Biggest Killer of Non-HL2RP Servers

Freelok

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I'm just genuinely curious in the answers everyone will have, as I have hosted/administrated/played many non-HL2RP servers that go down the drain after a while. Why do you all think these more "niche" servers tend to die so fast, as per the title?

My experiences have primarily been with Cyberpunk servers dying incredibly quick despite a lot of planning. They fail for a number of reasons, but the biggest consistent killer I see here more then anywhere else is player greed & their sense of entitlement.
 
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Tzula

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Well. This is an interesting topic.

I've been on a number of servers.
When Worlds Collide, FantasyRP, Cyberpunk made by Dead Signal and CrowbarSatan.

I met some very nice people from wh40k servers when they were up @JohnWilksBoothe (Neb) @Mu-Alpha

The main reason why When Worlds Collide failed (the original one at least) was because there were a select few people going after the so called 'cringe lords' who generally kept to themselves and or erped amongst themselves, idk. They made up a good portion of the server and they were slowly pushed away by the overpowered characters that got authed overtime by those users.
It didn't help that the owner started to get annoyed with them and ended up authing characters just to drive them off.
Eventually, after a hacker incident which I believe was staged by the owner himself, the community rebranded like 5 times and then it shut down.

tl;dr
It was effectively the WW3RP playerbase if you could let people play catgirls and.. Space Marines.
You can guess how that went.

Another common trend amongst these servers is a lack of genuine progression. The servers aren't set up for the long term, they're set up in the moment of when one circle jerk migrates to their own server due to differences amongst the players and the owners. Another thing is that there are no rules, no enforcing of PK auths and or pk appeals. Everything is very unprofessional or you have to befriend the owners friend if you got staff there. Being staff never really meant being staff, you just pushed your agenda on people or you acted on the behalf of your circlejerk.

Something else I've noticed too is that the servers aren't very open as you can tell. They are pw locked thus making it impossible to join certain communities.
A non-nebulous server is considered 'very popular' once it gets 50-60 people daily.

There's some other stuff too but basically it's:
  • Lack of organization.
  • Staff doesn't mean anything, it's just a reward you get for erping with the owner or helping him out previously when someone went after his character.
  • Barely any use of the forums.
Also, other servers commonly employ community-wide bans and banned certain people either upon entry or hounded people to just make them leave which is what I went through as I used to be a massive shithead.
Not so anymore, I've been doing my best to be a nicer person since my more recent loa but it happens

There's probably other stuff too like the one cyberpunk server died because the player base didn't like him after he was going after some erpers who, again, made up a good portion of the player base and once they left, everyone started to leave and all that remained was that one group of players who hounded them.

I recently went on a cyberpunk server before I got staff and I was shocked about the differences between that server and here.
They don't have the logs staff can get due to a low margin of trust. There is no pk auths so no pk appeals and I was refused numerous times. No one ever heard of /mec's even though the server had them. It was chaos.
But the playerbase was very much free.. Though characters were meh. everyone focus's less on the character than they do on PAC4/PAC3 which I feel like is killing RP tbh.

I know this was everywhere but I've always wanted to talk about some interesting stuff I've noticed as I've played Garrysmod.
 
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Tinbe

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  1. Lack of dedicated content.
    1. Try to get a sci-fi server running, and you'll probably have to get stuff from cyberbunk to other sub-genres that might have mismatching style.
    2. Attempt medieval fantasy and you'll end up with stuff from basic, medieval style to high-end fantasy where a hammer has enough sharp edges to butter seven breads at the same time. Not to mention playermodels ranging in style from pre-2010 HL2 mod quality to World of Warcraft rips.
  2. The daunting, 100% custom lore. With HL2RP variations you can still get a basic grasp of things based off of the original game series, and you just adjust from there. Meanwhile full-on custom lore needs a lot more dedication to it - both for those who create it and those who would read it.
 

bubblegum

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I'm not saying the Garry's Mod serious roleplay community is toxic, but serious roleplay breeds toxicity. Even I have fallen victim to the throes of toxicity and drama, so it's easy for communities to fracture unless there's a strong community in place. Look at ShockCore Gaming.
 

'77 East

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Even I have fallen victim to the throes of toxicity and drama, so it's easy for communities to fracture unless there's a strong community in place. Look at ShockCore Gaming.

Shockcore Gaming is kept alive by donations and prolific "look at all the action for my self-insert" types. It's a zombie on life support and most of the day it barely reaches double-digits; the only reason Parashock (for all his faults) hasn't taken it off is because people still give him free money.
 

Hudson

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Due to the nature of Garry's Mod being a sandbox experience, people have different motivations for being involved in servers. One person's opinion for a server failing might be different to the next, and there's certainly mixed opinions between players/staff at times.

An example would the range of comments on this FTRP thread:
https://nebulous.cloud/threads/why-did-ftrp-fail.32657/

If the consensus for a server failing was "there weren't enough events" that doesn't mean that every server needs lots of events. I've seen servers that lasted a long time where events were rare. So a server dying in one state might find life again with a restart and a fresh playerbase.

When I wrote about several communities I tried to include a section for the challenges that they faced, which (if you're interested) might be worth reading because some of them go into reasons for servers ending:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/gca1/discussions/0/1698294337765867799/
 
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avralwobniar

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Shockcore Gaming is kept alive by donations and prolific "look at all the action for my self-insert" types. It's a zombie on life support and most of the day it barely reaches double-digits; the only reason Parashock (for all his faults) hasn't taken it off is because people still give him free money.
Yeah this is definitely true. Donation tiers there go up into hundreds of dollars.

Low playercounts and poor staffing kills servers, mostly the latter
 

Rabid

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I feel like a big part of it is a tossup between three main reasons:
  • SeriousRP isn't getting a huge influx of players anymore.
  • What players are around will generally stick to something they know/a bigger community.
  • A lot of the servers aren't built for longevity - this is generally frowned upon for some reason.
Neb - and other large communities - tend to get a lot of shit because they're not being hyper-innovative and are long-lasting, thus suck up a bunch of the players that a lot of the smaller servers generally can't catch the attention of because they'll just continue to exist long after the smaller server has ran out of energy or steam. HL2 is familiar and everyone knows it, and when you have a large and fairly dedicated player

There's a few communities who have a really dedicated playerbase who can try new and unique settings and have them work (or settings unique to them) like TnB, who can throw up something like TerminatorRP or ZombieRP and get 50+ players on an average night but they're the exception rather the rule.
 
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'77 East

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There's a few communities who have a really dedicated playerbase who can try new and unique settings and have them work (or settings unique to them) like TnB, who can throw up something like TerminatorRP or ZombieRP and get 50+ players on an average night but they're the exception rather the rule.

TnB can do that because it caters to an older clientele (oldfags from 2008-ish onwards) who tend to stick with the community, and the occasional newguys.
 
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Tzula

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Thinking back on it.

One of the main reasons why I ended up joining neb was because of how strict and formal things were.

The community wasn't just going to crash in a day due to owner throwing a fit like other servers.
 

Powley

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No point in running communities anymore.

The larger ones absorb the players making it almost impossible to gather a dedicated and consistent player group
 

MaXenzie

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yeah, basically what it became.

the owner of wwc was a massive pussy who relegated all of the actual ownership to his staff

he had no initiative and whatever the staff told him to do, he did
 

Tzula

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the owner of wwc was a massive pussy who relegated all of the actual ownership to his staff

he had no initiative and whatever the staff told him to do, he did
That's what I felt towards the end, yeah.
They decided making Vandus and co staff was a great idea.

@Sinnamonbun
 

MaXenzie

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That's what I felt towards the end, yeah.
They decided making Vandus and co staff was a great idea.

@Sinnamonbun

i remember joining with a literal D&D bard

and it was just like

the entire server is just "let me explain why my world/character is better than your world/character"
 
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