New Beginnings

Tyrex said:

I would love to have some other games even something like a Minecraft server or something to play with you guys together. I've not so recently split ways with my closest friend who I used to game with constantly, so y'all filled in that much needed void for me emotionally and I couldn't be more appreciative. I just wish we would stop being so shitty to each other sometimes over dumb disagreements over a text-roleplaying server, life is short.

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This was why I wanted a gamemodes server so that we could all play together and hang out and be a community past this tension revolving some rp servers.

It's important we're able to feel like we enjoy spending time with each other, because afterall that's literally what a community is.

I've had a lot of fun throwing up a ttt server or a pz server or something like murder and just having a fun night with some tnbers. That should be more of a regular experience I think.

Would you guys like something like that? Anyrhing in particular?

Honestly, don't know what the bulk of these changes might mean. I see things that make me nervous, and none of it is something so simply resolved as just 'talk to so-and-so'. It's served as a good reminder for me to go through my old stuff though to make sure I have it in another form just in case. What I'm seeing is a whole lot of changes, and a request for faith that I'm not so sure is easily mustered these days. Hell I'm not so sure I even want to post here about this, because these sorts of threads or big changes always seem to be hornets nests where someone is hoping you'll say the wrong thing to pounce on you.

But this...

Gangleider said:

This will include an entire facelift and reorganization of the community spaces on the forums and Discord, and most pertinently, a name change. We want to make sure that the changes we are making stick, and that we leave the past behind us. This was not a decision made lightly, especially given how sentimental many of us are about the good memories made over the years, but we feel that this is ultimately the best way forward.

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I know. I'm old. Maybe I'm just nostalgic about the name. I've been here a while(on and off), but I can safely say that people talk shit no matter what about other servers. I've seen it, I've heard it, and I hesitate to say anyone has a good reputation in GMod serious RP. I have heard horrible shit about every community and found out plenty of it is real, and some of it is ongoing.

You want to know what I think might be a particularly nasty stain on TnB's reputation- or whatever it's called after the name change?

Perfidity.

Unless you're planning on purging literally everything that has ever been about this place (in which case for the love of god you let everyone know to back up their shit, the archives being locked away was incredibly upsetting for me, and I'm sure others), people will know, or find out what this place was called. If someone was scared away by the name, or it's associations, lying to them about where they are is not likely to go over well with them. Changing a name does not change it's past. It will not change the people who are here. It will not change what has failed, what has worked, what has been celebrated, and what has been abhorrent.

If you want to start over completely fresh, a new community, I think everyone would just prefer you said so.

10 year HL2 goblin just giving my 2 cents:

There have been PLENTY of ideas and suggestions from people that cared to take HOURS OUT OF THEIR DAY when it comes to improving what we call home (HL2 in my case)... DOZENS of pages even. These were thrown out the window to flip this established community on its head WITHOUT TELLING THE MAJORITY BEFOREHAND? This is a real slap in the face to me, man. Real sad to see...

The Red Menace said:

Also a forced uprising plot to end a mismanaged server is just so lame. Just shut it down at that point and be done with it. It’s not earned at all.

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Let me know if I'm completely out of whack here, and that this present admin team for HL2 is somehow more dysfunctional than any previous ones over the past ten years, but from a disinterested/uninformed point of view, "mismanaged" misses the point.

Maybe there are some morons on the team, but it doesn't matter if you had all the minds of the past together cooking up anything for us in 2024. A polished turd is still a turd. The community lacks players. 45 people in this thread are probably the only people in the world who care about this issue right now, and we know 1/5th of that will only get on a server more than a blue moon.

Honestly, reading the arguments of others, I am kinda sold on not changing the name now. There is room for plenty of other changes, but trying to just, pretend we're something totally new isn't the way to go.

You need something like a darkrp if you want to improve player counts, something to get the name out like advertising and also for people who are used to taking things super serious to blow off steam. Watching everyone tweak out after they just saw dark rp and immediately flew to the comments without reading the whole thing was pretty funny regardless. Why complain about darkrp when you won't even connect to serious rp?

Edit: As for the name change, eh. But it has a lot of history connected to it both good and bad, nostalgia is a powerful tool.

claiming to want to move away from a toxic environment and then saying you're gonna launch a darkrp server, one of the most toxic gamemodes of the entire game, is pretty funny to be honest

I'm optimistic about these changes, but one thing from reading all about the arguements are..... changing names weren't a way to go, what we should do is that to have a talk and conversation with the community, lots of people already voiced their opinion in CCC and some how this announcement just threw everything out of the window even though I thought I was the one out of loop, instead everyone except a few were in the loop.....

I dare suggest we just take one step back, hold these changes and gauge interests and opinion, I know it's the same old faces but if you truly are here to change things, I'd wish you to engage actively with the community before making announcement or changes.

Changing the name isn't going to bring people back.
Actually changing does that...

I got burnt out after a hundred "I have a really, really good ideas that will [x]" which resulted in exactly nothing in addition to a several extra hundred "I have a really, really good idea that will [x]" that almost made me verbally and mentally vomit both.

This is primarily why I had no effort invested into the HL2 relaunch. There was no interest left for me there, and most of how things went before that nearly if-not-totally crushed any and all interest I had at the time.

I tried my best during NiP part 1 with routine updates when I wasn't occupied with my actual job, at least. Wee.

Johnston said:

NWN,

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Haven't read the whole thread but Johnston is bang on with this. Neverwinter Nights honestly provides one of the best frameworks for custom gamemodes out there, yes it's old as fuck and a bit ps2 graphics-y but the game itself was made to enable others to create their own stories (it is D&D afterall) and it does it really fucking well.

While I.... Am apprehensive but not entirely negative about changing the name and direction of TnB, I do not feel a namechange will work.

Take this from someone who studied gamedev in the literal worst school in the country. They overhauled their name and rebranded and it was the same old shit every single time.

Changing the name did nothing to fix inherent problems with its system of education, quality of teachers and lack of infrastructure between campus buildings. I won't name it due to not wanting to be doxed but Gangleider might be able to figure it out. Toch maatje?

People will always figure out what a previous name is. Everyone who hated it will mark it down and avoid it. Some might straggle in, but it doesn't work.
The rich and storied history works in your favour, if only you don't shy away from it. That signifies weakness and you need to have serious chops to back that up.
Getting rid of the name gets rid of all the bad but also all of the good. And if you don't believe this community can be raised up again, maybe you shouldn't be its leadership - because clearly you don't believe in it enough.

In the brief year or two I've been back the real problems have been cynical people on the discord not treating new blood with a serious attitude, and servers flickering on and off in a seizure inducing pattern that breaks all momentum.

Stick to a path, listen to those that want to travel the road, and guarantee continuity.
For the sake of all gods above and below, listen to your player base.

The name change seems performative and misguided. Nobody who has serious issues with this place is going to return based off of a name change, whereas the brand name of Taco n Banana is what has kept this places head above the waters in the years when the servers weren't very good.

Clutching onto the name change as this big evil is odd, it's a name. It doesn't matter. That being said, points on still knowing this is TnB are bang on, the reputation you want to avoid will not go away. Though perhaps it could be seen as a step in the right direction. I don't care, really.

Taking a step back and rethinking on how we want to operate going forward is a good thing. The community has, and I've said this before, been a specialist in failure for... quite a while. Projects launch and quickly simmer down to nothing due to staff laziness, drama and people losing faith. A lot of what I've said in the HL2 feedback thread covers what I really think, so I won't press here. There is, and has been, no solid foundation for far too long.

All of the talk of "not consulting the community" is rather curious, given half of the people saying such haven't played for god knows how long (and let's be honest, have no intention of playing) or have been so hands off, they don't really have the right to complain. Everyone thinks they know what is best, and it's clear no one does (see the servers over the past few years).

I've said this privately, and I'll say it openly. People reappearing the second there is a void in power and then actually filling said void (I called it) comes across as a power grab, and I'll refuse to think otherwise until proven wrong. The ball is in your court.

vegetal is right, we should do Stalker.

e; just wanted to edit in that I have no overly negative opinions about any of the changes or planned events. I'm curious to see what comes next.

Since I've been tagged, will add my thoughts. I thought about changing the name of TnB multiple times and came close to seeing something go through more than once. Honestly, I'm glad I never went through with it. The people that know about TnB aren't going to rejoin just because the name changed, I mean come on, really that's like the oldest trick in the book when you look at it simply. Up until the Willard discussions regarding TRP I thought rebranding was the way forward but honestly, I don't think TnB really needs to actually change its name for that. You can influence and change the culture without forgetting the past.

Honestly? This is just a case of Leadership being TOO up front. Announcing a new management along with a name change is what I would call self sabotage. Almost by default puts a lot of people on the defensive and then topping it off with what a lot of people would think is a joke or is just ripe for misunderstanding in focusing on Dark RP. Then add that it seems like the new management was clearly unprepared in the messaging and then banning people kicking off and locking the discussion thread to 'clean up posts' (really?) is only going to sour people further.

I don't think TnB has a lot to lose with what's happening right now. I think looking backwards for people to fill in managing positions was a bad idea, at least without actual current involvement and getting some actual support from the regular players to smooth this over but ultimately there's a certain lack of options when it comes to that anyway.

As for making humongous decisions without consulting the community or even the admin teams themselves, well, that's classic TnB isn't it?

I think it’s smart to branch out beyond just Serious RP, especially if we want to attract different types of players and grow the community. Let’s be honest, GMOD’s Serious RP scene isn’t as big as it used to be, and a lot of people are starting to feel burned out with the same old narratives. I’d love to see more laid-back, casual servers, but also some serious ones that dive into new, unexplored settings.

Mixing things up and trying out fresh ideas is the way to keep the community alive and interesting. Like Bennet said, at this point, TnB doesn’t have much to lose by experimenting with some change. Rather than hoping for this to fail, why not focus on the potential it might bring or at least give it a chance? In the end, if things don’t work out, these changes can always be reversed.

The name should stay—it’s part of who we are as a community, and changing it won’t really impact us. Like Lambda mentioned, what we really need is a fun, not so serious, community-driven game mode where we can all just enjoy ourselves without the stress.

Soooo are we going to acknowledge within not 24 hours of these community leaders/managers being crowned that they have about 95% of the community disagreeing with them, banning someone, and locking threads and deleting posts? Off to a great start. Gives off a real taste of what's to come.

Lambda said:

This was why I wanted a gamemodes server so that we could all play together and hang out and be a community past this tension revolving some rp servers.

It's important we're able to feel like we enjoy spending time with each other, because afterall that's literally what a community is.

I've had a lot of fun throwing up a ttt server or a pz server or something like murder and just having a fun night with some tnbers. That should be more of a regular experience I think.

Would you guys like something like that? Anyrhing in particular?

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Need TRP, If you throw a PZ server up im dragging Metromann001 to fortify a garage again

Anyways, I think the sudden Announcement was poor at best on making sure the community doesn't immediately turn a sour look, this should've been brought up to the community to engage more of a idea. We are a "Community" after all and we all kinda are here for a common goal.

Also the name change. I don't think it's going to do a lot apart from have a few prying eyes from the outside think of it as a sleazy way of trying to clean yourself up. It dosent take much to do a bit of research and find out whats happened, if you really want to change our "look", a name change aint the way to go (and in my opinion, a very poor way at that. Instead you should be trying to put the effort to clean up whats happened. Whilst yes that name is going to have a bad taste in a few peoples mouth, if you have evidence and proof to show that effort is being put in place to change, honestly, I think that's a much better look then a new brand.

I've been gone for 8 months and theres been no improvement. There's dozens of peoe just laughing at us, myself included when I heard we were going to merge with Willard, you know, the people we clowned forever?

I can appreciate the willingness to change but at the same time you've lost the plot. Also a name change is going to obliterate the identity of the community after so long.

I'm not mad man, i'm just tired.

TheGr8Spade said:

I heard we were going to merge with Willard

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We never merged with Willard. We arranged to collaborate on TRP. There was and will not be any kind of merging.

Now that that's out of the way:

I don't particularly agree with the sentiment of not being able to change. Though i do agree I don't like the idea of a name change. Honestly all it takes to change is for the people who made this post to be serious about making this community the best it can be, both in regards to the quality of our servers and outside of the servers.

That's it. There's no shortcut like changing a name to get us there, but some actual persistent care will see healthy results in a matter of time. TRP isn't being made because all of the right parts fell into place at the right time, it's been a struggle and I'm really not sure how my ADHD brain had been able to handle focusing so much time and care into making it happen. But I've been persistent and I'm beginning to see the results I want.