Hello all. I am the new guy, LCPL Dominus. Having played on the server for about a week or so, I've developed a list of criticisms and complaints I have about the server. These complaints are not petty things, as I feel they have a direct impact on player engagement in the server. Servers are businesses, and as corporate as it sounds, it's the truth. If you want to maintain donation revenue from the server and keep it running, there are some steps that need to be taken to fix up the server. [list=1] [*]SeriousRP or Semi-Serious? Is the server meant to be Serious? It says so in the name, but all players seem to throw this concept out. This extends to staff as well. You have CO's, NCO's and Enlisted ranks just doing their own thing, mic spamming and other immersion breaking behavior. This can even be spotted in [i]briefing [/i]for the events. OOC talk is almost constant over mic. It's very odd. Semi-Serious fits better if you want to continue the experience like this, but the name needs to be changed. If we're going to SeriousRP, then NCO's and CO's need to watch over player speech and enforce RP. [*]Promotions are pretty much non-existent. NCO's seem to be a little neutered when it comes to promotions, CO's are never on for post-operation debrief, and GM's cannot promote. They can supposedly recommend personnel for promotion, but it doesn't seem to happen much. This causes player attendance to stagnate. Players want progression, and if progression doesn't come, then they seek that progress somewhere else. [*]Discord interaction is low. Pings for events are only made once, and player turn-out seems to be low regardless. The Discord hardly has any activity for the amount of players in the Discord. I'm not sure how to rectify this, maybe conduct a player poll or something of the like. There needs to be more engagement of the players to build the community. Right now, the majority of the users don't seem to hop on the server. This is a plague that spreads from Garry's Mod server to server, with communities being forgotten and left behind. Having a huge server with no interaction doesn't look good. [*]Night-time/European timezone events would help to build the playerbase and keep the Discord active. If we have more people on from Europe during their daylight hours and into their evening hours, both the server health and Discord health will be rejuvenated. [/list] This last suggestion is an analysis I made of the staff: According to an anonymous GM, there doesn't seem to be much in way of staff voicing their opinions. I'm not advocating for democracy here, but I think that members of staff should be able to voice their concerns and their suggestions toward their peers and superiors. I'm not naming the GM. I feel like the building blocks are in place to make this server truly rival the big competitor, but it's going to take some polish. The server has a lot of regulars, as well as new players. The trick is to get those new players to stay, and to build the base of regulars. Just my two cents. I don't want to come across as if I'm the messiah, I just want to highlight some things I think can be fixed up to make the experience better. That's it. -Dominus EDIT: As of making this post, ORION Networks is second place to Revival. We sit at 19 players, and they're at 54. I think we can close that gap.

Also! If anyone wants to add onto the list to build a more developed suggestion, just reply to the post!

I actually do agree with these statements. It’s well written and polite and easily gets its point across.

These are very good points, hopefully the staff can start to understand them

[quote]SeriousRP or Semi-Serious? Is the server meant to be Serious? It says so in the name, but all players seem to throw this concept out. This extends to staff as well. You have CO's, NCO's and Enlisted ranks just doing their own thing, mic spamming and other immersion breaking behavior. This can even be spotted in [i]briefing [/i]for the events. OOC talk is almost constant over mic. It's very odd. Semi-Serious fits better if you want to continue the experience like this, but the name needs to be changed. If we're going to SeriousRP, then NCO's and CO's need to watch over player speech and enforce RP.[/quote] I'm gonna give a big [color=#2ecc71]+1[/color] to this. A majority of the NCOs have no idealistic perception of moderated authority. It's become a tradition to negate orders from their higher-ups or even those of the same rank. This has, and will continue to set a horrible example for the newer player-base that has jumped onto the server for serious roleplay purposes. This sets a terrible image of the server itself and goes entirely against what is being advertised. [quote]Promotions are pretty much non-existent. NCO's seem to be a little neutered when it comes to promotions, CO's are never on for post-operation debrief, and GM's cannot promote. They can supposedly recommend personnel for promotion, but it doesn't seem to happen much. This causes player attendance to stagnate. Players want progression, and if progression doesn't come, then they seek that progress somewhere else.[/quote] I'm not entirely sure whether GMs can promote or not, but if they believe someone has excelled above and beyond the call of duty, it is their obligatory responsibility to forward a recommendation by any means to a Staff Non-commissioned Officer or higher. As for the absence of COs, this has been a problem since our current NCOs are incapable, in my opinion, of being handed such a mantle to diffuse the responsibility. If issue 1 is not fixed, indirectly, issue 2 will be affected regardless of circumstance. [quote]Discord interaction is low. Pings for events are only made once, and player turn-out seems to be low regardless. The Discord hardly has any activity for the amount of players in the Discord. I'm not sure how to rectify this, maybe conduct a player poll or something of the like. There needs to be more engagement of the players to build the community. Right now, the majority of the users don't seem to hop on the server. This is a plague that spreads from Garry's Mod server to server, with communities being forgotten and left behind. Having a huge server with no interaction doesn't look good. [/quote] Discord interaction has always been a strong-suit for this community. The players that are regular players on the server are also regular users of the discord. The player-base interacts within itself to the best it can. I don't believe it's the staff's job to get people to talk. People have lives and responsibilities that take precedence over discord or server usage. I haven't been logging onto the server myself for a while due to real-life responsibilities that need my utmost attention. [quote]Night-time/European timezone events would help to build the playerbase and keep the Discord active. If we have more people on from Europe during their daylight hours and into their evening hours, both the server health and Discord health will be rejuvenated.[/quote] The server location is based in Texas, and North America is a major part of our player-base. We have been trying to extend events into early hours of the day to cater to the European audience as well but the numbers from this part of the world have always been inconsistent. An increase in the number of events, spread throughout the day, may help rectify this situation. But in all honesty, I'd rather the GMs save their events they've been working on for when large groups of players are available. [quote]there doesn't seem to be much in way of staff voicing their opinions[/quote] The staff has been provided the ability to voice their concerns and opinions within staff-only channels where we have provided opinions and debated said opinions on multiple occasions, so I highly disagree with this statement. Changes within the system are considered major changes and take time to debate and assess whether an implementation is fruitful or not. Patience is key.