TOPIC: [SSRP] SEMI SERIOUS DISCUSSION TIME: SERVER THEME

Ever since I encountered the map rp_paralake_city_v1 (best map I have seen by far) I have been thinking "wow zarp would be baller with this" and with that thought I was thinking how amazing it would be to have said map and more fun inducing addons. I mean we could have helicopters (the mentioned map supports them), fishing, extended crafting with a larger mine, more cars, more jobs (new map would allow new possibilities), we could hold a larger player base with the map which with the added content would bring more donors, and with all the added room we would have (on the map) we could have a shiton more npcs, secrets, and alot more room for server features.

But then it hit me, is that what the zarp experience really is? An extra large map (omg i love that map) with addons out the kazoo, no. Zarp is more of a server where you can walk the entire map from palce to place, can call out places and still walk to those. Yes cars do help at times but they arent mandatory pretty much as they would be on the other map. Zarp is more of a server that feels like a refined normal dark rp experience. Thats why there isnt alot of misc addons like silly hats, cars and out of the ordinary jobs. I finally understand why its "semi" serious. the semi means it relates to real life in a way that means the server is not extremely outlandish, from what I understand. Zarp maps have more of a smaller town feel which is what the players have enjoyed: note the popularity of block_42 on our server and the downtown_Vx in general. As compared to the succsess of maps that have run evocity* and our player drop in when we used townsend*. I know im not hitting on major points nor doing a great job summerizing the server im just noting observations I have made with my around 700+ hrs on this server.

With that I say great job dev team, chris, emp, chuetk, (?). you have succeeded well where many other have failed and are still going strong over a long period time.

I want to get back to the "small town feel" and as I and I believe many others have felt about s1- its player cap. I think the player cap for s1 should be lowered to help accommodate the map size, admins that actually do f1s** and to help with the constant crashes and lag. I think somewhere between 35-45 players zarp shines. Around that number zarp is a fun playable experience where you arent rdmed every couple seconds, the server crashes less, your f1s are done in and on a reasonable time, the admins/staff can have fun, and you and or your gang are usually having a great time. However I don't think the player cap should be lowered to 45. A 45 player cap would cause resentment towards other players when filled as players would want their friends to join and alas, during the servers peak time, they would be just sitting there infuriated.
I think 60-55 should be the magic number for players as it has the possibility of becoming slightly hectic however it shouldn't really be too overbearing, assuming their is a decent number of staff on. (side note with a 60 player cap both vips and staff would be able to bypass for a bit obvious reasons)

*Star one: The popularity of zarp declined when we went to townsend as far as I remember, although we came close to hitting and or hit the peak players a couple of times. As far as I remember we switched back to a different map as our playerbase slowly declined. On the other hand there is a couple other servers that use this type of large map and flourish. Im going to use the server Modified Dark Rp as an example as they do a good job supporting this map as their dark rp enviornment is more crafted towards it. Modified does what I mentioned upfront, a shiton of addons, lots of looney features, plenty of cars, etc. However it works for them because thats their enviornment. The zarp enviornment isnt made for htose large maps and the player base doenst come to the server for said maps.

**Star two: Not alot of admins actively do their jobs id like to give a shotout to Gregory, Tool_is, and Blocked as I think they are the most active f1 do-ers. Without them this server would really go to shit. I really dont want to make this into a name game or point fingers but I have seen a certain admin not do a single f1 or help a single player. If they at least punish people that rdm them its not too bad (-1 rdmer i guess) but its just not right. f1s should be considered a team/shared effort to put less weight on a single player. Many of times I have joined and seen something in admin chat like "I just did a shiton of f1s earlier I want to play now" or "help me with f1s pls" this really shouldnt be a thing. I know something has to change and I know there is never almost never enough staff online. But i guess thats what happens on a server such as zarp.(tldr/sidenote there shouldnt be 7+ staff on at a single time and only 1-3 doing f1s the entire time.) this is negative experience for the staff, I avoid server one for this very reason and usually play s2

future prediction- What bringing in evilmelon will do to s2 is boost its playerbase which is good and logical as it is a popular and well liked map. However what we will be losing by gaining players is in my opinon enjoyability of the server, many players may thrive for that max pop server feel. However we probably will end up crashing, being overun by minges, and dampening the overall server quality by doing so
im no fortune teller this is just a theory

I kinda want to end this here but id like to bring together a few points and throw in a new one
-Zarp has a THEME and a DIRECTION
- Zarp has ALOT OF PLAYERS
-Zarp could use a player cap maybe
-Zarp is thriving due to its theme
-do your f1s please
- zarp 3 with seperate theme and rp_paralakecity_v1 and different stuff? (would be differnt downloads then s1 and s2 larger player cap to accomodate (idk as i said it wouldnt be the same zarp)


id like to also take the time to thank you for reading and I do not apoligize for any grammer mistakes, some are important but as long as I get my point across idgaf

im not saying that evocity=townsend, townsend is a smaller map i belive its just comparable

also i may do another thread similar of either what the vision of a changed zarp could be for said s3

or

why i dont go on ts, attend meetings, and do not want admin

edit: it seems only blocked has read the entire thing i dont think im doing this again

Blocked wrote:
I had an idea for a quota based system too but that might put pressure last minute or admins would just lax after quota is finished and not do any like some may do now-

in turn i have recently thought of a more incentive based system that would reward admins/mods that constantly do x number of f1s with different in game tool permissions (potentialy stripping SA of powers they have now srry may be contraversial) and then to keep and get more tool permissions you would have to keep doing f1s

howerver that would be countered by people who dont give a fuck about tool rights

tl;dr paralake is mlg pro pls swap

I have a better fix to this problem! Zarp server 3, Yes! I said Zarp server 3. I know what you are thinking..... Another server? Don't we have a shortage of staff and we already have server 2 which doesn't fill up to 50 players, OH and don't forget that it will lead to paying more for the host?. Well, if you really want to fix this problem without loosing players with octocat's suggestion (No offense) I think you should make Zarp 3, it will be the exact duplicate of Zarp 1, with 90 slots but this way instead of having all the players on 1 server which would cause lag they can go to the other server and enjoy the same rp quality as Zarp 1. So basically, we are splitting 90 players into 45 each which will make rp more enjoyable, decrease lag and if we split staff since we don't need all of them on server 1 they can rp and do f1s and with less lag and F1s being done People will donate and we will get more players. If you have any objections, I'm welcome to hear them.

NOTE: IF this is to be done do NOT make the servers have 45 slots each since this will also cause lag. The greater the empty slots the more players can play without lag.

Johnny this was the best explanation of why we should have a server 3. Anyways I agree, having 65+ people on the server daily makes the server a bit laggy. Server 3 could just mirror server 1 splitting population so less lag and funnier rp. (Also I'm just seconding Johnnys opinion I'm not repeating it)

JohnnySmith wrote:
Holy shit that is the best idea ever.

Let's just see the evilmelon map on server 2 before we jump off to a third server :/

DarthVader wrote:
EVILMELON OR RIOT!!!!!!!!!

Interesting ideas from everyone, I will bring them all up in the lead team meeting .

I would also like to thank octocat for taking the time to voice his opinion.

DarthVader wrote: Did you like read half my post?
Dcxbigdaddy wrote: I know you will, I hope the lead team will listen to reason! Good luck!

JohnnySmith wrote: did you read mine or just skim it, I outline why I believe a 60-55 player cap would be great for s1 and s2 and suggest a mere possibility of us potentially opening a s3 that caters to the more high player-cap croud

also a 45 player cap and forcing people to donate JUST TO PLAY would be a horrific model

Well 0ctocat, I think you have made some good points and I just wanted to share with you that most of the time when you are off-duty as a staff you will always end up helping or punishing other players that breaks rules, even though you may think staff is not doing their job they may still be doing a lot of job helping people in-game and such, so to be honest the staff job is something you do each time you play, and that's what we are there for, we are there to serve the players as staffs.

Just wanted to share, as this happends to me when I want to RP, but I don't mind which I shoulden't as I am hired as a staff, but I agree that more people should be doing the F1's but this is mostly a problem that is found on server 1, because of the high player base we have there.

tl;dr, I agree people should be doing more F1's, but however even if a staff is not doing F1's they still maybe be helping others in-game.

EDIT: I believe this problem is a bigger problem though, when I played today and had over 15 F1 request and a lot of rule breakers.. being alone staff when it is almost peak time for the server, good that we are getting some fresh staff today atleast after the meeting.

bump for meeting discussion tomorrow

love johnny smiths idea !TBH I think maybe do something slightly different on server 3 so people can choose there preferences because if they are both identical (server 1+3) then i think people will just choose the one with more players as that's what allot of people do for some reason, just see which one is busier and choose that one. I think one of the servers (say 3) could also be used as a slight beta server to test new suggestions and ad dons that have been posted on the forum's. That way if something doesn't work properly it want effect the majority of the player and they will have 2 other servers to choose from.
Thanks for reading, Hope i made sense

Or we improve the dedicated host. Which will lower the lag. Instead of purchasing a whole new server.