An unhinged rant complaining about the lack of roleplay standards

[ZAB1019]

As someone who I think, has the most SL hours *total* in about the past 9-ish months. I think being a good commander/leader with good gamesense and knowledge is more important than ML shit, and that goes for CO stuff as well. I ONLY time in like 400-500 hours of SLing ive ever done ML shit is when 1. An XO went AWOL and deployed, then I arrested them on orders from a commodore and got a medal, and 2. Some engineer or SG just tells you to fuck off and ignores all orders so you arrest them and hand em over to an MP at FOB. Which probably hasn't happened to me more than 4 times total. Majority of mutinies/major ML breaking is usually the age old term of treat people how you yourself would like to be treated.

Then there's people who roleplay extravagant characters with weird backstories that shouldn't *really* be on the Almayer, but who cares? it's a video game. A fuckton of characters own a planet for some ungodly reason, why the heck are they serving as a grunt in the marines? (My character also owns a planet btw) My character Nordica straight up bribed their way in because their dad is influential and has money, so they hate authority because they're a spoiled white bitch, who also believes in conspiracy theories. She's probably more out there than most, but that's fine. Not every single person in the sci fi marine universe is a generic jarhead. And they don't have to be 'good' at their job ICly. There's a fuckton of cool shit that can happen, like how irish characters always fucking kidnap nordica and pretend to brainwash her into becoming a member of the Irish Republican Army. If I wanted to play the same game over and over again I'd go buy Call of Duty Advanced Modern Total Warfare number 934085. CM21 is officially a TDM with roleplay elements. The staff team enforce the levels of roleplay we're barely clinging onto, and the dev team add a million things to enforce TDM. Yet the last thing that dev team added to enforce roleplay was agents, and the thing before that? The chef. And I cannot remember what was the last roleplay addition the game had. If you ask me it's on both the staff and dev team's lack of communication with each other in CM that fucks it up. As they're so independent from each other it likely isn't easy to communicate, and breakdowns have happened between them in the past. I play CM for the squad leading, roleplay, JTAC, doing wacky math to OB hive, and being able to instantly take off 40-70% of a marine's health in a stunlock, or maybe even kill them. I go to TGMC for fun, quicker paced marine and xenomorph gameplay. Hell I probably use like, 3-4 mags in a 1 hour round in CM, because as I said, im just leading dudes around and doing JTAC a lot of the time. Rant over. thanks obamacare.

[sg2002]

I think being a good commander/leader with good gamesense and knowledge is more important than ML shit, and that goes for CO stuff as well.

Nothing really stops you from having both. You should oversee your MPs and try to get them to understand your intent on how the marine law should be imposed on the ship and oversee that they follow. And they usually do. Being probably the most boring and vanila CO, I demand ruthless enforcement of the basic things, but I'm also willing to protect the good people whenever situation arises. Recently I was close to releasing\appealing\pardoning Windhealer, of all people, whom I'd frankly rather leave to rot in jail most of the time. But he fought valiantly on the ground during the round and personal valor is a reason enough for me to try and get the charges dropped.

MPs do fuck up some rounds, rarely out of malice, but often by being somewhat robotic while trying to follow all the regulations required from them and not understanding the bigger picture. Recently they arrested Alamo PO just before the evacuation completely fucking it up. I was aware that some PO got arrested, but I was busy with everything else and thought it was the CAS PO, who was not as important. Now a great CMP would order one of his MPs to go pilot the Alamo in the meantime, while explicitly explaining the situation to the CIC and trying to get a proper replacement sent.

[ZAB1019]

Yeah but if I can pick a good commander/leader or a good ML knower im gonna pick a good ML- haha just kidding i want someone that actually knows how to command. ML is just so some unga doesnt get griefed because of dumbfuck MPs. Also just ahelp.

[SlippyJoe]

Sweet Jesus.
As a somewhat newer player to CM (a year or two)...this thread makes me so disheartened.
I love servers like CM, and that one WW2 server...yet they seem to be dragged down by the exact same issue;
This lack of roleplay.

The REQ line....the REQ like others have said, (I think) should be a place that fosters roleplay, you could complain about what MRE you got, tight armour, etc, it's not perfect, hell I've tried it and have just been blanked.

Also, I never understood this "Go play a HRP server", there isn't a HRP CM server, I don't want a HRP server, I like having silly shit and serious stuff at the same time. Oh, and in my view, there's a difference between "milrp" and "Alien" RP, the former is something I find dreadfully dull, the latter is an 80s mishmash of the army, with tech conglomerates and bizarre creatures made by big white guy- I mean made by an evil robot- I mean made by...no one knows.
It doesn't help the attitude towards MPs is one of out right hostility! I've heard and seen SGs attack doctors for little reason, rightfully get jailed and then their squaddies have the GAUL to complain about them getting arrested nearly murdering two people.

The only way, I as some random person, can see to solve this would be a̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶e̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶u̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶e̶r̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶N̶R̶P̶ ̶s̶c̶u̶m̶ culling more problematic players and trying to encourage roleplay with events focused around intercharacter interactions as opposed to...shooting.

[Anclandor]

Sweet Jesus.
It doesn't help the attitude towards MPs is one of out right hostility! I've heard and seen SGs attack doctors for little reason, rightfully get jailed and then their squaddies have the GAUL to complain about them getting arrested nearly murdering two people.

The only way, I as some random person, can see to solve this would be a̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶e̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶u̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶e̶r̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶N̶R̶P̶ ̶s̶c̶u̶m̶ culling more problematic players and trying to encourage roleplay with events focused around intercharacter interactions as opposed to...shooting.

Just would like to defend myself as I think I am one of the marines being mentioned, (Tori Wetsel) I never stated or thought that the SG should go free, I just wanted the docs/nurses to be charged for THEIR part in starting the fight, regardless off who ended it.

[SlippyJoe]

Ah no no no, I wouldn't consider you NRP, in all fairness I wasn't even sure on the full situation.

[Bob_Vancleave]

Sweet Jesus.
As a somewhat newer player to CM (a year or two)...this thread makes me so disheartened.
I love servers like CM, and that one WW2 server...yet they seem to be dragged down by the exact same issue;
This lack of roleplay.

The REQ line....the REQ like others have said, (I think) should be a place that fosters roleplay, you could complain about what MRE you got, tight armour, etc, it's not perfect, hell I've tried it and have just been blanked.

Also, I never understood this "Go play a HRP server", there isn't a HRP CM server, I don't want a HRP server, I like having silly shit and serious stuff at the same time. Oh, and in my view, there's a difference between "milrp" and "Alien" RP, the former is something I find dreadfully dull, the latter is an 80s mishmash of the army, with tech conglomerates and bizarre creatures made by big white guy- I mean made by an evil robot- I mean made by...no one knows.
It doesn't help the attitude towards MPs is one of out right hostility! I've heard and seen SGs attack doctors for little reason, rightfully get jailed and then their squaddies have the GAUL to complain about them getting arrested nearly murdering two people.

The only way, I as some random person, can see to solve this would be a̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶e̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶u̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶e̶r̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶N̶R̶P̶ ̶s̶c̶u̶m̶ culling more problematic players and trying to encourage roleplay with events focused around intercharacter interactions as opposed to...shooting.

I don't think banning certain people who the moderation team deem as LRP would really accomplish anything considering the roleplay standard of the server depends on which mod is online at the moment and that uhhh events that moderators usually do just suck, either from it ruining the round or being very railroaded. In my year of playing I don't think I've ever seen or experienced any events that had nice roleplay. I've never seen a combat reporter or a trader event, just attempts that end up as meh or "shut the server down they have landshark hunting rifles planetside". The only event I enjoyed was when I larped as a monkey so hard in the CL's containment chamber that I turned into a large monkey and I was promptly gunned down by MPs.

Another problem would be the lack of people who can roleplay in an interesting manner that isn't stale. Lot's of peoples characters are "I wanna be a cute girl (HARAM HARAM HARAM HARAM HARAM HARAM)" or "grizzled old veteran of the corps" or some unremarkable default avatar looking ass just came from the harry potter roleplaying forums. I don't blame them though; I wouldn't put much effort into a character if the lore literally had a faction of psychos who worship a grenade. The lore is a fucking joke. Lord knows I've tried roleplaying, hell I've even written a whole ass last will and testament that I ask command staff and the CL to fax incase I die and I distribute it around the squad in hopes of getting some interaction out of it. But you just gotta understand that you can't force someone to roleplay and that the roleplay standard of the playerbase is on par of a chatroom roleplay.

The people who could roleplay decently have left and at this point we might as well embrace the "oh god oh fuck is this the end of me" macro. Take all of this is with a grain of salt though because its coming from funny lrp man.

[SlippyJoe]

I don't think banning certain people who the moderation team deem as LRP would really accomplish anything considering the roleplay standard of the server depends on which mod is online at the moment and that uhhh events that moderators usually do just suck, either from it ruining the round or being very railroaded. In my year of playing I don't think I've ever seen or experienced any events that had nice roleplay. I've never seen a combat reporter or a trader event, just attempts that end up as meh or "shut the server down they have landshark hunting rifles planetside". The only event I enjoyed was when I larped as a monkey so hard in the CL's containment chamber that I turned into a large monkey and I was promptly gunned down by MPs.

Another problem would be the lack of people who can roleplay in an interesting manner that isn't stale. Lot's of peoples characters are "I wanna be a cute girl (HARAM HARAM HARAM HARAM HARAM HARAM)" or "grizzled old veteran of the corps" or some unremarkable default avatar looking ass just came from the harry potter roleplaying forums. I don't blame them though; I wouldn't put much effort into a character if the lore literally had a faction of psychos who worship a grenade. The lore is a fucking joke. Lord knows I've tried roleplaying, hell I've even written a whole ass last will and testament that I ask command staff and the CL to fax incase I die and I distribute it around the squad in hopes of getting some interaction out of it. But you just gotta understand that you can't force someone to roleplay and that the roleplay standard of the playerbase is on par of a chatroom roleplay.

The people who could roleplay decently have left and at this point we might as well embrace the "oh god oh fuck is this the end of me" macro. Take all of this is with a grain of salt though because its coming from funny lrp man.

(this might be a tad bit all over the place because I'm super tired)
Hmm...I don't want to seem like a fun stomping wanter, I love fun. I think roleplay works best with silly things. The best way, in my view, to have...well aliens, is a silly world with characters who take it seriously. I remember another, more rp focused server I was on decided to make a "Event Organizer" role, where, for whenever their event was, they'd have the admin powers to manage their event.

I can call it defeatism, or I can call it realism, but I sadly do agree. In my view, good characters do not need to be super intertwined into the lore, think of it like wrestling, William Regal was probably the best wrestler during the Ruthless Aggression era, but the stars of that era were people like John Cena, Jeff Hardy, Evolution, Cena is probably the most plain bread wrestler in the ring, but by being something new, that rapper gimmick, the more modern stuff, that's why he became the next Austin. Characters should be characters first, a simple thing, a lot of my (in all honesty, non CM) characters have began as very simple things (IE A future Jacobite pretender, with a lot of scottishisms/stereotypes threw in, typing in phonics because I'm Scottish and knew people who typed like that, I interacted with more people and she became less this "drunkard with delusions of importance" and more a "bipolar woman with a lot of issues, one of which is drinking". A woman with so little self worth that they've decided that everyone is better than them, so they've decided to help them in any way possible, being polite as can be. A somewhat juvenilel prankster who really likes Clockwork Orange.) and evolved into proper characters, I'm not even saying I want these fully fledged 3d characters, a lot of my characters started with me going "I like this (IE: Jacobite era history with Louise), so they make sense to be this (IE: Scottish, which I thought would be fun playing into nation stereotypes)". I'd rather have a tiny little string pull doll with a few funny lines than some boring marine who speaks like someone playing CM if he speaks at all. (Unrelated, but kinda related, I remember trying to play a female, kinda nerdy and anxious CL, because I was like "yeah she'd get sent off somewhere where she won't bother anyone"...Two rounds I've played her, and each time I've had people act creepy as shit to her, coupling with the near lack of RP...shiver)

[Me_Bigsnail]

Yeah i'm gonna insult everybody and their moms, afterall, this is how the cool kids do 'unhinged rants' am i wrong?

I like fun games just like the next guy, but issue is that this server has a major identity crisis, does it want to be shooty shooty xenos or does it want to be ARMA 2, no one fucking knows because everything here gives so many mixed signals, from the way how maps are structured to the way how medical works, it just doesnt fit, the way how roleplaying rules are enforced are certainly a joke worth mentioning, it just serves as a clown mask for mods to tell each other just how big of a 'responsability' they have by 'preserving rp' by doing the bizzarre event no.19382

I get that this game has gone through rough changes, but i'll admit, atleast fewher has some sort of truth in that the game had a vision of what it wanted to be, during fewher era it ATLEAST had the audacity of having annoying gameplay systems for the sake of being 'rp friendly' but here I dont even know whats the purpose of having a section that talks about 'RP' and then go take 10 steps out of cryopod, see how someone said big chungus and then accept it as the norm.

Btw this is not something that only staff has allowed, most of you guys have harvested this bland, generic and attention whory 'personality' to attract as many people into talking about how funny you are and 'fit' in with the cool kids, like dude 'have you seen how I GAMERED that xeno dude? That was an epic moment!' and because it actually WORKS, i.e that you guys enable this kind of behaviour then the majority of the community, a.k.a people who havent even reached their maximum testosterone production levels, think that being memey and recycling the same shit quirk is what we call 'personality' in CM.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJMrzUWGkU4& is a great video for what I'm talking about)

Another nut to crack is the lore, not exactly the wacky side because lets be honest: no one gives a shit about it.
Instead is more of 'why the FUCK do we have a lore if we don't use it?' you have shit like TF2 and league of legends, and these games aren't even about the story, TF2 is just: bunch of mercenaries that go to fuck all to shoot each other for senseless cause, yet they have more depth, personality and uses than the majority of MP mains, CM lore just doesn't have a pint of impact on anything, the game itself doesn't make you interested in exploring the lore, besides of the casual new player that sees the CLF says 'how cool! I wanna know more about them!' go read the lore page, say 'thats cool' and then play another cm game because CLF aren't a faction you get to interact with in casual rounds, its with xenomorphs, and BOY do I love RPing with a senseless murder machine. (and by the way, the CLF speaks in tradeband, fucking, TRADEBAND, not english for gods sake, what were they thinking???????)

All in all I know this is a passion project and I feel this game has way bigger expectations than it should have, because afterall no one here has a PhD on game design, basically it aims too high but doesn't have the means/resources to be successful, sucks to have a game with a leaked code, sprites and be the bastard child of a community i also hate and still be much, MUCH more advanced than the real deal because some devs just had a stick up their ass thinking their precious code shouldnt go open source.

and yes there are typos, but doesnt matter
'ate cm
'ate mps
'ate fem statics
'luv my dog
simple as.

(also this song is a banger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcK_z5GA5s)

[Fix it again Tony]

JTAC, doing wacky math to OB hive

CTRL+click...hmmmhh. Add 30 to this number...mmmhmm. Add 20 to this...mmmhm.

;fire this.

Mmmhmhm.

"I'm the Son of God, inventor calculus, calculator of planetary movements, distractor of the seas, multiplier of the universe. MIT mastercourse? Hold my beer.

BEHOLD THE ONE, THE ONLY ---M A S T E R - E Q U A T O R ---