An open letter to the administration, the coders, and the Nuka folks

[Cartlord]

I realize that this isn't the purpose of Github, but you have no forums, and this would simply be buried in a Discord Server. I'm sick of the mentality held by the people who've been left in charge post-merge, as they insist time after time that the server's death is caused by everything except the addition of Kebabtown. People tell me the near-total loss of players is because nothing was Merged for a while after, but that ended long ago. People tell me that the near-total loss of players was due to some griefers, but there has not been a Fallout 13 server in recent memory that didn't have its town bombed regularly, and they all kept a solid base. I once saw someone say that the reason the server died was just because WE weren't ready for Kebabtown, acting like it was a perfect addition and it was our fault for not accepting it. People tell me that the death of the server is caused by all sorts of things, but they're all either total non-issues or things that every other server deals with and keeps going. Your "Kebabtown is non-negotiable" stance is absolutely absurd, and in forcing it on us, you've totally altered the town dynamic in a way that is demonstrably worse (as shown by the server having <12 people online as I write this) while acting like you've solved a problem that never existed. Oasis and Eastwood served a purpose - that being a place for people to just hang out, not totally removed from the round like a bunker-baby but not actively stirring shit like N.C.R. or the Legion and not engaging in crackhead activities like Khans. Now, you've taken away that dynamic, replacing it with a Church that can decapitate people over verbal disagreements and a Merchant who has no reason to interact with them while the nearby Barkeep hopes the religious psychopaths don't drive away business. Here is the core problem with Kebabtown: you created multiple factions that are supposed to have a dynamic with each other, but none of them have any reason to interact whatsoever, and none of them are enjoyable at the entry level. The Church can make their own food & drugs, and therefore never need to worry about buying anything but guns from the Merchant; the Merchant and Barkeep, meanwhile, are just sort-of stapled on to the town without any real idea of what to do besides the things they already did before Kebabtown's addition. That's without even getting into the Rustwalkers, since they're thankfully gone. You might say that, since the Church can effectively be self-reliant and still have that central location, I should just play them to get the classic Oasis experience - but that ignores the actual politics and nature of the Church as a faction, with people who'll compound-fracture your leg and make you walk it off if you do so much as question an order. There is no peace, or calm, in that hellhole.

No matter how much you deflect, deny, and make excuses, the truth of the matter is that Kebabtown is a flawed concept that killed Nukapop and has now killed Big Iron. The only way this place will come back is if you bring back one of the old towns or completely re-think Kebab and how players interact with it.

And before someone says it: no, Blackwater doesn't fix this. Blackwater is an out-of-the-way podunk camp that's too far off normal routes to be a traffic center and doesn't have anything of note to pull people towards it, so it amounts to being a bunker-baby.

[spackorp4]

[CaputCapital]

Here's my problem with church:

The sub-faction itself is in a sense, relatively unfamiliar with the majority of the player base. Even the merchant faction is arguably more familiar than church. Unlike the Brotherhood of Steel, what could the average fallout (13) player tell you about the "Children of the Cathedral" faction, that is if they even name the faction as what I've quoted? I have made this very clear previously, here are some prime issues with the faction.

1. Those playing Servitor and above have no idea that you can revive decayed corpses and even if they do, what player is going to remain in the server long enough to have their decayed body revived? They'll have either respawned or left the server.
2. Church players often NEVER use the vendor as a means of selling goods and most players don't purchase goods through said vendors. The thought of purchasing commodities or medicine through a vendor is an afterthought unless it's explicitly stated over the radio. Most business is done up front at the front counter.
3. Church has been put up on a pedestal as one of the factions that is meant to produce super stimpaks but that still never happens in any round. PR #279 was supposed to give the church more relevance in this aspect along with bringing more players into the sub-faction, but it failed to do so.
4. Church unfortunately possesses the reputation of being a pseudo-raider/outlaw faction as demonstrated through multiple previous rounds.

Another aspect of Kebabtown which needs to be addressed is the militia commander and citizen loadout for town militia. The militia commander role and the citizen loadout for militia is unnecessary. What's supposed to be understood is that Kebab was meant to be an autonomous zone in a sense, I fail to understand why there is a defined militia role/citizen loadout in Kebab to begin with. It's almost as useless as the Rustwalkers faction and the Rustwalkers faction was removed because it was non-conducive to the map. Rustwalkers was supposed be a faction which controlled the power-output in Kebab, but due to the Yuma map's layout, Kebab would still have power even when the Rustwalker reactor was blown. The only way Kebabtown works properly is if you have at least 2 factions active in Kebabtown and that's mostly going to be Merchant and Church. Every time I have played as a Church servitor, I have made efforts not to go down the same path as the "typical church player" through opening relations with the merchant, keeping medicine production high, and keeping business flowing through surgical and revival procedures.

Supposedly we're due to see something happen with Big Iron. Whether this has to do with the rebase or through some other development, we'll have to see.

[WoodenTucker]

hello yes this is oborn church best faction something something skilliuar issue

[bobjension]

I realize that this isn't the purpose of Github, but you have no forums, and this would simply be buried in a Discord Server. I'm sick of the mentality held by the people who've been left in charge post-merge, as they insist time after time that the server's death is caused by everything except the addition of Kebabtown. People tell me the near-total loss of players is because nothing was Merged for a while after, but that ended long ago. People tell me that the near-total loss of players was due to some griefers, but there has not been a Fallout 13 server in recent memory that didn't have its town bombed regularly, and they all kept a solid base. I once saw someone say that the reason the server died was just because WE weren't ready for Kebabtown, acting like it was a perfect addition and it was our fault for not accepting it. People tell me that the death of the server is caused by all sorts of things, but they're all either total non-issues or things that every other server deals with and keeps going. Your "Kebabtown is non-negotiable" stance is absolutely absurd, and in forcing it on us, you've totally altered the town dynamic in a way that is demonstrably worse (as shown by the server having <12 people online as I write this) while acting like you've solved a problem that never existed. Oasis and Eastwood served a purpose - that being a place for people to just hang out, not totally removed from the round like a bunker-baby but not actively stirring shit like N.C.R. or the Legion and not engaging in crackhead activities like Khans. Now, you've taken away that dynamic, replacing it with a Church that can decapitate people over verbal disagreements and a Merchant who has no reason to interact with them while the nearby Barkeep hopes the religious psychopaths don't drive away business. Here is the core problem with Kebabtown: you created multiple factions that are supposed to have a dynamic with each other, but none of them have any reason to interact whatsoever, and none of them are enjoyable at the entry level. The Church can make their own food & drugs, and therefore never need to worry about buying anything but guns from the Merchant; the Merchant and Barkeep, meanwhile, are just sort-of stapled on to the town without any real idea of what to do besides the things they already did before Kebabtown's addition. That's without even getting into the Rustwalkers, since they're thankfully gone. You might say that, since the Church can effectively be self-reliant and still have that central location, I should just play them to get the classic Oasis experience - but that ignores the actual politics and nature of the Church as a faction, with people who'll compound-fracture your leg and make you walk it off if you do so much as question an order. There is no peace, or calm, in that hellhole.

No matter how much you deflect, deny, and make excuses, the truth of the matter is that Kebabtown is a flawed concept that killed Nukapop and has now killed Big Iron. The only way this place will come back is if you bring back one of the old towns or completely re-think Kebab and how players interact with it.

And before someone says it: no, Blackwater doesn't fix this. Blackwater is an out-of-the-way podunk camp that's too far off normal routes to be a traffic center and doesn't have anything of note to pull people towards it, so it amounts to being a bunker-baby.

this IS your THIRD issue report about kebab please shut up already

[Aurrain]

I'm pretty sure it has a lot more to do with a mixture of "My friends got banned/aren't here/etc" and "Playing the same exact game on however many servers over a span of multiple years sure got boring.".

Don't get me wrong though, Kebab needs a lot of work to not suck. Good thing we're tossing the Mojave as a whole out the window.

[ghost]

no one is quitting the game because the dynamic between the church and the merchant is bad. This is just how SS13 works, populations migrate. There is a finite amount of players and multiple new servers have popped up, few new players have joined.

[Cartlord]

I'm pretty sure it has a lot more to do with a mixture of "My friends got banned/aren't here/etc" and "Playing the same exact game on however many servers over a span of multiple years sure got boring.".

If the latter mattered at all, TerraGov Marine Corps and C.M. wouldn't be so incredibly popular - but C.M. is (unfortunately) the most popular server on the hub.

no one is quitting the game because the dynamic between the church and the merchant is bad. This is just how SS13 works, populations migrate. There is a finite amount of players and multiple new servers have popped up, few new players have joined.

What "multiple new servers"? Do you mean Breakpoint, which had Kebab and was dead on arrival? Do you mean Coyote Bayou, which has been going strong since before Big-Iron even started? Do you mean Desert Rose, which has been dead for years?

[Aurrain]

If the latter mattered at all, TerraGov Marine Corps and C.M. wouldn't be so incredibly popular - but C.M. is (unfortunately) the most popular server on the hub.

CM players like the same gameplay loop; they also get consistent updates with new gear & whatnot, hard to have the same appeal if you're focusing on roleplay as that's entirely dependent on out-of-game social factors.

F13 players are far more picky & cliquey, surely by now you realize.

Anyway- Kebab didn't kill the server, nothing has. If anything, everyone getting themselves banned over spiteful past-server problems has. I can't fix their childishness. Kebabtown won't even be a part of the new stuff I've been working on, so you don't have to worry.

Also, we have a forums now since Discord added them. Feel free to use them.

[Yobrocharlie]

Woah that’s a lot of words. Too bad I ain’t readin em

[Cartlord]

it's finally over, and i am so happy