Dixon's Discussions: The Weapons

[DixonCider(real)]

Hey, and welcome to the first iteration of a bit of an ongoing thing I'm planning to do to help keep interest/the community active/productive on the forums so this isn't a /complete/ waste of money for our benefactors. We'll kick off this first topic with a bang.

Weapons.​

They're a crucial aspect for any FPS, and in Half-Life 2 and replaying it; weapons are strewn higgledy piggledy around the environment; from underneath overturned bathtubs, in old abandoned vans, and in people's apartments. Weapons are given at certain points of the game to help clear out the tasks ahead and to help solve puzzles, making them more like tools.

Yet on HL2RP it's a challenge to regulate them. Typically you either get your first gun on a server either on your first day or in the next week after joining; AKA there is typically either too much restriction or not enough. Regulating them is a challenge because ideally you'd want room for them to exist as they help drive roleplay, but yet at the same time not enough room as to clog the system with everyone owning an AR3.


So, any ideas for the control/regulation of weapons?

 

[DixonCider(real)]

Here's my own personal thoughts on the topic:

To avoid having to create an entire BMD faction (typically staff-run), or have people forced to shotcop for weapons, promoting players to be bloodthirsty scriptwhores; I recommend we make weapons more event-oriented; obtainable, but challenging to get.
Perhaps add puzzle-events to civilians wandering around restricted zones, offering rewards of ammunition/medical supplies, along with a weapon. The kind of shit where you cut down a tree for it to fall on a locked shack, entering through the roof to find an empty shotgun on a desk. Rewards for ingenuity/roleplay/creativity, and within reason.

An example:
A group of citizens in an area of the sewers stumble upon a zombified metrocop. The group have the option to overpower and perhaps kill it, looting the corpse for some low-ranking unit gear- but at the risk the biosignal going off, and dispatch ordering an investigation as a result; this being heard over its radio. The citizens may be forced deeper into the sewers, where some more zombies/headcrabs might await, or they can head back to the surface, attempting to evade the approaching metropolice.

IC Reasoning:
Recent flooding and rainstorms have forced headcrabs up from the deeper parts of the sewers. A lone unit foolishly decided to investigate noises heard from a sewer manhole in which he was gat by a headcrab. An hour or so prior to the arrival of the bluesuit gang, which was not enough time for him to be assumed dead/MIA, so his biosignal going off triggered the average response of an investigation. If this followed a rainstorm weather event, it would be even more "logical".

 

[Aspect™]

People assume that being a member of the Resistance means having a weapon of sorts, either melee or ranged. Although I disagree, it's the standard that has been set by other servers, and although changing it will be hard, I intend to listen to the community and at least attempt to satisfy people's needs without completely going along with this standard. That's one of the reasons why weapons, especially ranged ones, will be somewhat rare here.

Another reason is our PK system. NLR is hard to regulate and explain from an IC perspective, and is generally something inherited by DarkRP when the gamemode was created. It's like having money printers in hl2rp. It's stupid. Hence Permanent Kills being commonplace (except for events which really don't warrant a PK. The PK guidelines can be found here).
For this reason, I want to make deaths as rare as possible because, frankly, permanently losing your character can suck. Sure, people shouldn't get too attached with their characters, but it can still suck.

And to make deaths more rare, we have to either take away the tool which allows people to cause the death of others, or add more security measures. The former is easier to do.

To combat this I plan to attempt a number of different possible solutions, some being through events and through, yes, Black Market Dealers.
Although everyone can be a Black Market Dealer if they have something to sell, unfortunately they will never be as extensive as Staff-Ran BMDs. If that doesn't work out either, I have more cards up my sleeve, but I won't reveal anything just yet.