Leaderboard

Hi all, Rules of Engagement The Faction Team has completely re-written the Rules of Engagement and this has now been finalized. The Rules of Engagement may be subject to amendments/changes after server launch. A Q&A topic will be created in the Faction Team Public Section to ask questions about the ROE. No suggestions for alterations to the ROE will be taken until at-least a month after the server has launched and it has been trialed. The Rules of Engagement can be found on the top menu bar under 'Rules'. For ease, you can also find the Rules of Engagement here. All Factions are expected to familiarize themselves with the Rules of Engagement, no grace period will be given after the launch of the server - hence why these are being released now pre-launch to give everyone a reasonable amount of time to get familiar with them. Faction Team Public Faction Team Public has now been re-created and has been set up on the new forums. This is ran and managed by the entire Faction Team. If you're interested in providing your input on the illegal roleplay scene then joining the Faction Team Public is one of the first steps to joining the Faction Team. You'll be responsible for providing your input on any topics surrounding illegal roleplay and factions, along with coming up with ideas and suggestions of your own to enhance the illegal roleplay scene. In order to be considered for the Faction Team Public you're required to have experience and knowledge of the illegal roleplay scene. We're looking for individuals who are able to work well within a team and can maintain a consistent activity. You must also have a good standing within the community. You can join the Faction Team Public here. You may have to wait some time for your membership to be accepted or denied. Faction Team Recruitment We are once again looking to add some fresh faces to the Faction Team. If you're someone with an interest in developing the illegal roleplay scene on LS-RP then this position may be of interest to you! You'll be expected to actively contribute towards discussions surrounding illegal roleplay and factions and attend team meetings on a weekly basis. We're looking for people with experience and knowledge of the illegal roleplay scene who can work well within a team. You're also required to be a member of Faction Team Public and be actively contributing there to be considered for the team. Information on joining the Faction Team can be found inside the Faction Team Public section here. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! Thanks for reading, Baker

Hey everyone, Hope everyone's doing well and getting ready for the holiday season. December was always special around LS-RP, I remember all the treasure hunts and winter/Christmas events we used to hold. I'm looking forward to seeing something like that in-game again as we celebrate the season... next year. It's been quite challenging over the last few months to keep track of the remaining work. Trying to keep tabs on all the features in my brain has proven quite inefficient, so instead of trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing and which features are left to develop or test, we made a list. This list itemized every single outstanding feature or activity we've yet to complete before the server is launch-ready. As I was compiling this list a few weeks ago I realized that even that isn't enough. Really, is the trucking system the same as a phone call? Much different; so we started adding estimates to everything. 4 hours to finish phone calls, 16 hours to finish trucking, 2 hours here 4 there and so on. I've done estimations on an enterprise level in the past and it's a known secret that at the start of the project, unless you have a thorough specification, they're just made up numbers. Nobody knows and everyone's guess is meaningless, you're just working in a ballpark. Since we're nearing the end of the initial development, we're in a different position and it's much easier for us to list out all the things we've yet to do. So we've done that, and estimated how much it'll take. Based on these numbers, we realized that we've underestimated the amount of work remaining when we scheduled the release for Q4 2021. With the rest of the leadership, we were facing the following options: Option 1: Release in Q4 2021. We release in Q4 2021, as late as possible, but still meet the deadline. This gives us the pros of keeping up on our promise and taking advantage of the hype the LS-RP project currently has. The downside of this option is that we'd be releasing a game mode without a lot of important features and with a lot of potential bugs, since we'd have to be adding new features all the way to the launch date. Lacking features and bugs will result in a disappointed community and a potential loss of players. Option 2: Postpone the release for the 2nd time. We delay the release a bit. This allows us to work on features we deem essential but didn't manage to complete just yet. We have enough time to properly test these features (shoutout to our staff by the way - you've done amazing job testing so far). The dreaded disadvantage of going with this option is that we won't deliver on our promise that we'd release Q4, which can lead to the community being disappointed, leading to a potential loss of players. Which one would you choose? Let me know. Since we started deliberating postponing again, I had to go back and read my statement when we had to postpone to Q4. Here's a quote from that post: As I'm reading that I realize that we're in the very same situation now - how come though? Did nothing change since September? There's been no major inactivity for any of the devs or leads, or any "major roadblocks" I could think of that'd cause this delay. I tried to identify the reasons why we're delaying again and this is what I got: - We underestimated the amount of work remaining. The estimate that we should be done by Q4 was not backed by any real numbers, but rather a "gut feeling". - We've added new things to the scope for release. Those things were usually features which we deemed essential but forgot about them early on; or were only made aware of them now. - We spent a lot of time focusing on detail and polish of existing features. - Personal and professional obligations of the team, although this one was kept to a surprising minimum during Q4. After hours of deliberation, we chose option 2. We've taken several steps to make sure this is the last date we give you. We wanted to work towards a concrete date instead of a vague time range ("summer", "q4"). - As mentioned previously, we made an itemized of all remaining features and activities until we're release-ready. - We've added a estimate in hours to every remaining item or activity. - We're accounting for a % of risk dedicated to fixing bugs and unforeseen difficulties. This risk is currently set to 10%. - We've created metrics to monitor whether we're ahead of, or behind schedule. This allows us to play with the scope and reevaluate our current assignments if we're falling behind schedule. Based on these steps and metrics, we came up with the official release date of LS-RP:V on February 24th, 2022. Community Involvement With the release being postponed by just a bit over month and a half, we're looking for ways to keep the community engaged with what we're doing. Here's some milestones you can look forward to in the near future: - Character Customization made available ahead of launch, first for Patrons and later for the general public. - Character Applications made available ahead of launch to the general public. - Staff Reinstatements opening ahead to get ready for launch. The concrete dates of each will be announced separately at one point or another; but we're aiming to release the character customization server this week. There's a few more things we've up our sleeves to keep the community engaged, but I don't want to announce them just yet as they're not as thought through as the rest. If you have any ideas yourself, my inbox is always open. Progress Update I'll try to include a progress update where it makes sense when I write these posts. This should give you the idea of where we are in terms of the schedule and how much work is remaining in different parts of the code. Here's the current status: I've been on a mission to be as transparent as reasonably possible during the development of LS-RP:V. I had a lot to learn from the SA-MP days and I sincerely hope that the information we give you is keeping you excited during the wait; whether it's snippets, blog posts or just random talks on Discord. It's hard at times as we don't want to give away too much for several reasons. Sharing this progress update is yet another step in trying to balance out communication, element of surprise and competitive advantage. Closing Statement I understand any and all feelings of frustration at the announcement today. It's not fun news, but at the same time it's good news. It allows us to work on delivering what we've initially set out to make. I'd like to express my gratitude to the entire staff team who has been actively engaging in improving the server's features and standing behind the project the whole time; to the patrons who keep our infrastructure bills on time and to the community for believing in the project. Thank you for being understanding. If you'd like to be closer to the action, consider joining our discord at https://discord.gg/ls-rp, where we post snippets of our work. Kind regards and happy holiday season, Mmartin on behalf of LS-RP Staff

This is our current stance on players without a microphone, which is unfortunately not going to change: As for the usage of VOIP, it has been answered multiple times. We have nerfed ourselves as a faction and continuously look what we can do to maintain that balance. Our goal is providing quality police role-play, while maintaining an effective in-character police department. VOIP is heavily moderated by experienced senior faction members and we do not condone it being overused. We are going to be continuing to moderate it heavily and using it, alongside the Los Santos Sheriff's Department. Both factions have been moderating this for years since 2018, and we continue to do so. I suggest you send a suggestion to Server Management regarding the usage of VOIP in LEO factions, if you really want to see it gone. For returning players who have yet to experience our changes and had bad interactions with our faction, I can only hope that our faction’s role-play standards and changes can make up for the past! We've re-introduced Robbery and Homicide Division. We are also looking into opening forensic positions for players, it depends on the script and how detailed it will be though. @bobster and @lynx should be able to get into more detail about this with you. I suggest that you conduct your own research in regards to the inner workings of American law enforcement agencies. Numerous bodycam videos can show you exactly what you are describing as unrealistic behavior, that being officers calling out the situation and their location immediately upon returning fire, or during the gunfight. Their objective during emergency situations is to call the situation out and get their colleagues to come help them, rather than 'eliminating the threat' solo like Rambo, or 'running away' from an emergency incident with the risk of getting shot in the back. LAPD's Youtube channel may help you out with understanding how these agencies work.

IMO it is possible. It's possible for gang RPers to co-ordinate situations without the use of mics, I don't think LSPD/LSSD are special nor should they be able to use VOIP either. It just makes things unfair. If gang rpers are on the run from the cops and the driver wants to call backup, he has to stop the car, /call (number) type out the message, send it, all while trying to avoid being boxed in by a bunch of blokes sitting on mics yelling at eachother about where the suspect is. It makes it basically impossible to escape the police, which imo is extremely unfair because IRL it's far from that hard to lose somebody. If LSPD are truly committed to removing any sort of p2w mentality from their faction, remove the last thing that's enabling it, VOIP. IMO the use of voip by police agencies is something I've never agreed with, and the day VOIP is abolished for good, I'll applaud LEO rpers.

One of my dearest critiques in regards to this community has been the inaccessibility of those who wish to roleplay as a law enforcement officer, but do not fulfill the requirement of owning a microphone. This issue needs to be reviewed through the prism of roleplay and not Out of Character restrictions in order to find a proper solution that does not limit people to parking enforcement or force them to patrol in partnered units. Such requirements not only defeat the purpose of a text based roleplay server, but also prohibit talented people from exercising their roleplay.

lol, PD was a joke back then.

Dope and I don´t mind seeing real life clothing lines either. It's not that big of a deal, half the time...people are "modding" their games with real life stuff anyhow. Adidas track suits, bunch of dresses, polo shirts and etc....numerous leather jackets.

I would like to see this gone. This should not be the goal, the goal should be to portray a realistic police department with what's given to you on hand, basing the department off of the lapd and portraying them to the best of your ability whilst adding your own twist to make it unique. 1:1 should not be the goal as you'd throw away suggestions simply because the "lapd doesn't do that." when another department might/ it might make sense for a game. If you really "strive as a faction to be 1:1 with the LAPD" have everyone name themselves after a LAPD officer and just name change the faction to the lapd, as this would meet that goal. The strive should be "Portraying a realistic police department based off the LAPD". Police departments tend to change their policies to match the community at hand, the Los Santos community will be a lot more "active" than LA with the crime statistics alone given it's low population but most likely very high crime rate.

I'm very eager to apply for DST as soon as applications are open. Though, I'd like to pose an issue to the current leadership. I've been in LSPD on another RageMP community where the environment was tiresome due to both members and leadership's obsession with simulating the LSPD. I'd spend around four hours or more in an FTP, then around another two writing reports, but that's not a huge problem, the more pressing matter was the sheer lowkey toxic peer pressure from the members and not so constructive critique. These members, although good roleplayers, would obsess over LAPD/LASD culture or niche things that weren't compatible with the IC environment, straight-out ignoring situations or roleplay opportunities because the real life counterparts wouldn't do so, or discouraging certain characters not because they weren't realistic, but because they didn't fit their perfect LAPD/LASD self-insert world where they are the main protagonists. I'm not kind to this level of micromanagement. When do we acknowledge the fact that LS is NOT simulating LA but simply a source of inspiration and portrayal? As a roleplayer I'd rather value the IC environment born from the community's roleplay. Although a wonderful roleplaying experience, it is still a game and I'd love not to feel like I'm working 9-5 for free, trying to satisfy some OCD'ing maniacs. I wouldn't call those specific players nolifers, but I'd recommend them to find something more purposeful in life, maybe touch some grass.

This is exactly why LEO factions got rid of aggressive pursuit techniques like boxing, intercepting, physical roadblocks. They're play to win asf and not realistic. LEO factions using voip is unfortunately going to be an inevitable thing for as long as GTA RP exists. Situations just move too fast to keep up using text. However I am certain both PD and SD will do their best to keep VoIP to the bare minimum.