Xavier's Rant

[Xavier]

After a few recent heated discussions with different players / community members, I would like to remind everyone of the following:

 

DarkRP Monetization

Danny and I have already spent over 1,600 hours working on the DarkRP gamemode to provide you with a fun, free game for your enjoyment. I have personally spent at least 10,000 hours playing, administrating and developing the GMODZ server since 2013, and I estimate 1/4 of that time was spent on development alone.

Donations are and always will be purely optional. 

DarkRP Premium membership is $10/month. Sure, that may seem like a hefty amount, but you don't need premium membership to play and enjoy the server. Premium membership does not unlock anything game-changing nor does it make your character better than someone else who has not donated. The reason behind the recurring payment scheme is the same motivation that powers Patreon and other platforms of the like. We have tried the single-time donation scheme for GMODZ and found that many people wanted to donate again, but had nothing to receive from their donations aside from gratitude. This, again, is purely optional and if you want to make a one-time donation, you are more than welcome to do so by purchasing credits or making a direct donation.

XP Boosts does not only benefit the person who purchased it, but the entirety of the population online for the duration of the experience boost. This is the only game-affecting feature as a result of donations, as the rest are purely cosmetic. I, however, disagree with the current boost rates (3.5x) and will lower the effectiveness of XP boosts once the level-requirement<->experience-reward ratios are addressed. (e.g gaining more experience for performing a higher level-requirement action)

 

If you feel the gamemode is "pay-to-win", I strongly disagree with you. If you truly think that, please voice yourself publicly. I urge you to go play on any other server (or make your own, and see for yourself!).

 

If you are unhappy, either tell us and tell us why or leave. Don't stick around acting all passive aggressive or just to start drama and waste our time. We have had many people complain or state a "problem" but nobody has been able to state either what they're complaining about or fail to come up with any alternatives or ideas.

 

DarkRP Suggestions

We read and appreciate every suggestion we receive and are grateful for every single one of them. However, things take time to implement. We have to plan for the future, how things will interact with existing features and whether it fits the style we're going for. 

 

We also appreciate constructive negative feedback. But like I've stated above in the monetization rant, if you're going to raise a problem, you should also raise a potential solution. For example, whining "scrap metal sucks" once is fine. Saying "scrap metal sucks" every time you join the server is annoying. Instead, try to come up with a potential solution and introduce it to the developers as a question such as "What if we were able to steal cars and dismantle them for scrap metal?" This kind of suggestion is probably one of the best.

Sometimes, a suggestion will be taken by the developers and expanded upon, sometimes even brought to a completely different direction.

Don't be afraid to suggest something because you think we don't listen; we really do unless you're being rude.

 

DarkRP Balancing

I like to think of myself as a sane developer. I make games the way I would want to play them. With that being said, I have heard your concerns about the experience rates and how much time needs to be invested into the server before getting to a stable point. These are all things I want to address, but I have been focusing all of my time working on the server's backend & infrastructure that I've let that side slide. The server is heavily inspired by RuneScape, a game that truly molded my childhood and perspective of games so yes, some parts will be grindy. But grind isn't always a bad thing. I don't want to turn people off by the thought of it. Once I'm done working on all of the things that you guys don't really get to see, I will focus on making the game fun.

 

In other news, I currently do not have any stable source of income aside from the Amazon Flex program and some game development freelancing and I'm struggling to make ends meet. For that reason, I have slowed down DarkRP development to focus on obtaining an AWS certification to become a full-time software developer.

 

Thank you for listening to me rant.

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by phoon

[Medinator]

Damn, i never though darkRP was pay to win once lol i didnt think that was a even complaint in the community 

[Miguel]

Epic

[Thunder]

Well said. 

Best of luck to you obtaining that certification and finding employment. ❤️

[Memzrs]

Okay, this is my point of view: Pay to win aspects are absolute shit, the amount of Servers that have shutdown since 2014 that I personally have donated to is quite insane and just like Harry said one of the many reasons DarkRP is dying but don't get me wrong if the server itself is WORTH donating to it that's a whole different story I will continue
Scale: how do I determine a server is good? if you know the server has A: Abusive staff is a instant no no B: Unbalanced mechanics and for example Guns, Economy, or Shit/Unoptimized rules and overall bad server - from my experience on this server doesn't seem to have any of these and is totally good in this way
Is this server worth Donating to: Server has to be THE best if not near the top the only problem is players don't see that as they have probably never played with SantosRP rules and with the risk of the server shutting down which probably won't be for awhile from now I think if it had players it would be 100% worth it
FearRP: always hated it but I can see why It is a thing especially for these type of servers but one of the reasons the gamemode DarkRP does not get updates no longer
the overall quality Rules to staff is low and Rules that staff cannot prove sometimes don't work out
DarkRP in general: over 80% of the servers are the same thing over and over again but this server does a Insane job of making itself unique and I personally have NEVER  seen something alike on Australian servers and here comes my suggestions
Suggestions: I love to not have much ping and I'm sure thousands to millions of people think the same thing everyday so as the Australian DarkRP dies and one server that actually hits Good amount of players is semi-unique so what if you Just hosted another server in Australia? I can almost bet every player will be amazed once they join and I can also bet you will get at least 20+ players all online at once at prime time

Well, That should rap that up and PLEASE actually read the post as I give my opinion that I have thought about since 2014
Note: if you only read the start please continue!

[vixsem]

Wow

[Bhoon]

You shouldn't make games the way you would want to play them you should make them appeal to the people that will play them

[phoon]

20 hours ago, Bhoon said:

You shouldn't make games the way you would want to play them you should make them appeal to the people that will play them

Don't think you're trying to prove anything just starting a nonsense argument, if you have suggestions you can leave some, not a need for a never ending argument.

[Bhoon]

2 hours ago, phoon said:

Don't think you're trying to prove anything just starting a nonsense argument, if you have suggestions you can leave some, not a need for a never ending argument.

That was my suggestion, i don't see the argument i started maybe your just looking at it negatively but whatev ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Making a gamemode and players don't like some part of it and not changing what the players don't like won't help with getting more players.There's a lot of stuff that can be improved ,for me it's just not fun runescape + gmod doesn't work cause of the limitations of gmod

Edited October 19, 2019 by Bhoon

[Xavier]

23 hours ago, Bhoon said:

You shouldn't make games the way you would want to play them you should make them appeal to the people that will play them

If I wanted to make a product with the sole intent of profiting, this is what I would do. However, you clearly missed the entire point of my rant which goes against that.

[Xavier]

1 hour ago, Bhoon said:

Making a gamemode and players don't like some part of it and not changing what the players don't like won't help with getting more players.

We're not ignoring any issues that are actual problems. I'm not sure what you're basing these claims off of?

[Bhoon]

1 hour ago, Xavier said:

We're not ignoring any issues that are actual problems. I'm not sure what you're basing these claims off of?

Both of your answers i cant really discuss here you guys probibly should already know them

Edited October 19, 2019 by Bhoon

[Xavier]

...?