primarily quite basic ones like DarkRP and TTT. People do not just look further beyond that much more. We can talk about community issues, low hour player retention, or what needs to change to the CityRP gamemode till the cows come home. But if people are simply not looking at the server in the first place this is all pointless. 

There's a lot of talk of absent owners, but honestly that makes no difference to 2/3rds of a player base in a lively server. I never cared about Soulripper back in the day, despite getting into quad digit hours, and I'm sure plenty of people who would never post on a forum would agree. What matters is getting players on the server in the first place, not an absent server owner behind a mostly hidden higher up management system.

I think genuinely the best way to bring life back in any way, would be to leave behind CityRP, and switch to DarkRP(Please hold your boos towards the end.). Many DarkRP servers can easily get regularly full servers on 128 player servers, and regularly have waves of new players coming in and out. I don't feel it's the better gamemode, but it's the one that will get players, and compromise will have to be made if the server's going to regain a playerbase anywhere near comparable to it's heyday. 

Perhaps a total rethink of how proper roleplay is enforced, from more obvious stuff such as far lighter punishments for failure to follow proper roleplay(perhaps jailing for fearRP violations, damage bans, etc), as well as a rethink of how admins handle things. Not everything needs to be an admin sit. Perhaps have a much larger population moderators that handle obvious infractions with quick punishments, and guides specifically for them that can be offered on screen to those that break them(IE a link to a forum thread explaining the ins and outs of fearRP, and frequently asked questions.), rather than taking the time of an individual person to explain to them the errors every time with a long drawn out admin sit.
Not only that, but bring in mechanics that can passively enforce those. For example, make tazers have a lock on period after holding on someone for a while, so those that run and ignore can't get away. Or make it so pulling a weapon suddenly on someone that is holding one on you is far less likely to win a firefight, through reduction in damage, accuracy, or time to draw the weapon. Make it so rules and admin enforcement is less required for the basics to work. Or a levelling system that makes weapons more effective with time, so newer players who have purchased the first weapon they can are far more handicapped on their ability to ignore fearRP, or mass RDM.

Also perhaps look into more passive things for new players to enjoy. Let players with some playtime spawn media players for example, give a few toys that can make things a bit more interesting for someone looking for a chill time. Or make cars more accessible for new players, such as a car hire system. Reinvented inventory systems mean nothing to those new low hour players, but the ability to watch some videos in a social setting, play some music or have a light show of some variety in a club, or drive around some fun cars for a bit might just be the difference in keeping them.

Proper roleplay is achievable in DarkRP, just look at(and I have to hold back throwing up in my mouth a little) the 1942 germany roleplay servers. As long as the gamemode stays under that DarkRP server listing, I'm sure the gamemode, and the playerbase it could gain, can be moulded to bring around something similar to Fearless under it's heyday. Compromises may have to be made, but it's better to lose some of the older experience, than to lose all of it entirely.



I do miss the old fearless days, but sadly CityRP isn't viable today. Those days of Gmod are unfortunately gone.

[Pollux]

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This would be fine if we were just interested in turning a profit, especially as DarkRP generally has a lot more that can be monetized. That's not why any of us are in the team though and isn't why Conn bought FL. Apart from covering server and dev costs, we don't really care too much about making a profit from this. For us it's about delivering a unique CityRP experience, something that FL has done for many years. If we can't deliver that unique experience, there's no point in us still being here. Swapping to the DarkRP gamemode also assumes that's an experience current FL players would want, which is unlikely.

I do want to add that we don't have to swap to the actual DarkRP gamemode to be able to show up in that category. Other old and unique servers similar to us have simply moved into the category with varying levels of success, many servers in DarkRP nowadays aren't actually using the DarkRP gamemode. We'll likely explore moving into the category (especially as we have very good visibility, we show up in the server browser very quickly compared to other servers due to some backend tech we have) but we won't be swapping over the actual gamemode to become a cookie-cutter generic DarkRP server for the reasons I stated above.

[5p carrier bag]

-snip-

-snip-

This would be fine if we were just interested in turning a profit, especially as DarkRP generally has a lot more that can be monetized. That's not why any of us are in the team though and isn't why Conn bought FL. Apart from covering server and dev costs, we don't really care too much about making a profit from this. For us it's about delivering a unique CityRP experience, something that FL has done for many years. If we can't deliver that unique experience, there's no point in us still being here. Swapping to the DarkRP gamemode also assumes that's an experience current FL players would want, which is unlikely.

I do want to add that we don't have to swap to actual DarkRP gamemode to be able to show up in that category. Other old and unique servers similar to us have simply moved into the category with varying levels of success, many servers in DarkRP nowadays aren't actually using the DarkRP gamemode. We'll likely explore moving into the category (especially as we have very good visibility, we show up in the server browser very quickly compared to other servers due to some backend tech we have) but we won't be swapping over the actual gamemode to become a cookie-cutter generic DarkRP server for the reasons I stated above.

Unfortunately the unique CityRP experience requires a playerbase, and that's been entirely lacking for years now, beyond a handful of dedicated serious roleplayers. The only way to deliver it in this day and age will be to tap into that DarkRP market, and hope you can shape it into something resembling CityRP in it's glory days.

Whether that be by heavily modifying DarkRP to come as close to CityRP as possible, or by renaming CityRP to appear in the listings. The first will require a lot of work to get close to CityRP and not the standard DarkRP cookie cutter donation and printer grind model. The latter will result in a lot of lost players facing a confusing learning curve on a gamemode they were not expecting. There are pros and cons to both. It's not that I want the CityRP gamemode to go and be replaced by DarkRP, DarkRP is a hellhole. But I genuinely think it's very unlikely to prove viable ever again in the current Gmod climate.

Either way though will require a heavy rethink of how proper CityRP style roleplay is enforced. The old playerbase that understands how it was supposed to work have long dispersed, and gaining a new playerbase would very quickly overwhelm any admin team, no matter how dedicated it was, with the old approaches. Cleverer and more passive ways to guide players to the right approach to RP would definitely be needed. And you'll probably need some "toys" to encourage brand new players to hang around on an unfamiliar server.

I'm not interested in a profit either, I just want a populated city to play in again.

[Rowan13]

If you can stick to golden age CityRP mechanics (simpler gun and ammo mechanics, bring back tranqs n rope), but rename it to DarkRP without it being DarkRP at all, you might get away with a real revival. Or rename cityrp to RealLifeRP since zoomers are clinically braindead.

Feature-creep became a thing in post 2016 FL to an unfunny degree so much sp that iirc there was at least a couple of rewinds made to the game mode due to incompatibilities and complications.

v2d as a map choice is pretty big brained already (any classic/popular small map that isnt in the GTA wannabe category works since genrrally speaking these smaller maps are more tightly packed with features and detailed spaces and it forces organic player interaction)

This isn't just nostalgia talking, earlier simplicity was only victim to feature creep because oldf@gs couldn't help but cheer for any new added layer of complexity to shake things up- and I'm not even saying it in a blame laying way- it is just how these things go. Alternation between growth & contraction of mechanical/feature complexity is only natural in places like these.

I just hope the management/dev/community is self-aware enough to know at which point of the community lifecycle we're on.

[L Y N C H Y]

Alright, alright, okay, uh, alright, okay, alright, okay

[User 19014]

Alright, alright, okay, uh, alright, okay, alright, okay