Why can't we roleplay on SRB2?

[clairebun]

Mystic has it spot on, if you've ever been in one of these RP servers you'll understand how badly executed the role play really is. I must ask you though, Blue, how do you define 'abuse'?

Anything that really isn't genuinely fun for the audience. I guess what I'm basically referring to is using really crappy addons or settings to a server that just make it irritating and not fun at all. Cramped house maps, poorly designed character wads, and just flat out being stupid and adding a billion wads nobody has. I don't envision said problems to be solely handled by banning, per se, but rather quality wads and server nettique need to be promoted where most of the MS community will see it. I'm absolutely certain that shovelware would drop dramatically if we just had new content on srb2.org. Otherwise, people are just getting wads from all over the place, and there's no extra attention being placed on the good addons.

[Text block]

So, what you're saying is this would only have a chance if the more 'competent' part of the community actually cared anymore. This is something I was a bit afraid of, actually.

There are ways to create awesome-sauce match servers, but if we want them to start overpowering then we need to get our hands on another server and fix up the dedicated mode in SRB2, stick 3 or so on there (match, CTF and race, I guess) and sticky them (which I can do now, ever wonder why the SRB2.org server is always at the top?) and we may get somewhere. Of course, we might not even need another server, I haven't really looked at our server running more than one SRB2 server at full capacity yet, so all is left to debate, if we can get 3 or so 24/7 servers up then great!

Sounds plausible to me... though if we really want them to be "awesome-sauce", I don't think we'd be able to do that without some variable addon to the mix. The default rotations are stale, and I think that might be one of the larger reasons why a person wouldn't enjoy the game. I think the Best of OLDC, although tremendous in filesize and therefore obviously not downloadable, would easily fix the "stale" problem. If that isn't feasible, then at least a default match server is a match server....

We could always just not have a centralized Master Server for everyone to mooch off of. Many of us exist in our little separated SRB2 communities or situations, so often a IP based game is actually rather effective.

Why not have everyone else deal with the RP issue on their own terms instead of forcing certain obligations down everyone else's throats?

As long as the MS is here, people will go "hey let's play a rp game, i'll host on the ms lol". If the MS isn't there, they'll find someone else's master server to mend with, and most likely one that's RP friendly. If not, they can get their friends together and make their own and invite people themselves.
People who are generally looking for a well-done CTF game could just plop into #srb2fun (although they're probably already sitting in there anyways...) and round up people for it. "Pro" players don't have to bother with rampant, distracing, RPing imbeciles, and pathetic, idiotic dictators won't stop the RPers from actually ENJOYING themselves for once. We can also divert those resources to actually getting more important stuff done...

I tried something like this a long time ago, though it was the other way around. I basically considered the MS wasn't going to change any time soon, so I tried to invent a message board (which eventually spawned a master server) where RPs and hangouts were allowed, so as to reduce the quarrel on the SRB2MS. Both the forums and the master server were unsuccessful, though. That master server is currently down at the moment, but if we agreed to do what you propose, then I would be happy to open back up the master server. Though, y'know, I'd prefer it be used this time around rather than dwindling away bandwidth. ;P

I'm personally tired of the dead-end generic Match and Coop servers that rarely if ever go beyond Mystic Realm (which will probably be the representative of these so called "perfect Match/CTF/Race/RP servers"). If anything, we should be ENCOURAGING creative play and custom wads, not dull and illustriously boring standard play. But that's just me. :)

I actually was hosting a netgame late last night where we were doing match in Mystic Realm's coop maps, and even if they weren't entirely made for match, I'd have to agree that it was a lot better than the default rotation. What's basically the problem is that most of the time, the wrong wads are added, eg. SA City, SMS. Again, I think we need to get srb2.org's addons section back in business in order to slow down the use of shovelware and encourage quality addons.



@Mystic: I think one possible workaround to the MS RP problem is that you can temporarily disable joins during an RP session. Not flawless, but at least it's a bit of a solution.

I have seen both sides of this issue quite clearly (given the amount of times I've brought it up), and I see one clear answer: abolish the MS. Let everyone form their own little mini-communities, and not be forced to follow the rules of another. That way, we're all happy. The RPers can have what they want, and we can finally get rid of the god-awful reporting system that's spawning players whose sole intent of joining servers is to be tattle-tails. It's not like joining via IP address will kill anybody.

Sounds simpler than the rest of this giant conversation. Hell, why not?

 

[Galefox]

Ok this might sound a little mean so sorry if it's offensive.

I don't agree with the last few posts. I don't even like fighting games and I really hate competitive games, especially CTF because it made me relive middle school volleyball where no one would even give me a chance and I got trampled once but that's a bit off topic... Co-ops isn't just for little kids and I'm getting really sick and tired of everywhere I go hearing how co-ops is just for babies and adults play VS servers because that's a huge load of crap anyway. I'm 18 years old and I have fun being Tails and toeing people through the sky. I think there should me more co-op servers because I can hardly even find one.

I just started playing the game and, yeah, I'm gonna be the newbie that says "Ooh Mystic Realms is awesome it's fun and interesting!" But I wouldn't mind making my own games using my own sprites and my own characters, including RP areas that I could use on a private server but the bottom line is I simply don't know how and though I've tried to learn it's all very confusing. I don't see why there can't be a character editor that just has 34 slots that you drag and drop sprites into and then maybe you could set additional functions like "Do they fly and for how long?" or "Do they shoot something?" I've met alot of people that say "I'd design a game but I'm terrible at math and all that code makes no sense to me!" You ever think all those confusing numbers are to blame for the lacking in imagination? I trued to learn about that in the editing thing but it was talking about programs I never even knew existed like DeePsea which led me to believe "This is a programmers' territory I can't do this!" So that could be part of the problem.

As for the democracy thing, It's a nice idea but with every democracy there are those who abuse it. It would take alot of time and effort to try to prepare for that. It's a long shot though it might be something worth bringing up.

 

[Cue]

I have seen both sides of this issue quite clearly (given the amount of times I've brought it up), and I see one clear answer: abolish the MS. Let everyone form their own little mini-communities, and not be forced to follow the rules of another. That way, we're all happy. The RPers can have what they want, and we can finally get rid of the god-awful reporting system that's spawning players whose sole intent of joining servers is to be tattle-tails. It's not like joining via IP address will kill anybody.

That leaves the problem that we'll end up with people organising on the board and decent netgames will no longer exist, since a decent game will have a fair few players, which are impossible to round up without blatantly advertising. You can't just expect people to think "Oh, hey, maybe Y's server is up, I'll join!" or set times, it really doesn't work like that. There's a reason I find games without a master server to not be very fun, and that's because I can never find a decent number of people to play it (see Bootfighter, which would be much better with a master server).

 

[Penopat]

That leaves the problem that we'll end up with people organising on the board and decent netgames will no longer exist, since a decent game will have a fair few players, which are impossible to round up without blatantly advertising. You can't just expect people to think "Oh, hey, maybe Y's server is up, I'll join!" or set times, it really doesn't work like that. There's a reason I find games without a master server to not be very fun, and that's because I can never find a decent number of people to play it (see Bootfighter, which would be much better with a master server).

Decent netgames ALREADY no longer exist. The MS doesn't help. Besides, a round up of players will often wield better results than hosting a dedicated server forever...

Part of the issue is that people would blatantly advertise in their own communities, not on the boards - See #srb2fun. If Mystic or FF decide to host, everyone goes to join. Everyone who Mystic attracts is generally in #srb2fun to begin with, so why can't we just pull a IP game to play? If people are honest-to-god not playing because they're too lazy to go around random Coop servers (ewww noobs lol!), then the resulting nationalist action of such would actually get all the pro players interested again as they play in their own community without the random Coop servers. My community is so hardcore and awesome.

Mrs. Catperson would just own a separate SRB2 community and invite all of her friends to join, and thus host their own games consistently and AWAY FROM US BIG EVIL DUMB POOPIE DICTATORHEADS.
I have to be honest, most of these RPers have a LOT more drive to get these things set up compare to us lazy "pro" players, and are often actually more segregating... Ridding of these players will just leave the MS a dead wasteland where an occasional 2 person match game comes around every 3 days. It's our fault good games fail to exist, not the n00blies.

We've tried the MS for "good" games and it's obviously failing. I don't see how IP games would be any worse in this regard. I'd think it'd be worth a try, at least.

I'm talking with Spazzo here. Removing the central MS would be the best idea to sort out the trash, and the trash would sort ITSELF out and would not have to deal with us as the trash...

 

[Galefox]

Ok now this whole thing is beyond me. Penopat, what do you have against co-ops?

If people are honest-to-god not playing because they're too lazy to go around random Coop servers (ewww noobs lol!), then the resulting nationalist action of such would actually get all the pro players interested again as they play in their own community without the random Coop servers. My community is so hardcore and awesome.

Is co-ops REALLY that bad? Why is it that we all have to fight eachother? Why? Can't anyone get on the internet and not need to feel superior to everybody else? Can't people stop this BS ridiculous fighting crap? I mean geeze! I FINALLY find a Sonic game that doesn't revolve around pointlessly fighting people and all people ever do is bash the co-op games. What's up with that? It's totally freaking awesome when people cooperate. AND it's the reason why I liked Sonic 3 so much. Co-ops games make everyone feel important and there's no competition. They're a saving grace if you just wanna play a game without people yelling at you because you suck.

 

[Kuja]

Galefox, I believe the "ewww, co-op noobs" comment was sarcasm. Also, I doubt anyone in this thread has it in for co-op mode. Then again, It is usually accompanied with a million wads that nobody in their right mind would have.(Bonic.wad, anyone?)
Those people who WANT to play co-op CAN'T, and are forced to open a server that nobody will join. I was one of these people at one time, but I think I'm veering off topic now.

 

[Chaos Knux]

As for the democracy thing, It's a nice idea but with every democracy there are those who abuse it. It would take alot of time and effort to try to prepare for that. It's a long shot though it might be something worth bringing up.

Last time I checked, the MS wasn't a democracy, it was a dictatorship. And Cue has succeeded Logan as the head dick.

 

[clairebun]

Ok now this whole thing is beyond me. Penopat, what do you have against co-ops?

If people are honest-to-god not playing because they're too lazy to go around random Coop servers (ewww noobs lol!), then the resulting nationalist action of such would actually get all the pro players interested again as they play in their own community without the random Coop servers. My community is so hardcore and awesome.

Is co-ops REALLY that bad? Why is it that we all have to fight eachother? Why? Can't anyone get on the internet and not need to feel superior to everybody else? Can't people stop this BS ridiculous fighting crap? I mean geeze! I FINALLY find a Sonic game that doesn't revolve around pointlessly fighting people and all people ever do is bash the co-op games. What's up with that? It's totally freaking awesome when people cooperate. AND it's the reason why I liked Sonic 3 so much. Co-ops games make everyone feel important and there's no competition. They're a saving grace if you just wanna play a game without people yelling at you because you suck.

Slow down there. When Penopat said "(ewww noobs lol!)", he was joking about how a lot of people are repulsed by coop servers. It's not that they have anything against the cooperation bit, it's that often times coop is the same stale, unchallenging adventure through default SRB2 maps each time.

At any rate, I'm wholeheartedly for just getting rid of the master server. It's a much simpler answer to this whole problem, and I can't see how it could get any worse than how it is now.

 

[Penopat]

Is co-ops REALLY that bad? Why is it that we all have to fight eachother? Why? Can't anyone get on the internet and not need to feel superior to everybody else? Can't people stop this BS ridiculous fighting crap? I mean geeze! I FINALLY find a Sonic game that doesn't revolve around pointlessly fighting people and all people ever do is bash the co-op games. What's up with that? It's totally freaking awesome when people cooperate. AND it's the reason why I liked Sonic 3 so much. Co-ops games make everyone feel important and there's no competition. They're a saving grace if you just wanna play a game without people yelling at you because you suck.

I'm really on your side, you know... I'm not a spy, I swear.

Personally, a unique Coop game is more entertaining than a Match server could ever be. Now CTF, that's a different issue...
RPing is in a whole other realm, though. Another realm I'm totally fine in, since they can ALSO more entertaining than a Match server could ever be.

*hides her butterfly knife*

holy crap, i'm roleplaying omg

 

[Scarbo the Black Sheep]

Coop might be more fun if there were levels that actually required multiple players for it to be finished.

 

[Eblo]

Coop might be more fun if there were levels that actually required multiple players for it to be finished.

I pretty sure there's a linedef executor trigger that requires all players.

EDIT: Yep, there is. http://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/Trigger_Linedef_Executor_-_Anywhere_in_Sector_-_All_Players

 

[Mystic]

@Mystic: I think one possible workaround to the MS RP problem is that you can temporarily disable joins during an RP session. Not flawless, but at least it's a bit of a solution.

That still doesn't solve the problem that by advertising on the MS you're looking for random people to begin with. Role playing with random people, especially in this community, just doesn't work very well.

Personally I'd rather not delete the master server, however I wouldn't mind having the game default to not being able to connect to the master server and force the player to type in an address for a master server in-game. That way if someone wants to connect to the master server they can, but they clearly already know what they're getting into because they read the topic explaining how to get onto the MS. This also makes setting up alternative master servers easier for those people who want to set up a separate master server for role playing servers, for example.

 

[Galefox]

Well at least nobody's against co-op games. What'd really spice things up is if someone could make a level like Little Big Planet's setup where there are usually alternate routes to take and such.

On the master server point, I usually search for servers to join. Wouldn't taking it down effect that? And what if you don't really know any IPs to join? That's my only concern with that subject.

Sorry, Penopat, hard to really tell what's sarcastic here yet. XD Still getting used to 'current events' here.

On the subject of the uh... 'attempted roleplay' yes. That roleplay was terrible. The only thing I saw right was that we can't really have big long posts on a game where text disappears so quickly. Any RP servers might need to alter their posting abilities or create some log for people to look through wouldn't they?

 

[clairebun]

Personally I'd rather not delete the master server, however I wouldn't mind having the game default to not being able to connect to the master server and force the player to type in an address for a master server in-game. That way if someone wants to connect to the master server they can, but they clearly already know what they're getting into because they read the topic explaining how to get onto the MS. This also makes setting up alternative master servers easier for those people who want to set up a separate master server for role playing servers, for example.

I could have sworn I suggested this a long time ago, but yes, that sounds like a good idea.

 

[sawhog]

Interesting discussion, and I think I have a question that'd fit here too.
If you aren't roleplaying, can you still "speak in character"

For example:
You are playing online as your custom Character, who is based off of a character you created that talks a certain way(i.e. has an accent) is it alright to type to reflect this? Or is it considered roleplaying? Is spouting out one of your catchphrases Rp-ing? If you are the only one doing these things, will you yourself be banned from the server?

 

[Eblo]

Interesting discussion, and I think I have a question that'd fit here too.
If you aren't roleplaying, can you still "speak in character"

For example:
You are playing online as your custom Character, who is based off of a character you created that talks a certain way(i.e. has an accent) is it alright to type to reflect this? Or is it considered roleplaying? Is spouting out one of your catchphrases Rp-ing? If you are the only one doing these things, will you yourself be banned from the server?

I've seen people talk like that a lot, but I don't remember them getting banned.

 

[clairebun]

Interesting discussion, and I think I have a question that'd fit here too.
If you aren't roleplaying, can you still "speak in character"

For example:
You are playing online as your custom Character, who is based off of a character you created that talks a certain way(i.e. has an accent) is it alright to type to reflect this? Or is it considered roleplaying? Is spouting out one of your catchphrases Rp-ing? If you are the only one doing these things, will you yourself be banned from the server?

Well, technically, that would mean you're roleplaying as a character, but I can only imagine people minding if your character is really annoying. The rule is basically set so netgames don't just consist of "hi i'm sonic", "hi i'm tails", and "hey lets go after black doom". I go to a forum where one user speaks as Captain Olimar, and none of us mind it at all, so I would expect that you'd be fine.

Also, keep in mind that the host is responsible for the server, so even if speaking in character is against the rules, only the host can get banned as a consequence.

 

[Rob]

I don't like that last factor at all, though. I got a report once, the people in it were role-playing, and the host was idle. I don't remember if the game was dedicated or not, but regardless. The person reporting said (and this person was also stated it in one of the nicest ways I've seen done) that RP is against the MS rules, and asked them to continue playing normally. The people at the other end responded very clearly "Well, we aren't the host, only the host can get in trouble, so we can do whatever we want!" That was fairly annoying to read, and I want a fix that will solve that little problem. People shouldn't be able to get away from breaking rules like that.

Also, I agree with Mystic on having a blank MS entry. Furthermore, if we set up a page that would show how to set up an address, there should be a list of alternate Master Servers that would allow the player to actually choose the MS they wanted. Obviously, this would open a lot of doors for different options for players, and I think we should explore this option.

 

[Spazzo]

however I wouldn't mind having the game default to not being able to connect to the master server and force the player to type in an address for a master server in-game

I laugh at that. Since when did creating one problem solve another? You can't just remove the MS address from the config by default and expect things to be better. You'll end up having to make 200 topics explaining how to set up the MS properly, and you're just creating more of a hassle for the end-user. That, and it only takes one trip to config.cfg to solve that, and render your "solution" useless.

That leaves the problem that we'll end up with people organising on the board and decent netgames will no longer exist

As of now, no good games do exist.

**Tangent**We can always enforce the rule to not organize netgames on the MB, or....we could just make a seperate subforum who want to do that. Of course, I don't advise that you do the latter, I'd rather let them make their own seperate communities and play their own style of netgame.

"Back in the day", I'd always join if FF, Mystic, or, heck, if anyone I knew well as a friend was hosting/playing. That's all it takes to get me up for a netgame. I don't remember the last time I actively LOOKED on the listserv menu to find a game that looked decent. I'd either join a game that I knew was up because it was planned in #srb2fun, or I'd host my own. The ONLY reason I would !gamelist/listserv is to get the IP (if I didn't already have it) which shows how little I really needed the MS to start with.

There's OBVIOUSLY a big amount of stress and controversy surrounding the MS and its rules here, if that isn't apparent enough. If I were in your shoes, I'd be taking the path of least resistance and just nuking the damn thing. It's not worth the effort to maintain anymore when all it creates is unrest within the community.

The only problem that would obviously arise from losing the MS is when you host on a port that isn't 5029 and there's no way to find out what port you're using, but I'm sure we can remedy that for SRB2ME.

 

[Cue]

There's OBVIOUSLY a big amount of stress and controversy surrounding the MS and its rules here, if that isn't apparent enough. If I were in your shoes, I'd be taking the path of least resistance and just nuking the thing.

Since when do we go for the path of least resistance? I like having the MS around, it's a useful convenience and I'd rather not see it go.