05-Jan-2026, 23:37
Happy new year! With both STAG Servers and SweptThrone's 12 Days of Christmas now concluded, I'm gonna ramble on about STAG Servers and the future because there's a lot to say. So let's get started!
STAG Servers
To recap, STAG Servers—which stands for SweptThrone Avant Garde Servers—was a series of four experimental Garry's Mod servers—each known as a STAGE, or STAG Experiments—that ran from July to December 2025. Originally, there were only three servers scheduled, one each for July, August, and September, but I decided to extend it midway through the first STAGE. These four servers were the most dead servers I have ever run in the history of running servers. Because of their unusual nature, I figured people wouldn't be too interested in them over the long term, but I didn't think it'd be this bad! That being said, I don't really care that much. I made what I set out to make and I'm happy with what I did. Let's go one-by-one through each STAGE.
STAGE 1: Blitz TTT
Blitz TTT was a TTT server where the round would not end until all traitors are confirmed dead, or when all innocents are dead. There were some other minor tweaks, but that was the main gimmick. I thought this was a super interesting way to shake up TTT because it caused players to be so on-edge after killing someone. Was that a traitor we just killed or is this an elaborate ruse and you're going to kill me as soon as I check this body? Naturally, there were more improper killings than in regular TTT and everyone's karma, on average, remained lower; it was actually pretty difficult to maintain a perfect karma which again, is a really interesting byproduct. If I ever decide to open a TTT server again, I think this mechanic is going to make an appearance.
You can also pick up the win condition script for yourself here.
STAGE 2: Gang War RP
Gang War RP was a spiritual and more coherent successor to my TDM RP server, AnkoRP, from 2020 and 2021. Where the previous servers ran on an awkward round-based format, Gang War RP was a never-ending territory control battle. Above all, the true purpose of this server was to finally create the handful of addons I've had on the back-burner for up to seven years, the oldest of which being STHackerWar. I also wrote a small program to sloppily turn NPC models into playermodels. This server was a ton of fun even though it only hosted a few play sessions.
STAGE 3: Infiltrator
Infiltrator is a custom asymmetric gamemode that pits one sneaky infiltrator against the rest of the server. The infiltrator must sneak into a facility, complete objectives, then leave. This server was the one that was added late, and it was added in between two stages because STAGE 4 was the main attraction of the whole event. This server actually had the most sessions out of all of the STAGEs, even attracting a group of 12 friends to come play without me. Wow! Despite its popularity, it was concluded that the gamemode was often frustrating to play as the infiltrator, and too easy to play as a guard. We figured either guards essentially had to roleplay as NPCs or the infiltrator needs to take a full hour to complete one mission for the gamemode to feel balanced and fun. Personally, I'm totally psyched about playing the gamemode in both of these ways, but I can see why anyone else wouldn't be. This server also caused me to make my first binary module for Garry's Mod which was an adventure in itself.
You can pick up this gamemode here.
STAGE 4: The Big Apple
The Big Apple was the magnum opus of STAG Servers and perhaps even all of my work on Garry's Mod. It connected three separate DarkRP servers into one mega-experience with shared chat and data among all three servers. Money, jobs, entities, votes, and more were all synced between all three servers as seamlessly as Garry's Mod allows. Unfortunately, this was, by far, the least popular server out of all four due mainly to my friends not really being roleplayers, but also due to me not really doing much in the way of organizing sessions or hyping it up. Despite all of that, I am extremely proud of the work I put into this server and would host it again in a heartbeat if there's a solid amount of interest in it.
The Future
So what lies ahead? If you've paid attention to my weekly progress reports, you'll have noticed that Tale of Flocksworth, my standalone game, has been getting no attention for the past several weeks and has been replaced by GMod stuff. I hope to change that because I really haven't been working at a good pace, which is due to a variety of legitimate reasons. That being said, here's the main point of this very long post:
Garry's Mod is, once more, going to take a backseat to Tale of Flocksworth. I want 2026 to be the Year of Flocksworth and therefore I plan to work so much more on it and really get it moving. However, I need to acknowledge that I tend to do this every year; I'll say I'm "done" with Garry's Mod, work on something else for a bit, then fall back into Garry's Mod, only for the whole cycle to repeat. Maybe that'll happen again, however there is a major difference this time around: just about every addon I've released as a part of SweptThrone's 12 Days of Christmas has been planned for several years. STOilMogul and STMoonshine are three years old, STFishing Neu and STCoffeeShop Neu are both over four years old, STHackerWar is an astounding seven years old; most of these addons are nothing new (to me) and are just finalizations of very old ideas. The same can be said about the servers themselves. Gang War RP is just an improved iteration of AnkoRP, Infiltrator is a dedicated gamemode version of an impromptu gamemode my friends and I played in 2022, and The Big Apple is a continuation of STRP and could even be traced back to UnnamedRP from 2018. This has never been the case before! Usually, when I "quit" Garry's Mod, I still have a catalogue of addons I want to make, but I'm just about out this time around. So all of that to say that it is my intention to take an extended-to-indefinite break from Garry's Mod but I also acknowledge that I do this sort of thing regularly.
I think that's all I got for today. Thanks for reading, thanks for your interest, and see you around!
STAG Servers
To recap, STAG Servers—which stands for SweptThrone Avant Garde Servers—was a series of four experimental Garry's Mod servers—each known as a STAGE, or STAG Experiments—that ran from July to December 2025. Originally, there were only three servers scheduled, one each for July, August, and September, but I decided to extend it midway through the first STAGE. These four servers were the most dead servers I have ever run in the history of running servers. Because of their unusual nature, I figured people wouldn't be too interested in them over the long term, but I didn't think it'd be this bad! That being said, I don't really care that much. I made what I set out to make and I'm happy with what I did. Let's go one-by-one through each STAGE.
STAGE 1: Blitz TTT
Blitz TTT was a TTT server where the round would not end until all traitors are confirmed dead, or when all innocents are dead. There were some other minor tweaks, but that was the main gimmick. I thought this was a super interesting way to shake up TTT because it caused players to be so on-edge after killing someone. Was that a traitor we just killed or is this an elaborate ruse and you're going to kill me as soon as I check this body? Naturally, there were more improper killings than in regular TTT and everyone's karma, on average, remained lower; it was actually pretty difficult to maintain a perfect karma which again, is a really interesting byproduct. If I ever decide to open a TTT server again, I think this mechanic is going to make an appearance.
You can also pick up the win condition script for yourself here.
STAGE 2: Gang War RP
Gang War RP was a spiritual and more coherent successor to my TDM RP server, AnkoRP, from 2020 and 2021. Where the previous servers ran on an awkward round-based format, Gang War RP was a never-ending territory control battle. Above all, the true purpose of this server was to finally create the handful of addons I've had on the back-burner for up to seven years, the oldest of which being STHackerWar. I also wrote a small program to sloppily turn NPC models into playermodels. This server was a ton of fun even though it only hosted a few play sessions.
STAGE 3: Infiltrator
Infiltrator is a custom asymmetric gamemode that pits one sneaky infiltrator against the rest of the server. The infiltrator must sneak into a facility, complete objectives, then leave. This server was the one that was added late, and it was added in between two stages because STAGE 4 was the main attraction of the whole event. This server actually had the most sessions out of all of the STAGEs, even attracting a group of 12 friends to come play without me. Wow! Despite its popularity, it was concluded that the gamemode was often frustrating to play as the infiltrator, and too easy to play as a guard. We figured either guards essentially had to roleplay as NPCs or the infiltrator needs to take a full hour to complete one mission for the gamemode to feel balanced and fun. Personally, I'm totally psyched about playing the gamemode in both of these ways, but I can see why anyone else wouldn't be. This server also caused me to make my first binary module for Garry's Mod which was an adventure in itself.
You can pick up this gamemode here.
STAGE 4: The Big Apple
The Big Apple was the magnum opus of STAG Servers and perhaps even all of my work on Garry's Mod. It connected three separate DarkRP servers into one mega-experience with shared chat and data among all three servers. Money, jobs, entities, votes, and more were all synced between all three servers as seamlessly as Garry's Mod allows. Unfortunately, this was, by far, the least popular server out of all four due mainly to my friends not really being roleplayers, but also due to me not really doing much in the way of organizing sessions or hyping it up. Despite all of that, I am extremely proud of the work I put into this server and would host it again in a heartbeat if there's a solid amount of interest in it.
The Future
So what lies ahead? If you've paid attention to my weekly progress reports, you'll have noticed that Tale of Flocksworth, my standalone game, has been getting no attention for the past several weeks and has been replaced by GMod stuff. I hope to change that because I really haven't been working at a good pace, which is due to a variety of legitimate reasons. That being said, here's the main point of this very long post:
Garry's Mod is, once more, going to take a backseat to Tale of Flocksworth. I want 2026 to be the Year of Flocksworth and therefore I plan to work so much more on it and really get it moving. However, I need to acknowledge that I tend to do this every year; I'll say I'm "done" with Garry's Mod, work on something else for a bit, then fall back into Garry's Mod, only for the whole cycle to repeat. Maybe that'll happen again, however there is a major difference this time around: just about every addon I've released as a part of SweptThrone's 12 Days of Christmas has been planned for several years. STOilMogul and STMoonshine are three years old, STFishing Neu and STCoffeeShop Neu are both over four years old, STHackerWar is an astounding seven years old; most of these addons are nothing new (to me) and are just finalizations of very old ideas. The same can be said about the servers themselves. Gang War RP is just an improved iteration of AnkoRP, Infiltrator is a dedicated gamemode version of an impromptu gamemode my friends and I played in 2022, and The Big Apple is a continuation of STRP and could even be traced back to UnnamedRP from 2018. This has never been the case before! Usually, when I "quit" Garry's Mod, I still have a catalogue of addons I want to make, but I'm just about out this time around. So all of that to say that it is my intention to take an extended-to-indefinite break from Garry's Mod but I also acknowledge that I do this sort of thing regularly.
I think that's all I got for today. Thanks for reading, thanks for your interest, and see you around!
~SweptThrone •.-