Prisoners
The regulations were to throw criminals into a cell for about 10 minutes, but I thought it was better to interrogate them to give them interactive roleplay. If I left them in a cell, it was usually just while I was updating their datasheet. Catching them with contraband was a great opportunity to place the item (perhaps an illegal radio) on the table, and while they were tied up I'd ask them where they found it, who gave it to them, what were they planning to do with it...

Being given names and locations could lead to me questioning other characters afterwards, although I'd never convict another character based on hearsay, as I felt that could end a character's story prematurely. I treated the citizens as if they had some basic rights, but still gave them a sense of oppression as I was stopping them to demand answers (even if the replies I got were obviously lies) and made it clear that items as innocent as bandages were illegal.

Culture
The economy was not fleshed out, and the political roleplay was almost non-existent. But I still remember it being a lot of fun and playing it everyday. We didn't have to keep things to a point of gritty realism, so we had the freedom to be dramatic and theatrical (some servers restricted the actions of Civil Protection by using Dispatch). Our playerbase was smaller than other servers, which had made the maps feel a bit empty at times, although we enjoyed the flow of roleplay momentum, which would likely be interrupted by all sorts of things on busy servers.

Rather than just execute "anti-citizens", you could keep them alive so you could draw roleplay from them. We'd try to give them interactive roleplay so that they could pick the direction of their storyline. I was shocked when I tried other servers and saw citizens just getting shot without hesitation for the smallest of crimes, as it looked more like deathmatching than roleplay. Even if I was supposed to kill a character, on Gmod biZ HL2RP I could often try to capture them alive, and even when I had to execute them I could still offer them a chance to say any last words - which in one case was a stoic "Do it." And in another it was: "plz let me live i will service you."

We didn't follow the lore to the exact details, instead just doing what made sense for our roleplay. Looking back, this makes even more sense to me now. If Day of the Daleks (as a television serial) had been changed to fit the singleplayer experience of Half-Life 2 (inspiring the story) then we were right to change it further to fit a multiplayer experience. If anything, we had gone back to those theatrical roots, where other servers had gone for realism. In a particularly theatrical moment we had a high ranking Civil Protection officer that said of a rebel "bring me his head", and as I had prop-spawning abilities I literally spawned a skull prop after we caught and executed the rebel, and gave it to the officer.

The playercount would drop at night, and the roleplay would sometimes stop when there were only a few players left, but there was still a fun atmosphere. Some nights I'd spawn 2 rails as a bowling lane, a melon (set as ice with the physical properties tool), about 5 bottles for pins, and 2 more rails slanted back as a return chute for the ball. Apart from bowling, we sometimes used the /roll command for gambling, with the highest roll winning some tokens and the lowest roll getting knocked out. Whoever got the lowest roll would often run away as soon as they saw the result, but they couldn't outrun me because I played all the time so had high character stats. After their beating they'd often return to play the next round.

Factory shifts
I was given the Civil Protection officer role among a few others on the first day, so as Jury - I had a lot of tokens from all the confiscations I'd done before executing characters. I ended up using the tokens to build a food production factory (props costed tokens) and pay the citizens to perform shifts in it. It was a great way to get the tokens back into the economy, and when I saved a list of characters that did shifts, I found that some of them came back to do it again and again.

Resistance
To become a rebel leader you needed to spend real money to buy the rebel flag which allowed you to spawn resistance uniforms. But you'd lose this flag if you died, which was awkward because there were Armed Undercover Informants that would probably try to infiltrate the rebel group, no doubt leading to the execution of the rebel leader. It was rare to see resistance members on the server.

At one point I tried to run the rebel group myself because nobody else was doing it. I called it the Peoples Resistance Movement which was a "book club". Out of the potential applicants I accepted less than half as members. I gave them uniforms, and among our shared resources we had weaponry, although we rarely got into firefights. We usually operated without uniforms, and had codewords, like a "book" was our codeword for "gun".

The group were very supportive of me, and it was a great experience being with them. But I felt like I couldn't really do anything interesting for them without risking death. I was also unfairly spending most of my time in Civil Protection, because there was a slight lack of roleplay there too. It felt like a conflict of interest doing both. I can't remember if multiple rebel groups were allowed, but someone offered to take the rebel leader role from me, and I remember accepting, although It was a difficult decision.

My evil twin
I used to play on RP servers often, and my brother took an interest in joining me which was nice, but while I tried to offer the other players interactive roleplay, his idea of gameplay involved pranks. One time he was with a group of his fellow citizens and started punching them, and when they raised fists back at him he'd call for me to intervene and then act innocent - so I'd arrive to find him being beaten up and all these citizens claiming that he'd started it, but I'd have no in-character proof of what happened, so all I could do is tell them to stop.

It was a fairly harmless prank, but for his next stunt he asked for a pistol. I didn't really want to refuse a request of my brother, so I gave one to him, but the idea for his second prank turned out to be running up to the ration queue and shooting as many citizens as possible. I eventually banned him for 24 hours, and we ended up finding a less serious gamemode for when we wanted to play together.

Drama
In an unfortunate moment where an admin had used a slay command, they accidentally aimed it at something common like the number zero, as opposed to the full name of the character they intended to slay. As a result, every character with a zero in their name died, which included half of the Civil Protection characters. Some had guns equipped when they died, so we were rushing around trying to get all the dropped guns back as the citizens started picking them up.

A story that stands out in my memory was when a rebel was shot dead by a Civil Protection character, and they were unhappy about it, probably because the shoot-to-miss rule was ignored. Later I heard a shot fired, so I ran to investigate on my own Civil Protection character, but as I reached the area I was instantly killed. As far as I could tell - I was killed by the rebel player because he wanted revenge against Civil Protection.

This was obviously against the rules (breaking the new life rule and random deathmatching) but that kind of thing was a rare occurrence, and seemed to be the end of that particular drama. I sometimes retold that story to explore the value in reacting constructively to negative experiences despite feeling frustrated, because there was an opportunity to try to make things better, but the rebel did the exact opposite.

There was a day of drama when another HL2RP server had some downtime, so we had their playerbase joining us that had a different culture. They were obnoxious, spending the whole day pointing everything out that they did differently, acting as if we were doing it all wrong. We didn't entertain that nonsense, essentially just telling them to shut up and play the game. One of them was trying to claim that we had lost all these potential new members including a mapmaker by not listening, but ofcourse as soon as their own server came back they all fucked off right back to it, and clearly had no intention of taking our server seriously.

Corruption
One staff member apparently hid guns outside the map, which I assume involved getting them from a Civil Protection character, placing them somewhere using noclip, then switching to a citizen character and picking them up. Another admin was clearly doing something similar, which turned into a messy drama:

Getting banned
A shot was fired in the apartment building, so I rushed there with 2 other Civil Protection characters with our guns drawn, and would search each citizen to find the gun that had been fired. Multiple citizens were in a particular room, and one of them (an admin) refused to be searched, and initially was even refusing to roleplay the situation at all.

After some out-of-character chatter we eventually continued. They were the one with the pistol, and the arrest was straight-forward because nobody was helping him, so the 3v1 rule meant they couldn't resist. During the interrogation the admin didn't do any interactive roleplay.

The gun ended up in the contraband room in the Nexus, and it was a pretty regular duty to destroy these items because the room would get full of them. For no apparent reason, this guy instructed me not to destroy the items, and threatened me with a ban if I did. He was probably a higher staff rank than me. I assume that he wanted to switch back to his Civil Protection character later and then retrieve the gun, to get it back in the hands of his citizen character, which I'd guess was how his citizen had this magnum pistol in the first place.

I talked to another Civil Protection player about the issue, and they said they'd take it upon themself to clear the contraband room (which did get cleared during the night). But I ended up getting banned, as the corrupt admin clearly thought it was me that had cleared the room. Rather than blow the whole thing up I just left it and never went back to the server.

Part of the problem was that on the Downtown server when an admin had prop-blocked me, I made a staff abuse report at the time, but it was thrown out. So I didn't have faith in the abuse report system, and certainly didn't want to drag the actual guy that cleared the contraband room into the drama. I was only there in the first place to have fun, and it had turned horrible, so it made sense to leave at the time.

But I look back and wish I had blown the thing up, even if it would get messy, because I never found a server I enjoyed like that one again. In hindsight the drama on the Downtown server should have been taken seriously, not because the moment of prop-blocking was that serious, but because of the value in having an abuse report system that people respected. While other communities had larger playerbases that attracted a lot of minges, the Gmod biZ culture often felt like a family, where the only challenges we really faced were internal.

HL2RP

Main index
- Community index
-- Gmod biZ
--- Gmod biZ index

Launch
Run during 2010 and 2011, with the lore set in 2016, the roleplay was more serious than on the Downtown server (introducing a questionnaire that new players had to solve), but was similar in many ways, as it had the same cops vs robbers street theme, used the same playermodels, although the economy was better on Downtown because it wasn't restricted by the Half-Life 2 lore. The early Civil Protection players were picked from those that had experience from Downtown, and were later picked from forum applications. The City 45 map was used on launch, sometimes later swapping to City 18 which felt a bit more moody as it was set at night.

General roleplay
Citizens would be allowed to have rations if Civil Protection officers were available to run the ration lines, otherwise combine locks were left on the doors to the ration room. Sometimes there would be a lockdown, so citizens had to go inside buildings and stay off the streets, being knocked out and left in buildings (or arrested) if they refused. Citizens could save tokens from rations to start a shop, although as a Civil Protection character I rarely interacted with shops and can't remember much about them.

Items
Rations contained food and drink, but I don't remember there being hunger or thirst mechanics, so it was a waste of tokens to buy cans from vending machines. Certain foods were illegal, which I think was based on a sense of the Combine wanting to keep the citizens underfed and weak, but without an actual need for food nobody ever risked getting the nicer (contraband) food.

Citizens were given emergency radios (called request devices) that could only contact Civil Protection, often used to report criminals. It was usually difficult (and highly illegal) for citizens to obtain guns, and one citizen caught with a pistol that was being confiscated before his arrest yelled "I PAID FOR THAT!"

One time we were trying to retrieve some contraband (zipties) which a citizen must have tried to hide by dropping it between a bath and a wall, but it had gotten stuck so they probably abandoned it. We tried to pick it up but just couldn't get close enough. One option was to use noclip, but I probably didn't have a high enough admin rank to use noclip, and it probably would have been unfair to grab it with admin powers. In the end I managed to find a particular spot and pixel that allowed me to grab it normally, and I walked out of that bathroom feeling victorious.

There were a variety of books, some of them being propaganda, and at one point I gathered some citizens to enjoy reading a propaganda book and talk about our favourite parts, which went better than I expected. One citizen said of a book: "I think it was a mistake buying the cat strangler book considering I really like cats."

Action
We sometimes did little events like a zombie infestations or riots. One time Civil Protection had left a box of flashbangs out during an event, and in a moment of distraction they were stolen by citizens, and it was a difficult task trying to get them back. Generally stunsticks were the only weapon used by Civil Protection, and it took 4 stunstick hits in a row to knock a citizen out, and the citizen could then be dragged to a cell in the Nexus to wake up. Guns were rarely fired, and firefights were often shoot-to-miss engagements that usually ended by one side deciding to retreat or surrender. The server focused on character roleplay, and neglected item-collecting gameplay that was popular on other servers.

Policing
I was never given a guide for policing, but was happy improvising, although we did end up having some regulations. I'd offer some of the new officers a training course, which included a prop hunt I threw together in an apartment where I placed a basket at the door at instructed them to shoot the Breens and then place the cans in the basket. The Breens were breakable busts of the Breen character I could move using the hydraulic tools, and obscured them in the room behind furniture like they were rebels that needed to be shot. The cans were hidden to mimic the way citizens hid contraband, and one that was often missed was hidden in plain sight next to the door.

You could only see someones character name if they pressed F2 to permanently reveal it to your character, so if I ever saw a new citizen I'd stop them to atleast get their name. What I thought was sad is that other HL2RP servers didn't seem to have any Civil Protection / citizen interaction at all. Some citizens might act crazy, but all I needed to do was mention that insane citizens were to be amputated, and they'd miraculously start talking normally again. One time I tried to stop a citizen they had a speedhack, so when I got near them they zoomed off to the other side of the map in about 2 seconds.

Years ago I shared a screenshot of a CP char manning a recruitment table that had items on it, like a HL2 pistol, SMG, and grenade model, all tied to the desk with the rope tool. I wrote about the screenshot: "I got the idea from an information stall I saw at an airshow, there was an MP5 and an RPG chained to the table with a guy giving advice about joining the TA I think. I thought it would be cool to have a little social moment between the MPF and the citizens, since the two groups hardly ever talk. I asked the RCT to man the stall for a minute while I took the screenshots and afterwards he didn't seem to want to leave, he was happily answering questions the citizens were coming up with."

Misbehaving citizens would be re-educated (beaten after being reminded of city laws) or arrested and placed in a cell. Breaking laws would earn penalty points, although for minor crimes I'd sometimes offer a citizen the choice of getting 1 point on their datasheet or taking a beating. They always took the beating because reaching 12 points meant amputation (execution), which was carried out in various ways, usually to an audience. Throwing the character off a building, public shootings, beaten to death, there was an execution room for drownings, and another room for electrocutions.

Citizens with 5 penalty points were supposed to be excluded from getting rations, so when I checked their datasheet at the ration line and found someone with 5 points or more, I'd get them to trigger the machine, then confiscate the ration as it arrived. They'd often be indignant (perhaps fueling motivation to rebel), and I'd then explain their number of points and how they could reduce their points by acting as a loyalist (generally by reporting the location of contraband) and this might be a moment that sparks character development for them in one direction or the other. I'd use the confiscated rations as an additional reward for loyalists that helped us find contraband.

We could use binds that played certain Civil Protection voicelines, but other than that all communication was done via text chat. There was a community Teamspeak server with a locked MPF channel, but it never felt critical. There was a flying scanner role, but all it usually did was call Civil Protection to have citizens arrested for trying to punch it. There was a rank system, but the playercount was often low, so you'd only see an officer and a few recruits most of the time. Our weapons were mostly the HL2 pistol and SMG, while OTA appeared rarely and sported the AR2.

CP teams
There were different team roles, but the teams were pointless because their specializations were either meaninglessly general, or outright critical to the server (and shouldn't have been limited to one team). The BASTION team was supposed to guard, but a player might die of boredom as attacks were rare. The NOVA team was about response, but with a low playercount they should have just been on patrol. The UNION team was focused on patrol, but we all did that anyway. The SHIELD team were the only ones doing medical roleplay, which should probably have been allowed by all Civil Protection characters to maximize roleplay (I think we had to skip medical roleplay when no SHIELD units were online).

And the JURY team was a disaster for the server because they were the only ones that were allowed to handle prisoners which had reached 12 penalty points. So those prisoners just sat in jail until the hour (or day) that a JURY character came online to execute them. I did the JURY role and found that many of the characters that earned 12 points weren't taking the roleplay seriously, and because I was the only JURY online most of the time I often had to stop proper roleplay storylines just to go to the cells and deal with some someone that had gone around punching for little reason. At one point I switched team roles to avoid interruptions, but quickly regretted it because then the jails were soon full of level 12 prisoners with no JURY to help...

[Continued below]

I came across some paper notepad pages that contained details about the Gmod biZ HL2RP server, probably from 2010 or 2011. I would have written these and kept them by my screen for easy access:

Bastion - Guard
SHIELD - Medical
JURY - Judge
NOVA - Response
UNION - Patrol
AUI - Armed Undercover Informant

RCT - Recruit
OfC - Officer
EpU - Elite protection Unit
DvL - Division Leader
Sec - Sector Commander

My locker:
3 Pistols
3 Pistol ammo
4 SMG ammo
1 Vial

These were just notes of what I had spare, suggesting a need for spare weaponry in case you died (losing a pistol and needed a replacement). The fact that the only spare weapons were 3 pistols hints at a lack of inventory space or lack of funds. The ammo would have been in boxes, and the vial was probably a small medkit.

Don't move
Minor hits
Full response
Scanner assistance
Officer help
Officer assistance
Heavy
Running
Lost contact
Get down
Move

Saying certain things in chat as a Civil Protection character would play voicelines, so you'd bind a button for a certain situation. For example you could [bind "p" say "/r Officer assistance"] and remember that P is your Panic button if getting fired at.

Level 1 - Not applying citizen ID, running / jumping - 2 points + re-education
Level 2 - 2x1 level, resisting, minor contraband, fighting, theft, 3 points re-ed 10 mins jail
Level 3 - 3x1 level, 2x2 level, dragging bodies, major-theft 3 points re-ed 20 minutes jail
Level 4 - Or reach 12 points, attempted policide, amputation with trial, UPA
Level 5 - Murder, policide, major contra, rebel amputation.
Over 5 points do not get rations

Citizens:
Jack Marston
Chris William
Andy Seagull
Bryan Mattsson
Nelson Aktison
Wec Cardillo
Zack Trigin

Rebels:
Jerry Lambert
Liam Powley
James Ryan
Yukari Takeba
George William
Tre Adams
Jessica Ferris
Leon McNorthwood
Chrissy Hull
Shianne McNabbin
George Lincoln

The PRM was the People's Resistance Movement, a rebel group I founded. I noted some items, probably our equipment (radios, SMGs, zipties) and two lists of characters. One list was probably potential members (citizens), and the other would have been characters that were already members (rebels).

My character (MPF-JURY.Ofc.53066) handled executions, and I decided to ask characters if they have any last words the moment before their execution. This was not part of the regulations, so players didn't expect it.

I had written each character's line on the notepad, and then typed them up on the forum, but sadly the forum is now down, and all that remained were a few pages that I drew lines through (probably to note that I'd posted them on the forum):

Do you have any last words?
Joseph Markovich: "Erm..."
Jenner Dims: "plz let me live i will service you"
Touche Mehbum: "Yes..."
Johann Bright: "Do it."
Tom Kedward: "Yes i do"
Marcus Right: "Please don't kill me"
Tom Genna: "Uhh"

In hindsight it didn't work well because players either weren't prepared for it, or thought they were supposed to give a speech. Not all of the players that got themselves executed were taking the roleplay seriously, as they were often the ones going around punching.

Link to the main Gmod biZ history page:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gca1/discussions/0/1698294337769862867/

This page has more or less been outdated by the Gmod biZ scale article.

Steam link:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2390876241

Backup link of same graph:
https://i.imgur.com/Jl5DY9r.png

19,231 members Jan 2021 (Archive check)
20,567 members early 2018 (Archive check)
21,776 members 27th Dec 2016 (Wayback (Forum))*
24,400 members 21 Oct 2014 (Steam group comment)
24,777 members 4th Aug 2014 (Wayback Machine)*
25,000 members 17th Jan 2012 (Mentioned casually in a Steam group announcement, probably not 100% accurate)
20,000 members 21 Jul 2011 (Steam group comment & announcement)
"16k" members May 2011 (Steam group comment, probably not 100% accurate)
10,000 members 4th Jan 2011 (Probably a Steam group announcement)
8,920 members 5th Aug 2010 (Steam group announcement)
6,100 members 24th June 2010 (Steam group announcement)
5,000 members 16th June 2010 (Steam group announcement)
4,701 members 13th June 2010 (Steam group announcement)
4,600 members 13th June 2010 (Steam group announcement)
4,000 members 7th June 2010 (Steam group announcement)
3,400 members 31st May 2010 (Steam group comment)
3,262 members 30th May 2010 (Steam group comment)
3,000 members 27th May 2010 (Steam group announcement)
2,667 members 22nd May 2010 (Steam group comment)
1 member - Founded on 4th July 2009 (Steam group data)

*Not plotted on graph

Link:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/gmod_biz

Apparently reaching 25,000 (mentioned somewhere, date of it happening wasn't included, but reinforces the idea of a peak around 25k being accurate). Some more datapoints might be available in the Wayback Machine captures of the Steam group itself and also from the forum link to the group.

https://forum.gmod.biz/

The forum was down by atleast Jan 2021
The forum was still up by March 2018
8,500 members (Unknown)
5,000 members 17th Jan 2012 (Mentioned casually in a Steam group announcement, probably not accurate)
4,500 members 26th Nov 2011 (Steam group announcement)

Main history page for Gmod biZ:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gca1/discussions/0/1698294337769862867/

Gmod biZ history
Gmod biZ scale

Gmod biZ events
Gmod biZ fan groups
Gmod biZ HL2RP rebel scene
PRM (HL2RP rebel group)
HL2RP rebel stagnation
Gmod biZ Downtown gun rules
Gmod biZ DarkRP server banner
Gmod biZ Stranded guide
Gmod biZ Stranded rules
Gmod biZ beyond Gmod
Gmod biZ - Garry prank war
Sky Germany vs a Cinema server
Cider money-spawning incident
Sandbox spawnkilling with turrets
Gmod biZ Discord server
The harsh BizRP raids
Gmod biZ global unban Dec 2013
The BizRP PERP autokicker

Gmod biZ map file list
Gmod biZ gamemode file list

Hudson's HL2RP notepad
Evocity Blog

JakeCake on BizRP memories
Hudson633 on Gmod biZ server memories

Server mentions graph
Steam group membership timeline
Gmod biZ server timeline graph
Gmod biZ wordcloud

Gmod biZ images
Memes from Gmod Biz HL2RP 2010

Hudson's Gmod biZ videos 2009 - 2010

These were the files in the gamemode folder of the Gmod biZ community files. Just because a gamemode is listed here, it doesn't necessarily mean that Gmod biZ ran it.

Name Size Modified
_INFO_AND_DISCLAIMER.txt 802 B 24/12/2017, 07:12:30
AG_PERPX.rar 502 KiB 04/02/2011, 16:01:30
AG_PERPX_Content.rar 196 MiB 04/02/2011, 16:17:08
AG_PERPX_NEW.zip 552 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:05:17
Applejack_Content.zip 58 MiB 10/12/2011, 00:07:19
Applejack_MySQL.zip 701 B 10/12/2011, 00:06:10
build_to_the_top.zip 3.2 MiB 26/05/2010, 08:03:27
CG_OCRP.zip 1.7 MiB 28/08/2011, 19:05:23
Chernobyl.rar 65 KiB 22/09/2010, 18:59:39
Darkland_Fortwars.rar 3.1 MiB 22/09/2010, 18:57:09
DX_PERP3.rar 2.4 MiB 28/08/2011, 19:05:28
DX_PERP3_Content.rar 40 MiB 28/08/2011, 19:06:58
eternalp.zip 16 MiB 20/09/2010, 11:27:15
eu-roleplay.zip 534 KiB 07/01/2018, 19:07:50
FalloutScript.zip 194 KiB 22/09/2010, 18:59:49
GamerzUnlimited.ZombieOutrage.v2.0.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 790 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:46:38
garrysbots_maps.rar 2.8 MiB 10/08/2010, 17:21:16
garrysbots_stable.rar 45 KiB 10/08/2010, 16:37:18
GM_MovieTheater.rar 60 KiB 04/02/2011, 16:01:01
GModTower.rar 2.8 MiB 22/09/2010, 18:58:58
GmodTower_Gamemodes_Feb12.zip 51 MiB 17/02/2012, 21:34:32
HG_Data.rar 1.6 MiB 22/09/2010, 18:57:53
HG_JailBreak.rar 5.1 MiB 22/09/2010, 18:58:52
hl2rp_oa10.rar 9.6 MiB 25/02/2011, 15:03:50
hl2rp_oa11.rar 9.9 MiB 27/08/2011, 21:54:59
jailbreak.rar 4.9 MiB 26/05/2013, 20:31:31
Kuromeku.hl2rp.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 201 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:46:39
Kuromeku.kuroscript.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 212 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:46:39
Labatomy.rar 4.1 MiB 27/06/2012, 05:39:32
LL_BaseWars.zip 697 KiB 09/12/2011, 23:57:17
MiscScripts.zip 3.3 MiB 14/05/2011, 00:58:43
MiscScripts_2.zip 7.5 MiB 13/04/2011, 15:37:23
MySQL_PERP3.sql 11 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:06:11
Nox_CTF.rar 600 KiB 04/02/2011, 16:01:04
Nox_Sandbox.rar 958 KiB 04/02/2011, 16:01:08
NoxiousNet.awesomestrike.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 244 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:47:50
NoxiousNet.marioboxes.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 210 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:47:50
NoxiousNet.noxbox.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 963 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:47:51
NoxiousNet.noxctf.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 689 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:47:52
NoxiousNet.noxious.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 605 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:47:52
NoxiousNet.zombiesurvival.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 314 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:47:52
ocrp_leak.sql 6.5 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:06:21
OfficeRP.rar 401 KiB 22/09/2010, 18:57:38
Omicron.zip 10 MiB 09/12/2011, 23:56:57
openaura_109.rar 8.5 MiB 25/02/2011, 15:28:51
openaura_11.rar 8.5 MiB 13/03/2011, 14:27:08
openaura_113.rar 8.5 MiB 27/08/2011, 21:54:12
openaura_hl2rp_customized.rar 18 MiB 31/12/2009, 23:00:00
PD_Addon-PERP2+.zip 72 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:05:37
PD_GModRacer2.zip 49 MiB 09/12/2011, 23:57:22
PD_MySQL_SMF.sql 5.5 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:06:25
PD_PERP2.5.rar 490 KiB 04/02/2011, 16:01:24
PD_PERP2.5_Content.rar 174 MiB 04/02/2011, 16:16:37
PE_GmodParty.rar 26 MiB 04/02/2011, 16:01:32
PE_GmodPartyx.rar 26 MiB 28/08/2011, 20:47:59
PE_GMP-PERP1.5.zip 18 MiB 28/08/2011, 19:06:25
PE_GMR-PERP1.5.rar 22 MiB 04/02/2011, 17:06:14
PE_MySQL-PERP1.sql 3.6 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:06:28
PE_PERP2.0.zip 16 MiB 20/09/2010, 11:31:56
PERP+2.5.rar 133 MiB 07/07/2011, 17:36:10
PERP3+Whit+sql.zip 865 KiB 07/07/2011, 17:33:45
perpandgmrandguides.zip 23 MiB 29/07/2010, 09:48:03
RP_EvoCity_v17x.rar 141 MiB 04/02/2011, 16:14:41
RP_EvoCity_v8x.rar 129 MiB 04/02/2011, 16:13:48
RVRP.7z 77 MiB 22/09/2010, 19:32:20
Sass_Deathrun.rar 30 KiB 04/02/2011, 16:00:59
Sass_Gamemode.rar 6.1 MiB 22/09/2010, 19:00:01
Sass_Lobby.rar 561 KiB 22/09/2010, 18:58:07
seowrp.rar 161 MiB 31/05/2010, 02:43:24
serp.rar 1.8 MiB 07/07/2011, 17:24:52
SpringMoss.rar 59 KiB 22/09/2010, 18:59:44
SSTRPSEC1.7z 224 MiB 22/09/2010, 20:46:46
StalkerRP.rar 420 KiB 22/09/2010, 18:57:45
TacoNBanana.Tacoscript.LEAKED.GAMEMODE.GM10.LUA-LauCorp.rar 302 KiB 15/02/2010, 09:47:52
Tacoscript-08.09.rar 302 KiB 22/09/2010, 19:00:09
tacoscript2_-_created_by_gerard.zip 176 KiB 16/10/2010, 13:57:13
theater_gmodmovietime_v4.zip 5.3 MiB 21/11/2010, 13:50:09
theminiservers_deadrun.zip 2.6 MiB 05/02/2012, 17:34:46
VG_Addons.zip 72 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:05:48
VG_Modules.zip 1.1 MiB 28/08/2011, 19:05:52
VG_MySQL-PERP3.sql 7.8 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:06:31
VG_PERP3.zip 688 KiB 28/08/2011, 19:05:45
VM_Applejack.zip 341 KiB 10/12/2011, 00:05:32
zombiesurvival_v363.zip 40 MiB 17/02/2012, 22:58:36

Link to the main Gmod biZ history page:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gca1/discussions/0/1698294337769862867/

This post is outdated, as the archive grew more categorized, each moment was sorted into categories.

Sometime before 2018 the interestingly named bjfgpkqkdmtnspwndsjt shared some Half-Life 2 poses (possibly in artwork threads titled 'What HL2RP Should Have Been') that represented different interpretations of day-to-day life under Combine rule. This seems to have had an impact on the desires of the HL2RP playerbase, and as a result - dee pixel notes: "people started arguing for a more lax, less stringent approach to hl2rp that included concepts like cps operating more like a traditional police force, a human dispatch, more corrupt/self-centered cops, more drugs, fewer restrictions on narcotics and food, etc."

The closure of Clockwork, and the impact of Helix were significant. These two parts cover that story:

Red Letter Day
This event marked the switch from Clockwork to Helix. There was probably a period (possibly known as the Helix Test Phase) preparing the switch. On 20th September 2018 the Red Letter Day event was announced for the HL2RP server, and on 6th October the event concluded the run of the Half-life 2 lore during the Clockwork era to what was received as a satisfying ending. After an engagement during the uprising, an outro read "ASSIGNMENT: TERMINATED. DIMENSION CONVERGENCE EVENT DETECTED. TRANSFERRING SUBJECT FREEMAN. RE-SETTING MISSION PARAMETERS. RESTARTING..."

Helix
At the conclusion of Red Letter Day Clockwork was replaced by Helix on the HL2RP server. This improved rebel roleplay by the removal of the business menu - stopping the item shipment system. This, coupled with the fact that all the item inventories were essentially wiped meant that items were no longer being hoarded. Many serious roleplay servers had been seen as item-gathering experiences like MMORPGs, but now the economy was different on nebulous HL2RP, as players stopped farming tokens for shipments, and didn't worry so much about losing all their items.

Helix also gave the benefit of increasing the number of players the server could hold before lag became an issue. Clockwork could only offer a smooth experience for around 50 players at the same time, while Helix managed to handle 90 to 100.

In April 2020 new user bowering69 made their first forum post, titled 'THE COMBINE ARE UNFAIR'. The post read: "i think the combine should have some restrictions becuase its unfair if they get to do everything willy nilly while we cant to anything also i think there should be gun shops where citizens can buy guns to defend themselves also a furniture shop".

The text became bold starting with the word "should" and the colour then changed from black to blue starting with the word "have". While the post itself didn't seem to have any particular influence the community, it stands out because it was misplaced in the general section and not moved to the Half-Life 2 Roleplay Bugs/Suggestions section - which was unusual considering the strict nature of the forum, and despite the community usually being critical of new ideas it was one of the highest rated posts on the entire forum.

The post as it appeared in Jan 2021:
https://i.imgur.com/KQ97xdu.png

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/gca1/discussions/0/1698294337766394018/

The Universal Union
CMB
"Union Our Patrons"


The community was slow to develop, starting in early 2013 and eventually recruited many members, but didn't run a server for themselves. They did some lite roleplay with Combine playermodels on sandbox servers, with the staff team including Monks, Fancy, Nikolai, Fatigue, and tojo. At some point they joined The Meta.

The Meta is explained in this link:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/gca1/discussions/0/2570942392182295247/

Without hosting their own Garry's Mod server, and using Discord for communication, there were no costs involved.

I interviewed tojo about the community, and he explained: "When the group was founded in January of 2013, we mostly focused upon being a group of people who ran around in Combine player models and alt-walk in formations in gm_bigcity. It took us 3 years to finally sit down and organize ourselves into a group, with a Discord and everything."

He also went on to explain how the community grew: "Originally called the Neo-Combine Empire, we grew under the idea of "Being Combine is Cool! Join us and fight rebels." Only did when we start looking at it from the perspective that we could possibly make an impact on Garry's Mod did we finally start trying to improve it and lower our own toxicity. As we grew from 2016-2018, we experienced extreme population booms. Notably during our Introduction to the Meta, Formation of the Overwatch Military, Wars with VZECH, and the War of Suppression."

Initially they played on a sandbox server called Tulips which was founded by Gmonkeyv9. Then eventually they were based on the Fun Server founded by Glax. The community staff had certain titles, such as Monks being Sectoral Eratrut of Sector 52, and Fancy being Sectoral Eratrut of Sector 49, Nikolai and Fatigue being Former Advisors, with tojo being a Head Advisor.

I asked tojo about the culture of the community, which he described: "The people within the Universal Union are diverse to say the least. I am proud to call the communities population diverse as there is certain groups who display upmost dedication and intensity in the eyes of Milsim, and others who just are in it to promote the idea of peacekeeping.

On top of that, there's a majority of people who are in it to generally relax and enjoy the amenities present within the group. If you were to join, you are automatically put into the idea of Milsim, but are allowed to completely diverge yourself from that path and be active as a yet a regular member who just chills in Voice Comms all day and partakes in community events. Our diversity is what sets us as different, and that is something that only the 7 years of our existence can only sprout."

When asked about community challenges, tojo explained how an issue with recruitment in early 2018 led to the community being ended due to internal disputes. The details involve player drama, which is not the purpose of this archive, but the drama was noteworthy as it ended the community (at the time) and a vote was passed to delete the community history. Every document and screenshot, including the Discord were deleted.

Then tojo noted the revival: "Only in December of 2019 was there the return of the Universal Union, with the idea of it having life breathed into by old members of the Union."

The Steam group for Tulips sandbox server, founded on 8th July 2011, and still had 63 members when checked in July 2020, 62 in Jan 2023, and 61 in Jan 2024:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/tulips

The Universal Union Steam group, founded on 9th January 2020, and had 29 members when checked in July 2020, but was down by Jan 2023:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/universalunionofficial

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/gca1/discussions/0/1698294337765867799/

What year did you get involved in The Meta, and what got you hooked on it?
"Funnily enough, the CSUNC originally formed as a result of a little conflict in Minecraft the night of 4-5 August, 2014. We didn't really stick around there for very long, and instead quickly moved to GMod. It was mostly just Data (one of my best friends and our second-in-command) and I. There really wasn't any meta in existence in GMod at the time, but it was just a game that we both enjoyed and we wanted to see how far we could take our new little faction. Eventually we started developing our own rather primitive military equipment and taking on recruits later that year, and things just kind of snowballed from there."

What do you enjoy about The Meta in general?
"For me, there's always been something really special about how free it's all felt. A sort of frontier. We were never playing a game with rules or regulations, but instead it was up to us - and all other factions - to develop our own equipment, to devise our own doctrine and tactics, to really build our faction from nothing into exactly what we wanted it to be. That's an experience I'm not sure you'll be able to find in any other game, and I think we're all lucky to have experienced it at its peak."

What have the highlights been so far for you?
"There are lots of great memories we Novoslavs share, including taking part in the conflicts we fought. I don't wanna say something really cliche like "the real highlights were the friends we made along the way" but I really can't help myself here, haha. As a result of routinely going onto a server in an attempt to recruit years ago, I ended up meeting another one of my now best friends. More than that, my real friend group. Since then we've met in real life multiple times and had some really great times. Even if it's not directly a part of The Meta or the CSUNC's history, that's always going to be the best thing to come of it for me, by far."

How has the culture changed over time?
"Radically, really. When we first entered the scene in late 2014, there hardly was a scene. By 2016 when we had most of our conflicts and engagements, there were quite a few factions in existence, many of them using Wiremod, and pacts and coalitions were starting to form. Not long after that is when ACF started to really become big, which to me felt like the most sophisticated things had gotten. The CSUNC left the scene around mid-2018, though, after a little while of isolationism. In honesty, at that point it felt like we were starting to beat a dead horse and it became apparent to me that the best was already behind us. I think the best thing to do from that point onwards has been to look back and enjoy The Meta when it was at its best."

What year did you get involved in The Meta, and what got you hooked on it?
"I got involved back in 2016 when I became a regular player on a server called Dirtbox, which also happened to be where IZK would regularly play on. What kept me going was the thrill in PvPing against a group of people rather than individual players. I was also introduced to ACF, which I enjoyed a lot since I had an interest in military vehicles."

What do you enjoy about The Meta in general?
"I find the infantry based combat to be the most enjoyable, the engineering aspect is also pretty cool even though all I usually do is model vehicles rather than make complete ones."

What have the highlights been so far for you?
"I'd say the most important thing I've done was provide Strayed with one of my early aircraft. Ever since that, AEF began focusing on making aircraft and other groups followed suit. Although I've come to regret this later on as it would only make groups stray further from infantry combat."

How has the culture changed over time?
"When I first joined, I feel like there was more emphasis on infantry. As time went on however, the more the groups kept making vehicles that rendered infantry obsolete. Nowadays (in my opinion), groups tend to make impressive vehicles to show off rather than actually fighting. And if they do fight, they usually just pick the smaller groups that don't associate with the meta, or just random players they happen to find."