Can we bring back the old playerbase count?

[Ricta]

4 minutes ago, Cake said:

 

What's funny about this is that people still found a way to complain about it and tried complaining that Lenny the train addition was a completely and utter useless addition that no one asked for...

 

Okay, okay. Everything can be mentioned... But not Lenny. Whoever said that Lenny is useless and no one uses him was horribly mistaken. I've used this system almost every day since it was added. I have so many memories with the other players, Lenny was never useless.

[Hoch]

Well i guess people can't be online all day every day too, so i guess is normal to not have 500 every day. But i've noticed that at the begining people have complained about the trucker job is broken (very limited stock, some industries not refilling and not all the routes have been upgraded with the new prices) and many people stop playing because of that and also after the radio range has changed to a short range by default some others stop playing because there was a feeling that none of their friends were online because nobody was answering on the radio because of the short range they're wasn't receiving the messages. So i understand both sides, admins can't be babysitters but also the communication IG now is harder because of the new radio range and that can't affect the perception of the people IG thinking that nobody wants to RP or that people are not online.

[drumj]

I'm absolutely gutted to see these rocks of the community leave, and despite the issues spoken about, I'm still having a blast in game. I arrived here over 15 years ago so I've seen it all, I know what works and what doesn't, but that aside I found it to be one of the better era's in my experience with all this new stuff we have now it's amazing. The things I miss most as a player are now the things I'm trying to implement I.E wicked events and cool new updates, I can't script but I'm working hard on modding new furniture, /hold items and other stuff and will happily continue to do so to make peoples environments that little more special, not to mention all the other content creators trying to for fill that same vision.

 

It's a roleplay server at the end of the day, we had a great server and a huge population without much to begin with, just a great community of people that want to play the game, things have moved on sure but you'll always have people here trying to make the community a fun place. And although yes I enjoy the nostalgia train too, a lot of players I've helped through /re have been very new players, if not a couple of months to a couple of days old so it says to me there are new players still coming through.

 

We're all the reason we're all here.

[Jugers]

I will make a post as a new player here that i think it is more or less how most of the new guys experience the things around.

 

I joined LSRP and SAMP in general in July of this year. Yes 2024, at age of 25. Was my first experience in a RP oriented game, was never a fun of roleplaying. I found out and joined to make company to my irl friend that was a member back in the day and was excited that the server was back. I will admit that he helped me pass the test (please dont metagame and ban me 🤣). My roleplay was plain at begin, as i lacked basic RP knowledge. Eventually i got banned from a police admin because my roleplay to a chase was me doing stunts and all. But lets get back to the point:

 

The begin: At the begin around late July (server peaked around 280 if not mistaken) I was roaming randomly around and interacting with people. All good till i reach level 5. Got maybe two times taken hostage but thats normal if you enter a strangers car at the 02:00. I see an AD about a tavern searching personell and i immidietly call and apply for the job. Turns out the tavern was also a criminal organization too, which i did part after atleast 2 weeks of RPing the cook/waiter. (The Tavern was a buisness owned by the Faction called Socrates circle. The RP was very unique and mostly passive, at their angle in Blueburry where bikers and us coexisted and no crazy shootings happen. Sadly the faction got abandoned because we were waiting for a kind of scripted help to continue developing our roleplay. Remember its GTA, noone plays GTA to /exclusivly/ roleplay running a tavern or a club. Everyone wants a small illegal factor.) I used to pass most of my time to Blueburry, when i visited Los it gave me the feel of a big city, gangs everywhere. Shootings, police chases, corners with people offering drugs. Was everything so immersive. After the faction got disbanded, me and my friend were left alone with no real option of a faction to join with, since our characters didnt fit with current factions(Albanian character). We started doing a bit of solo rp, doing few roberies here and there and seeked a way to make money. Later on we joined roze and started doing trucking. Beverages and meal(After a bit gets too repetative. I would suggest if possible a small change of trade goods every month that would maybe be based of the the month we are currently in. For example at winter months maybe logs would give more money as the demand is higher, fuel too inconfront of the summer months. Or maybe fuel could even follow real life events that would get its price deep and rise, dont know if possible script wise to adjust those things as easy but would be a good idea. After the first ten hours, it gets too repetative.) Working for Roze was a very good experience with many activities post work like parties and all. Sadly our characters are thieves and we entered in Roze parking lot under their complex masked with helmets and tried to open their cars with screwdivers. (Got caught when we were only 13  seconds left from the 500 needed, really unlucky and PKed/kicked form roze but without a regret! Was great experience.) After that we been freeroaming around, joined few other companies and tried to join a faction that isnt not important to name, but nothing would come close to the first few months. Solo RP is good and all but has a lot of limits. Lately i been around and interacting with people. Helping them in pm. Actually new players. there are really a lot of them. The first question they make me is how to make money. The first thing i do is explain them about trucking. since to my knowldge there doesnt exist something more profitable, but my actual first action to talk them about the mechanic paycheck. Everyone when listens about it immidietly agrees to do the job, after all its free money without need to stop you from your normal RP or forcing you to actually spend hours and hours trucking.(Suggestion: add maybe also a paycheck of 500 or 250 to people who got no sidejob/mainjob. Maybe script wise could work as Unemployed job title. It might sound funny number but many new players find it very hard to make money. Its not hard but it is hard to figure out how. Maybe for them that 250 would do the diference. Maybe everyone starts with that job immidietly as they create their character and once you lose it once you cant get it again. I dont know the script limits but could be a good addition.) 

 

That was the story i felt like i had to write somewhere, might not make much sense but my points want to be:

 

The community makes the game be good or bad, but also the community should be rewarded when they do things right. I have been DMed too many times, even more robbed. When i was a noob it was frustating, losing a gun or those 5000 that you had to do you yankee runs from blueburry to ship really hurted. The first thing i do when i interact with a person IC is to check their character ID and talk a bit with them to see if they actually new or not. Depending on the outcome i choose my RP too. Sadly not everyone does it. I have been robbed or killed as a new player from guys that were level 45 IC, at the time i didnt understand why. I still cant. I have also been taken hostage and then when police chased the car the people armed me to shoot the police telling me they will pay me for it. Was fun. But us,humans, that one time we will get DMed or robbed will always be harder to forget than the good RP we had with a stranger. My suggestion is to be more /flexable/ to our RP depending on the person we have infront. The faction system is good, but doesnt promote new players to join a faction because there is always the CK threat. Noone wants to lose their character they built all this time and got immersion with. Might not be case for most player but i personally wouldnt be able to keep playing if i somehow lost my only character Aslan Kelcyra. I have seen many CK from faction threads to happen to actually new players with little reason IC, just for the screenshot i suppose. Also the best screenshot edditor thing shouldnt be valued that much. I see screens from factions that InGame barely play thirty minutes that make you think they been doing crazy things meanwhile InGame i never seen them around. I got more than 500 hours on this server from July to now, which i value to be a lot with my vacations break and almost one month ban, but zero screenshots showcasing my roleplay. Lazy, not motivated to spend hours editing, you call it. I prefer spending those ten minutes more IG playing and interacting than editing things that didnt happen. Most of you i think will know my character and have seen him around. I soon will open a faction that will try to be welcoming to the new players, with a more passive roleplay aproach. Ofcourse there will be the illegal part involved but wont be the only thing. I took the courage to write here after i saw that a admin got banned. I knew right of the bat that would have been a cop admin. I think one of the bigger community killers are our Legal factions, sherrifs mostly but PD too. I have felt being chased many times, always when i have something on me. Never when i am clean. I have been chased many times, a day off i have killed/evaded a policeman, yet again for no real reason. I wont be throwing hate or something, but cant be a coincidence. Too many times. There should be bigger control on police giving out the punishments out, preferably a other faction should be created that would give the punishments out instead of directly the policemen. I feel like many times police is the one metagaming and maybe even using hack (after all when a admin does it doesnt seem impossible). I dont know but something should be done for it, till we havent found a way for jail time actually possible to rp. I liked the parole officers hitting me up from time to time. Till jail has actual ingame value, there should be done something else. Maybe people allowed to roleplay to the construction RP roze does for an hour or so that would result to their punishment get reduced of x hours. (I understand that might be hard script, but maybe possible, would also open room for jail breaking when they do transport you from the construction site back to jail). 

 

Game is great, possibilities are there. We just need to help a bit more new players find the place they want to be. I have had a lot of fun till now, and plan to have for a long time. I have yet to experience the black roleplay, hispanic, slav, or why not even police prespective. We just need manpower and to respect game rules. All of us. Shooting is fun, but think about it, is it really worth it shooting three people today and risking to have only one to shoot at after a month? Wouldnt it be better to shoot one now hoping next month you will have more options? Same goes to jailing people. 

 

Thats was my thoughts, a bit messy like the are in my head, without much filtering. Sorry if its hard to read. Wanted to give a word and few suggestions. Thanks to everyone who makes it till the end and i am waiting to see you more in game, all of you. Being a criminal doesnt mean being rude, its not a full time job. Try helping people have a start, to find their path. Its really hard to do trust me, you know most of commands by heart, but i still have to do /anim or /help to find the right command. Thanks to all the testers and admins who have helped and responded to my silly questions all this time. Atleast at that part the game doesnt lack. There are people willing to help ooc, but we should transfer that willing to help ic too.

 

Aslan Kelcyra

 

PS: Sorry for the typos, its late and i am sleepy.

 

Edited December 10, 2024 by Jugers
to add PS

[kaibr]

Providing my two cents, as I think everyone should be to some degree.

 

Naturally any gaming server, and especially one within the roleplay space is always going to have its ups and downs with playerbase. Whether it be real life commitments, other games coming out even other servers, it will always be a rollercoaster. Even back when I first started to really understand roleplay and got invested in around 2014-2015, the reason the server maintained such a higher playerbase during this time was due to a constant flow of new players coming in and trying out the server, gaming was a completely different landscape back then and the age of moving from one game to another, every game having commitments attached to it (such as battlepasses, timed FOMO events etc) was not a thing, or at least to a much lesser extent, combine this with the fact that everyone was younger back then, we were largely a bunch of teenagers and 20-somethings messing around in a roleplay server with all the free time in the world, now we are older and have real life commitments that get in the way of playing into the early hours of the morning. Gaming itself has developed into what I would describe as a 'fast-food culture', people play a game for a couple weeks, drop it when their friends get on a new game then rinse and repeat, not only that but it has vastly affected attention spans and people opt for more fast-paced experiences than roleplay. This has bled into communities across several games and not just within SA:MP or RAGE.

 

What I'm getting at is that the issue with the playerbase is not because of management, developers, staff, features of the server or any one person in particular, its because gaming as a hobby in general has vastly changed since LS-RP peaked all those years ago. People opt for a play-to-win experience, they look for constant shoot outs, robberies, car chases, and treat roleplay servers as GTA Online lobbies with a few extra steps instead of the more traditional roleplay we had 10 years ago. No matter how many cool features, no matter how alive the world feels. If the server was constantly begging for attention and dropping seasonal content left-right and center whilst also having riveting gameplay where you spawn in with a gun and get into a gunfight minutes after joining the server then the playerbase would flourish undoubtedly but it would have the opposite effect overall on the quality of the server. Its a hard balance to find and there have been numerous steps since the relaunch of SA-MP to incentivize a more fast paced game but its simply not enough for a 20 year old game to hold the attention of modern gamers.

 

It will never be good enough...

 

Although I can understand that is a very melodramatic take on things, with the current landscape of gaming that is the case. Its on every single one of us to uphold the community and to get to the root of the problems before people simply up and leave onto different games. I can completely understand why several pillars of our development have left the team and I don't fault them for it, as someone who greatly appreciated and still appreciates everything they have done for the server, it hurts but I can also completely understand it from their point of view and it similarly the reason I took a lengthy hiatus from the server in January, it doesn't feel nice to work on something for hours on end and have it either go unnoticed or unappreciated.

 

With all that negativity out of the way, I am still confident in Helius, danut and Conor to deliver a fantastic relaunch for LS-RP:V and I urge anyone who can be a helping hand to reach out to them, your help will go a long way and they will make sure of it.

 

Yap over.

[shotgun shawty]

LS-RP has always had a communication issue, and I think that's where its main problems come from. There's a lot of different aspects that all connect together to what determines a good or bad server but communication is key. We had a good handful of community events in the discord, but that's sizzled out? Why? We get told to vote on the UCP for new features, but are left in the dark about these, for example the big phone update, it's been posted since May? and we've heard nothing since, and it's been six months which is a lot of time to not hear something. 

 

Economy is a big topic - The amount of complaining I witnessed during the first few of the relaunch about money etc was crazy. People were acting like we was all given a big wad of cash back in the day. People expected a reinforced backbone. I want this, I want that. I personally never complained about not having assets. I played and enjoyed and had fun, where now people feel like they're entitled to assets, to then is abused so what does it matter anyway..

 

Pre LS-RP closure had some brutal leads who had little to no care and I think that has had a ripple effect on LS-RP v2, people jump in assuming things have changed for the better, being given false hope, for it all to unveil just a couple months down the line. The current LS-RP has some good heads, probably the best we've had since 2016 so don't take this as a dig or slight slander. I just think people want that old LS-RP feeling and it's not delivering, times have changed mentally for everyone and we're just chasing nostalgia.

 

What we also got to remember is that LS-RP was of its time, although SAMP had been around for awhile, it was a dominant platform, GTAV wasn't even on PC and by then it was already played for a year+ prior to PC release, and to be honest the servers under LS-RP had nothing to offer like this one did, an exclusive whitelist to filter a bunch of factors, its 1:1 script, how wholesome and connected the community was. I think the generation (outside of LS-RP) has changed and it's having a mental affect on people to where people think they're better than each other and it's sad to see it having a big impression on this community.

 

But aside from the community, SAMP as a whole isn't what it use to be. I don't ever remember there being so many variations of hacks, you had the usual nametaggers, sometimes aimbotters, but never the blatant and obvious use of aimbot, walk speed hacks and just general SAMP physics abuse. Mostly every video I've seen is the player shooting like there real life is at stake, C shoot C, C, C, C... it gets boring and tiring. You can fill out a report but I think people are well beyond that stage now, we're getting older and people like me just get on with it and don't bother to report, it's time consuming and I really couldn't gaf about it.

 

People don't have time like they use to. The older generation of LS-RP are well in their higher 20s to 30s now and stuff like this will always be on the side. People cannot afford to play on top of that, some countries are going through big financial issues. It's just a generational change and the new generation are spoon fed whatever they want, and if they don't, they leave. It's pretty broad as that, nothing to counter it, just look at it as cutting dead wood.

[Cashew]

Was asked to put my 2 cents in, so here goes. If you know me, you’ll know that my dedication to LSRP since relaunch (and for the last 14 years really) has been pretty strong. This changed in August this year. I was consistently doing the most in game reports, the most refund requests, the most insert menial task here, etcetera, all while leading a sub team and doing general admin shit on the side. My demotivation and burnout slowly started to set in because of a few things, I’m not going to name any names but if you know, you know. I don’t want this to be a bashing post, just a post from the heart.

 

Bear in mind I’ve not touched LSRP really since August at this point. I’m going to say a majority of the admin team done absolutely fuck all to support others who actually cared about the community, whether this be in game reports or whatever. There was lead admins in game who would make a mockery of player reports in /a instead of actually dealing with them whilst I’m trying to deal with 2 reports and a refund at the same time, just to try and restore some faith in the team that were not lazy bastards and reports do get handled. My report statistics confirm this. 
 

I slowly got sick of this. Actually no, I quickly got sick of it. The knock on effect there is that why should I be bursting my balls while these guys sit in the same or higher positions than me whilst not giving a singular fuck, or abusing their positions to win RP situations and break rules and hack (I’m looking at you Xanakin, happy to name him as this is historic at this point)

 

I then decided ok I’ll try help out in other ways. I joined the dev team and began writing and modifying scripts, ONLY based off of player suggestions. In my mind, doing what the players WANT was the right thing to do (within reason). The first “big feature” I worked on was company system enhancements, primarily company chat. I had most of the scripting done to then be let down like a Japanese pilot in the 40’s. I was simply told “nah FTC said no”

 

this booked my piss and I argued and argued for it until they were basically told it’s happening whether you like it or not. This of course put a sour taste in my mouth too.

 

The final straw for me which started my extensive absence was a result of a staff report, made against me by a lead admin at the time who didn’t like me because I publicly shamed him for his laziness every chance I could get. I got on one night after a few drinks and dealt with an admin sit (because would you look at that, the reporter didn’t bother to accept the report). Resolved the report pretty simply, all was good. The player who was reported was logging off and messing around so I chugged his ass into the dirt, revived him, refunded his weapon and that was that. No harm done, just a bit of fun!

 

I find out the next day that I was going to be removed from the staff team for this ONE incident, despite me being the most active contributor (statistically) to the community at the time. This really set me off and I don’t think I’ve logged in to this day. I’ve really been trying to regain my spark for it but whenever I open up the SAMP client I take a totally legally acquired Xanax because I just can’t face it right now. The players for the most part are cool as fuck and you know who you are, but some of you are absolutely insufferable and I think you need a reality check.

 

as those who have resigned have said, nothing is ever good enough. We could script the cure for cancer and someone would complain “but what about cerebral palsy?!”

 

just my two cents, or dollars. Rambled on a bit here but here’s where I’m at right now. This isn’t a resignation, but just an explanation for my absence. I do love this place, but shit has to change and I’m not just talking about staff/management. 

 

I really do want this place to succeed man. Get a grip, everyone.

[svamp]

You cannot allow yourself to turn a blind eye to that fact about everything coming to a close, this is understandably very much on its last legs. Could always try to pick up general quality control regarding factions, and faction thread submissions for starters (raise enforced standards), and pick up new admins who have that driven vision. Tidy clean places are always preferable. But what do I really know, I never played LSRP until RCRP & GTAC shutdown.

[Blaz]

We can not.

[Caomhnoir]

LSRP isn't the same as it used to be. LSRP used to be the pinnacle of roleplay for the SA:MP community but standards are subpar now. People (and staff) get away with the silliest shit in favor of retaining the playerbase. I would HONESTLY, prefer 50-100 people who can roleplay and get along rather than 200 people who sit there and whine when things don't go there way. I have not roleplayed on LSRP practically since launch since the mentality of this server ruined the sole roleplay I am interested in doing (correctional roleplay). No one wants to roleplay in there because they always want to get into chases, shootouts, and everything else. It's retarded at this point. I don't blame Cashew or Michael or anyone else for feeling the way they do becasue I feel the same given I've been trying to restart the prison's roleplay since I came back and have had minor luck and then just got shafted at some point and the prison died.  I'm pretty much over the whole community here and their attitudes to ACTUAL roleplay and not just action packed shit.

[Fractilla364]

8 hours ago, Cashew said:

 

 

I really do want this place to succeed man. Get a grip, everyone.

You was the definition of a Karen administrator you took it to serious and this why people acted the way they did with you in admin sits. Kudos to your work towards LSRP tho

 

Let's be real people, you voice your opinion and get banned. When has MMartin ever replied on threads like these before trying to re open our once beloved LSRP, only when its in the mud and needs players to play. 

 

The management / staff team didn't have the minerals, got people like @spectre in charge of IFM and he's always had his best interest at heart.. dealt with this guy in serbs did everything in his power to get my fac closed and now he's head of IFM lool its laughable

 

I actually tried contributing and playing with City Circle Mafia was met with bullshit and made us all quit, you pushed good players away cause of your mediocre like I'm sorry but how is Carly Rose a lead admin on a server like lsrp its actually hilarious how much of a downfall this server has come to... like I said, RIP LSRP 2007-2021 you frauds are destroying my once beloved server

 

Hope my man Raymond Ward is still around kudos to you gang been watching from the sidelines but shit I didn't think it could get this bad. 

[Grover The Good]

On 12/9/2024 at 7:12 PM, Mmartin said:

[...] the community is filled with toxicity and vultures that will eat you alive at any sign of a misstep. [...] What once used to be a supportive community has over the years evolved into a shell of its former self with unchecked toxicity in every thread and channel you open, with unforgiving members who expect flawless and cater to their exact vision without any consideration for the bigger picture.

 

It's worth asking why this happened.

 

Unlike the managers of "other communities", Tyrell Parker, you at least have the distinction of understanding what roleplay is, and even being apt at it, but this didn't save you from making the same mistakes others have done, namely appointing people for whom roleplay was a means to an end, and not an end in itself.

 

While it seems to be easy and popular to pin the blame on "other communities" who promoted this kind of mentality (and they do, without a doubt) while LS-RP was on a break, it was on LS-RP that this mindset was not only born, but encouraged by a section of the staff team who had zero interest in creating or even engaging in roleplay, but craved acceptance and power. They could not create something original if their life depended on it, and lacking creativity their only way to shine was to repackage copy-pasting real-life and sell it as some revolutionary act of innovativeness and imagination. 

 

These people eventually rose to prominence by enforcing arbitrary standards and railroading roleplay within some pre-determined boundaries instead of allowing it to develop organically. But since their scornful imitation of life obviously paled compared to actual roleplay, they had to make sure that their changes were well received, one way or another. So they started pitting factions and players against each other by assembling groups that on the surface looked like they were trying to solve an issue while, in practice, they were targeting a specific group of players, or by stirring up dissent in factions they considered problematic, or by enacting ridiculous rules that were meant to hinder one's portrayal while having no good reason to exist beyond some vague need for "realism". 

 

LS-RP slowly glided into a draconian environment in which dissent was either bought out through favors (staff positions, promotions within factions, perks, etc.) or silenced by driving away the critics. It got to a point where if someone had the right connections they could get anything they wanted regardless of their actual roleplay skills or impact on the server, and likewise if a player dared to object to the mainstream opinion held by the leadership, they'd find themselves removed from their positions on shaky grounds, if any were even necessary, or hounded by one of the many corporate named teams such as the Law Enforcement Role Play Brainstorming Group or whatever else their bright minds came up with in their only act of creativity. This situation of course drove away most of the more imaginative and committed players, ultimately leaving little more than just a bunch of power-hungry individuals, their sycophantic "friends" and people for whom roleplaying amounted to knowing how to use /me and /do.

 

Of course they then first turned onto each other, and once the LS-RP ship began to tilt, most of the people that were an integral part of this system quickly jumped ship over to other communities, seeking new ways to satisfy their thirst for power, bringing with them the mentality they had been part of or fostered. But that's a story for another day, and for another set of (panda) ears to hear.

 

The point being that it was the staff, first, that was filled with toxicity and vultures that would eat players alive at any sign of a misstep.

 

It's great that you guys put so much effort into everything you do and work tirelessly for days on end to deliver something to the community, but so did Foran and Xarex when they led factions for years, and yet they were kicked out without as much as a "thank you for your service" because they didn't want to play ball with the staff. It's awful that you feel like the developers' efforts aren't appreciated enough by the players, but when people who sank hundreds if not thousands of hours into the game found themselves targeted by admins because they disagreed with the idea that LS-RP was meant to be a 1:1 scale model of California, they also felt the same way. It's a shame to see you think the community isn't supportive of the staff, but the average player likely thought the same of the leadership when they restricted features that should've been available to everyone to a selected few friends, or appointed their unqualified errand boys to a position of power.

 

It must be said that almost none of this was your fault. But you were in a place where you could have stood up to it, like Damian did with Krisk, and you didn't. 

 

So it sounds somewhat hypocritical to now pull a Rodney King and ask why can't we all get along. It was the staff that chose to lock themselves in their ivory towers and close their eyes pretending that all was well, that any dissent was just the product of bitter provocateurs, only coming out to defend themselves when some sort of scandal erupted or to announce the next batch of chosen ones to be granted a red or green name. While the community definitely holds its fair share of responsibility in falling for the lie that better roleplay could only be achieved by being more aggressive and judgmental towards their fellow players, it was the staff that isolated themselves first. 

 

You, and the server in general, are just paying the price of choices that were made years ago.

 

 

Edited December 10, 2024 by Grover The Good

[Eren]

I'm happy to say what I think needs to change to see an improvement in the player base.

 

1. Removal of "Education over Punishment"

 

Right now there is an expectation that admins educate over punishing. Meaning a player can DM someone 2/3 times before we enter the space of actually being able to issue a light punishment. When I returned to the staff team and saw this, I was shocked! This is why we lost the standards and went from a "Heavy roleplay Server" and entered the realms of being more like a Cops & robbers server which is probably the best way to describe the current state of the community.

 

I have standards, and luckily I have a set of rules which I used to govern. - I don't follow this rule, I never have and quite frankly I never will. I am all up for helping someone understand where they have gone wrong and explain to first time offenders, but if I think (On the balance of probabilities) deliberately broken a rule, you're being punished for it. I owe this standard to the rest of the community that uphold the rules, play fair and want to get on with their roleplay. 

 

I know what its like to be roleplaying with your mates, and to have a dumb ass come up to you trying to provoke you to desperately try provoke a reaction to justify pulling a gun and engaging in a shootout. It ruins everything and creates the very situation we're in. (Barely any street level gang roleplay.)

 

2. Removal of Inactive and Idle Administrators & Testers

 

We have a large amount of inactive and completely Idle Administrators and Testers that are retaining their positions for absolutely no reason. I am all for people having breaks and having real life priorities however a large percentage have been on absence for months on end. And for the Admins I will break that down for you guys to understand in a more granular detail. We have too many Admins in key positions who are Idle holding their areas hostage over the title but don't want to actively work for it. 

 

Lead Admins: 7 

Of the 7 admins, only 2 (28% activity) have been active in-game. (I acknowledge there's stuff behind the scenes, but your core function is to Lead Administrators, and you can't do that unless you're in-game.)

 

Senior Admins: 11

Of the 11 admins, only 4 (36% activity) have been active in-game. Some haven't logged on in months at all. (One hasn't logged on the forums since October!)

 

Game Admins: 16

Of the 16 admins, only 5 (31% activity) have been active in-game. 

 

(To be considered "Active" you must have a minimum of 30 hours spent IG per month. For context, some admins peak at 180 hours a month.)

 

So when you look at the above figures for admins you have 11 active admins providing the community with 24 hours coverage 7 days a week. What this creates is admins becoming burnt out because they're carrying more work loads, people becoming unmotivated as a result of a lack of support, and this results in the figures dropping even more. I dread to think the state of the activity leading up to the new year. These 11 active admins are the same ones processing your player reports, refund requests, house changes, ban appeals and just about everything else on the forums!

 

We're too afraid to loose inactive admins because "What does that fix?" it shows there's a consequence for not being active and pulling your weight, it allows space for development for those who are active to develop further into the admin team. It encourages growth and development for everyone. (Chain effect all the way down which in turn allows us to give a better service to our customers who are our community. 

 

 

3. Faction Management

 

I will be honest with this point, I do not see Illegal Faction Management as a functional service as it stands. It is not representative of the community, and rather a small circle that operates around it. You have so many voices in the illegal factions world that are experienced, giving the IFM the very solutions to the problems we're facing and instead of gripping onto those solutions and running with them to implement nothing is being done. Or we're shutting them down on the spot. 

There are Official Factions that went inactive after a week of getting it, remove them and make space the the numerous other factions that are absolute gems within the community. This needs to be done because once the illegal factions give up in their pursuit you'll have PD pursuing SD until one of the two decide to give up. Urgent and drastic leadership changes are needed in order to preserve the future of the illegal scene.

 

I personally have been so put off from continuing my illegal roleplay knowing it will never lead anywhere. 

 

 

4. Legal Faction Management

 

One of the most catastrophic mistakes was the decision to move LFM from a full time person and move it under operations with no oversight from an experienced LEO role-player. Why a LEO role-player? The two biggest legal factions are PD and SD, and a great deal surrounds the two. Instead the role was merged across the responsibility of two people, one being the head of Illegal Factions - a clear conflict of interest. 

 

There is a huge issue with activity around the leadership of many of these legal factions and I have seen in the recent days a series of poor decisions being made about leadership changes. Faction Leaders need to be active in order to drive the faction, maintain and uphold standards and again provide the player base with a level of service! - Some days the server has 100+ players with 1 or 2 LEO's on, where is the realism in that?

 

You then speak to the factions, and the response is, If faction management can't be asked why should I? Then you get nothing short of civil war on the server. Legal and Illegal factions are the most important entities on this server, and we're getting it so incredibly wrong.

 

In both PD and SD we have absolutely exceptional leaders who aren't being given opportunities to lead simply because they're vocal and active and threaten the inactive leadership by outshining them, so instead of promoting them to run and help out, we're seeing them be supressed and ostracised to keep them at bay in order to safeguard certain individuals positions. 

 

Legal Faction Management needs to be owned by a Lead Admin that has experience in either PD or SD as a leader that can give them the full time attention they need, this doesn't mean dictating, this means obtaining feed back from the faction members, giving and equipping them to succeed. Right now we're seeing the polar opposite. 

 

5. Pandering to the toxic few.

 

There's a certain few individuals who keep popping up within these chats (Ban Evading) may I add who offer nothing of any value at all, and we're allowing their opinions and voices to plague and curtain the true issues we need to be addressing on this community. Some of these who I won't bother naming have been banned for a while for gross breaches of rules in-game and on the forums. Stop pandering to them and ignore their moot opinions.

 

Finally my message to the community, a shit ton of effort goes into this community by Martin and Michael (prior to his departure) and I stand firmly beside Martin with this. He often is called lazy and that he doesn't care or he's not invested and simply wants money out of this etc etc...I've heard it all. I will defend him till kingdom come. I know how much he invests and how much he injects into this community to keep it running and he is let down by some of his staff, but also a community have a significant part to play here as well. 

 

Stop the toxicity, accept it will never be like 2015 or whatever era exists as being the golden age for LSRP for you, we're in 2024 going on 2025 and we're pushing through during different and challenging times around the world. For many this is a get-away from reality. Acknowledge the effort going into the community, appreciate the little things and be constructive and productive about the future of the community. Remember, pressing the red button and switching the community off once more is an easy option - we need to keep fingers away from that and start collectively driving this forward.

 

If anyone has been offended (Staff or otherwise) by anything I have said, tough luck if the shoe fits lace that bitch up and own it. I own my flaws, and I will work on them but I will never give up on this community.

 

Eren.

 

Edited December 11, 2024 by Eren

[Flimerus]

  

1 hour ago, Eren said:

I'm happy to say what I think needs to change to see an improvement in the player base.

 

1. Removal of "Education over Punishment"

 

Right now there is an expectation that admins educate over punishing. Meaning a player can DM someone 2/3 times before we enter the space of actually being able to issue a light punishment. When I returned to the staff team and saw this, I was shocked! This is why we lost the standards and went from a "Heavy roleplay Server" and entered the realms of being more like a Cops & robbers server which is probably the best way to describe the current state of the community.

 

I have standards, and luckily I have a set of rules which I used to govern. - I don't follow this rule, I never have and quite frankly I never will. I am all up for helping someone understand where they have gone wrong and explain to first time offenders, but if I think (On the balance of probabilities) deliberately broken a rule, you're being punished for it. I owe this standard to the rest of the community that uphold the rules, play fair and want to get on with their roleplay. 

 

I know what its like to be roleplaying with your mates, and to have a dumb ass come up to you trying to provoke you to desperately try provoke a reaction to justify pulling a gun and engaging in a shootout. It ruins everything and creates the very situation we're in. (Barely any street level gang roleplay.)

 

2. Removal of Inactive and Idle Administrators & Testers

 

We have a large amount of inactive and completely Idle Administrators and Testers that are retaining their positions for absolutely no reason. I am all for people having breaks and having real life priorities however a large percentage have been on absence for months on end. And for the Admins I will break that down for you guys to understand in a more granular detail. We have too many Admins in key positions who are Idle holding their areas hostage over the title but don't want to actively work for it. 

 

Lead Admins: 7 

Of the 7 admins, only 2 (28% activity) have been active in-game. (I acknowledge there's stuff behind the scenes, but your core function is to Lead Administrators, and you can't do that unless you're in-game.)

 

Senior Admins: 11

Of the 11 admins, only 4 (36% activity) have been active in-game. Some haven't logged on in months at all. (One hasn't logged on the forums since October!)

 

Game Admins: 16

Of the 16 admins, only 5 (31% activity) have been active in-game. 

 

(To be considered "Active" you must have a minimum of 30 hours spent IG per month. For context, some admins peak at 180 hours a month.)

 

So when you look at the above figures for admins you have 11 active admins providing the community with 24 hours coverage 7 days a week. What this creates is admins becoming burnt out because they're carrying more work loads, people becoming unmotivated as a result of a lack of support, and this results in the figures dropping even more. I dread to think the state of the activity leading up to the new year. These 11 active admins are the same ones processing your player reports, refund requests, house changes, ban appeals and just about everything else on the forums!

 

We're too afraid to loose inactive admins because "What does that fix?" it shows there's a consequence for not being active and pulling your weight, it allows space for development for those who are active to develop further into the admin team. It encourages growth and development for everyone. (Chain effect all the way down which in turn allows us to give a better service to our customers who are our community. 

 

 

3. Faction Management

 

I will be honest with this point, I do not see Illegal Faction Management as a functional service as it stands. It is not representative of the community, and rather a small circle that operates around it. You have so many voices in the illegal factions world that are experienced, giving the IFM the very solutions to the problems we're facing and instead of gripping onto those solutions and running with them to implement nothing is being done. Or we're shutting them down on the spot. 

There are Official Factions that went inactive after a week of getting it, remove them and make space the the numerous other factions that are absolute gems within the community. This needs to be done because once the illegal factions give up in their pursuit you'll have PD pursuing SD until one of the two decide to give up. Urgent and drastic leadership changes are needed in order to preserve the future of the illegal scene.

 

I personally have been so put off from continuing my illegal roleplay knowing it will never lead anywhere. 

 

 

4. Legal Faction Management

 

One of the most catastrophic mistakes was the decision to move LFM from a full time person and move it under operations with no oversight from an experienced LEO role-player. Why a LEO role-player? The two biggest legal factions are PD and SD, and a great deal surrounds the two. Instead the role was merged across the responsibility of two people, one being the head of Illegal Factions - a clear conflict of interest. 

 

There is a huge issue with activity around the leadership of many of these legal factions and I have seen in the recent days a series of poor decisions being made about leadership changes. Faction Leaders need to be active in order to drive the faction, maintain and uphold standards and again provide the player base with a level of service! - Some days the server has 100+ players with 1 or 2 LEO's on, where is the realism in that?

 

You then speak to the factions, and the response is, If faction management can't be asked why should I? Then you get nothing short of civil war on the server. Legal and Illegal factions are the most important entities on this server, and we're getting it so incredibly wrong.

 

In both PD and SD we have absolutely exceptional leaders who aren't being given opportunities to lead simply because they're vocal and active and threaten the inactive leadership by outshining them, so instead of promoting them to run and help out, we're seeing them be supressed and ostracised to keep them at bay in order to safeguard certain individuals positions. 

 

Legal Faction Management needs to be owned by a Lead Admin that has experience in either PD or SD as a leader that can give them the full time attention they need, this doesn't mean dictating, this means obtaining feed back from the faction members, giving and equipping them to succeed. Right now we're seeing the polar opposite. 

 

5. Pandering to the toxic few.

 

There's a certain few individuals who keep popping up within these chats (Ban Evading) may I add who offer nothing of any value at all, and we're allowing their opinions and voices to plague and curtain the true issues we need to be addressing on this community. Some of these who I won't bother naming have been banned for a while for gross breaches of rules in-game and on the forums. Stop pandering to them and ignore their moot opinions.

 

Finally my message to the community, a shit ton of effort goes into this community by Martin and Michael (prior to his departure) and I stand firmly beside Martin with this. He often is called lazy and that he doesn't care or he's not invested and simply wants money out of this etc etc...I've heard it all. I will defend him till kingdom come. I know how much he invests and how much he injects into this community to keep it running and he is let down by some of his staff, but also a community have a significant part to play here as well. 

 

Stop the toxicity, accept it will never be like 2015 or whatever era exists as being the golden age for LSRP for you, we're in 2024 going on 2025 and we're pushing through during different and challenging times around the world. For many this is a get-away from reality. Acknowledge the effort going into the community, appreciate the little things and be constructive and productive about the future of the community. Remember, pressing the red button and switching the community off once more is an easy option - we need to keep fingers away from that and start collectively driving this forward.

 

If anyone has been offended (Staff or otherwise) by anything I have said, tough luck if the shoe fits lace that bitch up and own it. I own my flaws, and I will work on them but I will never give up on this community.

 

Eren.

 

 

Well said Eren 👏

Every conversation, dialect that I've held with you has been of the utmost reason; with constructive support to a better future, I pray this post speaks volumes towards that positive future, I suggest we all take some time to read and understand what  he's highlighting here.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Flimerus
added further context

[CrazyTetris]

Giving my full support to what Eren has said, some stuff does need changing, I’m just not gonna get to the niddy griddy about it.