A Heartful Cry

[Vinny Mac]

I don’t think I have any better way to really start this whole discussion, but with one sentence: Complacency is the enemy of longevity. Many times, I seen this happen to servers I love, they fade away like a wayward dream, their existence only ever bearing in the memories of those who had fun there and made good memories there. It’s a fact, everything comes to an end at some point. Nothing is spared from the sands of time. So, when I see the warning signs and I’m flagged as a madman, or some sort of pest for attempting to motivate the crowd however I can, even if I had to resort to vulgarity, it gets me even more worried. 

Recently, I’ve noticed a greater influx of strong personalities, whose charisma has overtaken the server like a starlit singer at a pub. But I feel that some of those who come to the server, don’t come in with the right intentions. Most of those people who come onto the server and just dump their exposition and garbage into the server, bring it down further and further, demotivate the players and ultimately, kill whatever they liked for Zombie Survival, and they move on. Yes, you can argue that people’s interests change, and people come and go. When it feels like you’re only starting to see more regulars than new players, or anyone different for that matter; that feeling of comfort tends to go south. I think I see maybe one of two new players eventually become regulars. While the people who thought Roleplaying in the middle of a Zombie Survival round encouraged people to basically hop off the server and go there, ultimately kills the mood of the game mode, and devalues it.  

Provided, I understand the original creator of the game mode has very little association with the mode nowadays and the code is completely open source now. But I feel like, it has a certain legacy to it. There are a lot of game modes for Garry’s Mod: GMod Towers, Elevator Source, Stranded, Roleplay, Hide n’ Seek, Prop Hunt, and many other modes exist because of how open Garry’s Mod was at a point, to where the code gave people the flexibility to create something great, something beautiful. Zombie Survival stands as a testament to that, where at this point, HellsGamers is currently the king of that mountain. One of the longest standing Zombie Survival servers, thanks to user-friendly features and a sense of direction that captivated people to create more content and introduced many bright minds into the fold. 

Now, it feels stagnant, cold to the touch. I’ve seen this before, and you can say anything you want to hide the inevitable truth, all things come to an end. It’s about what we do to make the best of it. And I strongly feel, the server isn’t making the best of its time. Eventually, people will stop playing and move on to bigger and better things, or they will move on because other demands in their lives call for them to spend more time on that than video games. I know for me, that might be coming soon, I’ve personally been dealing with plenty of issues and I want to do more with my life than simply being a veteran at this point. But I want to be able to leave things on a high note, then to come back years later, only to discover it’s been wiped clean from the face of the web. The only thing that may document any of this is the Wayback Machine, and usually, that’s for things people won’t ever forget.  

What is the point of this post? It’s a call to action. We have so many players who are willing to give inputs, create content for the server and give back the love the server has given to the player. Something that can be agreed on, we keep coming back because we care, no matter how angry or embittered we seem at times. I’m a testament to that. There have been times I’ve given myself breaks from the server to try other games, or to deal with life issues, but I always come back. Because I enjoy playing on the server. But when I see these people with gilded smiles and foiled masks just wanting to bring the server down and bully the people from thinking differently, of course I get angry. I’m a confrontational person; I may be soft spoken at times believe it or not, but when it’s something that pulls my interest, or something I care about, I tend to react strongly. I do not lie when I say, I do quietly enjoy my time on the server, despite the things I’ve said. 

Now what I wanted to bring up is we need to start focusing on is more activity with the community, we need to find a means to reinvigorate the staff and higher-ranking individuals who have lost interest or is tired of Zombie Survival in general. A lot of the members got there for good reasons, most of them do care despite the contrary reactions they often have on the server. And one of the ways I was thinking about was a modification to the current standing rules of the server. 

This is probably the hardest part of all of this, finding the right balance between leniency and strictness. Now one of the key things I wanted to look at is zombies doing anything other than actively helping the team. This is arguably one of the biggest issues when you’re playing as a zombie, especially on low population. The zombies tend to get disorganized and choose to act more friendly towards the humans, or flat out ignore them. At one point, a recently banned player that went by Phooogie, was no joke, leading the zombie team in a RPing session in the middle of a round, leaving only the bosses to do any of the actual work and ultimately ruining the match for the players that wanted to play the game as intended. There’s nothing wrong with people having fun, talking about different things, or even goofing around, but there are far better ways to go about it. Not to mention, it’s entirely possible for players to be able to shoot the shit, and play the game as usual. One of the reasons we added groups was for that purpose; so, players can talk amongst themselves to ensure it doesn’t disrupt the flow of gameplay. We need a policy, if not already in place, that bars zombies from being friendly or neutral. Zombies should be attacking the cade or actively hunting humans to ensure the game mode doesn’t lose what little competitive nature the mode already has. 

Another point I wanted to bring up, is about Human players giving out false commands. Many could argue with me all day long on this topic, because “the players have a choice to follow it” or “if they fall for it, they’re gullible.” To put it simply, that’s Elitism. You’re basically saying at that point, “So what if they’re new to this or are unfamiliar with ZS, if they listen to the assholes screaming out troll commands, that’s on them and only them.” That is quite frankly a complete Neanderthal way of thinking about troll/ false commands. I’ve seen too many times players being led to their deaths or being told to basically walk into a deathtrap, to artificially inflate the amount of points those kinds of players can earn and to access higher tier weapons early on. In my opinion, stuff like that shouldn’t be tolerated in any setting, and should be aggressively dealt with. It’s only going to get worse if left unchecked and unregulated. It’s the norm at this point, a meme you can say, to do such things. Even the mods have participated in this behavior, only enforcing the idea that this is in any way acceptable. It’s not, it should be frowned upon, not praised. That’s what creates the Elitism attitudes, and that’s what creates the real toxic players. I pale in comparison to the venom they can produce. Sure, they can keep their little cade a secret still, no one has to know, we have settings in place so people can hide their resupply and arsenal crates from wall spy already, and it’s a matter of keeping it hush, hence why we have the group chats in the first place. 

I’ve seen a lot of people ask for it, and recently I seen a post on the forums about it, we need weekly events. Yes, we had that Sunday/Saturday thing we used to do, but I personally think that idea that was up there, would be perfect for the server. The server for the most part, even at its lowest, gets at least 30 players. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it empty, unless it crashes hard. We need people to ultimately feel as if we care, so in turn, they start caring. I’m not saying that we should have to bend over and let the player base go to town, rather, meet them halfway so we can get more activity on the forums. Because for the most part, unless it’s a hot topic, or it’s actively advertised, I don’t see too much activity for polls or any sort of requests or suggestions. Most posts are made by members of HG, or by people who hold a passion for the server that sit outside of HG. More communication and chances for players to interact with HG, and HG to interact with them in turn, will strengthen the player base, and may win over tougher customers. There is power in unity after all. 

I think I’ve said all I could here. Not much else I can say or suggest, besides maybe read some of my previous suggestion posts and give your thoughts. I want to hear what others think and see some actual input. Because without input, without interaction, without heart; the server will become hollow. It will slowly fade, and eventually, disappear like a dandelion ripped apart by the wind. 

If anyone takes the time to read all of this, I truly thank you, and want to hear your opinion on this. We need a more active community, and we need more interaction in general. Otherwise, this will all become nothing but a distant memory. 

[BOSCH]

It's probably got a lot to do with new games coming out, diverting people from older games like GMOD, CSGO, TF2 and CSS. Got to remember how old they are, some of us of the older generation love playing these games, but the kids coming up are all about the next best thing. I personally think we are doing fantastic, we still get an influx of youngsters still, and the dynamics of leadership has changed in many positive ways. Don't look short term, look long term and consider the whole picture.

Thank you for your input buddy

[KeanuV]

I espacially agree with the sentence " More communication and chances for players to interact with HG, and HG to interact with them in turn, will strengthen the player base "

[VERSACE]

Thank you for posting this i feel like a lot of people need to read this and take it into consideration. I highly agree that we need more events, an event schedule weekly or something would be very nice even if it was just event Saturdays or something. Many many players beg for PP or BR in between maps and I don't think we never really get it as much as we want it or x2 point days I think it adds a lot to the server and makes things more interesting making players want to join and play more often. I also agree with directing players in the wrong direction to their death, ive seen this happen many times where players are mass lead to death only for the players to get mad and leave giving them a negative idea of the server this should most defiantly be dealt with more harshly. To add onto this something the players have been talking about is maps. I think that the maps we play some of them should be removed and some should be added back that players love, there are maps we will play where players will leave because they think the map is bad and or annoying to play. I think it would be a great idea to have a new map added monthly or something like that to give us players something new and interesting to look forward too that keeps us coming back, maybe even a chance to vote as to what maps should be added or removed. Im not sure if it is advertised but the discord should be more known about, giving players a chance to communicate more and get more involved with the community, I think even a discord chat or something for new players would be highly helpful as many players come on the server not knowing what to do exactly and having no direction in how to play properly making them just bored and or annoyed making them leave. These are just some ideas ive thought about that i think would be nice additions or helpful to the server. Please inform others about this post as i think it would help a lot to start doing things like this. -vsauce

[Laces115]

I agree wholeheartedly, this server needs some more upkeep with player feedback and focusing on spicing things up. And focusing on dealing with trolling.

I recall a few days ago, on Christmas Towm, someone left a hole in their cade zombies could get through. The cader was warned in mic, in chat, and in vote zlist. Nothing was done for 2 waves. 

Then, when zombies broke in and got people killed because they walked through the hole, I did a votekick, because he obviously must have known about the hole. No way he was blind and deaf. A mod REMOVED my votekick and threatened ME for trying to kick someone. 

It's time to give the staff a wakeup call and focus on the rules that ACTUALLY matter rather than exclusively kicking and punishing people for the N word. Trolling your own team isn't being punished. It's being ignored.

Also, as for the question of more events, I suggested a few days ago an automated system that does a small little event every day. No need for mods to deal with it at all. Here it is.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Laces115

[Fume Knight]

it would be a lot easier to catch people who troll if people didn't purposely encourage it, get angry when we punish people who troll and then harass mods and other players, and plenty of other things. If you are to immature to not say the N word in game then its your own fault you get banned, its easy to catch someone saying a banned word unlike determining if "trolling" was really trolling or not. I guarantee you people would get banned at very high levels if "trolling" was defined very very easily. I would also argue that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get good feedback from 99.9% of the player base as they purposely troll with ideas, whine instead of explaining why a change should be implemented or how things could be changed. The people who actually contribute I thank greatly.

[Laces115]

Did I say ANYTHING about removing the N word ban? I said it's the only thing mods seem to focus on anymore. We need stricter rules on gameplay trolling. It slides way too much and when newbies come on and get trolled by their own team, why would they ever come back? Why would they bother with a server that clearly doesn't give a fuck?

You can't just throw your hands up and say "what are we supposed to do?", it's your job as Division Leader to address these concerns and make the server better. Stop avoiding problems.

[Vinny Mac]

There's good reason I want this post to get attention Fume, so people feel comfortable responding on the forums and they start to utilize it more. I want both HG and the player base to be able to express themselves without feeling as if it's a one way street. We all can figure out what's a joke and what isn't at this point, and some people on here have genuinely come up with excellent ideas that I do wish see the light of day. And if we have more people interacting on here, then a clearer picture can be painted for both sides. 

[Laces115]

In fact, here's an idea to implement for trolling: a tally system. Every time someone leaves a barricade with a hole in it, give a troll command, or intentionally get someone killed with evidence, they get a strike. 1 strike is removed a month if the person doesn't troll again.

1st strike: For caders, a warning and a 2 minute grace period to fix the problem with their props. This moderator warning and tally is only applied if  players have warned the cader prior to this occurrence. If nothing is done they are zlisted for the map so that others may fix the cade. For command trolls, a map-long gag or mute, depending on how they issued the command.

2nd strike: Immediate zlist, gag, or mute, (depending on the action) all for half an hour Player is also kicked if their action caused a fellow human to die.

3rd strike: Ban for a day.

4th+ strike: Ban for a week.

 

I know it's not perfect, as it's not always clear who trolled. But mods have always had to make judgement calls, just like with who is defined as a "regular" for when an immediate kick, zlist, or mute is issued instead of a warning for other infractions. At least with this, a clear guideline is established for punishment for broad types of trolling.

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by Laces115

[pho-]

I'll use this chance to offer my criticism on myself and other HG members in gmod. There exists an elitist barrier between the clan and the game community; it's like school friendship groups, HG people will only talk to HG people. Because of the exclusion I've witnessed, most mainstream players frown upon joining HG, and this is entirely because of the way HG players separate themselves from the normal community. As a result, the community is weak in terms of the players supporting the leadership. Whilst it is justified in the face of elitism, it means that some HG members might even be disheartened to remain in the clan, and in turn you get people leaving. I admit I have not been doing my best in communicating to as much people as I can in the division, but this coupled together with what I just stated means that even across some of the people in HG, there is a weak connection; they're just 'there'. I have witnessed some HG players, even mods, give out false commands. I frown upon this greatly yet I have not done anything to punish those people and for that, I apologise.

There exists a gap between HG and it's players. False commands do not exist in just HG clan members though; mainstream players also do this. A prime example is telling people to get the gluon in blackout. Because of this post, I will add a rule which explicitly states that ordering false commands to humans or zombies will result in a punishment.  

Regarding getting feedback from the playerbase, 80% of the time the only suggestions I get are extremely vague. How can I work without specifics? I try my best in seeing what issues there are by simply playing the server myself, but this itself cannot give me enough of an understanding to know both zombie-side and human-side balances. We used to have an ingame suggestions option which was removed due to people abusing it and being silly with their suggestions.  All I ask is for specifics when suggesting things or reporting bugs. 

In terms of doing more events such as party popper or battle royale, or even 2x events; the only issue is that repeatedly running these things would mean that people get bored of them fairly quickly, and there are many people who complain each time these events are put on. It's hard to make everyone happy, and each time someone is upset it runs the risk of them leaving, which no one wants. 

The issue with using teamspeak is that literally not a single person wants to download the client and join the HG TS3 server, it's just way too tedious and outdated. I've tried my best to discuss it with higher ups to add voice channels to discord, but this was only done for weekly events which run across every other game. So I apologise for not being able to provide in this instance. 

As much as I wish I could, I can't explicitly name individuals and their shortcomings. But if you would so wish to know my opinion on specific people, feel free to pm me and I'll let you know my true thoughts. 

 

[BOSCH]

@Everyone @pho-
In CSS we dont really have the issue with communication, all of our regular player base know that we are available for questions/help at all times. All of our regulars has a MOD or ^+ in their steam friends list. Communication is what we've been preaching with CSS for over the past year now, and before that amongst a few of us. It really works out great for all things, main thing is have your people in a MOD or above position, they have to know going in that people will want to ask questions of them and they need to give a proper response.

With that said I know GMOD is a different monster, but having a get together and let the members know they need to communicate with everyone for the reason of server/playerbase morale. Once people feel like they may not be apart of HG, but they are noticed by HG it gives them a morale boost and makes them want to play on our servers longer and harder.

Like I said we've implemented such ideas for over a year now and we've got a positive return for our time and effort.

[pho-]

@BOSCH Probably around 90% of my friends list is related to HG ZS. Communication on my part isn't an issue regarding people reaching out to me or me reaching out to them; it's a matter of taking the time to further community engagement and create a strong bridge between the players and HG as you said and I acknowledge as a shortcoming for me. That said I do NOT want to force people within HG to talk to others, that in time will only further the gap between the clan and the players. 

Thank you for the suggestion on what to do though, I will look to that as reference.

[BOSCH]

@pho- I totally agree, anytime you try to force people into engaging with others it will never turn out how you want. You know, I was speaking from my CSS experience, but as I said GMOD's a totally different animal, so I know it's going to take more effort and also because of the age group also its harder to get them to socialize with new people. So I got alot of respect for you cause its going to be a time consuming endeavor buddy.

[Vinny Mac]

@BOSCH  Yeah, I'm kinda glad Pho came in and gave a nutshell summary of the primary issue here, of course there's other stuff listed, but the lack of community and union is a fairly big one that will of course take time, but I feel it started to divert a while ago, which is why I even went out of my way to post about it. So people can read suggestions such as yours and give it some thought. Of course I'm hoping others will post on here and keep this going, but I know not everyone browses the forums actively. I know Garry's Mod is out of your jurisdiction, but thank you.  

[VERSACE]

@pho- about the events, i understand doing them too often can defiantly cause people to get bored of them and some dislike them all around in general but maybe putting it on every Saturday or even every other week Saturday would be fun because i know there are a lot of people that like them, maybe not even big events just x2 and simple stuff like that, theres gotta be some balance that would work with this type of stuff.

Edited May 10, 2019 by VERSACE

[pho-]

@VERSACE Actually I run events more often than I should; it’s  just that not everyone is online when I do. 

[Northground]

I agree that there is a big gap between the zs playerbase and the hellsgamers members, especially from leadership and the devs which i also think is a huge problem for the community mostly due to the limited input and opinions the players of zs can give leadership regarding the gamemode. It also means that the players influence over the gamemode is very limited which i truly regret because i know we have a lot of players on the server that has a long experience of the zs gamemode where we could really benefit from hearing their opinion. There is ofcourse the possibility of voicing their opinion on the forums but unfortunately only a small percentage of the zs playerbase use it and convey meaningfull discussions. We also have discord which is more accessible but isnt really fit for discussing ideas in depth. As Pho mentioned, we did use to have an ingame suggestion menu where players could suggest ideas and others could up or downvote them depending on their opinion. Although there is a possibility of people trolling it a bit it shouldnt be too hard to limit the most of it, and in my opinion the reward would be far greater then the inconvenience.

Prio to leaving leadership i was also in the process of having a new system implemented in the community where we would recruit zs players with exstensive knowledge and experience in the gamemode to help advise us on how the gamemode should be balanced and modified and also voting on issues/ideas brought forward. The group wouldnt require any membership in hg etc, just to make geting involved in it a lot easier and to link the gap between hg and the zs community. It was my understanding that we would proceed with the idea but council just kept pushing it forward and i guess they disregarded it after i left.

On the topic of having more events i would suggest trying to add more small automated events just like the ones we already have. They dont have to be complex but just something to add more diversity to the game since that seems to be the problem with running the same events over and over again, making people tire of them quickly. We used to have quite a few but some of them stopped working after updates and no one fixed them. It would probably be best if leadership starts a thread asking if people has any fun ideas that should be implemented.

Edited May 11, 2019 by Northground

[Snowyamur]

Given the nature of this thread and how it's spurred some well-constructive attention, I'll use this as a base from which to share how I see ZS, while also paying attention to the HeLLsGamers community. I'll be dividing my thoughts among Zombie Survival and the HeLLsGamers community to make it an easier read.

 

Zombie Survival

Spoiler

Firstly, let's talk about Zombie Survival. Now, I've been on this server since 2012-2013, which is quite a long time. I've seen players come and go, I've seen things change and degrade, but most importantly, I've seen how much the ZS community has changed. It's went from some very quiet player base with an average 25-35 players online, to a talkative, loud, and rumbustious one at a new average of 35-50 players online.

Is that good to say the least? Of course; more players is usually healthy for any game because it shows there's still activity and commitment.

Unfortunately, what the ZS community has turned into wasn't something I anticipated.

 

Trolling

Whenever I get on, there are always those players who troll. Most of our player base now says random garbage in the chat, and some people hurt and insult others. What's perhaps the worst that I've seen is how players troll others and get people killed.

Is it fun for them? Apparently, given I hear them laugh over their mics after luring someone to their death. 

Is it fun for the victims? Of course not, and that's one of the common issues of our server. 

Trolling is fine until it reaches a certain point where it hurts the experience for other players, and that's something that our division staff have been more-or-less lenient about. Truth is, they can't act on every single player trolling, or suspected of trolling, by kicking, banning, or gagging them immediately, otherwise we wouldn't have a player base left because they'd all leave out of hatred against us or because they're banned. We've come so far as a community of ZS players that everyday, we get new players, and some of these players stay, and unfortunately, some of those that stay do nothing but troll so as to harm the community rather than make it fun and harmless.

Trolling itself as a concept being used for fun or hilarity isn't the issue; it's when trolling is committed to harm other players and their experiences that becomes an issue.

 

 

Lack of Real Community Engagement

Zombie Survival is a game mode, but it also has its own community. Unfortunately, there's a lack of community engagement inside Zombie Survival.

We have to remember that the game mode itself, the server, is being managed by a gaming community, and all of us who play ZS are part of the Zombie Survival community. We all have our own personalities, thoughts, and opinions, and we bring them all to this server. Despite the presence of diversity on our server, we don't really have a sense of community. Most players on our server are either too busy pointwhoring, or continue talking about disgustingly-random garbage that no one wants to hear, leading up to the question: 

Are we just a server for random people to mess with?

Yes, we have players that stay, but are they staying for the community, or because they're addicted? Some for the former, some for the latter, but it's leaning increasingly towards the latter reason. Granted, having players stay on our server is great, but if its because of addiction over sense of communal belonging, then that's a problem that hurts in the long-run. We want players to stay because they like our community and what we provide for them, leading up to them hopefully becoming members of our community, not because they're addicted to one game server we've hosted for years.

I'd say the worst is that on ZS, when you're just with a bunch of people who are there to farm out of some incentive to win, you get this feeling that people don't really care what goes on in the game; as long as they can farm, they're happy. This harms the ZS community. 

People like me try to enrich the "community" aspect of ZS, and we fail to because no one cares, but also because no one remarks on it. Apathy isn't good for our Zombie Survival community, and it isn't good for communities in general. It's reached that point where a lot of players don't really care about other players, or care about the people they play with on our server, let alone the community hosting the server, that it's turned into one huge mess.

 

Player Divide & False Commanding

As mentioned by others in this thread, yes, there's a player divide between HG and regular players.

To what extent is it bad? Unfortunately, I can't accurately answer that myself. I guess if I wanted to answer this question, I would say how it involves some non-HG players feeling uncomfortable interacting with HG members, let alone the community, having this outsider-feeling that results in them not staying for so long because they don't feel like they belong. To be honest, if people joined our community, they wouldn't face this problem, but in reality, people don't just join a community whenever they want to; they have to have a reason behind it, and as part of HG, we don't do well to stress that enough.

If someone would like to help clarify more on this particular issue, that'd be appreciated.

As for false commanding, I'm well-aware of that, and this falls under trolling. As I said before, we get new players on our server every day, reaching up to dozens of hundreds of newcomers every week. The one thing that infuriates me is when players who've been on our server for a while decide to throw out these commands to new players, even when they aren't mandatory, leading up to these new players doing it because they have no clue what's going on.

These commands could range from buying unnecessary equipment to doing things to get themselves killed, which falls under trolling. At this point, it's become so common that players who give out false commands end up getting others killed, and those players that die leave and never come back. They hurt our ZS community by doing this, and players that first hop on a server would only stay if they find some fun in it at that particular moment. If they die, they leave, and they never return; it's as simple as that.

Personally, as admin, we haven't been stressing punishment for false commanding simply occurring and existing, unless it's gotten out of hand, and that's what leads to people continuing to commit this kind of behavior.

 

Suggestion and Feedback

People always complain about problems on our server, but they complain more than they write them down somewhere for us to look at. We can't catch everything everyone says in-game, for that's difficult amidst active voice and text chat.

One thing I've noticed that's been very problematic for proper development and improvement of our server was us not stressing the importance of feedback and suggestion. While we have a forums for people to provide suggestions and feedback, no one uses the forums. Only few players use it, and those that do use it always leave a comment or two implying how we, the administration, don't care about what they say.

In actuality, we do; just ask Forrest and pho.

It's this thinking that we've unfortunately manifested into peoples' heads that leads up to little to no suggestions and feedback being produced.

Could it be a problem of acknowledgement, or being acknowledged for suggestion and feedback? Certainly; people feel bad when their ideas aren't acknowledged.

Our ZS server improves if players who care about it are willing to step forward and share their ideas. Otherwise, it remains stagnant.

 

HeLLsGamers community

Spoiler

 

With Zombie Survival set aside, I'd like to take the time to talk about how HeLLsGamers itself gets tied up in all of this. Unlike Zombie Survival, these statements won't be split off by section.

For those that don't know, our community used to have a rival community called NoxiousGaming.net. They were a gaming community managed by the JetBoom, the person who programmed the Zombie Survival game mode, birthing the community around the same year HeLLsGamers was born. For years, we've been rivaling them for a greater player base on Garry's Mod, for which we've faced harassment, DDoS, and hate from their community members. Rarely have we done the same to them in retaliation.

Back in late 2018, Noxious shut down after JetBoom himself quit and closed the community off forever. Its website, forums, and assets are all gone now, with development resources now open-source, and the community's developers, having defected, forming the branch-community from Noxious we know as Sunrust today.

Why am I mentioning this? HeLLsGamers has been around for as long as Noxious has, which is 13+ years, and now Noxious is gone.With our main rival gone, we have that opportunity to make Zombie Survival grow more so than ever before with previous barriers being demolished.

When I heard about this, it made me open my eyes to see the potential our HG community has to grow, improve, and maintain. If you've never played Stellaris, there are these intergalactic kingdoms called "Fallen Empires" that are depicted via the image below:

During the time of rivalry and civil war, these empires have embraced mistakes, destruction, and close-demise. When these rivalries and wars ended, should the empire still be standing, they'd become known as a "Fallen Empire," a civilization of ancient knowledge, otherwise known as the "been there, done that" empire, possessing experience, knowledge, and understandings of the past that can be applied to the present, but otherwise unobtainable now.

How does this relate to our community? We've had a deep-seated rivalry with another gaming community for more than a decade, and over that decade, we've made mistakes, faced hardship, researched, and learned, and now we're the ones still standing.

If HeLLsGamers can survive the struggles of its past and make it out alive, I know for sure we can improve what we have, for we have the knowledge to do so. We're not a strong community by numbers; we're strong by having a decade's worth of seated knowledge that we continue using to drive our own functions.

As @Vinny Mac mentioned, the greatest enemy for innovation is complacency, and the HG community has been complacent, but it's now on the rise once more as, what I call, a "Fallen Community." We've faced hardship, we've went dark, we've endured, and now we're back to be restore what was lost using all we've learned and gained over the past decade.

If we can survive against our longstanding rival, we can continue living on as an ancient gaming community of sorts, and that's an achievement. We can't afford to let this go to waste, and we have an opportunity to grow off of Garry's Mod. For Vinny and the rest of the community, let's be more proactive and take initiative, for this community can have a bright future.

 

 

Thanks for reading if you read through it. Sorry if my ideas seem out of place; I just thought they were cool.

[Vinny Mac]

@Northground I'm blessed to have you reply to this and I do thank you for your input. I understand you did all you could during your time and contributed many things. That plan of yours to recruit and bring in experienced ZS players into the fold, kinda as an advisory council would benefit the community for the short term, in long, it could be something bigger. But in terms of using them for their knowledge and grasp of the gameplay, is a remarkably ingenious way of keeping the source material fresh.

@Snowyamur  Eventually I figured you comment on here, and I gotta say, I'm almost astonished by the magnitude of this response you've written. You pretty much worded this better than I could. Provided, I didn't exactly have too many eyes on it before posting, but I wanted to put where I was coming from and was hoping others would to, so we can hopefully bridge that gap between the players and the members of HG. Recently I'm already seeing an olive branch in the form of the newly founded HG Discord server we recently put up, along with a nice update to the server that introduced groups as another means of connecting with other players and enriching the experience. But your allegory that compared HG and Nox to rivaling empires and factions akin to Stellaris is a breaktaking way of putting things much simpler than I did. I've seen many fallen communities in my time, many monuments sit in their stead, from FirewallCS.Net's Facebook page, to Plaguefest's old ZombieMod server finally disappearing from CSS's servers list. Yet not many of them took advantage of using this knowledge they all had. Noxious.net may not have been the most perfect example to follow, nor the most cordial, but all of that coding, all of that passion that the project did have, remains there for people to use and hopefully create something beautiful out of it.  Many new things can be added or adjusted, l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶d̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶t̶g̶u̶n̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶,  bringing in zombie types that were exclusive to them in terms of examples. I've heard talk of us implementing the teleporter system finally, now allowing us to safely travel across distances that would in other cases be total suicide. 

I know I'm not much in terms of street cred, but I have to say,  I thank you for your input here and I'm glad you can see where I'm coming from. This was the whole point of the thread, for people to put forth not only their own interpretations of this, but to also give ideas or lay out the groundwork for the HG community and the ZS player base together as a whole. It's the only way I see this lasting for pretty much as long as any single one of us still have a burning passion for this.

[Lady Luck]

This reminds me so much of what happend to nox it hurts xD.

[RodanWillEatYourFamily]

It all catches up in the end

[Aquadango]

Hindsight is fun, isn't it?

[Vinny Mac]

"We're running full steam ahead, all the while looking backwards, instead of forward."