TOPIC: [Deathrun] DR-Revival Project

_{Odd Note: I'm not sure if this should be named [Deathrun] Revival Project or [Community] Deathrun Revival Project since it isn't a mere server suggestion more so something that runs on the community layer, oh well this will have to do I suppose}

---

---

_{Disclaimer This suggestion was proposed by Nick0GR who requested our (Kimi and Léon’s) involvement for additional ideas and further development upon the idea. We’ve approached multiple people including Martin and EMP (big up to both for responding) to see what they thought about the situation and what might be the best course of action to take in the future. We simply wish to see the server revived, to see that everyone's effort to building it up does not go to waste, and to bring awareness to the issue.}

---

---

Server Name: ZARP Deathrun

Suggestion Title: Deathrun Revival Program

How would it benefit the server: The deathrun server has as of quite some time now found itself in a particular spot which it has never recovered from. The server is quite literally almost dead, barely ever seeing player activity at all. Upon looking at it we feel that something has to be done in an attempt to revive the server, and if all fails we can always press the termination button afterwards.

Potential Issues / Exploits: One of the biggest issues that we see moving forward is that the server may or may not have a distinct lack of developers. Martin may do his best to work on all pointshop servers but just as with some of the other servers, we feel that each server needs a dedicated developer to oversee and develop updates so that the server may enjoy a constant stream of new content to help boost its player base.

Additional notes: The rest of the suggestion will be presented below. We may have potential solutions to the issues explained above which will be proposed in the sections coming below. Without further delay, it may be best to get into it.

---

---

The ZARP Deathrun server has in the past months as far as we could see it have had a distinct lack of love falling into disarray then eventually sliding off into obscurity. The server does not have any server owners nor does it have active players, developers, or even staff members. (We know there is 1 staff member but them by themselves may not be enough to run the server, obviously.) and we feel that some level of action has to be taken in order to bring the server back into its prime, we’ve each played on deathrun sometimes and it certainly has its own flair of fun to it.

Nick had suggested we work to re-launch the server, to rebuilt a staff team from scratch and possibly push the server forward once more to see if we could revive it, though this by itself may be a good step we feel that some extra work will have to be put in before such a goal can be realized. Which would require a lot of work building up to it which might need a good combination of collaboration between the community team and or the community by itself.

---

---

We feel that the server needs a major update which might possibly draw players back to it combined with a new server owner and a brand new staff team. After a chat with the elusive legend EMP from Kimi’s side, we feel that the server might do better if it were to be transferred to an American time zone to test the waters there and see how it may do in a new environment.

We feel that if the things described above were to be executed upon it may assist in bringing back players to the deathrun server possibly giving it the spark it needs to get its heart beating again. Something that in the long run will serve to add new members to the community.

ZARP has always been an interesting environment to play around in and the servers within it have always been a diverse bunch spreading across a multitude of game modes each flourishing in their own ways at some point. Deathrun has definitely added some fun and interesting players to the community and for the few experiences, we’ve had with it, it has always been a blast.

To see any server fall into a lack of players then disappearing no matter the amounts of hard work that was put into it by the people that cared (R.I.P. Murder) is just a saddening sight and we wish for Deathrun not to be murdered in the same way that Murder found its death.

We wish to simply give the revival process a shot and if all fails at least we can say that we’ve given the server another shot that it has deserved. Many people did their best to make it work and did their best to provide their own input creating a truly unique environment, however, that effort has been rusting down and eventually will lead to collapse unless we act soon and polish it up.

Of course, we are not sure whether or not this all will succeed but the least we can do is give it a shot, in the event it succeeds ZARP has another once again active server to add to its community, if it fails and the server once again collapses into disarray at least we can we gave it a shot and it can be shut down perhaps to free up space for new avenues.

---

---

The biggest issues we could see with the revival of the server is to find someone willing to take on the development process of the server and to find someone to run it and staff it. Though we're sure that we’ll find people willing to staff the server we still have to find a developer and a person that would serve as a dedicated Server Owner, though not an expert in LUA in the worst-case scenario I’d be willing to attempt to see about supporting the server in any way possible including development going forward. Whilst it may be best for the community team to take the task upon themselves to find someone they deem suited for the role of owner.

Other potential issues may be that the gamemode is simply the one that is failing to bring people into the server. We hope that is surely not the problem as that is something that is quite difficult to fix, sure, we can attempt to constantly run special events that reward players with many different types of resources such as diamonds, and points but that’s something we feel shouldn’t be necessary for a server to run. Events should be a thing on the side that might assist in spiking the server population sure, but they should not be the only reason people join the server. EMP had suggested we move the server to the USA to see if it may spike more players and it to us seems to be a harmless undertaking which by itself is definitely worth a try.

---

---

Yes, we know that the server might not be the problem but the game mode might be, as EMP had pointed out the deathrun game mode was already not the most popular game mode out there. But we still feel that we can at least make an attempt to see about its revival. The server may meet a fate that ultimately leads to its demise but I’m sure we’d all sleep a little better knowing that we tried to keep it afloat and alive.

We’re undertaking this suggestion to raise awareness and to display that we wish to do our best to assist in any way we can with the community’s success. Sure popular servers such as SSRP and TTT may be able to carry the community forward but one of the main reasons I (Kimi) decided to stay is because of the diversity that the community had, something that I’m sure we’d all love to preserve.

Deathrun has come a long way, and soon it may finally trip and be caught into the shredding claws of a shutdown, but until such as time has come we thought we’d put our thoughts out there and try to find out if there is anyone willing to undertake such a project on their own or with us if they so decide and if the community team were to allow it.

With that, that’s all we have to say and just about all that we can do as normal users. We hope to see deathrun flourish once more and to raise awareness so that someone may show themselves who is willing (and able to) pick up the sword and charge forth to bring deathrun back into greatness!

Kind Regards,
Riley, Léon, and Nick.

I obviously this

yeah deathrun is pretty neat

I would definitley love to see the deathrun server getting revived. However, when i used to be staff. There was always the same playerbase without newer players.
The main reason starters did not stick around was the other people being to good at bhopping.

But if the revival plan does succeed. You have my +1 playercount

Skinless best gang

Is it happening?

Feel free to add me on discord or steam, I'd love to talk about helping out with this

they may need more than 1 admin then

Maddox wrote:
Yeah, that is stated in the suggestion.

just give BDOG owner and its revived...

Deathrun is one of the few other pointshop gamemodes I play(ed) and enjoy. Woudl be ncie for ZARP to have an active and fun server again, would be happy to help as well! #MakeDRGreatAgain

I applied for staff twice and got denied!

Yes please.

if this happens il be willing to try it out

Bazaraxe wrote: Thought you died, glad to see a post of you.
I would love to see deathrun being brought back from the dead

Server Owner wise I would say that what deathrun needs is a dedicated owner that is on a lot, actively on the server, pushing events and stuff for people to do, without a doubt lua is extremely helpful to know and but it wouldn't be a necessity for deathrun in its current state.



Best of luck if someone decides to take up the mantle of deathrun server owner (if someone does take up the mantle and is unsure about something you can always contact me on discord ill be happy to help out.)

who is Léon

Must admit, at first I wasn't quite sure but we're super happy to see that there are people who vow that they would actively play and or assist with the relaunching of Deathrun! It's great to see that there are people interested in helping and I'd personally take it as a sign (if I were to be part of the CM Team that is) that there is an interest. A couple of players may lead to more joining and cause the curve upwards that deathrun needs to return to life.

To each and everyone that expresses support: thank you. It is vital that people show support and willingness in order to attract the attention we need in order to get this thing going. See its as a pseudo bump, and also as a sign that we've not forgotten about it right after posting.


_{Edit In order for something to happen we obviously need to get the approval of the CM Team first, this post mainly serves to show that there are people interested in picking up the charge in trying to guide DR back into life, as well as to raise awareness of the issue that the server faces. If anyone wishes to come into contact with suggestions or things to add to this you can click the steam signature below in order to be taken to my steam page where I can give you my discord details later. Just keep in mind that currently neither I nor Nick0GR has anything to do with the revival of deathrun unless the CM team appoints us to it.}
.

I'm sorry to not be so smiley but here are my thoughts:
Initial Playerbase Growth: It doesn't matter if we assign more staff members or a more dedicated owner if there are little-to-no players. Garry's Mod servers typically gain new players through snowball growth - when a server has a lot of members, it is easier for it to gain and maintain more members. Conversely, if a server has got only a few players it's unlikely it will grow into more. The key to this is to get the current community to play Deathrun more. An ideal way of doing this is to run long-term events or something similar which will also benefit them on SSRP (though it seems to not be as popular recently) or TTT. Zarp is in the privileged position to have an existing community, and this can be leveraged to get more players.

Playerbase Retention: If you want players to keep playing, you will need a lot of PointShop unlocks and these unlocks need to be simple and viable. The TTT mechanism seems to work but it's confusing. Make something simple and rewarding and straightforward. Wins and gameplay time = points for instance. Points mean you buy things. No loot boxes and all that, people typically get turned off by that. Once people are drawn to the server by these things, they'll be unlikely to go elsewhere IF there are additionally a LOT of maps. Deathrun thrives on maps. If you have few maps, people will easily just go elsewhere.

The Long Haul: It will take a long time to achieve the above. If the staff or owner are easily let down by the lack of playerbase, they should not try to revive the server. It will take a lot of work. At this point it frankly should be analysed properly if it's even worth reviving Deathrun. I personally would integrate it into SSRP as a minigame of sorts within that - it's a radical idea but it is a win-win situation in many ways. Either way, Deathrun needs to undergo either a difficult revival, or termination altogether.

Justice wrote: The last thing one needs to do for typing something like this is to apologize, we can be all hyped and super excited but in the end, there is a gritty truth to it. As is most of life.

---

Justice wrote: You are definitely right on this one, keeping players is one thing but initially getting them will be exceptionally difficult. One of the best ways we thought we could achieve this is by pushing for a larger update which will need time to be worked on. The exact specifics are a bit up in the air, the question is what is best to be added, but it is something that we had thought about. Once we grab an initial player base hopefully we'll see that players stick around. We cannot see the future but we can definitely try to project what'll happen.

---

Justice wrote: A simple system reigns supreme. Many fun unlocks do often lead people to enjoy the game mode. Though the pointshop aspect is clearly managed by Martin and would not be in the hands of the to-be server owner. The maps seem easy enough, I really don't see how they are anymore bothersome to add and I'm sure there's plenty that's on the workshop. Credit does need to be given, however, the maps will have to be tried out before they'd actually be deployed so that we keep the buggy ones out fo the loop and don't have players leave because of it. For the events, yeah, that'd probably be a huge addition as part of the updates that would have to be planned out. If no new content flow is added the server will die out but events can definitely be an addition made in that constant flow.

---

Justice wrote: It will definitely take a long time, but, at least I am prepared for that. Some people may need to run the numbers but as I've said before its hard to anticipate exactly what'll happen. Maybe a sudden resurgence will occur for the gamemode or maybe it'll simply stay as dead as it is, that does not matter though. We made this with the intention of giving it a shot no matter the outcome its sad to see so much effort that was put into it over the years waste away like this.

Note: this reply was typed in about 3 minutes but I did take the time to read through your entire reply. My shift is about to end and I need to catch the bus home so if I mucked something up I'll rectify that when I do return. Thank you regardless, I do appreciate people who take the time to point out the difficulties that the team that undertakes this is to face just as much as people who express support.

I would like to personally add that I have never been let down when trying to revive a server, I was a murder staff member for about a year give or take and when I joined it was already in a great decline. Not only that but I was the only trying even till the very end, I went as far as to start playing SSRP so I can aquire items to give away as part of events that I personally organized with little to no help from anyone else (the only thing that I didn't do myself was a way to track how many skulls users have gotten within a certain time limit that Xnator made). Not to put shame on BDnico or Wolfi (the other lead team members at the time) but they had both more or less given up by the end, BDnico focusing on deathrun and Wolfi focusing on his school work and stuff.