Rethinking the approach towards civilian role play

[PharmaFarma]

On 1/3/2022 at 11:58 PM, La Tweaker said:

Yeah I agree, and if I'm being honest Civilian RP on world isn't all its cracked up to be. The great civilian RPers are going to move here, I can see it happening now because even alot of them are fed up with some of the shit going on on that server. Civilians provoking gangbangers in their turfs, mallrats leading factions and being favoured by mallrat IFM members, civilian RPers constantly crying about being robbed when they pull up to the hood in their sports cars and walking around South Central and other slummy parts of LS dressing in suits / flashy clothes. If you go to some places, it doesn't matter whether you're innocent or a civilian, if you look like a target, you will be a target

 

I'm confident that LSRPV is going to compete with that server in all ways, shapes and forms because I've never seen the amount of nonsense that I experienced there on any other community, especially not LSRP.

The problem on GTA World stems from both sides, however. In addition to civilians providing subpar experiences for roleplayers of other types, there's also subpar roleplay coming from the criminal element as well. There's only so much copy/paste robbery roleplay by people wearing checkered clothes that people can take before they've had enough. 

Edited January 5, 2022 by PharmaFarma

[La Tweaker]

6 hours ago, PharmaFarma said:

The problem on GTA World stems from both sides, however. In addition to civilians providing subpar experiences for roleplayers of other types, there's also subpar roleplay coming from the criminal element as well. There's only so much copy/paste robbery roleplay by people wearing checkered clothes that people can take before they've had enough. 

If I'm being honest with you, and I mean no disrespect when I say this, but your comment is the epitome of the issues I cited in regards to SOME (not all) civilian rpers

 

I don't wanna spend too much time bashing that server because to be frank, i don't really care what they're doing or what goes on over there anymore, as I've stopped playing, but from what I experienced, yes, the issue did stem from both sides, but it was far more of a thing on the civilian side of the spectrum, in fact, most of the sub-par robberies you likely experienced were committed by random dogshit factions that were too dogshit to even have a thread, or were done by people uninvolved in gang/illegal roleplay to begin with. Atleast 90% of illegal factions on that server did everything in their power to punish their members for engaging in subpar behaviour and if their members committed sub-par behaviour and weren't subsequently kicked from the faction, this is because the victim of the sub-par scene didn't even bother to look up the names of their attacker, or even to ask around to find out what faction the individual was in.

 

I'm confident when I say that if you approach a faction leader about sub-par robberies committed by their members, 9 times out of 10 something is gonna happen as a result of it. Faction leaders want to hear about sub-par behaviour from their members so that they can get rid of them, if you don't point them out to these faction leaders, then nothing's gonna change, and nothing did change, mainly because they complain in general discussions more than they do in faction leaders' DM's, which results in faction leaders getting irritated with you or with civilian role players in general because they blame things on all factions and try to claim that illegal faction don't regulate their members, which is a blatant lie. In my opinion the problem that some civilian RPers have with illegal RP doesn't really lie with robberies, it lies with either not getting their way, or them perceiving a gang in a certain area that isn't South Central (Like Little Seoul or Vespucci) to be 'unrealistic', so they react with hostility IC, sometimes even disrespecting multiple gang members at once, they end up either stabbed, severely beaten, robbed or shot and generally get upset OOCly about that.

 

For example, I once had a civilian roleplayer that was RPing a politician of some sort provoke my character in the middle of his territory for simply looking at her for a moment. My character was curious as to who she was and why she was suddenly hanging out on a corner in his hood, her response was to ask him 'Can I fucking help you?' and then to demand proof that the area she was standing was my character's territory. She got shot and wasn't very happy about it and as a result, reported me.

 

That situation never caused me to look at all civilian roleplayers as being sub-par, or as all inherently bad. Some of the best RP scenes I've been part of on my gang related chars weren't always with my faction, in fact alot of them involved civilian roleplayers who were either living in the neighbourhood or just occasionally came around. The problem I have with civilian RPers is with the ones who as I mentioned before, show up to the ghetto as a complete random, act all superior, get put into your place (usually through violence) and then take to the forums to call the roleplay subpar, or to file a RPQ report that goes nowhere.

 

Adding on to that, I had an alternative character on GTAW that I played quite often, she was a civilian mind you. I used to walk all over LS on the character and interact with pretty much everyone, gangs, cops and even other civilians. In my several months of RPing that char every day, I was only robbed once when I cut through an alleyway one time. I'll even go as far as to say that the overwhelming majority of gang role players protected the character I'm talking about from violence on multiple occasions, mainly because when my character carried herself like a civilian and it was quite obvious that she wasn't a criminal of any sort, so the gang didn't view her as a threat, nor did they try to get her out of their territory when she was there or attack/rob her. Because of this, it leads me to believe that all the talk of sub-par robberies is simply an exaggeration, though what isn't an exaggeration are the issues I've cited.

 

With that said, though. I'm done criticizing that server because I don't wanna derail this thread too much. Also thankfully, LSRP never had problems in that scale when it came to civilian roleplayers.

 

10 hours ago, Apophis said:

I'd be doing them a disservice if I didn't say the ad system, map markers, static points, and business payment script / business item creation script weren't all fantastic

Despite my obvious disdain for that server, I can atleast agree with this. They did something cool with their ad system and map markers, along with their business system. I didn't get to experience too much of that script, but being paid for an hour of work was a very nice touch. Nobody ever wanted to roleplay working at 24/7's etc on LSRP because there was very little reward for the effort you put in to roleplaying. I'm confident though that LSRP can come up with something that's on par, if not even slightly better than what they have.

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by La Tweaker

[r0yal]

4 hours ago, Apophis said:

 

Is this a viable strategy? The conditio...

A lot of really good points raised here.

 

 

One of the main reasons I was so amazed when I moved to World from LSRP before was the civilian roleplay aspect. You really don't realize how lacking LSRP was in this til you leave that bubble.

 

GTA:W's huge playerbase isn't a majority of SAMP players anymore, they've taken in people from all types of games and all types of communities, games that aren't focused primarily around the cops vs criminals basis like LSRP was. This combined with it being fresh and new means a lot more passion and the sheer amount of script support for literally any idea possible means that the civilian side of roleplay there is thriving. LSRP needs to find ways to capture this audience too.

 

 

I get that one of LSRPs main pulls right now is that they're going to bring good illegal roleplay to the scene but times have changed and actual real focus on the civilian sector needs to be taken into account too for the server to do well. As Apophis mentioned GTA:W has nailed this with features such as the custom item script, roleplaying for cash in businesses and driving players to these businesses with the icon system and just the sheer amount of cool little features players can build whole businesses around such as the scuba script, the animal npcs, allowing the purchase of niche vehicles like mowers and so much more.

 

Things like this need to be thought about too as they may not seem like high priority tasks but allowing for players to get this creative and entertain any idea they want means people are happier.

 

The way civillian roleplay was handled on SAMP wasn't done well at all. There was no incentive or support and barely any infrastructure in place to support people until the Company idea launched. I think this from the start dissuaded people from pursuing civilian roleplay and from 2016-2017 it took a huge decline, gone were the days of big companies such as Roux and others with their multiple divisions and different sectors. You saw small groups start up but none lasted very long.

 

The Company script was an amazing leap in the right direction to support civilian roleplay and it allowed for people to pursue these ideas with actual support. Things like that need to be built on with this platform as it just has so much possibility and allows for things you couldn't even dream of with SAMP.

 

Players will create cool things if they're given the support to do so, for example, the golf course being ran on GTA:W as a private members only club was cool. It was immersive and it gave countless opportunities to other members; fundraisers being held, low level businessmen acting above their means and just a general place for high society to mingle. All of this was able to take place due to the infrastructure in place to support civilian roleplay in the first place.

 

Building on what Apophis said regarding @ROZE and co, their roleplay wasn't always the best and it is undeniable that a lot of the stuff they did wasn't the highest standard but holy shit did they do more for keeping the server alive and thriving in 2019-2021 than anyone else could've dreamt of. The amount of events, functions and just general activities that were planned, organised and hosted by them with barely any support from staff is astounding. The water park event was very cool and brought the playerbase up to a peak that hadn't been seen in a while. They hosted a myriad of other events such as derbys etc too with big success rates. With a lack of server hosted events bar the Halloween or Christmas ones it was so cool to see the community come together and enjoy something again. Major props to you and I made sure to tell you from the start how cool what you were doing was.

 

Now imagine that happening weekly; people hosting shit that makes people see it and go woah that's cool, unique, fun and a break from the monotamous roleplay that being a civilian can provide. It keeps passion flowing and keeps people interested and motivated. World, when I played, had (has?) this nailed down to a T. There was constantly things to do, events such as; triathlons, group hikes, beach parties, boat parties, camping trips, scuba lessons, jetskiing groups, pilot lessons, hunting groups and so so much more.

 

It's early here so sorry for any mistakes and I apologize for going on a bit of a tangent but the TL:DR is that although elite illegal RP is one of LSRPs biggest pulls right now civillian RP can't be neglected as GTA V is a new age for roleplay; one where this server can't boil down to Cops vs Robbers with a little sprinkle of civillian roleplay anymore and so support for this sector will need to be greatly increased from what it was on SAMP

Edited January 5, 2022 by r0yal

[Uncanny]

After reading this I do see the problems that the civilian roleplayers had (lets hope those mistakes will be fixed). On the other hand, with all due respect to those roleplayers, I can't agree to a lot of things. Now, I was not a civilian roleplayer back in SAMP era, but when I freshly started and didn't know much, I had the chance to experience some of the roleplay and most of it was not roses and rainbows.

 

When it comes to paying for roleplay - it was done by hourly paycheck, which everyone got. Like said with all due respect, now it sounds that somehow civilians were ones that didn't get any paychecks. Believe me, sometimes in illegal roleplay people had to do some scripted side-jobs to pay weekly or monthly payments that were due, let alone the bussiness that had to be open, which most of the time took more money, than it provided to the players. To create some more scripts that could benefit you for roleplaying around it would be great, but let's be honest here, majority of the player base would just abuse it to quickly gain some cash. This would dig a bigger hole with trolls and dm'ers as they would gain not only hourly paychecks, but also they could abuse different scripts, thus buying guns and what not. With civilians' images already being associated mostly with mallrats, people, who do not have anything to do or can't roleplay or with individuals, who just want to provoke everyone else and ruin the roleplay, I think more scripts would just ruin the image of civilians even more.

To finish of with payments for roleplay - civilians have to create the roleplay themselves and the paycheck will then roll in without you noticing it. No script or support from others will grant you the experience, which you want to achieve or get.

 

I do understand, that scripts like hunting, golf, bowling would let people create more roleplay, but it still stems down to one thing - if not properly managed and enchanced by the civilians themselves these scripts will become boring, out-dated and people get greedy and will start begging for more scripts leaving those that were implemented abandoned, thus overloading the server itself (making the server or the map overpopulated with scripts and maps will ruin the evnironemnt image of it and believe me I don't think you want to see LSRPV look like low-mid level roleplay server with every corner mapped and what not)

 

ROZE did a lot of beautiful things, yes, but one person just mentioned - the things done were not always at their best. It comes to that the ideas were wonderful, but the execution was not done properly, that is why you did not get that support from FM you wanted. The same thing goes for illegal roleplayers: there were factions that managed to get official status within a month and hundred page on their faction thread, while other factions only achieved that after months and months of roleplaying. Yet again like I mentioned above, only the roleplayers themselves can receive the support by polishing their roleplaying methods and perhaps changing some mistakes in the execution of their actions.

 

When it comes to civilian roleplay a lot of the time what I saw myself, is that roleplayers were very depended on their managers/administration (when talking about legal businesses) and we are all people - sometimes the leaders just do not have any ideas what else could be implemented in their factions activities. THIS is where the other memebers come - you have to create your own scenarios and help the faction to develop. That is why, like mentioned above, civilian roleplay becomes boring and grey after a while, it is because you do not create the scenarios yourselves. Yes, ROZE or other factions can create events that would leave a lot of people speechles, but how many of these ideas can one company generate, while the rest of roleplayers that enjoyed that event won't move a finger after that and only fed of that idea? I think you get my point here. The same goes with illegal roleplay, yes LSRP had and I believe will have the most elite illegal roleplayers around with older generation coming back and the present people being experienced, but those "amazing, elite" illegal roleplayers wouldn't managed to achieve a lot if not for the people around them - with their help they can and will create the most prestigious illegal factions. On the other hand, illegal factions that have no experience or just do not give a shit about their roleplay diminish within weeks.

 

The other problem of civilian roleplay, that most of the roleplayers can't experience the elite civilian roleplay, because they themselves aren't able to make the connections or create the scenarions, which would up-lift them, make them meet the elite players. Let me mention this again, nothing and noone, will do the job for you so that you could enjoy the top-tier of roleplay. Like someone metioned above, the whole game will not be changed for several people, who just want to be social and can't create any roleplay themselves, because at the end of the day, a lot of improvements will be done to that segement of community, which will manage to create the roleplay, that will be enjoyed by the majority of roleplayers. You want some improvements? Constantly asking the administration will do no good - you have to show them, that it's really needed in the server and that the script or any other improvement won't be only used once a month while any other time it will abandoned.

 

To sum up everything, nothing will change if you don't change the way you think about civilian roleplay. I do agree that some improvements need to be implemented in the server, but don't expect that scripts and administration will magically improve the roleplay experience - you have to do it yourself to some extent. When your actions will show improvement and you will believe that there is nothing else you could do, then yes you can have a conversation with the managing team for some changes.

 

I believe that Mmartin and Co. have already a lot of things planned for civilians, first we have to get into the server and play for several months and then we can bring up the ideas, that needs to be implemented to enchance the experience of these roleplayers as for now we have not played the game, but we somehow are creating issues, that I do not think will exist. If they will, well then, we should have a good conversation with the planning team.

[PharmaFarma]

@La Tweaker You make some great points. I will say the coddling of sub-par civilian roleplayers is very off-putting when roleplaying a criminal, as sometimes it can seem like admins are simply out to get you, depending on who you end up dealing with. I just hope this server has everyone on more equal footing.

[Apophis]

 I'm responding to this entire post directly as I don't think I could physically disagree with everything you've said more. Also I had this pre-written and the forums ate my post, so I'm dashing this out fast. I'm not editing this as I can't be fucked to do it twice. I've already wasted enough time writing it. Apologies for the wall of text, I have COVID and literally nothing better to do.

13 hours ago, Uncanny said:

Reference for the original post. I'll be responding in indirect quotes because of the bulky way the forum software handles them, but everything is from this post.

Quote

When it comes to paying for roleplay - it was done by hourly paycheck, which everyone got. Like said with all due respect, now it sounds that somehow civilians were ones that didn't get any paychecks.

 

Mechanic paychecks in no way promote role play, in any form. How are hourly paychecks an acceptable parallel to the financial incentives that existed in legal/illegal role play, who also have access to them? Players would be motivated to remain within factions and role play around guns / drugs as those assets very literally translated to a form of income (especially pre drug nerf). Why do you think players PF abused, for the thrill? They did it because it made money. Players will role play in businesses because it makes money.

 

The script in question is designed to be an alternative to script jobs. It creates passive role play for the entire community with the opening of businesses, it rewards players for taking an active role, and it helps teach them the fundamentals of role play. This provides a solution to the fucking miserable new player experience which boiled down to "wait an unreasonable amount of time before you have literally anything, or drive a truck around like a complete dickhead and make peanuts." This would be beneficial to everybody. I very literally don't see a single argument for how this could possibly be a bad thing.

 

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 Believe me, sometimes in illegal roleplay people had to do some scripted side-jobs to pay weekly or monthly payments that were due, let alone the bussiness that had to be open, which most of the time took more money, than it provided to the players.

 

I can assure you that in my 6,000+ hours playing exclusively in an administrative capacity, speccing players, and specifically being tasked by management to explore the functionality of script jobs, I have never once seen a legitimate illegal role player drive a truck. I could drive to Donald Scarpa's house and put a gun to his head and I don't think I could get him to do a single malt run. This doesn't happen. The only job that I've ever seen illegal role players use is mechanic. 

 

The same script that you're criticizing in your previous point directly remedies the problem that you're pointing out here. It removes a significant burden from the business owners and promotes businesses opening consistently. I fail to see how any of this is a bad thing.

 

Quote

To create some more scripts that could benefit you for roleplaying around it would be great, but let's be honest here, majority of the player base would just abuse it to quickly gain some cash. This would dig a bigger hole with trolls and dm'ers as they would gain not only hourly paychecks, but also they could abuse different scripts, thus buying guns and what not. With civilians' images already being associated mostly with mallrats, people, who do not have anything to do or can't roleplay or with individuals, who just want to provoke everyone else and ruin the roleplay, I think more scripts would just ruin the image of civilians even more.

This is just a bizarre, inappropriate jump to conclusion that is completely devoid of any truth. If you apply the same logic to any other script it falls flat. Should the /me command be removed as it's ripe for abuse? Why release the server if it's going to enable players to troll and dm? This is why LS:RP and every other role play server on pretty much any game has a standing staff team. This is the direct purpose of having a staff that logs in-game and actively moderates. All scripts can be abused in some form. This isn't exclusive to what we're discussing. 

 

The "image" that civilian role players harbor is entirely in your head. That's the perception of them that your experiences have fostered. You saying they're "associated mostly with mall rats" or people who "can't roleplay, who just want to provoke" is simply inflammatory and isn't grounded in reality. I'm sorry that you've had bad personal experiences but in no way is this reflective of literally the most thematically diverse group of players on the server. Employing scripting in any way isn't going to change this. I'd also like to point out what we're also referencing things that are outside of scripting (i.e. community initiatives).

 

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To finish of with payments for roleplay - civilians have to create the roleplay themselves and the paycheck will then roll in without you noticing it. No script or support from others will grant you the experience, which you want to achieve or get.

 

Remember when you first logged on, and you weren't aware of the mechanic job? Do you remember another player telling you about passive income, and you only had to have the mechanic job to get it? Do you remember having them take you to Blueberry and show you where it is, so you could get it? Does this sound like the basis of a functioning, planned economy to you?

 

The mechanic job was designed in 2009-2010 to the best of my recollection, well before anybody on LS:RP starting taking role play seriously. The passive $1,250 is a remnant of a bygone era, scripted for a community that looks nothing like it does today. It wasn't designed to be role play income. It wasn't really designed for anything, and heralding it as the solution to these problems is incredibly short sighted. The only real reason that mechanic paychecks and savings existed is that LS:RPs economy was complete fucking garbage (read: nonexistent). They were a solution of convenience, as ripping the economic backbone out of a twelve year old project was well beyond the experience of management and development. Why are you so intent on maintaining a script realistically should have zero relevance today?

 

Assuming you're asking for something similar to the LS:RP script, you are very literally asking players to play 1,000+ in electronic squalor for a taste of financial security. None of this promotes role play, it promotes time investment.

 

Quote

I do understand, that scripts like hunting, golf, bowling would let people create more roleplay, but it still stems down to one thing - if not properly managed and enchanced by the civilians themselves these scripts will become boring, out-dated and people get greedy and will start begging for more scripts leaving those that were implemented abandoned, thus overloading the server itself (making the server or the map overpopulated with scripts and maps will ruin the evnironemnt image of it and believe me I don't think you want to see LSRPV look like low-mid level roleplay server with every corner mapped and what not)

 

I'm not explicitly talking about these sort of quasi-minigame scripts, but I find it staggering that you have a problem with them. People went ape shit over poker when it came out, and while I'll admit that it didn't exactly provide riveting role play, I don't understand how giving players things to do is a bad thing. If they added golf I think I would spend 90% of my time playing it / role playing around it. Tennis too. That sounds great.

 

LS:RP always had a problem with interest in NPC role play. The best example I can think of: when was the last time somebody role played stealing a phone during a robbery? Why the fuck would you? Offering players something tangible (i.e. item scripts) provides players with something more than a non-committal line of text to back up what they're doing. I'm not asking for development to shit up the map with a bunch of minigames and circus fanfare. Re-read the original post, you're jumping to insane conclusions again.

 

Quote

ROZE did a lot of beautiful things, yes, but one person just mentioned - the things done were not always at their best. It comes to that the ideas were wonderful, but the execution was not done properly, that is why you did not get that support from FM you wanted. The same thing goes for illegal roleplayers: there were factions that managed to get official status within a month and hundred page on their faction thread, while other factions only achieved that after months and months of roleplaying. Yet again like I mentioned above, only the roleplayers themselves can receive the support by polishing their roleplaying methods and perhaps changing some mistakes in the execution of their actions.

 

a. This post is equating all of civilian role play to a small minority of civilian role players who existed on LS:RP. Again, re-read the original post. The landscape has changed. Criminal role players are the minority on GTA 5. Thousands of civilian role players exist who aren't ROZE. GTA RP exists outside of LS:RP.

 

b. I was the lead admin who directly dealt with ROZE as they fell under my purview for businesses when they were just a player. In the latter half of my tenure, I frankly stopped giving a fuck about the the communities perception of certain player's quality when they consistently showed that they were trying their absolute best. This line of thinking is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that players are too stone-headed to realize that role play exists outside of the LS:RP cops and robbers meta. The fact that you don't accept that ROZE, Valentine or Saunders would have deserved even a shred of recognition from staff and the support to excel in what they do is the best example I can find of LS:RPs outdated approach to factions fundamentally fucking up people's perception of role play. It is incredible how fast you made my point for me.

 

13 hours ago, Uncanny said:

When it comes to civilian roleplay a lot of the time what I saw myself ...

 

I'm not trying to be rude, but I seriously don't understand this paragraph in response to the theme of the thread. Can you reword this so I can respond to it, please?

 

Quote

The other problem of civilian roleplay, that most of the roleplayers can't experience the elite civilian roleplay, because they themselves aren't able to make the connections or create the scenarions, which would up-lift them, make them meet the elite players. Let me mention this again, nothing and noone, will do the job for you so that you could enjoy the top-tier of roleplay. Like someone metioned above, the whole game will not be changed for several people, who just want to be social and can't create any roleplay themselves,

 

"Elite civilian role play" conceptually doesn't exist, nor is it an elitist troupe of sequestered aristocrats who lord over the other non-criminals like they're trying to reenact a Bohemian Grove meeting. It also isn't a gaggle of real life Melvins sitting in an interior and talking to each other OOCly. It is an overarching theme that realistically encompasses every character in some way. I don't think drawing allusions towards legal/illegal role play really works in this context. 

 

13 hours ago, Uncanny said:

because at the end of the day, a lot of improvements will be done to that segement of community, which will manage to create the roleplay, that will be enjoyed by the majority of roleplayers. You want some improvements? Constantly asking the administration will do no good - you have to show them, that it's really needed in the server and that the script or any other improvement won't be only used once a month while any other time it will abandoned.

 

I'm asking them to do literally anything other than nothing. Civilian role play has had exactly zero representatives and zero focus since 2008. It very literally hasn't ever been considered by staff in any form outside of businesses and companies, the former being largely auxiliary to illegals, the latter coming out far too late. I am aware of this as during my tenure as staff, I believe only I and maybe a handful of others ever gave a shit about civilians. In the climate of 2022 GTA RP, this is no longer sustainable. That is the purpose of this thread.

 

13 hours ago, Uncanny said:

To sum up everything, nothing will change if you don't change the way you think about civilian roleplay. I do agree that some improvements need to be implemented in the server, but don't expect that scripts and administration will magically improve the roleplay experience - you have to do it yourself to some extent. When your actions will show improvement and you will believe that there is nothing else you could do, then yes you can have a conversation with the managing team for some changes.

 

I've role played exclusively criminal and criminal auxiliary characters. This thread isn't me asking for special attention for myself and people who role play like me. This is me bringing up that a large market of GTA 5 RP isn't something that LS:RP has ever dealt with in a large capacity before, and if they intend for the server to be financially prosperous (protip: they do), leaving that market entirely untapped may not be possible.

 

By "scripts," I mean literally a handful of scripts above zero. By "administration," I mean a point of contact. I'm asking that the thing that every other facet of the server has also be applied to a potential market of hundreds of players (read: customers). "Civilian" incentives largely benefit everybody regardless. I don't see why you have a problem with it. You understand that even though you're in X criminal faction, you can still benefit from dynamic business map markers and item creation scripts, right?

Edited January 6, 2022 by Apophis
Added an apology for me malding on main.

[ROZE]

There's a huge misconseption about what civilian roleplayers are. A lot of people seem to assume that a civilian roleplayer is just somebody who stands at the mall and does fuck all else, and if that's what you immediately think of when you think of civilian roleplay then I can confidently say that you have the completely wrong idea about it and should try to be more open about what civilian roleplay is.

 

The bartenders and security guards in that club you went to,

The taxi driver that picked you up,

The guy doing taxes for businesses,

That person you seen jogging along the beach,

 

These are the people that make the world feel busy and alive. Do you really assume that every person you drive past is either a cop or a thug? When you actually roleplay in the civilian scene, you realise how many players are actually playing LSRP to, you guest it, roleplay something realistic. I've met so many amazing roleplayers who simply log on to socialise, go to work (an ic job like bartending, doing graphics, news reporting), go for a meal, then go home. I promise you that there are more people than you think roleplaying like this, and it's what fills up the world with normal, civilian people.

 

When I was running Roze Enterprise we hired over 150 people across 2 years. Yes, one hundred and fifty people interested in civilian roleplay with one faction. We were one of the only civilian factions ever to provide full time jobs to anyone who was willing to put in the effort and trust me, a lot of people enjoyed roleplaying a full time job; bartending, doing security, trucking, whatever, with a team. The people that you see as mallrats are the same people that we turned away from the faction. You assume that they are civilian roleplayers, generally the people you are thinking of are just trollers.

 

For a non-illegal faction, the amount of interest that we seen for civilian roleplay was overwhelming - Another civilian faction that did very well was Roux, which created a lot of jobs for the playerbase and created a lot of very high quality civilian roleplay. With good support for civilian roleplay it would be more common to see amazing civilian factions creating jobs and helping the economy, as well as filling in the empty space between illegal roleplayers and cops. 

 

If civilian roleplay was taken more seriously, you would see more IC businesses that are run realistically - Competing with other businesses, creating a job market etc, and not just a "front for my illegal faction". You would see in character news companies showing up to big events. You would see Los Santos University opening up and actually becoming stable. Civilian roleplay is the part that fills in all of the gaps to make the world feel alive, and not just a cops and robbers server. 

 

The two major issues that have been affecting the civilian scene are the economy, and the fact that a lot of people majorly misinterpret what civilian roleplay even is in the first place.

[Uncanny]

5 hours ago, ROZE said:

When I was running Roze Enterprise we hired over 150 people across 2 years. Yes, one hundred and fifty people interested in civilian roleplay with one faction. We were one of the only civilian factions ever to provide full time jobs to anyone who was willing to put in the effort and trust me, a lot of people enjoyed roleplaying a full time job; bartending, doing security, trucking, whatever, with a team. The people that you see as mallrats are the same people that we turned away from the faction. You assume that they are civilian roleplayers, generally the people you are thinking of are just trollers.

 

For a non-illegal faction, the amount of interest that we seen for civilian roleplay was overwhelming - Another civilian faction that did very well was Roux, which created a lot of jobs for the playerbase and created a lot of very high quality civilian roleplay. With good support for civilian roleplay it would be more common to see amazing civilian factions creating jobs and helping the economy, as well as filling in the empty space between illegal roleplayers and cops. 

 

If civilian roleplay was taken more seriously, you would see more IC businesses that are run realistically - Competing with other businesses, creating a job market etc, and not just a "front for my illegal faction". You would see in character news companies showing up to big events. You would see Los Santos University opening up and actually becoming stable. Civilian roleplay is the part that fills in all of the gaps to make the world feel alive, and not just a cops and robbers server. 

 

The two major issues that have been affecting the civilian scene are the economy, and the fact that a lot of people majorly misinterpret what civilian roleplay even is in the first place.

You're absolutely correct, when it comes to misconception with civilian roleplayers, like I said a lot of has to be changed inside the circle for the end result to be beautiful.

Now what you said about ROZE Enterprise - this is the point what I had in mind, you managed to create the scenarios for other people to join you and let's be honest here, the ROZE managed to up-lift the whole civilian roleplay scene in a sense. With the enterprise creating the base for roleplay the whole scene became better and more enjoyable, more alive.

 

Yes, civilian roleplay needs help and support. I am not against any scripts or help, but with all due respect, when reading the main post of this thread it sounded more like "can you do something, because I can't enjoy it", "I need that so I can enjoy my gameplay" - this is why I emphasized the idea of trying to fix some of the mistakes by yourself first, then asking for something.

 

Like ROZE mentioned, she managed to get around 150 people involved with her faction. It just proves, that some people just need guidance for their roleplay career (if you can say this in that way :D) to start.

 

 

[Benavides]

Most of the jobs should be something that forces the player to interact with others, otherwise it creates a grind with zero role-play. However, there should be alternative 'script' jobs that allow people to get a foot in the server.

 

Rather than wanting to buy a bigger and a faster boat, new players (who want to role-play a "civilian") should be wanting to find an in-character job (e.g. bartending, security) that will offer them a bigger amount of money. In my opinion, role-play jobs should be the most high paying ones. If you spent 3 hours of your life sitting behind a bar, serving drinks, you should be paid a generous amount of cash. Otherwise, this would force players to spend those three hours speedrunning a garbage truck or a taxi.

 

@ROZE summed it all up for me as well.

[joxii]

Civilian role play is a key part of an immersive experience for me. LS:RP had this weird divide and toxicity in relation to both criminal and illegal — we were mainly an illegal-focused community at the time and actual civilian role players were very far and few between. The importance, in my opinion, that we ensure the sides are half full for both aspects of role play within this community is high. 

 

Other communities have been conceptually destroyed by complete civilian role play, but this is a community-wide issue and not something that you can just change over night. It's a delicate problem with very little clear ways on how to combat it directly. 

 

In my opinion, the key factors that we, as a community, need to remember is that both illegal and legal can only work by working in tandem. Legal role play is a fantastic form of immersive role play and needs to be given the right tools to flourish. Scripts (whether it be phones, business-related scripts that support illegal role play with legal roleplayers) and direction are the most important. The legal role players in history were criminally underrated and they contributed a huge amount of role play towards the community over the years. 

 

The economy is a very delicate issue, but I've never really came to a fix or strategy to actually keep it at a stable level. An economic enforcement of prices IS a good idea, but if it becomes comedic then people will just make their own prices up that sound aesthetically realistic. I find it important that we do have a structured economy but it needs to be reasonable and thought through. 

 

The problem I have with these jobs that pay ludicrous amounts of money to all players to work in bars for four hours, is that they have absolutely no idea how to pour a drink or what alcohol is — this has ALWAYS been my gripe and something that money isn't necessarily good for. You're not going to hire someone if they don't know anything about the position, are you? So why did we excessively do it here? To merely open a business, and this IS an issue — but comes back to the feasibility issue legal role play has and always will have. 

 

I don't know if this has been spoke about so please direct me if it has but the limitations on certain types of the same business opening at the same time NEEDS to be enforced. If we have five bars open at one time, none of them will look busy and this isn't the aesthetic that we should pursue. It will be extremely deflating and underwhelming going into five different bars and having a stretched player-base.  

 

I've always been a fan of having a maximum amount of two 'bars' open at one time for an hour or so each. This allows a fluidity of different individuals being able to open their businesses on set times and allowing people to experience different bars with the same amount of players, rather than going into three bars with no players and one bar with all of them — it's important.

[Flemwad]

I've been playing in GTAW for some time and am counting on LSRP to pick up in aspects where GTAW failed.  There's a lot of things that are good, but in playing there I've noticed where mistakes have been made.  I also think there's quite a bit of the community that's upset with various aspects and are looking for a competitor.  Being in the legal community there for some time, I've found that their faction management is horrible and that while roleplay is pushed, they create avenues which are blocked and hampered due to OOC involvement, frequently.

 

I think what's hurt LSRP in the past (in regards to the legal aspects) is that it's always focused on the police and the civilians second.  It's created its own barriers OOCLY, which can be improved upon.  There's a lot of great insight in this thread that should be considered.  Too many clubs open may be a factor that could be looked into, but treading carefully with OOC involvement. 

 

I've love to a see a more functional economy.  No server has nailed that yet.

[authentic lifestyle]

Reading through this discussion at 1am really gave me a better insight in the things that LSRP could achieve. To make a change, it's not up to the administrators, it's not up to the servers management, it's up to us... serio...

 

some real shit...

 

never thought that I'd be the one to say it...

 

that's when you know it's real... 

 

I... Authentic... I will be the first to stand... as I put my hand to my chest, and look to the sky... I say...

 

To the future Legal Community of Los Santos Roleplay... 

 

I will promise to stop belittling every person who doesn't focus their roleplay on crime... The term "Mallrats", or "Mallratos", I put it behind me, as this in reality does nothing but plague the future... I call to everybody... embrace the Legal Scene... as without them... Us illegal role players would be in vain.    serio...

[Ese Reaper]

What always pains my heart is that people have managed to generated and breed this never ending cycle of division between legal & illegal roleplayers, yet what they do not understand is that one party cannot manage to survive without the other.

I feel like yes, to an extent legal rp is more dominant as GTA5 is mainstream and it does call for people from other platforms to migrate, mainly IMVU, Second-Life, Habboo, Gmod and so on. Overall games or communities who do have their own share of roleplay, although it's not as dominant as it us on our platform-- GTA, and it's also these clients that we would consider or call 'sub-par' due to how poor the roleplay scene is. But we cannot blame them, as they've not seen any better. 

The best way to improve this is by enchanting people's roleplay, me personally I've been on and off GTAW for the past few years. And to be honest with you, there were days and nights where I would just walk around the street, run into a civilian and just roleplay with them. We're talking legal roleplayers, not illegal. And yes, just like any other community they do have their share of 'weirdos' or internet 'fiends' but we must admit. We've had them in the past too. In both the illegal and legal roleplay fields. 

Overall, I feel like we've to just embrace the fact that it's not SAMP anymore. The demographics have changed, and it's best for us as a community to embrace that fact. If we want LSRP:V to strive and to bang up big digits, then we'll have to co-exist and learn how to roleplay with the legal roleplayers because just like the Thread Holder of the topic said, we the illegal roleplayers are no longer the MAJORITY. 

Not only that but other illegal roleplayers are migrating over from other communities, FiveM for the most part. The roleplay there is no-where near being elite, so considering the fact how small the illegal community is now, think about how many are veterans and how many are new. For the most part, people have grown up and have grown out of the game. No longer can you see dudes from 2007 still roam the community. People have partners, kids, professions and other aspects of life that interest them more than this thing of ours. However on the other hand, GTA5 is very similar to SAMP during the youth of San Andreas' most downloaded client. There's a new playerbase, there are people who are to be taught, people that you're meant to pass the torch to. So for the remaining illegal RPers who have a lengthy history when it comes to LSRP, and roleplaying as a whole? I heavily advise you to SHARE your knowledge and to TEACH these people, be amiable and if anything encourage quality but also kindness at the same time. Toxicity is what killed LSRP, let's make sure that history doesn't repeat itself.  

Edited January 9, 2022 by Ese Reaper

[philadelphia shooter]

On 1/4/2022 at 1:56 AM, Dos Santos said:

You generally have to remember a lot of los santos roleplay have had years and years of experience of where they have gone wrong and are able to come over these things and reflect and perhaps create a better legal system, the civilian roleplay is going to be extremely good on LS-RP but we do need to be patient. 
 

I feel like a lot of people will return for the name itself, a lot of people don’t agree with a lot of things on World, but you have to remember they’ve done a very good job themselves. Yes, it’s a bit of competition but the work Mmartin and co have put into the script is insane and we need to try and provide the roleplay to the community itself. 
 

a lot of people don’t agree with the way IFM handle things, on LS-RP I’m hoping Faction Team can be good, where we can be dynamic and unique and hopefully have a 50/50 between illegal roleplay and legal roleplay. 

 

 

The only way to kill World is to provide a better admin team and IFM. You have inexperienced mallrat admins on World interfering in IFM business and not doing their job. LS RP is home and yes, please get a good unbiased FT.

[KnownAlmighty]

3 hours ago, philadelphia shooter said:

 

 

The only way to kill World is to provide a better admin team and IFM. You have inexperienced mallrat admins on World interfering in IFM business and not doing their job. LS RP is home and yes, please get a good unbiased FT.

Agreed.