What’s your thoughts on the current situation of the server?

[Awestruck]

As someone who has worked with Divey, it's unfair to say that he should receive all the blame in this. Granted, he's not without his faults. SoulRipper was inactive for a good half of FL's life, only jumping on once or twice in a blue moon. So to say that it's completely the fault of the owner is naive. However, that's not to say that it wouldn't be good to see some activity once and a while from him, of which I'm sure, or hope, he's working on

The issue at the moment is lack of motivation from pretty much everyone and it's really disheartening to see. Whilst some people do have IRL things to focus on, which I totally understand (I took time away to do it myself), there are other major factors at play which I just don't agree with and it unfortunately cannot be fixed until some self-efficacy is attained in regard to lack of drive to better the community.

[Nadrickk]

As someone who has worked with Divey, it's unfair to say that he should receive all the blame in this. Granted, he's not without his faults. SoulRipper was inactive for a good half of FL's life, only jumping on once or twice in a blue moon. So to say that it's completely the fault of the owner is naive. However, that's not to say that it wouldn't be good to see some activity once and a while from him, of which I'm sure, or hope, he's working on

The issue at the moment is lack of motivation from pretty much everyone and it's really disheartening to see. Whilst some people do have IRL things to focus on, which I totally understand (I took time away to do it myself), there are other major factors at play which I just don't agree with and it unfortunately cannot be fixed until some self-efficacy is attained in regard to lack of drive to better the community.

Soul was more active than this   And cared more.

[Pollux]

As someone who has worked with Divey, it's unfair to say that he should receive all the blame in this. Granted, he's not without his faults. SoulRipper was inactive for a good half of FL's life, only jumping on once or twice in a blue moon. So to say that it's completely the fault of the owner is naive. However, that's not to say that it wouldn't be good to see some activity once and a while from him, of which I'm sure, or hope, he's working on

The issue at the moment is lack of motivation from pretty much everyone and it's really disheartening to see. Whilst some people do have IRL things to focus on, which I totally understand (I took time away to do it myself), there are other major factors at play which I just don't agree with and it unfortunately cannot be fixed until some self-efficacy is attained in regard to lack of drive to better the community.

Soul was more active than this   And cared more.

Maybe up till around 2012, after that he was basically not here. Not like it exactly matters though.

[Grape]

FL has always had its moments of lack of population for the last few years, but never to this extent. There will always be a time of year when some members of the community have exams. I took time off for my GCSEs when I was moderator and again now for the A-levels I'm finishing off (second time lucky). This only applies to a minority of the community, though. There are almost 6000 members on the FL steam community page and many on discord, too. Using exams as a reason for anything other than one's own absence, such as an excuse for the lack of population on the server, is laughable. It goes without saying you need to prioritise your studies and future outside of FL, and best of luck with it, just don't say that's why the server is dead and that's why there is no work on corrective measures to address the server population issue - from what the community can see at least. It's dishonest.

It's very clear that the community itself has not died and I doubt it will. Some of my favourite memories in gaming were formed on the server and I've met a lot of friends here. I'm sure everyone has experienced this, so even if the server dies the community won't. This is seen in the level of engagement in discussions like these.


Team

Yes, the owner and SAs should be as active and engaging as the rest of the team and the community at large. If not always on the server, then on the forums or in conversation with members of the community. How can leaders expect those who they are above to act in ways the community requires them to in order to flourish, but not act that way themselves? It’s lazy and hypocritical. That being said, we know that an active owner or server-active SAs isn’t alone in what is necessary for the server to be populated. This is seen in Soul’s inactivity for years before handing it over to Divey, and when Soul was inactive so were the SAs for a large part. Server-wise, at least. During this time the server would still rise to a full 75 players consistently, and the forums and discord were booming. So I also do think it's dishonest to say that the owner’s inactivity alone is what caused the server to die - although it certainly will only benefit, especially now when it’s desperately needed, for the owner and SAs to be active.

More importantly, the team needs competent leaders. This can be measured by how well the staff team functions internally and externally in a variety of ways. One includes keeping the server clean, which isn’t too difficult. For example, focusing on blacklisting rather than banning unless it is serious. This way, players are forced to play on the server without the gamemode feature they abused for the blacklist to run out - hopefully, they can find ways to enjoy the server without bouncing ovens off of people’s heads to prevent future rule infringements. Another is levels of engagement with the community. Show the community that you can not only listen to but act on what the community tells you it needs. I don’t just mean verbally. For example, members of the community may not even voice their opinion on a particular topic, but the state or population of the server may shift. The staff team needs to be competent enough to identify an issue and discuss internally how to address it. Show the community how you’re working to solve a given issue, and admit to your faults by redacting and/or amending implementations that don't work for the server rather than sitting in denial and defending decisions you make. This is an important one, and server content will be addressed later.

Members of staff ought to be respected and admired members of the community. Admins need to be looked up to and set precedent for Fearless conduct, leading the community as rolemodels on the server. This requires them to be Fearless veterans. I don’t mean we should only have admins that have joined prior to 2012. Admins should, however, preferably have years of Fearless experience. Experience of how the server has been through various management teams, development, maps, and waves of community member types. This gives them wisdom regarding what FL features are healthy for the server and community. Knowledge of what works and what doesn’t - which only strengthens the team’s competence. Admins should definitely tick many of these boxes: skilled in building, acting, teaching rules and advising, constructing elaborate roleplays and events, underground RP (aggressive), passive RP, government, etc. Above all, admins need to be excellent leaders. They need to be respected and looked up to. When members of staff untastefully call out their own superiors in a public thread and minge on the server when it’s at its monthly peak of 8 players, this is not achievable. If you don’t provide these qualities to the team, be an honest person and resign, move down a position or let your boss know you may be better suited for another role. It is the management’s job to ensure that all the processes outlined above function to the community’s satisfaction and can only be done with competent managers who ensure the server’s continuity and staff’s motivation. If you don’t provide this to the community and team, again, be an honest person and resign, move down a position or let the owner know you may be better suited for another role - ‘Unemployed’, perhaps.

The owner has a vested interest in the server doing well. Hopefully, he can see that measures of getting rid of members of the team - SA and admins - that don’t meet the above criteria are vitally important. Replace them with members of the community that offer what it is the server needs. Believe me, if we see that you take the steps necessary to amend the situation we’re in - and we will see how you respond, the community is so loved there won’t be a need for any other form of convincing or inciting for those replacement staff applications to come rolling in. While the server is populated, donations will be flung at the owner’s way which means, if he’s nice and you’re all hard-working good boys, you may even get a little thank you ‘donation’ your way. Development isn’t easy and neither is managing the community when it’s booming. Hopefully, you can snap out of your heartbreaking cycle of having no motivation to realise the fact that what is a vested interest for the owner, is for you too. Follow the community’s sound advice and you’ll see the results. If you really can’t, then step aside and allow for others who still care and would love the opportunity to competently lead and develop to get it done instead of you.


Content

Talking about what content should be on the server is where things get a little more subjective. Thankfully, no matter how subjective our opinions on the topic may be, we can identify what works and doesn't work by how well the server runs and how the community populates the server long-term after an update and engaging with it. For me, and I'm sure most agree, remaining faithful to a simplistic Evo City map style, Half-Life 2 and CS:S content will always be beneficial to the server. Other prop packs like the GTA props and S Props and so on are perfectly okay.

Load-in times for the server should be as short as realistically possible, especially for players that don’t already have the content installed and enabled. This includes reducing the amount of high data/high-resolution textures and models. An important example of this is cars. High-resolution modern cars cause the server to lag, reducing the FPS of players in the areas or while observing these cars. Server and gamemode stability performance needs to be the outright priority. This means reducing the number of content containing high-resolution textures and models as much as possible without taking any of the core essence of the Fearless RP experience. Modernisation has been an identified issue in development for the last few years. When we move towards implementing content in updates that modernise the server, the server population always decreases over time. People don’t play Garry’s Mod to have a AAA ultra high-res gaming experience. It’s supposed to have grittiness; it’s built on the same engine as Half-Life 2. All modernisation does is take away from the critical user-server stability and performance and also the character of a 14-year-old CityRP gamemode. The members of the community who love the server most and care about its state fell in love with it because of its charm, its ability to be wonderfully comedic at times, and also allow for intricate roleplays. The gamemode and its content need to remain simple. Otherwise, well, another City RP community is the direction we’ll go in.

Be a little more self-aware and revert implementations that hypermodernise the server. The kind of updates that the community does appreciate address bringing structure and complexity to the gamemode. Additions that don’t take away from a stable user-server experience or add unnecessary gimmicks (like the car damage system), but rather optimise the gamemode and server performance, expand immersion and increase roleplay opportunities. The character revamp suggestion I made corrected the citizen’s job name, for example, although the core of the suggestion was ignored (giving players the ability to choose a customised character they made upon spawning or dying for their next life). Others include government and organisation passes; rule revamps (I’m aware you’re working on one now. You should hint at what direction this rule revamp is going in before updating); gamemode optimisations; roleplay system events like bank robberies; contraband revamps that promotes underground roleplay and allow complex organisations and clans to form and so on. For this to be possible, FL needs a couple of go-to maps it can stick to that increase player interaction and maintain acceptable FPS when full - all the while remaining simple and true to that same FL and Evo City charm.

Population also drops on the server when the map is too often changed. This is because players spend time making dupes for roleplays or bases or what have you, only to have the map switched, forcing players to go back to building or coming up with roleplay ideas rather than having peace-of-mind fun on the server. This is particularly damaging to clans or organisations that are still in the midst of setting up their clan and discourages members of the community from having the motivation to engage on the server. I must admit, I was for the monthly or quarterly map switches to keep things fresh but in hindsight, it didn’t work. Whatever happens, stick to a couple of maps that the community approves of and meets the above criteria. Keep a given map in place for as long as possible, until the community voices boredom and the population starts to decrease over time - but ensure it’s the map in place at fault and nothing else. A map change would only happen once a year or so to keep things fresh while maintaining familiarity with the FL DNA throughout the map’s run. Another issue with introducing maps we haven’t had before, or adding any more than three to the list of ‘approved FL maps’ is the advanced duplicator spawn lists. Finding dupes I made for v5p on the v2d spawnlist and pines dupes on v4b1 is annoying as hell and just makes development seem incompetent - even though its such a small thing. So keep the things we approve of in place. Don’t fix things that aren’t broken, so don’t reintroduce the map vote system unless it takes place over the span of a year and is kept only to the maps on the list to ensure dupes’ continuity over the maps.

Last but not least, the guns and combat systems. FL lost a lot of its population after the more aggressive and underground-type roleplayers where screwed over due to several updates. Most notably, the switch from madcow to CW. I also admit I was not at first completely against the switch. After so many years with the same guns, perhaps its best to become skillful with another set of guns? Maybe it could have made the server feel fresh and fun to play again? Hindsight allows me to see why madcow is preferable and loved by myself and the rest of the community. Madcow and its gun mechanics were plain and simple, built for source engine and felt natural in FL’s gamemode. Whereas CW is clunky and complex, gimmicky, hypermodern for our server and feels unnatural. It is obvious to me now why we never had an issue with the type of guns we used before the switch and would allow me, if I were in your position and developers or SAs, to revert the system. It’s okay to be wrong, just realise it and fix it. The server needs madcow guns back how they were a few years ago - maybe slightly nerf the range for the M3? Reintroduce stealing people’s contraband. Revert being able to place breaches on absolutely everything; rendering molotovs useless. With each of these implementations, half of the playerbase quits. A playerbase full of FL veterans, people that can be looked up to, and help lead the community as shown in the past. Give credence to underground roleplay and we will give credence to you.

[Haarek]

Load-in times for the server should be as short as realistically possible, especially for players that don’t already have the content installed and enabled. This includes reducing the amount of high data/high-resolution textures and models. An important example of this is cars. High-resolution modern cars cause the server to lag, reducing the FPS of players in the areas or while observing these cars. Server and gamemode stability performance needs to be the outright priority. This means reducing the number of content containing high-resolution textures and models as much as possible without taking any of the core essence of the Fearless RP experience. Modernisation has been an identified issue in development for the last few years. When we move towards implementing content in updates that modernise the server, the server population always decreases over time. People don’t play Garry’s Mod to have a AAA ultra high-res gaming experience. It’s supposed to have grittiness; it’s built on the same engine as Half-Life 2. All modernisation does is take away from the critical user-server stability and performance and also the character of a 14-year-old CityRP gamemode. The members of the community who love the server most and care about its state fell in love with it because of its charm, its ability to be wonderfully comedic at times, and also allow for intricate roleplays. The gamemode and its content need to remain simple.

Completely agree.

[GeorgeTheBoy]

All went down hill as soon as that Nacreas guy came back

[Grape]

Should have added to my last post here that once those changes have been made, utilise the FL steam group. Announce things there that will entice some of the old players back. Of course, it would need to be the suggestions made above for the population to come back.

No media team needed, nothing extravagant, just good old FL with simple content. No dark-rp or hypermodern features. Aggro to come back. And a respected team that can lead the community.

[Joe Joe]

Should have added to my last post here that once those changes have been made, utilise the FL steam group. Announce things there that will entice some of the old players back. Of course, it would need to be the suggestions made above for the population to come back.

No media team needed, nothing extravagant, just good old FL with simple content. No dark-rp or hypermodern features. Aggro to come back. And a respected team that can lead the community.

Sadly that's now how steam group announcements work anymore. I'm not sure if this was intentional however when making an announcement it fails to actually send the announcement to all members of the group, meaning the reach of the steam group is inferior to what we have with Discord

[Grape]

-

Sadly that's now how steam group announcements work anymore. I'm not sure if this was intentional however when making an announcement it fails to actually send the announcement to all members of the group, meaning the reach of the steam group is  inferior to what we have with Discord

That's a shame I had no idea, thanks for letting me know.

Not anything to do with its settings or a little box to check at all when sending the announcement by any chance?

[Link]

-

Sadly that's now how steam group announcements work anymore. I'm not sure if this was intentional however when making an announcement it fails to actually send the announcement to all members of the group, meaning the reach of the steam group is  inferior to what we have with Discord

That's a shame I had no idea, thanks for letting me know.

Not anything to do with its settings or a little box to check at all when sending the announcement by any chance?

I had a look at this a couple of months ago, it's sadly broken. Though, from what I recall, you can still get something to pop up if you create an event in a certain way. Might be useful for something.