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Mmartin

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Hey everyone,

 

The last dozen or so posts we've made have been more or less pragmatic, to inform everyone about updates & what to expect next. It's been a while since I made a post about the server and its direction in general. I want to open a honest dialogue about where the server currently stands, and how we can move onwards and upwards from here. 

 

There's no sugar coating it — we're in a tough position right now, from multiple angles. The player base has been stable for quite a while, but took a major hit in the recent week or two. We had a day and a half of downtime recently caused by network issues and a DDOS attack, and after bringing the server back up we're seeing peak numbers that are lower than we had during the premium only pre-release. Saying it's sub optimal is putting it mildly. I will do my best to avoid any excuses and focus on facts, problems and solutions.

 

If you ask ten people, you'll get ten reasons why the player base has declined. I'll dive into details of some of the issues we currently face. We've solutions for some of those problems, but I'd like to extend the discussion of how to handle some of these issues to you, the community, as well. 

 

Failure to manage expectations

I feel that one of the issues we had from the beginning was our failure to manage the expectations. Handful of us worked on the gamemode for roughly two years, in the spare time we had when we felt like it and weren't working or otherwise busy. The aim from the beginning was to create a barebones MVP, which we could then expand on. I feel that I failed to communicate that, and as a result of that, a lot of the community expected us to be an equal competitor from day one. This led to a massive spike in interest initially, with the player base dwindling over time once more people realized that the experience we offer isn't as complete as they might need. Other players seeing the decline in player base could be another contributing factor to further decline.

 

I feel like there isn't a simple solution for mismanaged expectations after the fact. I will use this as a much needed learning experience.

 

Development not keeping up

Another major contributor to the decline in morale and by proxy in player base is the way development progressed after release. We simply aren't doing enough to measure up. Initially, our main focus was on ensuring stability of the server and fixing critical issues post-release. We got some much-requested features out, but we haven't had more than a handful of completely new features come out since release. That's a major problem.

 

With only a few exceptions (big shout out to Imperium, who has been carrying the team for the past month or so), the majority of our Development Team either became increasingly busy with work after release, or simply burned out. This was my case as well, as I started a new job in May and had to do a lot of adjusting and some travel; the time I had left was mostly spent on maintenance, handling technical issues, legal/biz aspect and managing the server as a whole. The timing was unfortunate, because we all knew that the real work begins post-launch to make sure the needs of our community are met. While some aspects of this can't be affected by me, I still came short — I failed to keep the development team motivated and to make sure people don't burn out. 

 

This, in the end, lead to some promises left behind, which is something I really wanted to leave in the SA-MP era. Unfortunate.

 

There's several solutions that can be applied here. We'll be once again taking in more developers in the coming days to help us with the amount of work that needs to be done. I'll also look for a way to offload my work with managing the system infrastructure, so even fewer things are reliant solely on me and can be handled by another developer as well.

 

Leadership & Communication

I feel that a significant chunk of us in the core team (leadership, team leads and devs) switched to a coasting mode too quickly. We got comfortable and complacent. I believe that motivation and strength comes from top to bottom, and we as the leadership must do better to innovate, push forward, show face and communicate everything with the community. This became harder in the recent weeks and there's no other way about it, we simply must do better.

 

 

Of course the list above isn't exhaustive. We're aware of the frequent shootouts, abundance of weapons in the server, frequent shootouts, jobs becoming stale, etcetera. We put together a two-week plan of action of things we'd like to accomplish. I'll share it with you, but please take it with a grain of salt as it may change and some things may be added, or taken out.

 

Immediate (today/tomorrow)

- Communicate the current state of the server (this post)

- Add more developers to the team

- Reach out to player-owned companies and factions to make sure they've everything they need 

- Reach out to admins regarding long report times, and not answering difficult reports

 

Week 1

- Fix vehicle loan payments, and transfervehicle after paying off loan

- Ability to "trade in" a leased vehicle, with the ability to get a % of your principal back

- Add more clothing mods

- Make Horsepower affect vehicle performance

- Level requirement for equipping a weapon (across all characters) to curb DM

- Add interior presets & interior change

- Add separate group for /setprop access, so property reports aren't reliant on Leads

- Adjust mechanic / vehicle part prices (wheels, etc)

 

Week 2

- Some gambling script (even if just slots, lotto or blackjack)

- Graffiti

- Add more vehicles, whether existing GTA ones to pdm, or modded

- More trucking routes

- Investment into marketing

- Schedule another community meeting

 

To reiterate, we probably won't be able to do all of these, but these are some of the things we've identified need immediate attention.

 

Despite the admittedly grim situation with the player base right now, I believe we can turn things around. The entire situation is very humbling and has been a big reality check and a learning experience for me. We've a lot going for us — we've a great staff team, a lot of knowledgeable and dedicated folk on our side, other major servers providing us assistance whenever we need it. But most importantly, we've fostered an awesome community which is what I focus on when it's time to push forward no matter what. I'm sorry I let some of you down, it hurts especially because I know a lot of people really believe in the project and want it to do well.

 

This is where I'll turn the post towards you. If you're good at something and want to use your skill to help us make the server better, please reach out. If you've opinions you want to share, please do so below. I welcome opinions of anyone with the best interest of the server at heart.

 

Martin

 

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7 hours ago, VexiousMaximus said:

man you have uranium in your cranium 

LSRP Rage is shit its missin hella features whats the point if world got everything + more niggas might aswell get back on samp 

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You can have great rp without a ton of features, I don't know why everybody is so fixated on that. You don't need any script support to interact with other players and create some roleplay. Of course all these little features would make life easier on the server, but in my opinion that's not something that would get players back on the server. Aswell as for the economy, like everything is cheap as shit, you get paychecks regularly while you roleplay, you can literally wait till you are level 2 and get your first car with a loan.

In my opinion there definitly needs to be done something about the factions. I don't know how it got to the point where 8 out of 10 factions are purely on the server for DM, their whole thread is flodded with DM screens/videos, people are ooc beefing on it and you never see them anywhere just hanging around and absolutly nothing gets done about it. Even when we had over a 100 players, there was like three or four pages of just random factions. I think we need some more strict regualtions on who can open a faction, what factions can be roleplayed and definitly limit it to a small number on who is allowed to use the weapon scheme and the drug scheme, maybe even just allow it for mafias/crime organizations for the beginning.

At the end it will be a long journy cause if you play on another server and got something good going on there with a lot of players, there is absolutly no reason for you to move over. Players just prefer different stuff on a server and you can't change anything about that.

Edited by fubuManee
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2 hours ago, Jwett said:

LSRP Rage is shit its missin hella features whats the point if world got everything + more niggas might aswell get back on samp 

bro please stop commenting ofc the server ain't gonna have all the features it JUST LAUNCHED man.. they're going to add things over time.. ain't nobody playing SAMP that shit shut down bro

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Appreciate the kind words MMartin, but your track record on promises is horrendous, I assume you'll disappear again soon.

ALOT of things need fixed with the community itself. Its so easy to get guns the entire city turns into a warzone. The economy is terrible. The server isn't even LA anymore. It feels like Syria at some points. LSRP isn't what it used to be, where everyone wanted good roleplay. All you got now is factions just being DM machines, its old man.

 

I understand this server will probably never catch up to GTA world in terms of features, but I can't fault you guys on that, they've been on RAGE since 2017, you guys since 2021. But you can always clean up the RP of players and invest in the server more through marketing. You don't need a bunch of fancy menus for roleplay. All you need is a good /me and players who actually want to RP instead of DM faking to be bloods, even on the forums. And 1 more suggestion: Let the damn factions roleplay what they want to RP. It shouldn't have to be tied to LA. PD, SD, DOC, FD, illegal factions etc, should be able to create their own custom style of how they do things, not base it solely on LA.

 

But again, this post means exactly nothing when nothing will come out of it. We get shown time and time again that you break promises. It was more than likely made cause you had an oh shit moment because the PB is extremely low because of your decisions, and low PB means low donations.

Edited by HP3
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I can admit that LSRP has come up with some unique and very attractive systems and ideas, but they are only attractive on paper. The only thing that made me not start playing on this community is that everything is very different from how I played for so many years on samp and gtav.

 

I'm sure these changes came from the best of intentions and an attempt was made to bring something new and fresh, but it just isn't appealing and doesn't work. I don't want to work I don't know how many hours so I can just get the worst car I have to pay for weekly. Same with the house. I'm simply at an age where I can no longer afford to play 10 hours a week just to afford the house and the car, and on top of that another 10 hours to role-play.  It just doesn't work.

 

I simply think the community should go back to how things were on samp and how they are now on gta world. Players play there for a reason, they have properties, cars items. If you guys made it even harder to get these properties than on gtaw it was also natural that people wouldn't move. You had to make these things easier to get to incentivize players. 
 

Players who have been playing samp and gta v for so many years don't want something new, they want something better!

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I think many of the players who are still active rn, will look what will happen in the next two to three weeks and take action on whether they still want to play here.

Very critical times.

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The server has been amazing since day 1. I love the script and everything and obviously things will need to be updated as time goes on but my experience on the server has been great all we need is more players and more new people to apply to the server to create their character.

 

I see a lot of people complaining in this comment section for petty reasons and sounds like some hate and some rude comments. I think that the server needs time to grow it's player base and we need more advertising on youtube and different platforms. 

 

 

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We need more advertising to generate more players and get the word out there.

 

Without marketing and advertising, it's very hard to gain any traction or players. 

 

I've seen youtube videos from different players but LS-RP youtube channel has to post an advertisement viceo on the LS-RP youtube channel.

 

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2 major issues that with a fix could boost player base.

 

1 . Fuck this “realisitic” economy, samp was inflated yes, but having savings accounts, having a bunch of money and cars/houses made people not ever think about “needing money” , almost everything was done for the RP, give us bigger paychecks or savings sccounts or whatever, tweak it constantly until its perfect, and stop making everyone care about how much money they have 24/7, then we can get some solid RP. 
 

2. Leniency from staff, yes theirs way too many guns on the server, but that’s only a major issue rather than a minor issue because nobody gets punished for doing whatever they like with them guns, I played non stop since release until a few weeks back, and the amount of DM and poor reasons to kill, poor escalation I saw or dealt with was ridiculous, and none of it really got dealt with, I know a bunch of people who got warning after warning, ajail, banned, unbanned in 3 days, repeat repeat, I understand the leniency was because you wanted to create a player base and not be so harsh banning people from a brand new server instantly, but people literally play this server to DM because they know they can get away with it, knuckle down on all the bullshit, stop letting people off the hook, accept you will lose players by punishing these people properly and not unbanning them in 4 days, but understand the long term effects on having people here to roleplay and know that they cant just run around and DM

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7 hours ago, K A P O said:

2 major issues that with a fix could boost player base.

 

1 . Fuck this “realisitic” economy, samp was inflated yes, but having savings accounts, having a bunch of money and cars/houses made people not ever think about “needing money” , almost everything was done for the RP, give us bigger paychecks or savings sccounts or whatever, tweak it constantly until its perfect, and stop making everyone care about how much money they have 24/7, then we can get some solid RP. 
 

2. Leniency from staff, yes theirs way too many guns on the server, but that’s only a major issue rather than a minor issue because nobody gets punished for doing whatever they like with them guns, I played non stop since release until a few weeks back, and the amount of DM and poor reasons to kill, poor escalation I saw or dealt with was ridiculous, and none of it really got dealt with, I know a bunch of people who got warning after warning, ajail, banned, unbanned in 3 days, repeat repeat, I understand the leniency was because you wanted to create a player base and not be so harsh banning people from a brand new server instantly, but people literally play this server to DM because they know they can get away with it, knuckle down on all the bullshit, stop letting people off the hook, accept you will lose players by punishing these people properly and not unbanning them in 4 days, but understand the long term effects on having people here to roleplay and know that they cant just run around and DM

 

this lol

 

easy and fun economy

make the server easier to play

combine all the schemes and boilerplate into 1 form (u ask for shit and u get it if u have a good idea)

sell all clothes in in one place instead of separating them based on location

change the clothes to a slider instead of a cumbersome click through 1000 different pages and icons system

makeup should just be pick whatever you want (with a preview) and apply it for $100 instead of whatever the fuck it is now

get rid of the weird ass company requirements. (if i have a good idea just let me have a business without making some cringe corporation first)

leases

map POIs (map a nice public park and do events there)

have an events team that actually does something (they did 1 event in the opening 2 weeks lol????)

incentivize logging in at peak time (increased governmental paychecks)

simplify the hyper realistic systems u have in place

make the dmv test easy i mean why would u make something needlessly complicated for entertainment lol?? people are just gonna quit when they waste their starting money on a dumbass test

Edited by trashstar
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I will briefly comment on the economy since that's what I'm most interested in myself.

 

The current economy is not fundamentally realistic. It's based on a circular flow of income model but it's not designed to keep money circulating in the economy; instead, it creates a lot of money and looks to remove money from circulation. A healthy economy requires the regulation of how much money is created and keeps most money circulating in the economy (while creating investment and non-investment resources to spend said money on so that players wouldn't have too much money with nothing to spend on).

 

It simply gives the false idea of realism because it's more difficult to start out but there are many loopholes. 

 

Something that people who don't understand economics and game economy design is that a realistic economy = is (very) difficult to earn money.

 

You can have a realistic economic model but ”adjust the ratios.” For example, think of income classes. 

  • Lower class - very poor
  • Lower class
  • Lower middle class
  • Upper middle class
  • Lower upper class
  • Upper class

Each income class ”denotes a level (in a game)” based on how much someone earns (based on what they do and what their contribution to the roleplay universe and in-game economy is) and each income class can afford certain investment and non-investment resources.

 

If you were in the lower class - very poor, you would rely on social housing and the Department of Social Services checks. If you were upper class, you could afford the most expensive mansions and vehicles.

 

Most all games that have an in-game economy revolve around a cost system. The cost system determines how easy or difficult it is to reach a certain level (of income), and what each level can afford.

 

However, the trick is in regulating the money created (called the ”main indicators of the game,” meaning what is being rewarded with money. Usually, in roleplay, it's either (prolonged) activity e.g. paychecks and savings, or it's roleplay creation.) Once the money is created, the goal is to keep it circulating, not remove it from circulation. That's how you get a healthy economic system with limited inflation.

Now, as I said, you can ”adjust the ratios” of how easy or difficult it is to reach a certain level. The upper middle class to upper class should be the most difficult to reach but the first three levels should require minimum effort. That would set all (new) players up at a comfortable level where they don't have to worry about money and can roleplay, but would need to put in extra work (through roleplay effort) to get higher. 

 

The easiest way to visualize this is by thinking of XP ratios for levels in an MMORPG. 

 

At the moment, you literally have players who can't afford the basics for their roleplay while there is a player who owns the Gentry Manor Hotel as a private residence (I don't know who), and there is major inflation not even a quarter into the server existence with millions being printed. 

 

My suggestion is this:

  1. Make the economy more transparent (good starters would be a Forbes-style top 10 richest list, a monthly inflation tracker based on how much money was/is on the server, and an income ladder. All 3 of these are public to everyone). It creates accountability for the economy team and players will be more inclined to provide feedback on the economy based on how content or uncontent they are with the results.
  2. Make it easier to start out for new players but make it more difficult to reach the upper levels of income classes.
  3. Involve non-staff in the economy team, and make economic discussions public to the player base so everyone can voice their opinion, and see how decisions are made.
Edited by Giovanni_Sgroi
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On a different note from the economy, as management, you have 2 key responsibilities:

 

1) Server development in terms of script. I won't comment on that because I know nothing about scripting however it's important to listen to feedback and suggestions and implement systems players need for their roleplay or quality of life.

 

2) Figuring out what players need for their roleplay. Do gang roleplayers need a good drug system? Do OC roleplayers need more systems for white-collar crime? What do business and company owners need? What do civilians need? Should we implement restrictions on PF licenses so they would fill their intended purpose (of being a means for legal characters to obtain firearms, not for criminals). Which factions have access to the supply of guns and drugs, and are they setting up proper supply chains so it reaches everyone who wants guns and drugs for their roleplay? 

 

It's a combination of script features and systems (or rules and regulations) that allow players to roleplay what they want to roleplay (while still being fun and fair for everyone, not favoring any one group of players).

 

Once you figure out what they need, you start balancing it so that input = output however there's equal opportunity. 

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11 hours ago, Giovanni_Sgroi said:

I will briefly comment on the economy since that's what I'm most interested in myself.

 

The current economy is not fundamentally realistic. It's based on a circular flow of income model but it's not designed to keep money circulating in the economy; instead, it creates a lot of money and looks to remove money from circulation. A healthy economy requires the regulation of how much money is created and keeps most money circulating in the economy (while creating investment and non-investment resources to spend said money on so that players wouldn't have too much money with nothing to spend on).

 

It simply gives the false idea of realism because it's more difficult to start out but there are many loopholes. 

 

Something that people who don't understand economics and game economy design is that a realistic economy = is (very) difficult to earn money.

 

You can have a realistic economic model but ”adjust the ratios.” For example, think of income classes. 

  • Lower class - very poor
  • Lower class
  • Lower middle class
  • Upper middle class
  • Lower upper class
  • Upper class

Each income class ”denotes a level (in a game)” based on how much someone earns (based on what they do and what their contribution to the roleplay universe and in-game economy is) and each income class can afford certain investment and non-investment resources.

 

If you were in the lower class - very poor, you would rely on social housing and the Department of Social Services checks. If you were upper class, you could afford the most expensive mansions and vehicles.

 

Most all games that have an in-game economy revolve around a cost system. The cost system determines how easy or difficult it is to reach a certain level (of income), and what each level can afford.

 

However, the trick is in regulating the money created (called the ”main indicators of the game,” meaning what is being rewarded with money. Usually, in roleplay, it's either (prolonged) activity e.g. paychecks and savings, or it's roleplay creation.) Once the money is created, the goal is to keep it circulating, not remove it from circulation. That's how you get a healthy economic system with limited inflation.

Now, as I said, you can ”adjust the ratios” of how easy or difficult it is to reach a certain level. The upper middle class to upper class should be the most difficult to reach but the first three levels should require minimum effort. That would set all (new) players up at a comfortable level where they don't have to worry about money and can roleplay, but would need to put in extra work (through roleplay effort) to get higher. 

 

The easiest way to visualize this is by thinking of XP ratios for levels in an MMORPG. 

 

At the moment, you literally have players who can't afford the basics for their roleplay while there is a player who owns the Gentry Manor Hotel as a private residence (I don't know who), and there is major inflation not even a quarter into the server existence with millions being printed. 

 

My suggestion is this:

  1. Make the economy more transparent (good starters would be a Forbes-style top 10 richest list, a monthly inflation tracker based on how much money was/is on the server, and an income ladder. All 3 of these are public to everyone). It creates accountability for the economy team and players will be more inclined to provide feedback on the economy based on how content or uncontent they are with the results.
  2. Make it easier to start out for new players but make it more difficult to reach the upper levels of income classes.
  3. Involve non-staff in the economy team, and make economic discussions public to the player base so everyone can voice their opinion, and see how decisions are made.

I believe this is the main issue for the playerbase, you cant even buy a faggio or anything when starting out. Nobody wants to work a realistic job on a game and put hours and hours into it.

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21 hours ago, K A P O said:

2 major issues that with a fix could boost player base.

 

1 . Fuck this “realisitic” economy, samp was inflated yes, but having savings accounts, having a bunch of money and cars/houses made people not ever think about “needing money” , almost everything was done for the RP, give us bigger paychecks or savings sccounts or whatever, tweak it constantly until its perfect, and stop making everyone care about how much money they have 24/7, then we can get some solid RP. 
 

2. Leniency from staff, yes theirs way too many guns on the server, but that’s only a major issue rather than a minor issue because nobody gets punished for doing whatever they like with them guns, I played non stop since release until a few weeks back, and the amount of DM and poor reasons to kill, poor escalation I saw or dealt with was ridiculous, and none of it really got dealt with, I know a bunch of people who got warning after warning, ajail, banned, unbanned in 3 days, repeat repeat, I understand the leniency was because you wanted to create a player base and not be so harsh banning people from a brand new server instantly, but people literally play this server to DM because they know they can get away with it, knuckle down on all the bullshit, stop letting people off the hook, accept you will lose players by punishing these people properly and not unbanning them in 4 days, but understand the long term effects on having people here to roleplay and know that they cant just run around and DM

This aswell, is facts. The major major factor for the playerbase is the economy side. Something needs to be done about it, or it's gonna just die like the samp server did. Completely agree, the gun situation aswell, it's about people being punished for the poor reasons, the amount of guns wasnt the issue. The only reason these 'dmers' were getting guns is because of the economy, people wanted money so sold to anyone that would pay the prices. It's all a big circle.

Edited by Rhys123
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@Mmartin I think development is a bit irrelevant here. A quality RP server does not have to have the best script, it has to have the best community and playerbase.

 

You need a marketing team buddy

Edited by XpoZzA
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@MmartinPersonally, I think faction management needs to tone up too. We have directors, Captains, and other high-ranking members sitting there like door mats. I understand the player base is low, but faction leaders and high-ranking members should be preparing for the future. Instead, from a personal point of view we have an inactive leadership that is, not pushing for members and is not doing a thing but remaining in their position when other members have the ambition and want to thrive and push that department forward but are being held back by their inactivity. 

 

Another thing for me SASD is recruiting too many cops. We had 55 members on during a peak session and 24 were cops and 22 of them were SASD, and this was during the graduation as there wasn't one due to DDOS. Recruitment for cops needs to be monitored. SASD is more or less permanently open. I find PD recruitment is fine, once a month or once every 6 weeks but SASD once every week, is ridiculous. This is speaking from a legal faction employee point of view.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Stinkywinky
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On 8/29/2023 at 5:11 AM, Zagros said:

It would be nice to receive a response from @Mmartin regarding the various perspectives shared by the community.

The King stepping down from his throne to greet the peasants? Never!

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3 hours ago, Stinkywinky said:

@MmartinPersonally, I think faction management needs to tone up too. We have directors, Captains, and other high-ranking members sitting there like door mats. I understand the player base is low, but faction leaders and high-ranking members should be preparing for the future. Instead, from a personal point of view we have an inactive leadership that is, not pushing for members and is not doing a thing but remaining in their position when other members have the ambition and want to thrive and push that department forward but are being held back by their inactivity. 

 

Another thing for me SASD is recruiting too many cops. We had 55 members on during a peak session and 24 were cops and 22 of them were SASD, and this was during the graduation as there wasn't one due to DDOS. Recruitment for cops needs to be monitored. SASD is more or less permanently open. I find PD recruitment is fine, once a month or once every 6 weeks but SASD once every week, is ridiculous. This is speaking from a legal faction employee point of view.

 

 

 

 

 

Not really sure where you got your information from or who relayed it to you but your math is way off. The LSSD* (not the SASD - it does not exist), opens recruitment once per month, not once per week. No need to exaggerate, it won't help get your point across - in fact it'll just make people not take any of your concerns seriously. Second, there were nowhere near 22 SD cops online today - I was online and during my time online (I was online for about 5-6 hours), there were 12 cops online most of them were SD. Out of the 12, 4-5 were trainees from last month's recruitment drive. You can't blame their activity or higher ratio to non LEO on recruitment because that's definitely not the case. There's more cops than regular players because the gang members and civilian roleplayers are no longer too active. It's not like you can go and tell them not to log on because there's already too many cops online. 

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