Okay, I'm not sure if that was already argued out but whatever. To me, gang activity is worthless now, raids and gang events are so full of flaws, it makes my eyes burn.
In my opinion, i suggest to only make 2 gangs, why? Because raids would be more stable, more intense as they used to be. The current gang system is ridiculous, gangs barely raid, gang events are an usual struggle every week to meet the 6 players requirement for each gang, and there are usually 3 gangs max able to play and i'm being kind. (and delete this mfkin LC, pathetic)
Furthermore, add back the gang events spectator mode (that chris scripted), it was a nice idea, stfu with the "it makes people lag" i don't give a damn ****, fix it, it's your job, "staffs".
Keep my idea in mind, i might not be clear atm, its like 2am, i'm tired, but I hope I at least sent a message.

Thought about this.

3 worked out well, but the entire time there was a demand to re add the fourth =[...

2 though, I don't think would work at all. The points would be ying-yanged or mirrored, one would always be better than the other and people would flock to that gang.
Plus it would make 4 team gang events useless. We'd only have TDM/CTF.

It seems whenever a gang is changed slightly everyone rushes there.
And no matter what 1 of the gangs gets stuck in the dumps.. this happened whether it was 3 or 4 or even 5 gangs.

Dunno, gotta try and figure something out.
Already had a idea for LC, but if a certain someone doesn't respond or get active in a timely manner I'll go back to 3.

The entire system needs to be reformed.
In my opinion gangs should be central to the game play of the server; They sort of feel like a played out sideshow at the moment.

1) Above anything else: gangs need to be given a PURPOSE!
2) In order to accomplish this: I suggest some type of survival of the fittest type system.

-a) This would be an automated system, not a system governed by a gang admin.
-b) A set of variables/criteria would need to be designated to gauge one gang's superiority over another.
-c) Inferior gangs would be punished (ultimately ceasing to be a gang at all)
-d) Superior gangs would be rewarded
(These rewards are very important to the concept. They need to provide enough of an incentive to engender vicious competition and thus an increase in raids and activity. However, I also believe that rewards should be varied and unique enough to to give members of a gang a feeling of creating something that belongs to them, something they are dedicated and attached to. This will restore the atmosphere of exclusivity and loyalty that once used to characterize gangs.)


An opinion from a guy who's played era for a LONG time.

1Luke1 wrote:

-a) This would be an automated system, not a system governed by a gang admin.
-b) A set of variables/criteria would need to be designated to gauge one gang's superiority over another.
-c) Inferior gangs would be punished (ultimately ceasing to be a gang at all)
-d) Superior gangs would be rewarded

Did something like this before, with the original 'new' gang system. When people could make their own sorta like parties, and if they failed it would be removed. It worked fairly well; for maybe a week?

It ended up just being a more complex version of what we have now... two gangs were utterly dominant and the rest were kinda just... there. Plus it made the gang events a nightmare of complexity, which there's already issues arising when someone other than me hosts them at present times (with the 4 set gangs its practically just a matter of saying :start). Omg, the chaos...

Then everyone whined and moaned for old gangs back anyway.

Sort of knew someone would say exactly this.

The Greeks tried democracy once and it failed. By your logic it should have never been tried again.

I give Tim a lot of credit for the hard work he put into that system, and for having the balls to try something drastically different for once. I think the move back to the same old, pointless, manually operated gang system was a mistake however.
Yes, his system ultimately failed, but it was bound to fail. It was the first system of its kind, and it had to manage and regulate a very complex task. That system should have been revised and perfected instead of being scrapped at the first signs of failure.

In essence, an automated gang system is a very broad idea that can be implemented a million different ways. It's a slightly simple way of looking at things to simply say, "nope, tried that before, didn't work, will never work."

When was the last time one of the gang leader ranks were overtaken by another hard working gang member?

Never.

Last I saw, wil soul lead some gang, and he barely played.

It's not competitive in its ranks, so there is no competition in the raids. It's now just pew pew, lose, rage...

...,no matter how many additions you guys put into the gang system.

This game isn't all that fun anymore. It shouldn't be about survival/reward. People should want to raid because they enjoy it.

Raids are simply "which gang can out-lame the other gang" at this point. Strategy is gone. All of these free elixirs and peppermint drinks just really take the fun out of everything. You can buy a 50hp heal with no cool-down and next to no freeze for $15. You can get cookies just by logging in. I'm guilty of being a little bitch as well, but that just seems to be the premise of raids lately.

In terms of gang events, these have been hosted like horse shit lately. Additionally, playing TDM against a gang that has every one of the new oped weapons is just not fun.

Basically, I think the game is unbalanced. The gun stats are stupid. The free item thing is abused (if it were typical food/gun business items, I wouldn't bitch. But EC items? Lame). The essential game structure is just sorta fucked, and since gangs are the main point of this game, they are ultimately fucked as well.

So taking away lame healing items and overpowered guns will fix gangs?
I have to disagree.

And I cannot agree that proper incentive is provided solely through the enjoyment derived from PK'ing with a group of other people.
Gangs need to be made a central feature to the server. The server should revolve around gangs, gangs should not be some separate sphere for players to go and pk with their friends for fun. We need to find a way to fully integrate them into the rest of the server.

At the moment the server seems to revolve much more around the economy. You could argue that this is because INCENTIVE has been provided for players to behave this way. If you accumulate money you are rewarded with better weapons, rare hats, the opportunity to buy a house or a custom car, or to buy a business and manage it in order to accumulate more money.
Conversely, no incentive has been provided in this way for gangs.

bennyburrito wrote:

This game isn't all that fun anymore. It shouldn't be about survival/reward. People should want to raid because they enjoy it.

Raids are simply "which gang can out-lame the other gang" at this point. Strategy is gone. All of these free elixirs and peppermint drinks just really take the fun out of everything. You can buy a 50hp heal with no cool-down and next to no freeze for $15. You can get cookies just by logging in. I'm guilty of being a little bitch as well, but that just seems to be the premise of raids lately.

In terms of gang events, these have been hosted like horse shit lately. Additionally, playing TDM against a gang that has every one of the new oped weapons is just not fun.

Basically, I think the game is unbalanced. The gun stats are stupid. The free item thing is abused (if it were typical food/gun business items, I wouldn't bitch. But EC items? Lame). The essential game structure is just sorta fucked, and since gangs are the main point of this game, they are ultimately fucked as well.

I agree wholeheartedly. The reason that I don't participate in gangs or play much at all anymore (by play I mean actually put in effort other than walking around unstick being a huge asshole/troll hue huebr) When I actually "played" I started to feel obligated to do so. Jeez I HAVE to get all these gang points or I'm going to get kicked or gang's going to get deleted or whatever. That's stupid. Era might be life for some people, and it was for me until I got sick of that and now I'm all the better for it.

As far as all these healing things go, I like the idea of giving out free shit for logging in. You get more people to log in daily and that's cool, but it needs to be reasonable. Giving away basically invincibility (armor, peppermints, sewers/supers, cookies, etc) is kind of bullshit because people that are tryhard (Tk, Reddy, etc.) are just going to buy a fuckload of them because fuck the police. I think a restructure here could be in order. Maybe give these items every 5th day you log in and every 10th you give idk an ec or something? Just make it still as lucrative but yet not as destructive to the fun that other people have.

The guns are kind of fucked now. They revamped the gun stats which was awesome, I think it needed to happen and to an extent it evened shit out. The point of this was to take out the "god tier" that was mp5 navy, souizen, s6, etc and make more guns viable. This was achieved and I could still rape people with ak47 and still be competitive, cool. Then staff created the same problem they were trying to fix by introducing ksg, m107, aa12, tenac, ar15, and all those new guns. Yeah it's cool to introduce new shit, but fuck guys you overdid it. There are almost more guns than the amount of regular players which is kind of ridiculous.

1Luke1 wrote:

So taking away lame healing items and overpowered guns will fix gangs?
I have to disagree.

And I cannot agree that proper incentive is provided solely through the enjoyment derived from PK'ing with a group of other people.
Gangs need to be made a central feature to the server. The server should revolve around gangs, gangs should not be some separate sphere for players to go and pk with their friends for fun. We need to find a way to fully integrate them into the rest of the server.

At the moment the server seems to revolve much more around the economy. You could argue that this is because INCENTIVE has been provided for players to behave this way. If you accumulate money you are rewarded with better weapons, rare hats, the opportunity to buy a house or a custom car, or to buy a business and manage it in order to accumulate more money.
Conversely, no incentive has been provided in this way for gangs.

I agree that gangs should be more significant on the server. Definitely. But I do not think that incentive and purpose are the same thing. Gangs can have incentives. The point shop, the free ECs/RCs, the statues, the prestige, etc are supposed to be incentives. But the ultimate purpose of gangs should be to have fun. The gun stats/free lame healing items take away from that fun (for me). Maybe most of the server genuinely appreciates them and believes they help things; I just believe they've ruined raids.

Allow me to propose this: what if to use/equip certain tiers of guns you need to have some sort of proficiency in a gang? I.e. you might have enough cash to buy an M4, but you can't equip it until you have a certain rank in a gang, or so many points in a gang. But then everyone would have to have an opportunity to be in a gang (Era Police). Meaning, only gold accounts could "advance up the tiers." Additionally, being in a gang would have to be substantially entertaining, else no one would continue playing. Thinking aloud; may have shot my own idea down.

I don't really like that idea benny. I honestly think they should just have some poor soul go through logs and find out how much people paid for their tenac guitars/op guns then refund it while removing all of these RETARDED weapons that literally ruin the game.

Yeah, I'd also like to know who was responsible for that guitar thing.
Possibly the single most retarded thing I've ever seen on era.

You know what made era so great back in the day? That any noob could get an Uzi and practice with that one gun, and potentially be a big threat. I personally don't play anymore but I'm sure we can agree my golden navy can beat anyone who uses an Uzi, and I'm a sub par player. Same goes for the tenac vector lag and a handful of guns. I think you guys need to sit down, decide permanant stats, and go ahead and restart. I'm a rich player who sucks at Pking and I support a reset, which would inevitably hurt me, so I'm sure others are open to the idea.

The_Federov wrote:

You know what made era so great back in the day? That any noob could get an Uzi and practice with that one gun, and potentially be a big threat. I personally don't play anymore but I'm sure we can agree my golden navy can beat anyone who uses an Uzi, and I'm a sub par player. Same goes for the tenac vector lag and a handful of guns. I think you guys need to sit down, decide permanant stats, and go ahead and restart. I'm a rich player who sucks at Pking and I support a reset, which would inevitably hurt me, so I'm sure others are open to the idea.

i thought you quit o.O

CMON FED

WillaDiaz wrote:

The_Federov wrote:

You know what made era so great back in the day? That any noob could get an Uzi and practice with that one gun, and potentially be a big threat. I personally don't play anymore but I'm sure we can agree my golden navy can beat anyone who uses an Uzi, and I'm a sub par player. Same goes for the tenac vector lag and a handful of guns. I think you guys need to sit down, decide permanant stats, and go ahead and restart. I'm a rich player who sucks at Pking and I support a reset, which would inevitably hurt me, so I'm sure others are open to the idea.

i thought you quit o.O

CMON FED

Do you see me in game? No? Alright than. Just because I don't enjoy the game doesn't mean I can't give some input. I was in study center and had no work to do, so I checked the forums. Sue me.

the game sucks and always will suck. sorry. find a different game to play.

Frankie wrote:

the game sucks and always will suck. sorry. find a different game to play.

He's right you know.

I think it's an amazing game with a ton of potential.

Frankie wrote:

the game sucks and always will suck. sorry. find a different game to play.

It's a chat room that you can kill people you don't like on. It's fucking awesome until you realize that life requires more effort than you put into graal

1Luke1 wrote:

I think it's an amazing game with a ton of potential.

I've been saying "it has potential" for years.

has that potential been fully demonstrated?

no.

and probably never will.

Frankie wrote:

1Luke1 wrote:

I think it's an amazing game with a ton of potential.

I've been saying "it has potential" for years.

has that potential been fully demonstrated?

no.

and probably never will.

Never will.
Nothing is put into it other than effort from (sorry guys) sub professionals. This is a side fun project for people that actually know what they're doing or just a hobby for people that don't.

The potential has long since been burried under rubble. go play a game with a player base.

If you want a gang system that will keep people in a gang versus jumping to whichever one happens to be best, look at WoW's guild system.

Guilds level up as the players in them do things that gain it experience, such as PVPing or Raiding (in Era terms, that would essentially boil down to killing people.)

Each time the gang levels up, everyone in the gang gets a passive buff that makes their life easier, but doesn't necessarily give them a game-breaking advantage in the areas of the game that count, such as sparring, raiding, etc.

An example would be:

Gang level 2: Money from kills is increased by 5%.
Gang level 3: you can unstick after not moving for 10 seconds (hospital unstick would be unaffected.)
Gang level 3: Money from bounties increased by 50%.
Gang level 4: Time to capture a base reduced by 5 seconds.
Gang level 5: Beds heal for 11 health each tick.
Gang level 6: LW Potions last an extra day.
Gang level 7: Vitality potions last an extra day.
Gang level 8: Each time you get a gang kill, all of your fellow gang members receive $1 in their bank.
Gang level 9: Your car's speed is increased by 10%.
Gang level 10: the cost of revives at the spar is reduced by 50%.
Gang level 11: Super strength potions last an extra day.
Gang level 12: When you stop bleeding, you heal back all of the health lost from bleeding over 30 seconds.
Gang level 13: You can death cup or revive someone for free once every 10 minutes.
Gang level 14: Your gang gains an extra 10% experience and your money from kills is increased by 10% for each base that your gang holds.
Gang level 15: Your explosives only deal 10% damage to your fellow gang members.
Gang level 16: You take 10% reduced explosive damage from all sources.
Gang level 17: Gang kills give you experience towards all of the jobs with levels.
Gang level 18: You get 2 points per gang kill.
Gang level 19: You get 1 personal point per 10 minutes spent inside a gang base.
Gang level 20: You do 50% more damage to doors.
Gang level 21: You can throw grenades 25% further.
Gang level 22: Your ammo in all guns regenerates slowly over time. (500 ammo per hour while logged in, 250 per hour while logged out.)
Gang level 23: Each kill counts as 2 kills toward your next health level.
Gang level 24: You can access your ATM from anywhere once per hour.
Gang level 25: You don't slow down or bleed until you're down to 15 health.

These are just hypothetical, but you can see what I'm getting at.
Also, to combat gang hopping, not only would your gang have to level up to acquire the perks, but the gang members themselves would have to level up in the gang to benefit from them, and when you leave a gang, your progress would be reset, meaning if you gang hop, you must start from scratch.

And of course if you're going to introduce leveling in a gang, then you could also piggyback on that and make that the primary way of ranking up.

i.e. you would get more rights in the gang and your rank would change automatically as you level up.

Interesting. It could be cooler if each gang had unique level perks.

half of those are gamebreakingly bad, but is cool list.