Community Update - HLNA & Beyond

After a long period of down time and allowing things to settle for both players and admins we've recently had our first official meeting since the infamously termed 'lull' (With a well deserved break for our admins). HLNA has had a great start, with a lot of new ideas introduced and different avenues to explore, for months players have kept it populated as it held their interest. Unfortunately trying to maintain the server and its different factions whilst also trying to touch on lore points such as the NAEZ has been very difficult whilst running the server under the current platform of traditional city roleplay. With that said, we'll be shifting focus on how we present and portray HLNA going forward and moving out of city roleplay specifically in order to explore the broader lore of HLNA that we wouldn't be able to if we kept all the current groups in play.

What does this mean for now?

Basically, we're going into a 'soft reset' mode while we go back to planning on the road map we decided on. What's important is that we have a direction going forward and it's one we think you'll enjoy, it just needs to be filled out more and for the details to be penciled in. All the current HLNA servers will be shut down while we do this so there's absolutely no expectation of players or admins to try and stir population as this happens. When the team ultimately finishes planning the road map ahead it will be ideal to do as much as a fresh relaunch as can be done.

At the same time, we recognize that there's a desire to still play and roleplay under TnB and we want to foster that as much as possible. While we work on making HLNA something for you guys to enjoy we're working on a few different RR's currently. TRP Siberia is next weekend as everyone knows which will undoubtedly be a banger, but we're also working on a Halo RR, an alternative history RR you may or may not have heard of before under Bloo and there may or may not be a horror RR in the works.

Basically the goal here is to show you that we're committed to still providing roleplay even under Garrysmod's waning light and that we're not just going to expect players to mindlessly rejoin to the same styled city RP if there's no changes no matter how different HLNA is considered to be compared to previous iterations etc, we do want you guys to enjoy your time here after all.

We have a very devoted playerbase and we're determined to keep providing the kind of experiences you guys want, but obviously as time goes on and garrysmod enters its dotage age it's getting harder and there's hit and misses. TnB is no stranger to downtime at this point so hopefully you guys recognize that we will come back and we'll come back strong.
 
will make a full post/elaboration in the morning bc I just got back from a 3am subway adventure and my body yearns for sleep
 
Yeah we're tryina get a TF2 server going for the moment.

Woke up at a sobering 4pm and just got out of the shower so I'll finally add onto bennet bennet 's post.

The overall realization was that HLNA has a lot of cool elements that make the setting unique but they're hard to access. This also coincides with the fact that there is a desire for HL2 as a setting but not necessarily for the rigid mold of city rp. To that end we want to work towards making the setting both more accessible to the things that makes HLNA cool and to take the full focus off long-form roleplay.

One of the benefits TRP had as a server was that you could participate in the setting at a very surface level by just participating in the game element of shooting robots and going on patrol, and if you wanted more from the setting it was there to take. SRP also shared this quality in its own way, with HL2 sort've always being the outlier that didn't really allow that sort of approach. We want to reassess how we can take the same setting and translate it in a way that provides that accessibility to both the server and its setting. Those who want to just get on and participate in the server's game elements can while still participating in the setting itself, while allowing those who want to delve deeper can find the tools to do so.

We also want to look towards making the server more autonomous and "self-serve" where players can do more without the existence of an admin to facilitate it. I think the intensive detail of the lore combined with the fact that I had been somewhat of a tyrant with keeping the lore in check was sort've trickling down into the playerbase as a result, which is probably what a lot of people were feeling when they spoke of things being too "auth based" in a sense.

I'm being very vague because frankly we're not entirely certain what the final product will look like. We're choosing to approach the server from a bottom-up design (server/game mechanics first, lore/story second), which is the opposite of how HLNA started- being that it was top-down and prioritized the story and as a result the mechanics were not as sturdy and well-established, thus making the highly developed setting not as accessible.

We'll be doing some episodic RRs and game servers in the meanwhile to bridge the gap, so stay tuned.
 
Personally seeing TnB take a more accessible and gameplay focused approach gives me hope for the future, and with the examples of TRP and SRP, I'm excited to see the end result. The prospect of a HLNA server folks can just hop on and play, while also having the flexibility for Depth for those that want it is a very enticing notion.

I really, really hope this works out for the better.
 
Can't say I fully agree with shutting down /S1/ of HLNA, for people who've put time into developing their character's and building up IC connections over the last few months this may seem like a sharp slap in the face (at first), hopefully, we won't have to retcon a bunch of stuff and/or lose fairly earned items/credits. That being said though, I understand fully the need for a soft restart and downtime, you guys do whatever you need to do. A necessary inconvenience now for a hopefully better future for HLNA.

Looking forward to seeing what the next few weeks have in store for us all, with the awesome RR's mentioned and upcoming changes.

To be fair most of the people I see who make fleshed out Characters around S1 are usually forced to S3 because they get their legs and arms broken by CPs after JWs because their characters have so much backstory they're basically mini-celebrities and therefore the metrocops naturally focus on them because it's not fair to prey on newbies like that, but this is just my personal experience.
 
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I rarely speak my mind on the forums outside of Civil Protection related threads, but I'd like to speak some of my mind here. While I am disappointed to see the HL2 servers shut down for the time-being, given that leaving them up comes at little creative or mental tax for players and the team, I am very glad to see that the team retains its spark of life and love for the community. I was worried for some time that the community would unceremoniously fall apart, though I'm well aware that TnB is far too resilient for such a fate to befall it.

I'm very excited to see what the team will come up with. I think most (if not all) of us are. The launch-thru-current HL:NA team has done a spectacular job. If even a modicum of the same energy and love that the team showed a handful of months ago remains, any project undertaken now will have the same characteristic TnB excellence that we've all come to expect.

Also I'm glad to see TnB branching off to other games like TF2, among other things. Who knows, maybe I'll download TF2 again just to random-crit myself on a rocket-jump and rage uninstall.
 
glad to see hl2 will be taking a turn towards more accessible gameplay, I look forward to seeing what the team has planned
 

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