[Bird.]

Hey Hey! Let's talk about raiding.

As you all know, raiding is pretty much the only method to claim a building which has already been claimed by someone else (if you don't want to buy it off them or they won't sell it to ya.)

You call the raid, and this sets off a 120 second timer. Here's my issue with this.

#1. Players who have joined AFTER the raid timer was set off will not be aware of the raid until the "Raid has started" notification pops up, and if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, well, Requiescat in pace.

#2. If you happened to be typing when the notification was set off, you likely wont see the notification when you press enter to send your message, due to the fact that any colored notifications which are sent on the server go invisible after you enter and exit the chat once.

Counter-argument to the first point:

"There is nothing we can do about this. It is unfortunately going to be on the fault of the player if they are within the area when they raid starts, whether or not they had joined after the raid timer or not."

This is incorrect in a few ways.

Firstly, you could always set the timer to alert at 120 seconds AND 60 seconds. Whilst there would still be people who get caught in the cross-fire if they joined after that second notification, it would cut down on a lot of the wrongful KOS calls by players who had just joined and had not been aware of the raid.

Secondly, you could definitely make the color of the raid text a bit more noticeable. Purple, of all things? It's something we already see a lot, and it has no "look at me, i'm probably something important" vibe. (I could be wrong about it being purple, I'm writing this off the top of my head, but whatever color it is, I've never noticed it and went "oh I should probably read that.")

Counter-argument to the second point:

"That is not something we can change. It's the plugin's fault, not ours."

My response:
This could very well be true, but if it is causing such problems, maybe you oughta rethink what plugin you're using? I respect the fact that it takes a lot of work to upkeep this server, but if such issues are occurring, perhaps you should look at the other issues it could cause? You might find that there are other issues which have been lurking in the shadows, less obvious than this one.

My goal in this suggestion isn't to cause mayhem, or to make people think I want only what's best for me; Because truly, I just want what is best for the server. I enjoy the conversations which are had, and if ya'll can keep it reasonable and not hostile, I'm down to have a discussion about it, and what we could maybe do better or not change; I'm not an expert, I'm just someone who's observations have brought me to type out this (semi-long) suggestion in the hopes that someone more understanding than me on the situation could add-on, or make an argument towards it.

Thanks for reading!

[Miku]

The color is pinkish, and we use it for nothing else, to try to make it stand out more.

Announcing the raid again at 60 seconds isn't a bad idea, although it might not help chat spam. Recently we did add the exact time until it's announced to /news and /raids which helps a little.

I've thought about for #13 Modded RP having a circle/effect around the raid zone to show it more clearly, or let players mark it on their map. The specifics of those ideas have not been worked out yet.

The plugin is fully ours and custom, we can change anything about it and we completely did overhaul it a few months ago.

I've offered alternatives to the raid zone style before and players always voted against them and just for a simple raid zone.

This could very well be true, but if it is causing such problems, maybe you oughta rethink what plugin you're using? I respect the fact that it takes a lot of work to upkeep this server, but if such issues are occurring, perhaps you should look at the other issues it could cause? You might find that there are other issues which have been lurking in the shadows, less obvious than this one.

I don't understand this statement at all, you're saying the plugin may use bad colors, so it may have a lot more issues that are "lurking in the shadows"?

[Bird.]

The color is pinkish, and we use it for nothing else, to try to make it stand out more.

Announcing the raid again at 60 seconds isn't a bad idea, although it might not help chat spam. Recently we did add the exact time until it's announced to /news and /raids which helps a little.

I've thought about for #13 Modded RP having a circle/effect around the raid zone to show it more clearly, or let players mark it on their map. The specifics of those ideas have not been worked out yet.

The plugin is fully ours and custom, we can change anything about it and we completely did overhaul it a few months ago.

I've offered alternatives to the raid zone style before and players always voted against them and just for a simple raid zone.

This could very well be true, but if it is causing such problems, maybe you oughta rethink what plugin you're using? I respect the fact that it takes a lot of work to upkeep this server, but if such issues are occurring, perhaps you should look at the other issues it could cause? You might find that there are other issues which have been lurking in the shadows, less obvious than this one.

I don't understand this statement at all, you're saying the plugin may use bad colors, so it may have a lot more issues that are "lurking in the shadows"?

Aha, I see where I worded that wrong. I was referring to the fact that when you enter and exit the chat, any colored chat goes invisible (at least for me, it could be a personal problem, but I'm not sure, thought I'd mention it), and this brings some people to not notice that the raid was even called, as chat normally goes pretty fast, and the notification would be lost quite quickly.

The pink color doesn't seem to help when I still see at least 6-7 people being killed during raids because they were walking by assuming nothing was going wrong, and then calling KOS in the chat; It shouldn't have to be that bad.

Also, thank you for taking my post into consideration! Hope I haven't been to vague on anything else haha

[Miku]

The color is pinkish, and we use it for nothing else, to try to make it stand out more.

Announcing the raid again at 60 seconds isn't a bad idea, although it might not help chat spam. Recently we did add the exact time until it's announced to /news and /raids which helps a little.

I've thought about for #13 Modded RP having a circle/effect around the raid zone to show it more clearly, or let players mark it on their map. The specifics of those ideas have not been worked out yet.

The plugin is fully ours and custom, we can change anything about it and we completely did overhaul it a few months ago.

I've offered alternatives to the raid zone style before and players always voted against them and just for a simple raid zone.

This could very well be true, but if it is causing such problems, maybe you oughta rethink what plugin you're using? I respect the fact that it takes a lot of work to upkeep this server, but if such issues are occurring, perhaps you should look at the other issues it could cause? You might find that there are other issues which have been lurking in the shadows, less obvious than this one.

I don't understand this statement at all, you're saying the plugin may use bad colors, so it may have a lot more issues that are "lurking in the shadows"?

Aha, I see where I worded that wrong. I was referring to the fact that when you enter and exit the chat, any colored chat goes invisible (at least for me, it could be a personal problem, but I'm not sure, thought I'd mention it), and this brings some people to not notice that the raid was even called, as chat normally goes pretty fast, and the notification would be lost quite quickly.

The pink color doesn't seem to help when I still see at least 6-7 people being killed during raids because they were walking by assuming nothing was going wrong, and then calling KOS in the chat; It shouldn't have to be that bad.

Also, thank you for taking my post into consideration! Hope I haven't been to vague on anything else haha

It's funny, the issue that you pointed out with chat is kind of the opposite. Rich text chat (which is what our chat messages are stylized as) does not fade away. This is a bug with the game that Nelson cannot fix, and we need to use rich text chat messages to be able to color the roles but not the name and such.

https://github.com/SmartlyDressedGames/ ... issues/396

The proper behavior of chat messages is that they should fade away, I think you can turn this off in settings, not sure though.

I think the problem with the KOS is more that in Seattle and high-density areas people/buildings are just too close. The reason why the raid zone style system exists is that it's a lot easier to enforce and for players to use then if they could only kill people who tried to interfere or only kill people who came into the base. The community has voted against changing it time and time again.

[Jfrog137]

A potential alternative to this issue may consist of building a simple but fully customizable plugin like seen in Garry's Mod DarkRP, a simple dialog that pops up on players screen in the bottom or top right corner, simply informing user about the raid. This could also have a relatively simple script that looks for Joining users and sends them the message upon connection?

I know it requires some time and consistency however there has to be someone who can code in C# and JavaScript?

[Jfrog137]

GUI

[Bird.]

A potential alternative to this issue may consist of building a simple but fully customizable plugin like seen in Garry's Mod DarkRP, a simple dialog that pops up on players screen in the bottom or top right corner, simply informing user about the raid. This could also have a relatively simple script that looks for Joining users and sends them the message upon connection?

I know it requires some time and consistency however there has to be someone who can code in C# and JavaScript?

Could work. You're pretty much saying that there would be a bit of text in one of the corners that stayed there whilst the raid was happening? It wouldn't be too large, just enough to where it'd be seen. It might not even have to be a full message, just "Raid starting in [120 seconds], check /raids for more info" that flashed to all players just joining (if possible) for about 15 seconds and then went away permanently? (and it'd flash to all current players aswell)

[Liona]

Hey Hey! Let's talk about raiding.

Raiding has been a part of Pandahut RP forever, it's always been fine in my eyes, if people are in the wrong place at the wrong time they are stupid as you can clearly see players hanging around a base with Raiding gear out which connotes to the fact there maybe a raid so they should have the common sense to leave the area which further leads to the fact of "its the players fault." the only loophole i can see would be if they just logged on in which case is unfortunate for them.

Announcing the raid again at 60 seconds isn't a bad idea, although it might not help chat spam. Recently we did add the exact time until it's announced to /news and /raids which helps a little.

I've thought about for #13 Modded RP having a circle/effect around the raid zone to show it more clearly, or let players mark it on their map. The specifics of those ideas have not been worked out yet.

The plugin is fully ours and custom, we can change anything about it and we completely did overhaul it a few months ago.

Re-announcing the raid would require even more plugin work which would cause harsher lag lines and make RP even more of a hassle and maybe even unplayable to those with low-end laptops and the such.

Having a circle/effect around a raid zone also would just increase lag however the idea of showing a raid-zone on the map is plausible.

My thoughts to conclude

Not to be rude but you guys have strayed from the core concept of RP in my eyes which is having fun. There are the upsets and flaws of course but the rules and the amount of plugins have made RP less of an experience and more of a burden. We are not doing a Military RP so there really shouldn't be rules which take around 30-40minutes to fully read and understand properly.

I know I'll get shit like "stop living in the past" and "fuck you" and whatever however you can blame the game for dying for the lack of players on PH RP which has some truth to it, but a bigger factor to the decline is that RP doesn't have that old community sense, where everyone could mess around, slightly go outside the rules within limits (IE: minor mic spam, fucking around and the such).

I came to RP to escape, to meet new people, have fun and mess around with friends. Now, there is no one online mostly, no freedom and to be frank most the staff are lacking in areas which they shouldn't be IE: knowledge about the rules, fair judgement and patience.

Yeah, I've gone off-topic a bit but it all meshes together to state the simple fact: stop overcomplicating RP for the love of god.

-snoob dog

[Bird.]

I understand that; I'm genuinely trying to see if we could make it any easier for people to understand. Right now, it seems a lot of newer players who don't understand the concept as much get stuck in the crossfire because it's behind features which may not be properly explained in the "short" amount of information you get on first join. I'm not trying to make this more "milsim" like, I'm trying to make it more user-friendly so that new players can ease themselves into it better.

(That's honestly why I bought the mall in the first place. I sell it to any players who want it, no matter their status, and most of the time, it's the newer players who end up buying them, and then they get some exposure to rules and other players. )

[Liona]

I understand that; I'm genuinely trying to see if we could make it any easier for people to understand. Right now, it seems a lot of newer players who don't understand the concept as much get stuck in the crossfire because it's behind features which may not be properly explained in the "short" amount of information you get on first join. I'm not trying to make this more "milsim" like, I'm trying to make it more user-friendly so that new players can ease themselves into it better.

(That's honestly why I bought the mall in the first place. I sell it to any players who want it, no matter their status, and most of the time, it's the newer players who end up buying them, and then they get some exposure to rules and other players. )

"short amount of information you get on first join." It clearly states "visit pandahut.net/rp and read the rules" so it's on them for not knowing the basics of RP.