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Comparing usage of VOIP between illegal factions and LEO factions is like comparing day and night, they are not the same for many reasons that have been pointed out. Our faction and LSSD have nerfed themselves continuously to strike balance between illegal factions. Usage of VOIP is the least of your concerns if our factions actually used LAPD/LASD’s equipment in situations (even without VOIP). Each side have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, you can shoot someone in the middle of the street and get away with it if there’s no players around, regardless if there would be CCTVs, witnesses and an instant 911 call. We do not care about winning situations, VOIP is used to maintain a realistic effectiveness in character. We have done everything possible as a faction to strike a good balance: removal of boxing, heavy restrictions of assault rifles being used (there’s a member cap and you have to apply to have access to a rifle), continuously hold our faction members to a higher standard than everyone else, disallow any ramming or unrealistic vehicle interceptions, restrict the use of the less lethal shotgun, heavily encouraging officers to let small time offenders off, disengage any vehicle pursuit that includes players having a high speed vehicle rather than allowing a wild goose chase in the city, regulate the utilisation of gang injunctions heavily as it kills role-play, disallow faction takedowns, and so on. VOIP was used for everything a few years ago, now it is used during active shooting situations or vehicle pursuits (updating). Our faction supervisors are quick with telling faction members to stop talking, regardless if those people would take it personal or not, as we take this very serious. I have went into detail about moderation a few posts back. It is very easy to spot abuse, if you are aiming at someone and suddenly back up appears without anything being said in character, report it and it will be taken care of. There are logs on TeamSpeak that allow us to see who made a voice backup request globally. Just ensure the report is instant upon conclusion of the situation if there’s no admin response, rather than waiting for the next day. We do not require video evidence for everything, if you send a report we instantly jump on it and investigate it. I assume logs will be easier to access now, so game admins will be contacted if a faction member claims they used the in-game radio when in fact they used TeamSpeak. If a faction member’s story doesn’t add up and they aren’t able to explain themselves properly, we do not hesitate to issue punishments. That being said, I will kindly ask you all to move on from the VOIP discussion. An answer has been given and there is a clear difference of opinion between all parties. You are more than welcome to suggest a removal of VOIP for LEO factions to Server Management. We are interested in hearing any new ideas or suggestions that may benefit the faction and the role-play quality of the server.

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

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

This is unnecessary. We're just complicating things at this point for the sake of being complicated. The time it takes to drive from LSIA to Paleto Bay is really just the time it took you to drive there. Nothing less, nothing more. You're probably taking a different route to another player, so that's going to be a different drive time. I understand the realistic aspect of it, but some things are never gonna work here, because after all, this is just a game. Imagine the fuss when a bigger roleplaying scenario happens and everyone has to travel the entire map. It's gonna get confusing, don't you think?

of course not, in samp's final days, everyone was using VOIP, which carried over to other RP servers aswell unfortunately, anyone who says they never used VOIP and MGed is lying, if I'm being honest with you. Interesting, I didn't know this, so that's a good thing to know. Yeah, I would've reported it at the time, but at that point I was fairly certain that such actions were acceptable, whether or not I was wrong at the time, it's mainly that situation that causes me to dislike the use of VOIP by LEO's, it just seems unfair as hell to me, maybe that's because I haven't actually played as a LEO, so idk how important it really is, just always been something that strikes me as unfair. Yeah, I assume there wasn't either, or it was during a time where VOIP wasn't as heavily regulated as it's said to be now. I'm not really even 100% sure when the situation I'm referring to happened, it was just something I remembered vividly and decided to bring up. I dunno if I ever even reported the dude to his superiors, perhaps I should've at the time. And yeah, you make a valid point. Yeah don't worry I'm not putting that on you blokes, it's mainly just a hypothetical situation that may or may not happen at some point as a way to point out how shit can be abused at some points. The main problem I have is that it's extremely hard for civilian and legal RPers to prove that a cop powergamed/mged with VOIP and usually (atleast in my eyes) if the supervisor happens to miss what happens, it's likely gonna be one of those 'too bad, just move on' type scenarios. For example, in the first situation I mentioned, I would've had no clue that the dude was still talking in VC with his boys and telling them where to find me whilst dead if he hadn't reported me and posted a video. For the hypothetical situation, if a cop were to do that, all we'd really be able to do is report them for reversing and shooting at the same time, we'd have no clue he MGed on voip. Yeah, I always do my best to report these things, and thankfully as far as LSRP goes at least, I haven't actually had to IA or outright report a cop in some time for that kind of portrayal cause it's happening less and less, I hope that continues to be the trend when LSRPV comes out tbh.

Exactly. VoIP itself is only USED when you're in a pursuit, a shots fired situation or a tactical situation (hence hostage situations, swat breaches etcetera). I agree, it's weird to call for backup whilst taking shots at you, but knowing you can just press the button on your shoulder mounted radio, with one hand and use your vehicle as a cover, it's reasonable. You can never do much in this situation alone. You're NOT allowed to use VoIP to call backup if the suspect fled the scene. You set up your radio broadcast and get people out there. IF you had visual on the person and airship is close-by, you can transmit it to call in for the airship to get visual and then continue the pursuit from there on. It doesn't make sense that we're in a hardcore RP server and "sometimes you die, just respawn". Do you respawn in real life? That's sort of what the server is trying to show. Yes, it's against the rules, but tell me is everyone really abiding by that rule? No. Leaders, supervisors and occasionally regular members moderate the usage of VoIP. If someone is transmitting unnecessary information over the TAC channel, such as "going for spikes" or something as such, they're told to direct it to the radio channels, not over the TAC channel, as it disrupts the radio traffic for the pursuing unit updating. If an officer does call for backup in middle of the street, with no actual cover whilst shooting their gun, report them. With enough evidence they'll receive punishments for powergame. Cops ARE equal to players in terms of that, even if they tend to have certain things that make their job easier from the POV of the game. If you were in that situation and the cop reported you, use THEIR OWN video against them. Report them to IA OOCly or faction leadership, depending on severity and the rank of the officer and you'll receive a response back. If they're transmitting whilst they're dead, that's considered Metagame and Powergame and will be handled, I can assure you. If you stand there with your hands up not getting involved, you won't see results. I assume there were no staff members, supervisors w/e in the situation, therefore, some members might not "snitch" on their own, but it's what you can do with the right evidence. (Think about it. If you catch your friend or faction member breaching any rule that is not SEEN by anyone else. DO you report it?) I can assure you there's literally bare officers who can do it calmly. Shooting in a video game is stressful and the stress reflects on your character if you are stressed IRL. A unexpected ambush and you'll be shouting over the TAC channel because you're panicking. You do not just "calmly" broadcast your location, if you're in immediate need of assistance, you technically are not mourned upon for saying it out a bit faster, louder or whatever. It's never punished, but it tends to get help faster, as you are in a shootout situation. What you usually broadcast in that situation is your callsign, the LOCATION (street name if applicable, use your surroundings as a hint, whatever else you can do) and officer in danger. I don't know who did this to you, but in SAMP it's almost impossible to shoot and reverse at the same time, because you literally can not shoot from a car. If something like this happened in another GTA V server, please don't put it on us. It's their own thing and report them for doing so. If this ever happens in LS-RP V, when a officer shoots and drives his car, please report them. That's your best course of action as that's power-gaming. And yeah, police are not super-human. If you witness super-human actions by a cop, PLEASE do your best to report them. These people will receive punishments, be it IC or OOC. You can't be corrupt without valid permissions either, so think about that when you witness a cop being blatantly corrupt. Thank you!

was crakin

You make some good points, though I still disagree. It's against the rules for criminal RPers to use voice chat, and imo it should be, but it should also be the same for LEO RPers. Yes, the leaders of LEO factions say that they heavily moderate VOIP, but all I've seen is the opposite in my several years of playing, so I'm sure you can understand my scepticism. I've observed LEO RPers actively calling for backup while literally standing in the middle of the street shooting at somebody, which shouldn't be considered cool in my opinion, I was even in a situation some time ago where an officer that was shot down continued calling for backup even after he was death screened, the only reason I found out that he was doing so was because he recorded it and reported me for whatever reason, which is why I'm sceptical when I'm told that VOIP is heavily moderated. It's easy to say that it's heavily moderated, but it's hard to really prove that. Police aren't supermen, even if they have 'gadgets' at their disposal. If you're actively being fired at by multiple thugs, you're likely gonna be in a state of panic, I doubt you'd be able to reach for your radio and calmly broadcast your location all while shooting back and reversing your car in the process, your aim is gonna be staying alive and not catching a bullet to the forehead.

But doing so while getting shot is powergaming. You don't respond to getting shot by reaching for your radio to make a last effort callout to dispatch, so your friends can gather up in A-TAC and respond to your location. Unless of course you have been shot and the suspect fled the scene; whilst you managed to escape at the glimpse of bleeding out, which in itself, according to faction members, is against the rules because VOIP is limited to shots fired or pursuits. We're on a hardcore roleplay server and not a police chase server with roleplay elements. Sometimes you die, so respawn?

Thomas Szydlowski from the olden days.

Role playing different times and sticking to that is impossible. It'll create an awkward divide between people who already are understanding of the concept, and people who have never heard of this approach before. There's absolutely no reason why we should role play set times for distances, just role play between whoever you're with or role play it what it is. Creating this awkward paradigm will make things convoluted and unnecessary.

The clock in GTA V is diferent than the clock in LSRP. An IC drive in GTA V may take 4 hours, but in LSRP that will ICly be what it really is to us OOCly, as we use OOC time formats in game.

Very important points. Point 1 and 2 are key issues that have been prevalent for years within this community. The issue(s) presented with the ''fix'' for those problems are that people who are right for the position are far and few between, and getting someone to handle the workload without having that management-type experience is a challenging task itself and always results in bringing people in who don't have the genre-specific experience, but the staff-specific experience alone. I think this community (and its staff) have moved in a much better direction in the last couple of years. Transparency, communication and cohesion between the community and the people who staff it has significantly improved — albeit with issues here and there. One gripe I have always had with discussions and hot topics being debated over public mediums is the premature closure of them and it was (from experience) something that was cracked down internally pre 2020. I think it's important to let these threads run their natural course and let feedback be taken as what it is, feedback. People get frustrated and throw jabs here and there, however, one person shouldn't result in the execution of many others and their potential feedback. Your last point is something I agree with, but you know as well I do that we've had several instances of people making abhorrent decisions without oversight, and this causes a faction and server-wide issue when it trickles down the grapevine. It should be competency-based and it should be case-by-case in my opinion.

I understand what you are trying to say but people will find their own methods and grow on their own in order to create RP and to interact with others. For example a gang will take over Grove Street and slowly build itself up over time with more active gang members and hood rpers. People through legal means will also grow in their own areas of the map and some people like bikers or whoever might want to RP out in the country parts of the map and in the city at their own "localized" spots away from the majority. Players enjoy different areas to role-play in and may even benefit from it and we shouldn't really limit players from that. That being said, I don't think the entire map will be housed on the day of release. That'd be a lot of housing for the administration to put down and will most likely be done slowly over time, which will allow everyone to grow at a steady pace during the server launch. I don't think it'll be as strict as you mentioned above but it still will be managed as the server moves forward and some of the richer areas like Vinewood hills will open up, people won't be able to afford them right away anyway.

It completely invalidates it because the supposed summary was inaccurate. You can't summarize something that's not even one of the points brought up and the quote proves that. That's putting two and two together and getting five. Legal roleplay is just as important as illegal roleplay. None should be prioritized but neither one should be neglected or given precedence. There must be an equal balance. But to synopsize the argument: I'm not suggesting that LSRP should deviate from its system, what I'm suggestion is that it takes advantage of known issues in its own and other communities and corrects it. A lot what has people crossing its fingers for LSRP is problems that were on LSRP but weren't as bad. If you can rectify the problems and be receptive to constructive criticism without being sensitive to it then that's a step in the right direction. A lot of the time constructive criticism is perceived as discrediting when in reality all it is is a suggestion in the interest of bettering something. A lot of it has to do with miscomprehension as well. Instead of saying, "the server has so many problems," I'm saying "the server could be better if..." At the end of the day what I'm trying to do is bring forward an opinion that has the potential to better the server. Again, it's an opinion but it's one I feel is shared by the wider community. 1. People with no experience in a genre shouldn't be handling reports that require experience in said genre. 2. People with no experience in a category or minimal experience in a category shouldn't be making decisions based on "rules" alone. They need to be able to put themselves in a character's shoes. 3. In terms of transparency I feel that players should be clued in on the decisions that either negatively or positively effect their characters or accounts. These "discussions" sometimes remain hidden and secluded and I've witnessed my fair share of hidden agendas impacting decisions. It cancels out the bias claims that are always associated to subgroups and gives players clarity. 4. Be consistent and forthright. If the community plays on this "case by case" or an arbitrary system then it opens it up to claims of double standard. Don't enforce a standard at your discretion. It must be on-size-fits-all. 5. Be engaging and ingenuous with the community. "Verified discussions" was a step in the right direction but after the departure of the administration that implemented it it was neglected and the public were given very few answers. A system like that should be implemented universally. 6. Put more power in the community's hands. In most communities discussions and decisions are open and closed. Meaning that any administrator or support member can close threads based on their discretion. In other words, if they don't like or agree with it then it's not worth the time of day. Stop this and let them play out. 7. Don't confuse "heavy" roleplay with hyperrealism. On other servers your faction is given virtually zero chance of existence if it doesn't go in line with Southern California. In a nutshell, if you're not an Armenian, Russian, skinhead or gang banger then you're held to an outrageous standard. Let players do what they want as long as their concept treats San Andreas like Southern California. All this "they wouldn't be here" shit is nothing more than micromanagement. If their concept isn't too far fetched and outside the lines of realism then leave them be. Who gives a fuck if there's three Italian crime families and a Serbian faction? 8. Put more investigative powers in the PD and SD's hands. Good criminal roleplay means good law enforcement roleplay. They bounce off of each other. 9. Make people value their characters. Enforce a CK rule if they put their lives at risk. 10. Stop with the excessive amount of OOC prison time unless it's murder. Maybe even repeat robberies to try and crack down on chain robberies. People will just name change and it ruins longevity and continuation and also investigations. 11. Give players breathing space. Less micromanagement and bureaucracy. If we have a business and change characters, let us keep our move our businesses without stupid levels of scrutiny. We shouldn't have to account for every little thing our characters do down to the color of its socks. 12. Don't lower the standard because "they're all we've got." There's always ways around work load, most just don't want to spread it around. I wasn't planning on writing this much so that "synopsis" I had planned is out the window But this has been on the back of my mind for months. And for the record, as a former member of staff, very little in the aforementioned "staff meetings" ever came to fruition. Most of what was said or brought forward was wrote down like something was being done but very rarely was. It was always put in the rear-view. But a fresh start will change that, I hope. Again, it's food for thought and was brought forward constructively. At the end of the day it's going to be a collective effort. Why not start prior to launch?

We can keep on dreaming for GTA VI to come out.