- Jan 29, 2015
- 1,438
We've been rather busy in your absence, Mr. Freeman.
It is known that City 13 has always stood as a city of contrast, often standing against the meaning of time itself-- that is, in spite of being a city rich in history and experiences both before and after the arrival of the Combine, it still manages to render itself into something unfamiliar. By the year 2027, a mere year ahead of when we had last seen many of these stories at play, the city once more morphed itself into something wholly unrecognizable.
As a combined series of factors, societal and otherwise, sent the City's natural order into an off-balance tilt, opportunity was found in the hearts of idealists and so-called free thinkers who capitalized upon this weakness, swarming the system from the inside. The City itself reacted just how any living organism would have; its systems were flooded with antibodies, its white blood cells disregarding all other functions beyond self-preservation as the city's veins were purged of their diseased contents.
The lasting, decrepit malignant infections that had taken root in the city were brutally expunged. Even the resistance cells and networks that predated the refugee waves of 2024, those who were only mentioned in the silent whispers of rumors and urban myths among the underground, the fabled Old Guards of Bohemia's liberties and memory, were left with their backs pressed firmly against the wall and faced with potential annihilation. And with the utterance of a single command by the representative of an overworld beyond human comprehension, they were. No heroes or icons of hope emerged to save the day. There was no miraculous news of other cities springing up into revolution that could've hoped to change things.
The people of City 13, enforcers and workers alike, those who found themselves still alive, were left to prove their own worthiness of survival, whether by collaboration, or at least feigned compliance with the Union's regime; and those that couldn't were simply replenished by the next set of transfers over the coming months.
2027 would go on to have one of the coldest summers recorded in the region yet.
Taco N Banana will be relaunching its Half-Life 2 Roleplay server on June 21st, 2024, when we will be returning once more to our setting of City 13 in a new light following a 1-year timeskip and a database wipe. We are returning to City 13 with the acknowledgment that, while we have managed to harbor a unique setting of TnB's own, a variety of factors previously limited the full extent to which we could utilize the setting as both a team and as players. Now, we have managed to negate or work past many of these factors, with a full focus on truly specializing the server's focus and functions as a dystopian urban setting, where aspects of City 13's society can be utilized by its citizenry in support of their collaborative lifestyles, or in the destruction of them alike.
With this, we intend to explore to the greatest extent what's possible through our content in order to deliver a regularly unique experience to our playerbase; in particular, the extensive use and potential of Half-Life 2's earlier concepts and pre-release content and aesthetics, which went remarkably underutilized early on in contrast to what as originally intended, will be restored and find a new focus in order to support the server atmosphere and character experiences.
In the last few months that we have spent working on the server, several areas of the server have received complete overhauls, with an immense overall focus on what a player is able to truly do on a whim of his or her own decisions within one of Earth's most prominent industrial urban centers. These include a complete reconsideration of how we approach events, overarching plotlines, and the effects of several trends from within the administration team on both OOC and IC player agency.
While it will always be on the part of the admins to provide for a fun experience and occasionally helping foster player agency where needed, the former practices of forcing the server in a certain direction, making players act a certain way to reach the end of an event, and pre-constructed railroaded plotlines will now be long gone. Likewise, the concept of events in general are to once more be reserved for truly special moments written by admins and players alike, as character interaction and choice take precedence rather than forcing things to happen 'just to happen'.
In addition to reconsideration of how events and player agency is handled, we have also emphasized the subject of the city's society being able to function on its own with both a small and large playerbase, and ways to fight the common negative trends associated with the more often overlooked aspects of the server, such as player businesses and venues.
Several new systems have been developed for the clothing and food/drink industry that seeks to address many of the issues of stagnation by either encouraging or requiring continued use of the city's functions, should you be interested in the well-being and comfort of your character, or their profits. This leads us into the general economy, which has also received a major rework; within City 13, common goods and luxuries now hold more precedence within the city as the common worker is no longer guaranteed an instant payout of credits with their rations, introducing an aspect of bartering and potential consideration of worth of goods with individual storeowners, particularly miscellaneous goods license holders, which has also been tied to an expanded crafting system which makes use of plenty of items you will be able to find throughout the city.
Altogether, your character's fate is yours to choose as we approach the server with the mindset of treating the playerbase with equal respect as cognizant adults aware of their actions. Though enforced PKs won't be dished out like candy and will continue to be reserved for particularly negligent or special situations, there will also be neither any protection bias nor coddling for your character or team in any situation, regardless of their side of the law.
Danger will always linger over the heads of those trapped within the walls of City 13, and it will be down to them alone to adapt and survive.
On a more technical note, due to both extensive changes to the server and an interest in reestablishing consistency in several key areas that got rather chaotic with loose management throughout the server's lifetime, we will be moving forward with a database wipe in the 1-2 week lead-up to the server launch on June 21st. This will delete all character slots, inventories, permissions, preferences, etc. across the board, with the intention of starting anew in many of these areas so that we have a fresh foundation to work from. This does not necessarily mean that your ordinary citizen cannot be recreated, as this is more of a technical & administrative matter.
If you have any potential concerns or questions regarding the database wipe, do not hesitate to reach out to me via PM at
Decepti
Come launch day, citizens will be experiencing the first steps back towards 'normalization' of City 13's procedures. This follows an era of chaos which left several local data banks of the Combine's Human Index damaged and in a critical state, effectively corrupting citizen records across the board. Eventually restored to functional levels alongside order to the city, much of City 13's non-CCA affiliated citizenry would go on to be identified and re-registered.
While many of the surviving prominent anti-citizens were recognized and caught in this process, those who were both unimportant and smart enough were able to slip through the cracks of the system by adopting new identities with their newly assigned CIDs, fully leaving their old pasts behind in the interest of survival.
In the interest of allowing our players to continue their stories should they wish, characters are free to return (sans potential faction restrictions - further noted below), should they not have been permakilled throughout the iteration. However, this should not be taken as personal immunity to dangers should you choose to play an existing character that may have existing bad blood with other past characters, or anyone who may recognize them. In such a case, you will want to make full use of the potential of taking on a new identity- though should this mask slip and you've been identified at any point, it will be your situation to deal with.
Several factions will be completely revamped going forward. In this particular case, changes and overhauls will be announced by the leaders of their respective factions, as the sheer amount of specific changes and new directions on their part would be more concisely and better explained in their own words than my own summaries. If you are a member of any official faction, then it would be best to ensure that you stay up-to-date with what your faction leader has to say in the near future.
Finally, the current Half-Life 2 - City 13 forum boards will be archived. It will not be hidden, but instead moved to the archives so that we may establish a new, fully reorganized board structure with a clean slate to work off of as we near the launch date.
With all of that said, this thread is free to use for further discussion and general inquiries. Again, do take note that we intend to go more in-depth on certain changes to factions and prominent overhauls to key server features alike in future threads to come, so be sure to keep an eye on the forums in the coming weeks.
...until we meet again.
