i need some suggestions for hl2rp

only run with squads if you have people to rely on and trust otherwise it becomes a direction-less mess.

they, or at least i, want something to do that isn't boring bland shit like rations or spitting out 8 lines of slamming metal together. i'm pretty lagged rn so i cant come up with any proper ideas but come up with something unique or draw inspiration from other ideas.

long, difficult or "exclusive" applications because it serves as a form of quality control to block out your usual mpf gutter-trash

(i've never seen this executed properly)i like the idea of rugged civvies in a suit running around beating people up and causing general mischief accompanied by following whatever tasks are given to them albeit half-assedly due to the fact that genuine "food" or "supplements" are so rare to come across, plus some form of a status-upgrade

dont be a cunt and hook up a bunch of mongs, basic shit

 

yes, but have divisions have one of every necessarily division medic, engineer and some unions.

good citizen roleplay, they're the backbone of hl2rp.
add work cycles, maybe add a widespread plague that can be stopped by a special type of water that they give to you for working (ic and ooc incentive for working)

this is up to the server owner but they should be open, you shouldnt have to do go to a forum or anything outside of the game itself, this is my opinion

it should be decided under the SeC or whoever is the man upstairs for the mpf
assuming the big commanding officer is a player and not an admin or owner. it'll make them feel like they have more of an impact on the MPF, if the SeC is careless then more bad cops will pop up and infighting will happen. eventually the citys mpf will dissolve and chaos will ensue for awhile.

no extreme donator perks, give them a little sign next to their name or something along those lines.
focus on citizen rp being good
make players feel like they're making an impact
make citizens feel oppressed.




take most of what i say with a grain of salt as i havent played hl2rp seriously in 2 years

 

I think that you're going to find two crowds of MPF fans: those who want the uniformity of HL2 NPCs, and those who want a rigid military style bureaucracy. I guess if it depends on whether you feel the MPF is simply a convenient catalyst for non-MPF roleplay, or as a vessel for roleplay in itself.
I'd say that C16 will be biased towards the former, but I'd also say that the majority of players (who want to play MPF) would prefer the latter, at least if you're going for the "24/7 uptime, but events at peak times" classic style server.

If you're going the bureaucratic route, there's a lot of potential payoff for a lot of risk. Military/police bureaucracies work because the threat of losing your job, your freedom and your life loom over you if you fuck up or worse, turn to corruption. Even the most "experienced" (read: immersion nuts) role-players will never feel this coercion. If you feel like you have good players (and perhaps more importantly, enough players), or at the very least good leaders (who are willing to sacrifice their own time and fun for the benefit of other players), you can get away with it.

As for size, divisions, etc, I've always felt like most servers go the wrong way with it. For this, let's assume you're running a 24/7 uptime server with a stable playerbase, and exciting peak times.
First of all, every unit is a patrolman. Gun first, specialty second. There shouldn't be a specialized "patrol" division, because who the fuck wants to do that?
Second, go the route of teams, squads and a platoon (or whatever: troop, command, sector, etc). Strictly limit the size of these organizations (I would use 4 for a team, 9 for a squad (two teams + squad leader)) so that you flex the size of the MPF with the servers (day to day, not current) population.
Third, set specialties to be managed at the squad level. That way every group of MPF has a medic or two, an engineer, a breaching specialist, etc. It's super lame when you're like "oh shit daves down better call HQ and get a medic down here!!"
Fourth, no "SpecOps" bullshit. It's always a huge circlejerk and lame for everyone involved except those in the unit. If the MPF with their pistols, SMGs and kevlar aren't enough to deal with whatever event you're having, just have the MPF redeploy as Overwatch. They retain the command structure they already have and just change their armor, guns and names to be more scary.
Fifth, any other specialties can just be handled by a char swap of an existing MPF to some sort of specialist. Need an interrogator? Send the sector interrogation team! Need a sniper! Call up sector command, get a sniper down here! Full time duties besides "scary police man" always get super lame fast.

 

Hopefully this helps out a bit:

- I'd personally suggest squads of 4-5 units with squad leaders. Commanders could be added if need, but it's better to have units that directly interact with citizens as the focus.

- Focusing less on standalone events and instead presenting resources to players (scripts, hubs for RP, economy, faction possibilities, etc.) which could trigger events seems to always work better and feels less forced.

- I've personally always preferred using a rigorous IC application system including questions that actually challenge players to think about responses. Usually weeding out 'yes-man' characters and players that don't give detailed answers helps. It also gives the SqL an example of what their roleplay is like.

There should always be some sort of organizations but certainly allow some room to squeeze in potential corruption.

Present a city with an actual structure that implies there's a lot more than what the player sees with systems of procedure used/assumed by citizens, MPF, CWU, and plenty of atmosphere with provided audio, weather events, announcements, routine patrols, workcycles, etc.

 

so many paragraphs; such little time

is this what we've come to? overcomplicating rp so we can try to create the 'perfect server'?

 

do you know where you are

 

Do what Aflac said. One whole division, one central command figure and a few NCOs that can train in specialities.

 

Grid/engineering seems to be a useless division/specialization as it seems no one really knows how to roleplay them properly/understand their tasks to justify having it.

 

don't allow restrictive megalomaniacal assholes to become staff.

 

Map choice is also a gigantic factor IMO, my best city RP experience was on Venetian because it felt more open and it was a brighter environment, it felt a lot less like HL2RP, while still being HL2RP if that makes any sense. The problem with MPF is you need to have them lax enough to allow RP between them and citizens, but strong and oppressive enough to where people want to kill them. Without citizens wanting to kill MPF there's really nothing to do, no goal or anything, considering there's never been a successful economy because people don't need to eat/drink or buy things to entertain them. Passive RP is swell but it gets old especially when there's nothing going on, you can only /me drinks from his can of water so many times. The most important thing is the playerbase, you can survive on a server and have fun with ten or so people if they're good, I used to RP on an outlands server with maybe 15 people on at a time and it was perfect.

 

In my honest opinion, I think you should do outlands or something and not city. Nobody wants to play a citizen after two weeks. I dont either.

Everyone already addressed your questions, but I feel this was worth mentioning.

 

haven't seen coast in awhile

 

Coast would be pretty fucking cool imo

 

i miss coast
so many memories and just general fun, don't know why people gave up coast, it's absolutely comfy. there's just something about the ambiance and atmosphere
then again with coast you really have to make it work otherwise it falls short but i suppose same could be said for any server