How Was GMOD Community Back in 2009-2010

[Kim Yo Suk]

GMOD community was fresh with around 15k players per day online which is not very popular as it is today. Rules were very limited because people have not caused so much trouble in RP servers so much. Just bare in mind we're fresh and just started. There wasn't any other RP server that I know of but I have heard of "LiteRP" was the original before DarkRP. DarkRP was just a parody of LiteRP until it got very serious about DarkRP. Let talk about RP servers which very first RP I played was DarkRP one of the best mod that made GMOD very popular by Youtubers.

Popular map and servers community One of the most popular maps for DarkRP was City38 not City17 it was definitely called something else but I couldn't find it on google. The server had 128 players almost every day and was filled with people actually RPing and rules was very basic and not complex as entire RP community has today. It may be people came from warcraftRP, Half Life Death MatchRP, and many other games that have RP. We saw Gmod as game-changing for RP community which is the ability to build your way the way you want. Unfortunately, we have about 10-15 props max to spawn since PC back then was weak if you don't have much money even $500 gets you only low-mid PC compare today you can get mid-high PC with same budget. What interesting is that GMOD gave us the ability to use multi CPU core before they turn it off.

City 38 when you spawn, you came from the train station and it a huge building huge hallway and long stairway down to the street. The city was dark, depressing and feel oppressive to civilian. Ambient was constant alarm noise just like in Half-life like opening gates in the environment ect... It feels exactly as Half-Life should be. The feeling of depressing and oppression. The skybox shows tall buildings in Half-Life style. You would have felt very small compared to the world in-game.

Another popular map is you guess it, downtown map. It is very simple and feels very simple RP, my first impression was like not bad. Fountain center is there and tunnel and apartment building nearby. It is basically the same map as today but much smaller. We only have area goes as far as beyond warehouses if you guys know what I'm talking about. But a lot of areas in the sewer as well. A lot to explore but it's like meh it ok. Not as great as City38. Usually, a server with Downtown map is a perfect setting for 64 players. But the same situation about props max only 10-15. But with a twist that in the distance from the skybox you can see city38. So in a way, your story is also connected with city38. The story of your character living in the outskirt of the city.

How people RP The impression when I got on City38 was very amazing, I feel like I could build a story for my character. The environment was perfect for Half-Life, jobs are also perfect because it fits exactly within the environment. What amazing to see back then was seeing 128 players in one server. We usually get only 64 max. A lot of people do not have a microphone, we just type away. Keep in mind, buying a headset with a microphone was pretty expensive ($20 and more but keep in mind minimum wage in US was about $6-8 per hour) or just didn't feel the need to buy it yet. So the interaction between people was texting and microphone 50% ratio I would say. People typing it away. However, we did not have /me action so we use *action. For example, I walk up to a hobo and see hobo begging for money so I would type *Feel very bad for the hobo. That how people RP a bit like that. Remember a lot of people play Half-Life back in 2004-2006. So everybody knows how combine acts, how rebels act etc... Remember we build stories together. So you can say it is a "Semi-SeriousRP" Why semi? It because there are some people just not sure how to RP but try to play along or sometimes goes in their own way as best as they can. Seeing people contact staff was rare. Remember, a lot of people came from different part of other RP community. BTW, we do not have FearRP rule. Mugging doesn't exist till a bit later on. Kidnapping is out of the question except for mayor holding him as hostage. NLR is about 2 mins for almost every server. Base rule is almost non-existence.

Guns and Price. Let talk about Guns and price of it. Guns were very basic, Counter-Strike: Source weapons nothing else.  Everybody love ak47/m4a1 or shotgun, the price of these two are very fair I would for 1 it would cost $500-$750 for a shotgun. And then about 1k-1.2k for ak47/m4a1. We do not have inventory save system so buying a shipment of any weapons is not an option unless planning to stay about for about more than 4 hours+ or playing with a team of 3 or more. What interesting is that we do not have a crosshair for CSS weapons but we do have the ability to aim our weapon and trust me it is very hard to shoot. The recoil of any weapons make aiming very difficult and animation bump your iron sight to point where you can't see where you are shooting. So that why shotgun is your best friend because of these issues we have to face. It is a "noob" gun for sure but people do not care. They just want to score a kill in any way possible. When it comes to war. You have to win at all cost no matter what it takes. Today's CSS weapon darkRP is not fun at all to use like back then. It very shit now feels bad for you guys.

Economy. Now you might be thinking why guns are very low compared to today's community. Two simple way to make money, salary and printers. The highest salary you can get at that time was about $250 in almost any community. Printers are very interesting, we do not have fans or temperature and tells you how much money is stored inside your printer. The printer just drop 1k every few mins on top of the printer. You cannot go AFK with printers because the money would disappear after a certain amount of time. The worse part if the printer would have a randomized chance of being in flame and it can kill you and burn your props and your money LOL. What very difficult about maintaining your printer is that to make break-even point is roughly 30mins. This is the same for almost any community back then. Making to 100k is super hard. Once you have 100k you are considered rich boi. With that amount of money, you can buy tons of guns for a very long time. Guns is all it matters nothing else. To make 100k, you need to grind for about hours and hours of printers. It took me about a week to get to 100k that how hard it was to make money. What best part is you can build a faction or gang with that kind of money on hand. Giving your own team some weapons and they look up to you. Sometimes factions do not have "ventrilo" or "Xfire" which is same as teamspeak Xfire is totally different though. I built my faction with wealth and knowing people online every day. People would have the First name then the last name as gang tag. Mostly people would have printers NOT stack together but away from each other as far as possible. People would loan their printers away for free because you cannot AFK with it ever.

Base design. Remember Gmod community is fresh, so people have no idea how to build. It can be bit messy with OCD can mess you up very hard. we didn't have precious tool and we did not have Adv dupe2 tool. Not even a stacker tool. And we don't have text tool to put up KOS sign ect... BTW we never had the idea to put KOS sign. And, no material tools. The way we build is with welding tool and adv dupe to quick spawn things. People tend to have a crouching base if they're smart. Remember, there isn't any base rule except for fading door rule that about it. Fading door usually is 3 seconds must hold for all community. But a lot people don't know how to build fading door which is great for raiders. Sometimes it can take about 20-30mins to build a simple base with a good defense system. The best base I saw was crouching base with a wall that we can see your legs but raiders can't see you. However, raiders can have grenades to throw into your base. Sometimes, if raiders are rich they can destroy you. What I had was no crouching base. Tunnel base with back window and front window shooting and tight pack space for only one person to go through.

Minges back then. What is there to say not very much minges back then tbh. People were chill and having fun together. But we do get minges here and there such as spawning prop above your head and you died by prop and immediately delete it. The biggest douchebag is spawning massive props to crash the server which we should thank them for telling us what props to black list. Admin back then DO NOT have logs at all. It is very hard to be staff. You need to proof from videos or screenshot of your console logs ect... For staff I feel bad for them because they have no idea who to believe. recording back then is very hard and uploading was hard. The only thing admins can do be like patrol police in real life. They do not have warn system, cloak system, minge system ect.. They only have a jail and kick and ban. Maybe spectate I am not sure. But staff are there to maintain the community but what sad is that very few staff are just there for themselves only.


There alot things I could talk about back then. If you guys have anymore question about the past let me know in the comment below and I will be happy to tell you.