PURLEK DISEASE
Purlek disease is the slow decay of a server, or niche thing that lives on only via a tight knit community.This post is mainly caused via what I've revalued myelf to see through a few months of play.
If you don't know this, Purlek was the admin of BestRP, a shitty hub server that served as a gateway tumor for bad players and bad people.
One of the reasons why I believe we are going straight to the shitter is the following:
Remember the custom job trend from darkRP?
Remember the donator jobs, SWAT, VIP Thief, etcetera?
Remember how horrible, visible and shitty the trickle and flood of trolls, bad RPers, bad players, and generally shitty people even in Clockwork?
This is delightfully paralleled with Purlek's BestRP server..
In order to catalog this, I do prefer I should make a scale for this kind of shit.
Enter, the Purlek Scale.
0 Purleks
Means that the game is too niche, too unseen and rarely reaches more than a tight knit group. AKA: Ancient goon, exadv1 ss13.
0.5 Purleks
The small groups have received recognition from curious nerds within their circle or near it. they now become more known, but still the same of a niche and small thing
that only they know. Crusty grandpa goon.
One Full Purlek
The thing has become known, but not mainstream in its genre or platform. At this point there is a split of popularity and there are more servers, more populated. The old can now pick their poison./tg/, bay and others sprout in era.
Two Full Purleks
The old ones recently from the first start splitting due to ideological differences, demographic collapse, etcetera and the public genre, platform etcetera starts learning of it, but usually either dismisses it. The people who dug deep enough or are intimate with the platform and found that make their server. BestRP sprout era.
Three Purleks
The original splitted servers finally get a demographic shift via hub, or other full problem and become fully infested. Most of the originals huddle in a unseen server.
The original tumor evolves, becomes stronger or splits up.
BestRP collapses into paradise, a benign tumor, d20 gets its small population, etcetera.
(Theoretical, based on study of Gmod's DarkRP cycle)Four Purleks
The game has now become mainstream for the platform, highly visible for those who view it and a possible hobby for normal people who stumble upon it. Most of the originals die off due to unrelated causes, are watered down, or fail to live any longer due to the original group leaving the game and due to a lack of others joining in, their subculture dying off.
Five Full Purleks
At this point, the hobby is now completely fucked over and has succumbed. It is now visible to the platform, news articles sprung up about said subculture frequently, and the lowest common denominator is now 99% of the servers.
It now becomes a cash cow for server owners and generally has been thrown away long ago. Some may still cling to nostalgia in small bunkers with hidden IPs and secretiveness, but it is now fully dead and squeakers are the majority.
