A VISION FOR THE FUTURE (PART II): How LSRP can thrive, not just survive

[Michael_Dippolito]

What does management intend to do about the player base numbers for LSRP SAMP? Is management/staff satisfied with the current number of players playing the server at the moment, and if not, what is the plan to draw more numbers to the server? 500 players is a huge reach, but ultimately about 100-150 in my opinion can be sustained until LSRP V launches. 

[Femto]

1 hour ago, jack said:

Remind me of the question and I will answer.

 

How does the management team plan to attract a new player base?

 

• Is the expectation that the RageMP server will be the primary method for bringing in new players?
• Since the formation of the Marketing team, what actions have been taken to attract new players? Also, what is the plan for the future?
• And lastly, as the title suggests, what is the future of LSRP SA-MP?

 

[DCF]

Hey jack, the community sincerely thanks you for your quick response during these times of the holidays, however your comment summarized completely nothing of what were for the most relevant and originally brought up in this topic by the community, and you may forgive me for my harsh tone but I'm sure you can understand that after this community have been on it's last dying breath for almost more than 8 years now. It seems to me that what this server is trying to do (that's for the management) is attempting to deliberately kill off it's own server (SA-MP) just to please your 5 players from RAGEMP, and however you guys may not understand this, but whilst you're doing this, YOU'RE killing off the whole COMMUNITY and this has been going on for way too long now, I would understand if some people just completely gave up because most of us are on verge of doing so unless you THE management decides to step up and actually do something about this situation once and for all remove Mmartin from his pointless position and assign someone who actually gives a fuck about the community.

The staff & management needs to understand that this server & community will not see anywhere near their future past 2026 if they continue with this bullshit.

[Aloosh]

Nearly 3 days for that response is disappointing. Anyways, you failed to cover vital concerns in regard to SA:MP:

 

Martin has been Head of Development for nearly 5 months, and as Badhbh pointed out, it’s something he wanted.

What work or projects have been pushed since?

 

What about the roadmap from June 2024. Are we to forget about it?

 

What efforts have management and leadership gone through to find SA:MP developers?

 

Are we ever going to address cheaters, or at the very least make it harder?

 

How are we going to cater to the SA:MP community when, as previously mentioned, you’ve got staff members who hold key positions but don’t show interest in the platform?

 

Now that the Illegal Faction Team is inactive, how are you going to persuade others to join and contribute?

 

What about the mapping team?

 

What about the rules and how admins enforce them?

 

Marketing efforts?

 

It is also no secret that you’ve been quite inactive yourself. You only came back because of these threads, which is something you did last year as well. If I recall correctly, you carried your weight for a couple of months and then disappeared again. What’s going to change this time?

 

And lastly, how are you going to convince the SA:MP community that the server is here for the long run and is not being used to present a somehow “active community” to ensure a healthier launch for LSRP V?

Edited 4 hours ago by Aloosh

[Clack]

2 hours ago, jack said:

It’s difficult to take criticism seriously at times from those who actively hacked, mass-DM’d, or repeatedly broke core rules. This is a double-edged sword, and both sides share responsibility without question.

 

If you aren't willing to take any criticism of players who have previously cheated or are still actively doing it, you will be left with 10% of the community to speak with.

 

Management's inability to implement a decent enough anti cheat has forced players who have been victimized by unrelentless cheating to start using cheats themselves, mainly as a precaution of not getting "caught slipping". If you are in an active PK war and your enemy is using nametags while you are not - you are 100% going to be ambushed and killed. This is not about a "learn to lose" mentality. Unfortunately, the only way you can outplay the P2W players is to be a P2W player yourself.

 

I suppose your answer is to gather sufficient enough evidence and report the said person, right? Let me show you what happened the last time I followed that advice:

 

The following counter report involved four videos of me (Francis Lanahan) logging in game and following very specific steps on catching another player (Dragan Arsic) from STCO cheating.

 

TLDR: I followed all steps required in order to prove that he couldn't have any idea that it was me riding on a stolen bike, with a new skin, masked up. He was still able to identify me and shoot me down.

 

He was initially banned for nametags until he decided to ban appeal months later.

 

Despite having an entire documentary of his cheating, he was somehow unbanned. I have no bad blood with aidens however I am just giving this as an example of how your ways of countering cheaters just doesn't work.

 

I am sure the community can give you countless of examples of how some of their clear cut reports were tarnished by staff members for "lack of evidence" because they knew that the ban would've been overturned in a staff report.

 

All of your ways of handling cheaters just encourages more cheating. That is entirely management's fault and you cannot blame the players for doing it. You would rarely see an experienced LSRP roleplayer starting to cheat out of the blue, it is usually motivated by the lack of adequate punishments for cheaters or the absolute lack of punishments at all.

 

Two wrongs don't make a right however you have to understand this point of view as this isn't personal, this is how the majority of your community thinks.

Edited 4 hours ago by Clack

[Kartelboss]

Gather up the small group of people who have so much say over the SA-MP community while clearly having no intentions of helping/role-playing here & open a separate community for the rage server if it means so much.

 

If anyone wanted to or wants to roleplay on GTA V they will join world, it's that simple. People stuck around on SA-MP because they actually enjoyed SA-MP and it's features. Yes it's an old game but the simplicity of it is what kept players, Roblox doesn't have super graphics yet maintains a strong PB. 

 

Badbh is one of the only ones I see interacting with the community and trying to better things, everyone else thinks they are above the community. Now look, you have 14 players IG during peak hours because rude admins who haven't even been around long want to exert their power & act like they are gods gift. 

 

Nobody with the "rage insider" tag should have any say over what happens on SA-MP when they CLEARLY don't give a fuck about it. 

[Howard1]

1 hour ago, Jugers said:

We see LEO using helicopter camera with night vision. 

What's the issue here? Do you know that every LAPD/LASD AS350 is equiped with Camera and FLIR system?

There is no server-sided script for this on SAMP, but on RAGE there is. Here's another reason why you should support RAGEMP.

 

 

[Jugers]

53 minutes ago, Howard1 said:

What's the issue here? Do you know that every LAPD/LASD AS350 is equiped with Camera and FLIR system?

There is no server-sided script for this on SAMP, but on RAGE there is. Here's another reason why you should support RAGEMP.

 

 

Don't want to turn the thread to flame wars. Just power gaming definition:

 

roleplaying things which are not possible script-wise so that you can gain an unfair advantage.

 

The fact admins in this server ignore this basic rule when it comes to LEO's show's a lot about how obvious and clear cheating gets handled in the game.

Edited 3 hours ago by Jugers

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, Jugers said:

Don't want to turn the thread to flame wars. Just power gaming definition:

 

roleplaying things which are not possible script-wise so that you can gain an unfair advantage.

 

The fact admins in this server ignore this basic rule when it comes to LEO's show's a lot about how obvious and clear cheating gets handled in the game.

From what I understand, the HeliCam mod has always been an exception to that rule in all RP servers I came across. I wouldn't really call it an unfair advantage, also, no pilot really uses the the thermal/night vision mode except for screens/videos. There are versions of the Helicam mod that have a LOCK-ON TARGET feature, many RP servers banned that and it's mostly the version without lock-on that's shared. I'm certain admins discussed this ages ago when the mod first popped up.

 

In response to @jack, I disagree with your point on censorship. "Welcome feedback and criticism and for it to be shared", unless it's about the staff. It's not like people are writing 5 words here saying "Admin X is fat", they're giving you comprehensive paragraphs, which then get deleted. That's LITERALLY constructive criticism. Yes, some of them have a harsher tone, it's because it's a criticism thread, we're not members of some parliament. Some players really love this server and are pissed, and being nice doesn't get you places. The server is dying and admins were busy deleting posts/banning people.

 

When you constantly shut people criticizing one specific issue that can become personal/biased to you (as their peer), but rest the others; that's not extinguishing flamers, that's censorship.

 

 

EDIT:

Mapping team needs another look. Last time EHC and I forgot who from Idlewood were begging months to get a simple ALREADY COMPLETED map onto the server, it was delayed so freakin much like an IRL construction project. All in the meanwhile, LSPD got a new whole building office by the Skatepark lol. I can't describe how much that pissed us off. I think it took us another 1-2 months before our map got implemented alongside the others (some waited even longer).

 

This is with constant communication with the mapping team at the time btw.

Edited 2 hours ago by Misanthrope

[Drug Dealer]

Hi, I’m an outsider, but I’ve been on and off LSRP forever, and on SA-MP even longer. Figured I’d finally make an account to actually weigh in instead of just watching the show these threads always create.

 

You’ve grabbed serious attention: 10k+ views show people are watching, even if they’re not jumping in directly. 

 

People keep saying to advertise and market the server, but you can’t sell something that doesn’t know what it wants to be SA-MP or RAGE. It’s a mess, it stinks, and it’s a turn-off for anyone serious, whether roleplayers, contributors, or new players - simply because the effort isn't there. Leadership needs to get their act together and make this clear ASAP.

 

But from the outside, it does looks like the real devs have moved on to the RAGE:MP project after Kane left, and Mmartin still calls the shots despite being mostly absent. The rest of management feels like a public-facing shell with no real power beyond basic mod perms and in-game ranks lol

 

I seriously doubt anyone with real authority would respond so vaguely to critique, beat around the bush and try to bury a thread instead of taking action. Leadership seems mostly empty with people just handling random tasks while the actual "shotcallers" are gone, burnt out, or on hiatus.

 

If you can’t respond effectively, make an action plan, or address real community feedback, why even hold the position? Taking roles without contributing kills trust and hurts the server’s integrity or what's left of it, anyway.

 

Call a spade a spade, if LSRP SA-MP has become more of a burden than something worth engaging with, why not just call it and be done?

[Kev]

7 hours ago, jack said:

The reality is that our developers are unpaid volunteers who contribute because they enjoy it.

 

7 hours ago, jack said:

It’s difficult to take criticism seriously at times from those who actively hacked, mass-DM’d, or repeatedly broke core rules.

 

In the same way you are unpaid volunteers, the people you speak of who have actively hacked, mass DMed, etc were also unpaid volunteers and arguably adding more positive contribution to the server while doing so - and maybe they were fed up of being treated like they were below every other sub team on this server.

 

I speak for myself and IFT when I say that we have written up countless threads for script ideas, were moderating faction conflicts on a near daily basis at one point, handling faction reports (most of us being non-staff), handling schemes (some of the heads being non-staff), the list goes on.

 

Nobody here is paid and we do this out of love for this community. I do think if Martin wants RAGE to do well then he should put some money up. GTAW has and look at their ROI. You can't expect to achieve this hypothetical dream outcome for free.

 

I don't want to bash you because you are making an attempt to reason with the community, but I have to call out some of the bullshit in this response.

 

You were on as long of a hiatus as Martin before coming out to address our concerns on this thread.

 

I haven't seen anything of substance in this statement, no real accountability or game plan for rage. Maybe this is coming soon so we will wait.

 

On the topic of cheating, I can tell you as someone who has dealt with faction conflicts before and after I started using them, the game feels much more balanced with them and it has been this way for over a decade.

 

We can discuss the morality of it all day but it is not fun trying to locate someone, do a hit, evade law enforcement while they can see you from across the map and you can't see them - and people can only take the guaranteed loss so many times before they decide to even the playing field.

 

If you as administrators installed nametags (I use that as an example because it is the easiest one to use in terms of spotting other nametaggers) and turned them on while on admin duty I guarantee you would catch at least 5 a day. 

 

I doubt anyone will admit it but the closet cheaters reading this will tell you that you can know instantly if someone is nametagging when you have them. 

 

I think I have been in more faction conflict than most on this server due to the nature of the factions I've ran over the years and let me tell you having a Mexican standoff between two hit cars from East Beach to Seville because both cars are nametagging has been quite the hilarious scenario.

 

If you spent some time roleplaying this would all be common knowledge to you, but the fact that you can’t trust the judgement of your own administration and have unbanned blatant cheaters (the kind who don’t bother to hide their cheating, at least I kept it a secret…) as documented by @Clack shows that you are truly out of touch with how the server operates and it makes me question how you managed to rise to a management role.

 

It's like the first rule of fight club we just don't talk about it. I don't blame anyone who uses them since there has never been an anti cheat measure to combat it, and most people who are banned for cheats nowadays can send in a staff report with a sob story and get off on a "benefit of the doubt" unban.

 

So why would you not cheat?

 

 

Edited 44 minutes ago by Kev

[Drug Dealer]

23 minutes ago, Kev said:

...

So why would you not cheat?

 

Kev, I share your frustration about the server not performing well but...

 

Cheating on SA-MP is a cancer, not just on LS-RP but other communities, and encouraging it while complaining against it doesn't really make sense. 

 

IMO crashing out and venting frustrations is legitimate, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the community. 

 

I'll say this though: there's no foolproof anti-cheat that can catch everything BUT there are ways to handle common cheats of today. The current developers here just seem like they aren't that invested in finding effective solutions (i.e. nametags, weapons etc) which is a shame. 🤔

[Surreal666]

13 minutes ago, Drug Dealer said:

 

Kev, I share your frustration about the server not performing well but...

 

Cheating on SA-MP is a cancer, not just on LS-RP but other communities, and encouraging it while complaining against it doesn't really make sense. 

 

IMO crashing out and venting frustrations is legitimate, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the community. 

 

I'll say this though: there's no foolproof anti-cheat that can catch everything BUT there are ways to handle common cheats of today. The current developers here just seem like they aren't that invested in finding effective solutions (i.e. nametags, weapons etc) which is a shame. 🤔

LSRP is the only server that never made custom server nametags to stop people from using wallhacks lol