A Fearless New Years Resolution
#1
Give this a listen if you want!
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Introduction: What Exactly Happened to FL?

  To start off, I've been playing Fearless since mid-2013 and I believe I am well-versed in Fearless' histories due to this fact. I'm aware that some of you have been here longer, but I believe my experience from 2013 to 2019 has been somewhat of a drastic one. Some might believe I don't give two shits about this community anymore, considering the way I've been acting, etc., yet I assure you the opposite is fact. Fearless used to be a paradise for Garry's Mod roleplayers, and I want to see it reborn, a renaissance for example. I've been thinking of making this thread for years, but now I believe it's a good time considering it's just passed New Years and a goal can be set. Now I'm not forcing anyone to do anything, all I'm saying is that there are an extreme number of things that can be improved upon, which I will delve into below. 

  Now, to the topic of this introduction, what exactly happened to FL? For all you players who played FL from 2014 to early 2015, you know what I'm talking about. There are definitely differences between the community then, and now. An obvious example of this is the staff. The staff in 2015 was almost entirely different than it is now. I mean, obviously they're different, but when the split occurred, a the forum team page endured a drastic change. We will return to this. Another difference is the forced passive RP experience Fearless has now. In the good ol' days, I'd say that the difference between aggressive roleplayers and passive roleplayers was equal. Roleplay was always 50/50, which seemed like it was a good mix. Now aggressive RP is obviously frowned upon for some reason, but from experience, aggressive roleplayers have a more vast array of roleplay capabilities, considering they participated in both passive and aggressive roleplay equally. The majority of players who have more RP are all notable aggressive rolepayers (Don't believe me? Take a look at the stats page). I will return to this as well.

  There are many more differences, but I believe these two major ones can offer a perspective.

Main Problems
I will go into each of the problems in detail.

Playerbase Activity
Staff Activity
Passive Roleplay
Aggressive Roleplay
Roleplay Quality
Clan Problems
Groups
The Economy
Roleplay Events
Teachers
Development
Forum Problems
Other

Playerbase Activity
  Within five years, Fearless playerbase activity exponentially dwindled. Feel free to do some research. An obvious reason to this is the fact that Garry's Mod is an outdated game and people become uninterested. There are definitely ways to improve activity. Some of which are: 
    
  Increasing the rate of development - don't need to explain.
  Clan changes - see below.
  Roleplay quality - see below.

Staff Activity
  Like playerbase activity, the staff activity has also decreased due to the facts stated previously. Though it is a more significant problem as the staff are... the staff. Though ultimately I believe the solutions to increase playerbase activity are the same as staff, give them something more interesting to do, or make them? Some solutions are:

  Make staff members do a certain number of events per year
  Roleplay quality - see below.
  Increase interest in general - give the staff an actual interest when playing

  There have been some good changes when it comes to staff activity, speaking from a development standpoint. An example of this is the thread where staff members can let the community know if they will be away or not. Though I believe staff activity has a whole lot more to do with their interest in Fearless.

Passive Roleplay
 As stated prior, there is an obvious forced passive roleplay experience at Fearless. In the past, there was a 50/50 split between aggressive roleplay and passive roleplay. This opened up more opportunities for clans, including clan wars (When was the last one?) and just generally aggressive roleplayers. Now, in fact I haven't even seen a public passive roleplay since I've returned. I remember there used to be more than three at a time on main street. What happened? In my opinion, aggressive roleplay opens up many doors to roleplay, and a mix of both passive and aggressive roleplay never hurt anybody. I remember I'd be walking down main street seeing clothing stores, food stands, gun stores, etc.. Now, passive roleplay seems seldom. 

Aggressive Roleplay
  As I said earlier, aggressive roleplay opens up a ton of doors. The main door that is opened is the one to the clan world, which we will cover soon. I haven't seen an interesting dictator roleplay in ages, and you can't really do that without aggressive roleplay. Rules have become more strict, even the smallest raids conjure up an OOC discussion that results in staff intervening. There's something wrong, it's just not like it used to be. 

Roleplay Quality
  Considering there aren't really that many roleplays in general, the number of actually good roleplay is minuscule. Points are an important factor. Roleplay points used to be given out so rarely, people went through hours of roleplay just to earn one. And let's be honest, the majority of players on CityRP roleplay for points. I mean, they enhance roleplay, give you bragging rights, etc.. I haven't seen a player use /me or /it recently. 

Clan Problems
  This is a big one. Not only do clans participate in passive and aggressive roleplay, the interesting ones actually impact the server. The amount of clans that participate in aggressive roleplay is extremely small, and when was the last clan war? I can't even remember. Clan wars used to be almost commonplace in Fearless, adding drama and roleplay to the forums and the server itself. Some of the best roleplay experiences I have had had been with clans, and I have had many experiences on Fearless. Clan wars are an inherent part of the clan system, which is a major activity Fearless offers.

Groups
  Alright, what are the point of groups? They're pretty much passive clans, right? So make them passive clans, there's no need to have an extra option that opens many loopholes. I think we should return to the old system with the [Passive] and [Aggressive] tags, instead of having those, and groups. That's pretty much all I have to say about that.

The Economy
  The economy sucks. There are a lot of problems with it, re-implement the stock market or something.

Roleplay Events
  This ties into staff activity. Events used to be held extremely often, and they were big ones. Vauld, an old staff member was actually renown for hosting events. Even then, events happened almost every week. Staff coordinated events on the spot, such as vault roleplays, zombie roleplays, disaster roleplays, etc.. The only event I'm aware about is the Miss Evocity Competition, which is fine, but there could be many, many more. 

Teachers
  In my opinion, teachers were good for Fearless, roleplay increased, more events happened, players had more help. There was no point to remove teachers from Fearless. What problems arose? I can't think of any legitimate problem with teachers.

Development
  I suppose development is fine, though I believe rather than adding more cars, developers could work on more extensive projects, such as the new map, which seems extremely promising. Maybe implement new systems to the server and forums, etc.. I'm not shitting on the development team, I just believe with more things to do, players will join and return to experience them. I just think that there should be both small and large scale development projects.

Forum Problems
  Firstly, the forums are extremely outdated, it looks like shit. There are many forum problems but the main ones are the lack of clan related threads and posts, the fact that there are two pages of player reports, the bugs, etc.. The majority of these seem relatively easy to fix.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Conclusion

I just wanted to create this post to seek solutions on some of the problems. It's not my intent to shit talk the staff or development team, or anyone for that matter. This thread is purely instructive. It would be really helpful for players to address their concerns here, and possibly give solutions to these main ones, as well as others' problems. It is in fact a good time to do it, it would be an awesome New Years Resolution. With all this in mind, I'm sure we, as a community, can bring Fearless back into a renaissance. 

Thanks for reading,
  Falcon.
[Image: J1zObHm.gif]
The following 3 users Like Falcon's post:
  • Kahjo, De CodeerHeer, Bobby Shmicki
#2
Yeah!
#3
[18:22]
Falcon:
https://www.fearlessrp.net/showthread.php?tid=91389
i got really high and wrote it

The following 1 user Likes General Rickets's post:
  • Falcon
#4
Can someone give Falcon a medal please. Or perhaps a personal blowjob. All hats off to you!
#5
Quote:
The Economy
  The economy sucks. There are a lot of problems with it, re-implement the stock market or something.

Why? I'm rich, fine as is Smile

Quote: I'd be walking down main street seeing clothing stores, food stands, gun stores, etc.. Now, passive roleplay seems seldom.
Ez fix, remove F4 market. Way too convenient.
[Image: get.php?s=STEAM_0:0:75548000&b=10]


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)