Gangs; Who Needs Them?

[Supaman771]

Got a little artsy in the title there.

Anyway, I just ranted on this topic earlier and thought it would be good to open up a thread and see what everyone's opinions are. Non-Eraians, oldbies that still surf the forums, Tk I guess... What would make you guys want to join gangs and actually participate?

You all had a blast doing it years ago when there was nothing to gain but a little fun. Now with endless lists of incentives, improved systems, and non-existant wait times (sometimes instant warps) to raids, no one cares to partake in a little bit of 'fun'.

Here is my previous rant/response on the topic of Gangs, if you want to further understand the daily dilemma faced; many players actively represent gangs, yet few actually participate in gang activities.

tl;dr What would make you want to play Era as a gang member, or even become one?

[Felix_Xenophobe]

i do

[BlueMelon]

I think what made it fun (for me at-least) was ranking up, but also the strategy during a raid. Don't go main cause they laming? Half elevator - half heal room? Sewers? etc. But also the RP aspect, where everyone had to wear gang hats/ gang outfits. Rivalry between gangs, everyone hating BH cause they run, etc.

[Crono]

morano family

[papajchris]

I think you are asking the wrong people. All of us forum dwellers will most likely NOT come back regardless the changes you make. You should ask people who are currently on the server, but not in a gang.

Not sure if this has changed, but only one base should be available for take-over at a time IMO. It forces everyone to take that base. The server should announce that a base is open for take-over. Now here is the part servers mess up on. Who ever owns the base at the end of the time, should NOT be given the base. It should be given to the team that held it the longest.

What made me want to join a gang was the belief that they had more privileges (gang guns/hats/etc.) As far as I know, this doesn't exist anymore. Is the gang shop released?

It might even be a cool idea to have gang missions. Gang missions would require a decent amount of people and force leadership to be involved.

[Frankie]

back in the day it seemed like being in a gang was a lot more prestigious. now days it's too easy to get into and nobody really thinks any different of you because you're in a gang. I remember joining LC and all my friends were jealous and thought I was the ****.

the community was just so much different back then. people were a lot more competitive. the only incentive we had to raid was to say "we beat you." respect was a lot harder to earn and it was something people wanted to fight for. that's just how players were back then. I think era just needs a complete overhaul to be more updated with today's standards for games. the whole concept behind graal and era itself is amazing and has tons of potential but if it's turning into such a complex and difficult task to make players raid then maybe it's time to change it up.

[ilovegirlzz]

if you reset the server and started everyone off at the same level maybe and just maybe would I want to join a gang. Atm there doesnt seem to be an advantage of being in one.

[bloodykiller]

the BH pk event should be banned since all it does it create a mess and stop any raid which is going on..players r able to get back to BH too quickly and even if you survive several players you'll die eventually since people keep coming back as soon as they die.
the only raidable base on era is BH, so the other bases should be replaced.
the base capture points r lame since it takes people off raids to go cap other bases.
only give money for kills if it's inside a gang base..people will want to raid.

[Scoper]

Originally Posted by Frankie

back in the day it seemed like being in a gang was a lot more prestigious. now days it's too easy to get into and nobody really thinks any different of you because you're in a gang. I remember joining LC and all my friends were jealous and thought I was the ****.

the community was just so much different back then. people were a lot more competitive. the only incentive we had to raid was to say "we beat you." respect was a lot harder to earn and it was something people wanted to fight for. that's just how players were back then. I think era just needs a complete overhaul to be more updated with today's standards for games. the whole concept behind graal and era itself is amazing and has tons of potential but if it's turning into such a complex and difficult task to make players raid then maybe it's time to change it up.

Originally Posted by bloodykiller

the BH pk event should be banned since all it does it create a mess and stop any raid which is going on..players r able to get back to BH too quickly and even if you survive several players you'll die eventually since people keep coming back as soon as they die.
the only raidable base on era is BH, so the other bases should be replaced.
the base capture points r lame since it takes people off raids to go cap other bases.
only give money for kills if it's inside a gang base..people will want to raid.

this is me mirroring both of their sentiments. Zeus made some good points too but fux dat kid he's a michigander

[WillaWonka]

PKing is not fun anymore, and all the updates and releases are getting channeled to those who are already rich and play the game alot... for now. (Pointing figures at the staff releasing one of a kind 200k+ guns,That inevitably go for 500k to one of the 6millionaires).

Staff are too focus on this "big picture", sucking money from the economy, when what is really hurting era is the lack of players, and lack of activity for those who already are there.

Its a nifty little chatroom now, GG Staff.

[amf101]

Yeah, Frankie's right. Somebody was in your base you had to get them out. We was a lot more prideful back then. Those times are obviously gone, though. It sucks.

[Supaman771]

That's mostly my point... it's just how the players are now, we give them tons of bonuses and stuff they asked for and they don't want to do anything. Meh...

On another note:

Originally Posted by Crono

morano family

Done.

[amf101]

I know. You do what you can, really. I think how we're all too huddled around how much money we have and all the other things we can do other than pking kind of knocked the staff team off what era was always about. Logging on and instantly getting roped into some raid or something pk related. Not bet flipping and digging snowballs all day.
When you think of any shooting game you think of instant action. Imagine halo having an unstick me, money, hats or any other thing that doesn't belong in a shooter. You give people the option of being able to sit in a place all day without the danger of dying you're going to attract the sort of person who is content on sitting there digging your silly snowballs while waiting for your "spoon fed" BH pk.

[Tim_Rocks]

We need more of this on Era

[Scoper]

Originally Posted by amf101

I know. You do what you can, really. I think how we're all too huddled around how much money we have and all the other things we can do other than pking kind of knocked the staff team off what era was always about. Logging on and instantly getting roped into some raid or something pk related. Not bet flipping and digging snowballs all day.
When you think of any shooting game you think of instant action. Imagine halo having an unstick me, money, hats or any other thing that doesn't belong in a shooter. You give people the option of being able to sit in a place all day without the danger of dying you're going to attract the sort of person who is content on sitting there digging your silly snowballs while waiting for your "spoon fed" BH pk.

>> still server with highest playercount

[Frankie]

Originally Posted by amf101

I know. You do what you can, really. I think how we're all too huddled around how much money we have and all the other things we can do other than pking kind of knocked the staff team off what era was always about. Logging on and instantly getting roped into some raid or something pk related. Not bet flipping and digging snowballs all day.
When you think of any shooting game you think of instant action. Imagine halo having an unstick me, money, hats or any other thing that doesn't belong in a shooter. You give people the option of being able to sit in a place all day without the danger of dying you're going to attract the sort of person who is content on sitting there digging your silly snowballs while waiting for your "spoon fed" BH pk.

back when I worked under Daz' management, I suggested that we should have attempted to make Era more of a "log in and play" type game. not log in, spend hours making money only to afford a sub par weapon, then get overpowered by players who happen to be more privileged than you.

counterstrike is a great example. you join a server and you're thrown right into the action. there's no bullshit before you get to enjoy the game, and that's where I think Era has gone terribly wrong. it's so hard to attract new players to the server when the game is too focused around people who have already been playing for years and have tons of weapons and items that give them a huge advantage.

the player count is never going to increase significantly unless something changes the basic infrastructure of the server that makes it easier to get into as a new player.

[Donark]

Remove those stupid explosive guns, I shouldn't be taking 90 damage when I enter a base because someone shot a nearby wall 3 times.

Also nerf nitros and other grenades, grenades have always been used but now they're so easy to obtain they're being abused and overused. It's making raiding a lot less skill oritentated and more about how lame you know how to pk.

Also I agree with previous posts, make era less of a money-making social game and more of a real action shooter

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Supaman771

On another note:


Done.

recruiting me back after ~5 years is another thing

[BlueMelon]

Players want little/long term events. But also, PK'ing. Gang Bonuses + Killstreaks + Auctions + Holiday events
Seems like we are doing fine balancing...

[shrimps]

NERF EVERYTHING! REMOVE EVERYTHING! Herp-de-derp

[WillaWonka]

Originally Posted by Tim_Rocks

We need more of this on Era

Wiggers?

[Fiberwyre_P2P]

Besides the fact that Era is nothing more than a "nifty chat room" for most people these days, the reason, as far as I can tell, that nobody bothers with gangs is the fact that there's just no point.

These are the things that some people see as incentives for being in a gang:
Gang guns. (not much of an incentive if you're rich, which most of Era's gang members are.)
5 ECs at the end of the week. (if you're in the top gang.)
Gang events. (Doesn't preclude you from just joining a gang an hour before they start.)
Extra money from kills. (first legitimate incentive I could think of, although the dedicated jobs earn more money.)
Fun. (lets be honest, chasing runners around a gang base isn't that fun after the first hour.)
Gang hats. (Worthless, in my opinion, although some people like hats, so it's open to debate whether or not that's worthy of being called an incentive. Either way, you don't need to participate in a gang to wear the hat, you just have to be on the roster.)
Healing crates. (I do like healing crates. Bravo. Even though the more expensive ones aren't worth it. I mean come on. 10 points = 250hp, 20 points = 350hp, 30 points = 500hp? Why would you pay three times as much to get twice the health when you could just buy three small ones and get three times the health? )
Community. (You could argue people join gangs just so they have someone to play with. I, personally, like parties better.)
Raiding. (You don't really get big gunfights like you do in raids anywhere else on Era (besides events anyway), so you could argue that's also an incentive.)
Gang buffs. (I like most of the gang buffs. Kinda wish BB's gang buff applied, at least to a less degree, to gun shots as well as melee hits.)

Personally, these things would give me incentive to join a gang and actually participate:

Any sort of system to facilitate a sense of progression as a gang member.
I really liked the idea that was floating around just before Donut Squad was introduced of an automated gang that would rank people up based on the work they did for the gang.
It could be that sort of system, a leveling system, anything really. Just something to give you the sense that you've gotten somewhere for the work you put in. (that same system could also stymie gang hopping, if it was made to reset your progress when you switched gangs.)

Structured raiding system.
I think you would see more raids if you broke down some barriers that got in the way of setting one up. Having to mass out and get people to raid is kind of an archaic way of getting it done.
It would be so much easier to just press a button and start a raid that everyone else on a gang tag could then join by pressing a button at the top right of their screen. (think of it like an event system that was repurposed for raiding).

Organized crime.
The reason gangs exist in real life is to make money, be it selling drugs, prostitution, gambling, smuggling, robberies, etc. Without that tying them together, they're just a group of guys with guns with no real purpose.

Protection contracts.
Similar idea to PPA, without the structured business, complete with an owner who gets paid for doing nothing and employees who get paid $81 for a half hour's work.
Basically, anyone who needs assistance can put a protection contract into a queue for free. Anyone on a gang tag can choose to accept the next contract in the queue, and as long as they stay within a certain radius of their charge, they'll get 1 gang point every 30 seconds. (which would equate to $50 / 30 sec, $100 / min, or $6k / hour. assuming you stay in constant contact with your charge.)
on top of that, you could give bonus points for, say, each kill you or your charge gets while you're near them. You could lose a certain amount of points each time your charge dies.

This has the potential to start gang wars on the streets as one noob gets a gang member to guard them, and then the people they kill get a gang member to guard them. Eventually, it could escalate to a full-blown war.

Obviously, this has the potential for people to abuse it by guarding a noob and just sitting in the corner of the map to get free gang points, but, you know... I'm just spitballing here lol

But, yeah, that's what would get me participating in gangs.

[Fiberwyre_P2P]

Also, I like the idea of the game being more pick-up-and-play vs spending years building your **** up.

[smirt362]

Originally Posted by WillaWonka

Wiggers?

Aren't the Chavs? They're the same thing, just British.

[Supaman771]

Originally Posted by Fiberwyre_P2P

These are the things that some people see as incentives for being in a gang:
Gang guns. (not much of an incentive if you're rich, which most of Era's gang members are.)
5 ECs at the end of the week. (if you're in the top gang.)
Gang events. (Doesn't preclude you from just joining a gang an hour before they start.)
Extra money from kills. (first legitimate incentive I could think of, although the dedicated jobs earn more money.)
Fun. (lets be honest, chasing runners around a gang base isn't that fun after the first hour.)
Gang hats. (Worthless, in my opinion, although some people like hats, so it's open to debate whether or not that's worthy of being called an incentive. Either way, you don't need to participate in a gang to wear the hat, you just have to be on the roster.)
Healing crates. (I do like healing crates. Bravo. Even though the more expensive ones aren't worth it. I mean come on. 10 points = 250hp, 20 points = 350hp, 30 points = 500hp? Why would you pay three times as much to get twice the health when you could just buy three small ones and get three times the health? )
Community. (You could argue people join gangs just so they have someone to play with. I, personally, like parties better.)
Raiding. (You don't really get big gunfights like you do in raids anywhere else on Era (besides events anyway), so you could argue that's also an incentive.)
Gang buffs. (I like most of the gang buffs. Kinda wish BB's gang buff applied, at least to a less degree, to gun shots as well as melee hits.)

Gang guns. Benny buffed these to be on-par with high t2 guns. And just yesterday actually (doubt anyone noticed), I slightly edited them again so each gang has a uniform selection of gun types (main weapon, damage weapon, shotgun, handguns). Then I tweaked them around, the #1 guns for each gang (Famas Felin, RR12, Owen45, and BHer) might even be poking at t3. I know plenty of players, even richies, that still utilize the gang guns to fill some empty hotkey slots.
Though I think the usage has dropped since most players would rather cash-exchange. Might change the point prices sometime.

5 ECs. This is still there, but recently added: Every 5k points a gang achieves gets them a different bonus. Even the non-first place gang. (5k - 1ec, 10k - 3ec, 15k - 5ec, 20k - 10ec). So if you get first place with 20k points; 15ec per person just for doing what you're supposed to? That's cray.

Gang events. Perhaps a restriction? Since the events occur at the end of the week, if a player doesn't have at least 100 pts they can't play. You can earn that in one raid... but it would make these cute leaders yell at their best players to stop idling and get 100 points eh?

Extra money from kills. With EP buff and $50/point in exchange, I'm sure a top pker could be on-par with a NPC job, while having 'fun'. The only variable preventing this is the lack of players participating for them to fight.

Fun. F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me... Anti-run links, bases designed for pking with multiple players. How much can they run.. really? I hate to pull this card but if you can't take out a runner that's locked inside one of these bases with all the crates and little doors we threw in there, then you shouldn't be PKing, you might hurt yourself.
I mostly notice it's always the same couple people yelling 'runners' (Willa, Dusk, Tk, Fiber, Smasher), Hey I'm not even in their little top 20 list and raid with 15fps yet never have a issue with runners... I find them easier to kill cause they're not fighting back.

Gang hats. I let the leaders choose any 3 hats that are relative to their gang 'theme'. Smasher even sent me some hats that didn't exist on Era to add, I see plenty of players wearing them and 'representing'. I was considering some rank restrictions on certain hats as well, but they need more uniform rankings for that to work out.

Healing crates. Now 10, 15, 20 points per. Might even lower it more since players would opt for trading their 20 points for 1k cash.

Community. Iunno.

Raiding. +1

Gang buffs. Leeching bullets might be op with 30 damage guns. Perhaps a chance to bleed with bullets (there isn't one, the last-hit bleed is a anti-run thing for the sharks/ocean). Also I need a cool buff idea for MF base, any ideas?
-----------------------
Overall seems like everyone's getting to the same point I was, it's the new-age players and their attitude toward doing anything that are making this such a issue. Joining a gang and instantly receiving full rights isn't rewarding. I remember when it took me over a month to get within reach of a recruiter spot with just add rights in Ish's LC, and he was one of my best friends at the time (so it was still a little sped up). It was awesome having everyone recognize your rank and listen to what you had to say.
Now people I barely know will add me to their gangs with a full list of rights, half the members already have blue chat and no one listens to you when you /tg because they're all blue-chat and unremoveable as well. Guess we have to babysit gangs even more, or take a new approach...?

[WillaWonka]

Might I suggest that the path this server is taking is a little kid friendly one?

I mean, all the popular games are rather violent and explicit, I do not know why we have to succumb to such childish play??

This game needs to be able to sell drugs, trade prostitutes and slave trading. Play Far Cry 3 for some good ideas.

These drugs can give certain effects to boost other's stats, throw out little kid caffeine cups, this game needs some hardcore thrown into it.

And if you think these ideas are immature, go ahead and quit if real life gang dealings are not a lifestyle for a game that describes ruthless gangs in the server information.

I mean, cmon, we need some gang business thrown into here...

Also an opposing force, the Era Military, a legit Era Police, Border patrol, idk, etc.

But yeah, would def. make this game what it needs to be.

[Tim_Rocks]

We only talk about drugs on RC.

[amf101]

Originally Posted by Scoper

>> still server with highest playercount

I would hold the special olympic's medal higher than being the server with top player count.

Anyway, yeah. I threw them the same sort of idea, Frankie. Their response was might as well make an Era v2. Which is my thoughts exactly. What you're doing isn't working so change it.

[BlueMelon]

Not working? The playercount is pretty stable if you ask me

[dude2020]

Push away from PvE content.
Pull PvP content to Era.

[ilovegirlzz]

Originally Posted by dude2020

Push away from PvE content.
Pull PvP content to Era.

like zone.

[Crow]

Originally Posted by ilovegirlzz

like zone.

Well, Zone used to be really great at some point.

[WillaWonka]

Originally Posted by Crow

Well, Zone used to be really great at some point.

It seems like it was great BEFORE the events were introduced. Now people complain Zone is great only for the events...

[dude2020]

Originally Posted by WillaWonka

It seems like it was great BEFORE the events were introduced. Now people complain Zone is great only for the events...

What the **** are you talking about?

[Frankie]

Originally Posted by BlueMelon

Not working? The playercount is pretty stable if you ask me

yeah but era's player base consists mainly of people who have already been playing for years and people who used to play that come back. the playercount may be stable but it could be better. era probably loses a lot of potential new players because after logging on for the first time they are quickly disappointed within the first 20 minutes. why not try to focus on building playercount as well and not just maintaining it?

[WillaWonka]

Gangs, whaata is it good for, absolutely nothing nothing

ohoohoohooohoohhoohoo

Gangs, whaata is it good for, absolutely nothing nothing
YEAW!

[Tim_Rocks]

I've always thought gangs were **** even when they were cool.

[bloodykiller]

everything on zone sucks exceprt iricia and nobody plays iricia anymore...

[dude2020]

but your opinion doesn't matter.

[Godzilla]

You need to take into account the people who have actually spent years building their '****' up as you say, I mean, changing the game completely to a more 'jump in' friendly approach could be good but that will also ruin the entire economy aspect of Era, which brings many people to the game and keeps them here, for example; jade (MWMWM) she runs her business "Dippin Donuts" and essentially that's it, building herself quite the large some of money she has acquired from her business and her hard work which she COULD put towards guns but she doesn't, if she DID and you were to introduce a "jump in friendly" approach, that would consist of people being given guns for free, essentially being built up initially and money would be useless, making those "years of work" for many others a big waste of time.