Hey everyone, happy New Year! This thread is essentially a recap the entire year of 2020 inside of our little community, where we'll be exploring the various ups and downs we've gone through and where we go from here, entering 2021. We’re looking to do this every year from now on as a way of looking back on where we’ve been, and also looking ahead to give a forecast of where we might be going.
Before anything else, I'd like to thank the various administrative teams we've had managing our servers this year. From the C45 iteration, to TRP and Halo, and to the current team of HL:NA. Also, special thanks to the developers of Eternity @TankNut @Imp for making all of what we're doing on our new script possible.
This is going to be a longer one, by the way.
fuck bennet
The Review of 2020:
January through May, we were in some uncertain times - HL2 wasn't doing so well, the population was sporadically returning to TRP (as it almost always does), and many of us were at each other's necks about how to run the server. For a while, we were infested with drama because none of us could agree on where to go or what to do. None of it was avoidable - it really was an unfortunate consequence of this community not being ready to run with yet another Half-Life server after the ending of the original Eternity server. Burnout was high as could be and it ended with us closing down HL2 for a second time.
Then came Halo. Having never personally been a major Halo fan (hi, I've never owned an Xbox), I personally didn't play it much. Despite that, I can 110% vet that the Halo administrative team did something amazing with what they had. When speaking about Halo's run it's been nothing but absolute positivity, and despite my own lack of involvement I'm still extremely proud of everybody that participated in making that RR what it was. Thank you, guys.
Nearing the final month of Halo, we found ourselves in the midst of an explosive week where a lot of us thought the community was over. Some extremely toxic behavior from a specific group of people (I'm not naming names for the sake of not giving them any more attention than they need) became so common that it was almost becoming the norm. Discrimination is nothing we should ever accept as a part of our culture at this community and it disgusts me that we let it go unchecked for so long. That day served as a good wake-up call for all of us - it told us that letting discriminatory behavior that was being waved as 'just jokes' was an awful thing to let fester in our community and we couldn't let it continue.
To anybody feeling upset by what happened in those couple of days, I'm deeply sorry for the trouble some of our former members caused, and I'm also sorry for my failure to put a stop to it myself in the moment. I hope that if you're reading this thread now, you might be able to see the strides we've made in ridding this community of any discriminatory behavior in its entirety. This may just be the 'Internet' where you need to have thick skin, but this our part of the Internet, where we don't follow that sort of expectant ideology. No, you shouldn't have to have thick skin to be here - you should be allowed to be here and enjoy it as much as anybody else, regardless of who you are. Anybody and everybody should feel welcomed here so long as their behavior is appropriate and welcoming to others in return.
At the beginning of July, Slug and I were both selected as RDAs and this enabled us to immediately push TnB in a better direction. Planning for HL:NA started around the middle of the month and our planning Discord of around thirty-or-so people put us on the right track, as well as taking various notes from Doggo's thread you can find here: https://www.taconbanana.com/threads/hl2-a-reflection.35688/
With this information and the bubbling hype of a possible new Half-Life server on the horizon, we were able to craft and polish a setting with so many different elements to it that we hoped could satisfy most of our playerbase. We're aware that there's people who enjoy delving deeper into the lore of Half-Life itself, people who just enjoy some casual rebellion and people who enjoy exploring brand new sci-fi elements that we never would've thought to include in a setting such as HL2. Thus, HL:NA was born: an amalgamation of several ideas, formed by our planning team and finalized by the administrative team to be our new flagship setting. Anybody who's played it thus far knows that it's still Half-Life 2 at it's very core but with so many extensions that it allows us to explore things that otherwise wouldn't have been possible in our previous iterations.
On August 14th we launched with minimal hiccups, aside from some crashing which we were quick to fix. Through then we've managed to keep the server pumping with life thanks to a few specific groups. Firstly, our administrative team and our developer, who've been excellent in running their own individual plot-lines, making sure situations occur fairly on the server, and being candid and helpful when dealing with new players. Secondly, the leaders of the various factions on the server who've been pushing their respective groups' goals and creating enjoyable events for associated players to participate in.
Through the 18th to 20th of December we ran the final chain of events for Terminator RP. From what I've seen everything was very well received and people had an amazing time closing their character's arcs which warms my heart. Closing Terminator was a major step forward in preparing to move the community onward; with TRP closed we're ready to pursue other avenues of roleplay alongside HL:NA without having to worry about overburdening ourselves with too much territory to cover. It was an amazing (nearly) three years that we spent with that iteration and despite its troubles I'm so appreciative that everyone showed up to give it the send-off it deserved.
The Present and Future:
So this leads me to where we are now. We sit on the eve of the new year. All of us know that there's still some rough edges that need to be smoothed within the community, but we hope to continue on the trend of making this community all-inclusive and welcoming to everybody into 2021 and beyond. Also, there's plenty of plans for what's to come next in terms of servers, RRs and community activities in general.
To give you a little insider knowledge on what's happening behind the scenes, we've recently officiated a main plot-line for HL:NA and you'll all be seeing more of that in the coming months, along with the various creative sub-plots that individual administrators have written and plan to go forward with. Even this far in, we've hardly burnt our creative juices and there's still much more to come from us.
Here's a link to our feedback forums. Be absolutely sure to post here if you have anything in the world to air out or to suggest. We're always looking for ways to improve the setting and the factions within it, so please let us know what you think. Positive feedback lets us know we're doing things right and need to keep doing it. Critical feedback helps us get closer to making things right. - https://www.taconbanana.com/forums/feedback-forums.498/
Again, happy New Year to everybody! Enjoy yourselves and try to not let anything get you down in these times.
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