Something that has sort of fallen off the face of MafiaReturns is the HQ bar.

You still see it from time to time, but when I think back a few years, I remember HQ bars being some of the best RP threads I've ever seen. They were an excellent place for the family to really get to know each other and I always felt that having a good Bar Manager could end up being the glue that made your crew great.

I made some of my best friends back then in my early days by being active in the crew bar. They were an excellent place for new players to get a feel for the RP aspect of the game without all the pressure and condescending replies they might get on the streets or BD.

One of the major reasons I don't think we see them all that much anymore is the VIP aspect. If you're not getting VIP points for the posts, why should you post?

Just throwing it out there, maybe it would be possible for one thread in the HQ to be VIP accessible. Give the CL a little button to make the thread the official HQ bar. 

Just something that popped into my head.

I disagree with the HQ bar getting VIP points, but I would love to see it be more common as like yourself I believe it's one of the best places to actually get together with the family and RP. I think however this comes down to users needing to take the bull by the horns and drive it forward if its to return properly, not something game mechanics should be used to resolve.

I think the idea of an HQ bar or business is a great one, Its a wonderful way to get to know those within your family and socialize and its also a wonderful way for those unsure of their RP skills to be able to practice and hone their skills up so they will feel comfortable out in the streets, I agree with TyrionLannister its a up to the users to take the bull by the horns and get the idea moving forward.. but I don't think you should get VIP points for it..

While I agree with you that, ideally, the best way would be for users to make an effort in it, I don't see that happening. I've always had an HQ bar in my crews. And I don't think I've had one in the past 3 years go over 15 replies, except for the one where I had the bar manager place it in the BD. 

That's just the mindset that the VIP system has provided. 

I also disagree it's about VIP posts and points.

It's about the feel the family has regarding interaction and roleplaying.

I guarantee you if you put one in, and had other areas that promoted RP and tied them all together, you'd get more activity in your HQ bar :)

I do agree though that the HQ bar was crazy good back in the day. My first stint on MR was a good maybe 8 or 9 years back, and at that time I posted mostly in the HQ bar.

I loved it, yet again it was all about the family pushing the roleplay agenda. Roleplay at that time was more central within the family, and it had more emphasis in the importance of being able to roleplay, and how well you did in the family was also tied into this.

We can't blame the system itself, because the VIP system is just plain awesome. It's the laziness or lack of activeness on a families part that has the slipping roleplay standards and importance.

Just in the same way we can blame Crew Leaders for their members not knowing how to use their guns properly, the same responsibility falls on their shoulders regarding all facets of the families knowledge and where they place their training and activity levels.

To be fair is this any different from auth threads? There are usually two per person being authed (when a GF or city head makes it and then the stepping up leader also makes a speech) that affect VIP posting. What harm is adding HQ Bars? They seem to have the same potential for abusing VIP posting. Particularly if the same things are being said per place.

I get that a lot of people are not fans of entering the streets and some want to practice before they start entering businesses as well. I think this may pick up the use of HQ bars within the families. I would suggest that the bar be well written of course or it shouldn't really count.

Personally, I can't see the abuse in VIP posting that isn't already being done.

I certainly am not saying that the XP being granted for streets post or even a BD post should be anything close to a HQ bar post. But I don't think its a bad idea to actually hard code a HQ bar into the system. And I think that begins with some XP for HQ bar posts. I have to agree, some of the most fun families I have ever been a part of have active HQ bars. Its a great place for the family to interact and make new friends initially. 

Obviously, the admin team would still have access to and be able to monitor the posts. I really don't thin abuse would be much of a problem.

On the contrary, if handled correctly, we might see much better posts in there, out of the public eye, where people can be more comfortable with each other. 

Cin made a fair point, as auth speeches are one of my pet peeves, and annoy the shit out of me. They are abuse of the system to the max. Necessary to get the message out of course, but all the "Well done mate" "congratz" "You'll do incredible things" posts are just a waste of space.

On the contrary, if handled correctly, we might see much better posts in there, out of the public eye, where people can be more comfortable with each other. 

And might I add...its a great training ground for the new players. They can mess up all they want in there, but they only get seasoned. Not burned and castrated as thats what happens to someone practicing in the BD's or the streets.  

I don't see how you two can't just motivate your guys through your skills as a leader to get your own HQ bars active and kicking? Why do you need to rely on VIP points and XP point incentives for quality roleplay and activity in your HQ bars?

Don't we as leaders come up with fun games and ways to make our members do better in earnings? Why can't the same be said for people posting in a thread in HQ?

One idea that comes to mind is starting a bar in the cities BD, and use that as your HQ bar if you really want points for peoples posts in there, if that is what the issue is. Link the HQ thread to the BD thread. If you really think points will get people more active, try it. But look at the BD threads, some just aren't frequented and they still have point incentives.

I also am not a fan of auth speeches, and unless it ties into my characters in character relationships, I just don't post in the thread. A lot of the posts can be seen as OOC, yet that also can be said just as much for many discussion based threads in The Streets.

My point being, you're going to get people posting not specifically for points but because they want to wish their friend well, or feel motivated to post due to a given topic. Points are handy, but it's not the main driving force.

If people aren't posting in your HQ thread, it's not the system that's lacking, it may just be there is a lack of motivation for your members to post. It then doesn't necessarily mean a change to game mechanics is necessary though.

My overall point is this: Uninspiring leadership wont make a company have a better working environment, and throwing incentives at people to rock up to work and do what they should already be doing, still wont change the working environment when they get there. Change the culture itself, and people will start wanting to come to work, and may even be inspired to do so.

While I agree with you that, ideally, the best way would be for users to make an effort in it, I don't see that happening. I've always had an HQ bar in my crews. And I don't think I've had one in the past 3 years go over 15 replies, except for the one where I had the bar manager place it in the BD. 

That's just the mindset that the VIP system has provided. 

As I said, I have done it in the BD before, and it worked quite well.

You can make snarky remarks about my leadership all you want, the bottom line is most older bloodlines aren't interested in writing up long role plays if they aren't getting something in return. You'll get the occasional person who is so into writing and role play that they will always do it, just because they enjoy it. But they're the exception, not the rule. 

And newer ones are too shy to just go out and lay it all out there and make mistakes and learn from them. They need to see the veterans setting an example, and not many are willing to do so in an HQ bar. 

Obviously a culture change would be the best way, but people have been ranting on about "culture change" around here for years, and little has come of it. The game is never going to see the type of role play it saw in it's first few years, because most of the userbase is players who know they can get just as far without doing those things as they could being silent.

Don't mean to be disrespectful mate, so I apologise if you feel I'm being snarky toward your personal leadership ability. I'm merely stating that I think changes come from the leaders, not from changing game mechanics.

We've instilled a really good culture over here and we're one of the newer families, and people just want to post because it ties into the families culture for roleplaying that we have set and because we ourselves see it as fundamental to an enjoyable experience, and necessary to the game itself. We emphasize it's importance and because of our own views on it, we have come up with a solid culture surrounding it. It's definitely a different culture from most families, if not unique entirely, but to have changes in our members, we've needed to set that culture from the get go and from a leadership perspective.

We can harp on about the users being the issue, or the game itself, or we can be inspiring and make a stamp on the game by doing things outside the box and be innovators and game changes ourselves.

The reality is, not every family will have a great culture around posting because that's just the way the family is run. To make this change it has to be from the running side of the family, as this is where you can truly influence your members. It all starts with the leadership. Just like IRL some businesses are ace to work for, and others, shite. In those instances we wouldn't blame or put the responsibility on the workers or the world itself, but the running and management of the business. I think it's pretty much the same here.

Again, not trying to say you are a shit leader because I have no grounds to. Just trying to point out where changes and inspiration really come from and no matter how much we want to change the external environment, true change starts internally. Once we recognise we as leaders are responsible, then we can start making the necessary changes to influence the masses through our immediate family members. If we don't believe it starts with us, then we wont feel we can make the difference. The first step is seeing that we are the catalysts.

I can sit here and talk about culture change all day and how certain families are run differently. But thats quite honestly deviating from the point. I think Goku said it best "the bottom line is most older bloodlines aren't interested in writing up long role plays if they aren't getting something in return."

Now as a leader I certainly take part in my HQ, but for the other members it would be nice to provide a little incentive to post. Again, my NEED for points being given for HQ threads aren't based on the fact that I can't motivate players to RP...its more because I want to be able to polish some of the new guys in house before they hit the outside world. And it would help a whole lot if some of the older blood got involved, and they probably won't have their 'A' game in the HQ thread unless they can yield something from it. 

Hence the request for minute XP in comparison to the rest of the posting venues. 

And just a add-on that i first forgot about. Talking about incentives. We always had the XP incentive to posting in the streets. But ever since the Durden mapping was tied to it, it certainly has pulled in a lot of other players that usually wouldn't touch RP. I myself would only post back in the day on policy based posts but not as heavy as now, a big part of that is the mapping. So why not do a little incentive tying to something that helps the young crowd get better at posting? 

I can sit here and talk about culture change all day and how certain families are run differently. But thats quite honestly deviating from the point.

It's not deviating from the point, when you're wanting XP points to motivate your members to post in your HQ threads when the culture itself surrounding RP is what should be motivating your members to post in general.

a) HQ threads can be altered by the upper structure so I can't see admin allowing XP points to be attributed to HQ threads

b) No-one can see what is and isn't being posted from an outsider perspective, so if it goes toward VIP points which pits the community against each other, it doesn't seem fair to not actually be able to access the posts that are accumulating XP points

I spoke about culture because that's the best method to getting people posting. It's an alternative to what is being suggested.

Another one is what Goku already talked about, which is placing a family orientated bar in the BD District if you really want these posts to accumulate points and if that's what you feel will be the only motivation for your members to post in a family orientated bar.

The great thing about a BD thread being a HQ bar, is you could even post a link to it from HQ, and work that angle. Another great thing is outsiders would also be able to venture into the bar, and interact with the family members, which is what I feel VIP points are all about, more roleplay interaction within the community.

HQ bars can be effective and thriving without the 'need' to associate points to them, and it comes back to my point of what the family roleplay culture is all about.

I'm more in the questioning of why someone's leaderships skills are put to question when he made a game suggestion. It was a suggestion. There is no need to make comments about anything regarding his leadership skills.

I think it would be nice to have a specific HQ bar thread, but I do not see the reason of having it count towards VIP points. Reason being as others said above. Could be taken advantage of very easily and I don't think its up to the admin team to put effort into keeping something that we should be watching ourselves. 

IvanRomanov in my two posts above yours, I explained I wasn't questioning his leadership skills, or anyone's. In the posts I have explained how my point was as leaders overall we are all responsible for getting our members more active in roleplay within the game, just as we push our members to earn more and train their guns harder because we want these areas improved in the family.

In my opinion, it makes sense to also put emphasis on roleplay from a leadership standpoint to improve this area, rather than looking externally for fixes when we can drive improvement internally.

I was merely pointing to another method/ideology to get the HQ bar more active because as for the reasons you and others have mentioned the suggestion most likely wont get approved.

So why not have someone post with alternate methods/ideas? I didn't think it was a strict yes or no conversation, and the point about pushing roleplay from an upper structure standpoint would be a good idea as it's working wonders with us at Phoenix Rising.

I hope that answers your question, and anyone else's that thinks I am putting down someone's leadership abilities and that my input to the discussion about getting HQ bars more active is off point/topic.

I don't see how you two can't just motivate your guys through your skills as a leader to get your own HQ bars active and kicking?

Thats pretty questioning. Along with a few other things. 

Everything passed that has been superb in giving feedback towards a suggestion. And I just hope in the future it stays that way.

Fair, I thought you meant putting their abilities down in a negative way.

I don't see how you two can't just motivate your guys through your skills as a leader to get your own HQ bars active and kicking? Why do you need to rely on VIP points and XP point incentives for quality roleplay and activity in your HQ bars?

Don't we as leaders come up with fun games and ways to make our members do better in earnings? Why can't the same be said for people posting in a thread in HQ?

I think those questions are valid, and simply questions. They may be confronting depending on style of personality, but I feel necessary given the suggestion. If one feels without VIP points their HQ Bar threads wont get people posting, then what exactly is the real issue here?

If they are asked honestly, and answered honestly, the problems may just surface to be properly dealt with, without needing a change in game mechanics or a band aid to hide the real issues. Again, this is all pointing toward how upper structures can place more emphasis on roleplaying overall to drive more 'results' in that area, just like emphasis is placed in other areas within families.