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Hey folks. When the server launches my character's gonna be running the Gov's Cultural Affairs department - which basically means we handle things like in-game events, working with religious/cultural groups, supporting artists and musicians, that sort of thing. We have a full 2022 events calendar already, so that's already well under control (and will keep us pretty busy). However I'd really appreciate your thoughts on some of the other things we could be doing. Mainly it's a case of seeing how much appetite there is for this sort of thing, and of course to get some ideas and fresh opinions. So here's what I've been thinking, off the top of my head: - An in-game art museum. A place which has actual paintings on the wall, with perhaps a command that opens a popup showing what the painting looks like. Paintings can be created by player characters, so long as they're original pieces (good for those who enjoy drawing or digital painting). This idea came from Maxim and I'm mad keen on it, but obviously it depends on how many people would want to RP an artist either professionally or as a hobby. Plus script limitations but I don't know much about that. - Support for in-game radio stations. I'm not sure how the setup will be in terms of player XM stations like it was on SAMP, but I like the idea of us providing some support (perhaps financially in the most basic instance) for players who put in the time to DJ, host shows etc. - Support for in-game news and media coverage. I know there aren't any in-game news reporting commands at launch, but that's promised for later down the line. The simplest form of support is again financial, perhaps subsidising it to some extent. Perhaps we could provide offices for them and other similar businesses, help them get advertisers and become profitable. - Support for music artists. I remember there used to be a lot of interest in this back in the day, but we'd need to consider what we'd allow player characters to claim as their own (ideally, I guess it would just be things that they create themselves, thus requiring the player to be willing to produce their own stuff). In terms of how to support, on top of financial aid, things like music festivals and maybe something we can do with in-game charts, music awards, etc. Open to thoughts! - Supporting 'tourism'. I'm getting into video editing a bit more so would love to create 'trailers' for the city, which can also then serve as trailers for the server itself to attract new players. So whether this is presented as generic tourism, or like encouraging immigration, or encouraging businesses to set up here... basically all of the above. I'd actually definitely like to do this one, just will require me getting better at video editing or relying on some helpful soul to provide assistance. All very open to suggestions so thanks in advance 😉 Edit: Oh also, if you're planning to do any of the above roleplay please hit me up or mention it here, as it'd be great to know how many people are likely to get involved in this sort of RP in the beginning.

Hi all, Today I'm happy to announce that we've now opened up the business section of the forums. We've decided to allow players to apply for a business lease in order to establish business roleplay on the server initially. There are plans to make these businesses buy-able further down the line once there is enough money in the economy for players to be able to afford these businesses. In order to encourage larger companies/factions to run these businesses we've decided that you must own a company in order to apply for a business. The business lease will be free for the first 2 weeks, after this you'll be expected to pay a monthly leasing fee. A pre-defined list of businesses are available to lease throughout the city and will be expanded on. The below initial clubs and bars are well-known locations on the map to aid new players in locating them whilst we launch the server. Players will have more business types and locations available to them on the launch of the server. The requirements for a lease can be found below: You need to have plans to own a company to create an application for a business. Pre Launch: You must have plans to own a company to create an application for a business. If you are accepted and end up not owning a company the business will be revoked. You need at least 6 people listed in one application, which helps run the business. You lease this business, meaning you pay a monthly lease fee for it. You cannot transfer the lease without lead admin approval. It needs to make sense for your character to own and run this business. You can find more information along with the application format here. Thank you, Baker

Most organized arms dealing, as roleplayed by factions, is the sale of stolen legal firearms or firearms purchased in poorly regulated transactions in gun states. The profit margin is significant, as criminals and gangs will pay several times the legal sale price for an unregistered firearm they can use in crimes. If you're selling firearms outside the bounds of the law, you are an arms dealer or arms trafficker rather than a legal gun seller. Arms trafficking can be divided into two basic categories: state and federal. California state arms trafficking charges are generally less serious - all you have really done is sell a locally acquired firearm without a license or without conducting the proper background checks. For this you may be sentenced to six months in county jail or fined, with more serious consequences for aggravating factors (e.g. prior trafficking convictions). Federal arms trafficking is much more serious, and applies more to most roleplayed weapons dealing. An arms dealing incident is made federal by transporting the weapons across state lines, which is how the bulk of guns used in California crimes enter circulation. Arizona and Nevada are major weapons shipment points, being gun states in which large amounts of firearms can be acquired in legally murky or outright illegal gun sales and also being states which border California, where those weapons can be sold for several times their retail value. The penalties for federal offences increase sharply, to a maximum of 10 years in federal prison and much more extensive fines. In addition most people who engage in these activities are already convicted felons prohibited from possessing firearms, which carries an extra five years. 320. Illegal Sale, Lease, or Transfer of a Firearm is the LSRP penal code entry for arms trafficking. It's a low-end felony. 324. Illegal Distribution of Ammunition will probably also come up. Between these two charges, being stacked (or multiplied) by the amount of arms and ammunition you're selling, your character is looking at heavy time. If your character is convicted of major arms trafficking you should probably also roleplay a more serious federal conviction, assuming you're roleplaying interstate transactions. I suggest this for 'realism' purposes, as any major arms trafficker irl is investigated by a federal taskforce and usually ends up with heavy sentences. Ultimately it's up to you though. Typically people are only ever charged with weapons possession on these servers, as arms dealing investigations are rarely done, so I don't see this particular issue coming up much. But you should be aware of the potential consequences your character faces and how serious arms trafficking is taken in a gun restricted state like California (and therefore San Andreas). There's also 319. Manufacture of a Destructive Device or Prohibited Weapon, covering fabricated weapons and arms conversion devices, which is a newer trend in arms trafficking. Shmoe has covered this here. In regards to your actual roleplay, you have a couple of options. This is assuming you are a faction member who is selling weapons directly acquired by your faction from the 'scheme' and you're unsure how to roleplay this. Generally speaking these guns will have crossed the state border, so you can either roleplay being that level of arms trafficker yourself or you can roleplay having acquired your weapons from somebody who specializes in this as their criminal 'profession'. From there your roleplay is a simple question of actually selling the guns on to other characters. I would suggest some people experiment with roleplaying a dedicated arms trafficker, as most people involved in this business do it 'professionally'. Weapons dealing in real life, unlike on roleplay servers, is much less profitable than drug dealing so the only people who seriously profit from it are those who specialize in it. Criminal organizations have constant easy access to firearms and do not really prioritize it as a business, as is done in roleplay. NB: You should not roleplay internationally 'smuggled' weapons, as is sometimes done, particularly by European factions. This does not happen, unless for some reason somebody has gotten their hands on a massive shipment of weapons somewhere and it's worth taking the risk to smuggle them into the United States for sale. The U.S. is the biggest gun country in the world - guns come from there, they are not smuggled there. International arms trafficking in the United States goes the other way, into Canada and Mexico. Your guns will be from the U.S., probably a gun state like Arizona, New Mexico or Texas. I hope this will be informative for some people who might not be familiar with how arms trafficking actually works in places like California.

Six clubs? At my most optimistic estimate I think we'll get like 400~ players every night (and this is very optimistic past the first few days). That's a nightclub per 66 players. If we end up with 300, that's one for every 50. And that's not counting the 6 players and other staff each nightclub needs to have. Should be limited to two. One high/mid end and one low end. Edit: Six clubs and one bar (in Vinewood). No pawnshops, no restaurants or anything else more low-key? This isn't the way to go imo.

I can't help but think that six nightclubs is not what the server needs prior to launch. There shouldn't even be six nightclubs on the server period. Why would you guys not include actual businesses that provide role play? I'm also not a fan of requiring six people to be needed for the application. What if you're running a mom and pop shop and you don't even have six employees, let alone six "key holders". Seems like a lot of things weren't thought through.

SHW

As a result of this thread myself, @Mac, the Faction Team and @largehazard or Liam took these concerns seriously and devised a plan to accommodate the majority opinion that is the replacement of California with San Andreas but in addition to a "compromise" that allows for the implementation of small-parts of northern California to replace extensions of their map-equivalents. Never before has this been done and we believe it will be a monumental moment in the server's growth as a heavy roleplay server. Not only does this expansion into uncharted territory allow roleplaying freedom conjoined with realism but it recognizes San Andreas as it's supposed to be, as California, the 31st state of the United States. This is still a work in progress and open to interpretation but the foundations of (our opinion) a realism-focused server varied with certain fictitious aspects will, in the long term, attract likeminded players while also being respective of the fun of the game. Before forwarding this to management we thought we would open it to public scrutiny so that those it will ultimately affect can have their voice heard in the interest of transparency. It started as a player discussion and we hope that it will end as a player discussion. Collectively, this is a draft (work in progress) that with public backing, we hope to forward to management for consideration: Los Santos, San Andreas, is a city based on Los Angeles, California. As a result of this, and LS-RP's stance on heavy-roleplay, Los Santos, San Andreas will act as a replacement for Los Angeles, California and part of its surrounding area. San Andreas will therefore replace California as the United States' 31st and second largest state. Encircled by states like Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and Mexico's Baja California to the south, its coastline on the Pacific Ocean on the west acts as "the 5 borders of San Andreas." For a more immersive experience and in the interest of server continuity, we are only roleplaying on-map locations as replacements for real life locations, therefore San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, and New York all remain the same. In addition to this, factions and players may use real events, history and backgrounds to construct both individual and faction background stories up until the cut-off point of 2019, granted that it doesn't coincide with key parts of our own server lore including key figures such as members of the government, police department, fire department and known criminals who also replace their real-life equivalents. This will apply for immersive purposes only to things like the weather, news (country-wide) and information to create a realistic character or faction background. In a nutshell, faction and character backgrounds may contain real-life history up until 2019 then everything after that must become fictitious. Despite having a SoSan (SoCal) dominant stance on SA:MP, we have decided to step into GTA V with a more neutral stance on the subject to create even more opportunities for the players. Under this circumstance, we will be tailoring our map around different parts of California. Paleto Bay and Grapeseed will replicate specific areas and the cultures inspired by Northern California or as referenced, NorCal. Players who roleplay from here may take inspiration from areas like Bakersfield and Fresno where north/south lines converge. Both coasts have dissimilar cultures and this should be taken into consideration when roleplaying in or around either one. The driving distance between LS and these areas will be anywhere between 1.5-3 hours depending on time of day and traffic, so roleplay in accordance to this estimate. Law enforcement agents who receive calls or backup requests may bypass this rule. For this reason, the designated area will serve as LSRP's northern San Andreas aka NorSan. There would be no real distinction between the two if we were to remain entirely based on Southern California so instead, we created this compromise. To summarize: Los Santos, SA replaces Los Angeles, CA San Andreas, USA replaces California, USA Paleto Bay, Blaine County no replacement, loosely based on areas north of the Bay Area (doesn't go that far North, e.g towards Oregon) because of the environment/name i.e redwood forest and "Pelato Bay" (Pelican Bay State Prison) Grapeseed, Blaine County no replacement, loosely based on more 'central' northern areas like the Salinas Valley and other farming towns like this. Sandy Shores, Blaine County, no replacement, loosely based on Inland Empire area to the east/southeast of LA. It remains part of SoSan. San Fierro exists in name alone, it inhabits everything else from San Francisco Las Venturas exists in name alone, it inhabits everything else from Las Vegas Vice City does not exist Liberty City does not exist The Alamo Sea is the traditional north/south diving line. If you're south of it, you're in SoSan. If you're north of it, you're in NorSan. The two communities on either side (Sandy Shores and Grapeseed) can therefore be considered both 'central' and 'north/south' respectively, depending on context, as the communities around Bakersfield, Fresno etc. are irl. Blaine County will represent California's Kern County (Bakersfield area). Sandy Shores, Paleto Bay and Grapeseed are all within Blaine County. Blaine County is a central area which can be considered both northern San Andreas and Southern Andreas, depending on where you are within it. E.g. Sandy Shores is considered more southern, Paleto Bay is considered northern. Los Santos County will replace Los Angeles County Los Santos Police Department The Los Santos Police Department draws heavy inspiration from the Los Angeles Police Department and will replace it in principle. In order to strike a balance between the game and real-life, the faction applies small fictional elements in some aspects of its organization in order to ensure that progression within the faction, as well as work delegation, is done properly. Nonetheless, all procedures and inner workings of the faction's role-play are drawn from the Los Angeles Police Department. The faction's manual and procedures are a direct port, that received small adjustments here and there, from the Los Angeles Police Department in order to ensure that the faction portrays its counterpart to the fullest extent. Unless an individual is specifically knowledgeable about the LAPD, they will not be able to notice the difference between the LSPD and the LAPD, which the faction aims to portray to the fullest extent. It is also worth mentioning that the faction's fleet similarly represents the LAPD, as well as the uniform standard. Our vehicles and uniforms are also restricted based on what the LAPD does. The faction furthermore enforces an age policy in order to ensure realistic character progression. In order to make this more clear to the regular player and aspiring faction members, LSPD = LAPD. Sports Teams - LA = LS Real life sports teams will be acknowledged with the replacement of LA for LS. For example, LS Rams replaces LA rams. LS Lakers replaces LA Lakers and the Los Santos Dodgers replaces the Los Angeles Dodgers. Because of this, players will have the ability to root for their native teams. Modded sportswear with the real-life equivalent names are allowed but when speaking, writing or wagering on your team, it must be substituted with its lore-friendly name. Everything from the fonts to colouring will remain the same. Additionally, you may also pluralize them as a compromise. Namely "the Rams," or "the Lakers" or "the Dodgers." Clothing and Body Art Real life clothing can be roleplayed in addition to what is made available by the script and modding team. However, if it is personal modifications, players and law enforcement personnel may describe and identify you based on what is noticeable and available to them. This applies to both clothing and body art, anything that substitutes something for something else. Additionally, the modded replacement must be listed in your character description e.g a MC-affiliated vest or "kutte" replacing a vanilla version of it. Anything that doesn't go without saying must be listed for immersive purposes. Weapons, Ammunition and Attachments Our weapon and ammunition portrayal will be dictated by script, where developers have worked tirelessly to implement a system based on San Andreas' real-life equivalent. Whatever they are named and modelled after is what they will be roleplayed as with no exceptions. Damage from weapon, ammunition and attachments will be taken into account when roleplaying injuries or declaring deaths in accordance to realism. Vehicles Vehicles remain in their original GTA V form and replace their real-life equivalents. To name a few of the more common vehicles, the Ubermacht replaces BMW, Obey replaces Audi, certain Benefactor models replace certain Mercedes models so on so fourth. An official guide will be posted in the correct section where players can draw inspiration from. Vehicles driven by players must suit their character's ambition, situation and financial circumstance and must make sense for their individual characters. For instance, if your character owns a variant of the Benefactor, it makes no sense to go on robberies or sprees in it, especially if registered to you. Brands and GTA franchises A lot of GTA's branding and franchises are modelled around real life. For example, Tim Vapid is Tom Ford, Sebastian Dix is Christian Dior, Blagueurs is Balenciaga/Vetements, Anna Rex is Calvin Klein and Sand Castle is Stone Island. As a result, these brands will be considered bootlegged versions of their real life equivalents unless there is no available substitute. If there is no available clothing to replicate their equivalent, it may be addressed via description so that players have the opportunity to examine and acknowledge it. Food chains such as Cluckin Bell, Taco Bomb and Hookies are all also considered low-end and domestic fast food chains and can be acknowledged if necessary. Factions based on single player organizations are disallowed. Special thanks to: largehazard aka Liam Mac LSPD Leadership, Benavides Faction Team Kane for allowing us to take this to the public domain The public and xander11 for bringing it to attention in the first place All contributions from the original poll Again, there is room for improvement. This is still highly a work in progress and isn't official. This is a proposal on behalf of us, the public in sync with the Faction Team.

Since this server is going to have norteños, it makes sense to discuss their counterpart, which will inevitably be roleplayed too. The purpose of this thread is to cover the basic concept of "upstate sureños". I never saw this done on LSRP, and I wasn't even familiar with their history and culture until only a couple of years ago after I had already left. Therefore I'm assuming it's not widely known knowledge. I'd like to get this information out there so that it might be of assistance to anybody considering a faction like this, or perhaps it might bring these gangs to your attention if you're unfamiliar with them. "Upstate sureños" are sureños in northern California. They differ from Central Valley/'Centro Valle' sureños and proper Southern California sureños in very significant ways. Traditionally, the only sureños who actually had contact with norteños and fought them outside of prison were those in the Central Valley area, in towns like Bakersfield and Visalia where the north/south lines met. This changed with the growth of upstate sureños. Since the 90s, sureño gangs have been growing in Northern California and now represent a significant threat to the business interests of the Nuestra Familia. The important thing to note about upstate sureños is that they are not sureños from L.A. or SoCal who "moved", as some might think. They are homegrown northern gangs. Their roots lay in Hispanic varrios who had conflict with norteños. Many of them were 'paisas' or the children of paisas, who were considered southerners by the norteños and thus targeted. These groups started their own varrios, beginning in the 80s, and eventually took up the sureño identity purely out of hostility to norteños. These northern sureños would be exposed to SoCal sureños in prison, who up until then were not aware of their existence. At some point the Mexican Mafia, or more likely one member of it with central or northern territories, put these gangs under their flag. I am not familiar with the specifics of this story but it definitely happened, as northern carnales collect tax from them. This essentially made upstate sureños bonafide sureños, and there have been '13' gangs in the north ever since. Most of these varrios are located in the major cities in the Bay Area, but there are also some in traditional norteño stronghold towns like Salinas. Their combat with local norteños is vicious. The second important point is that these are no longer paisa gangs. They are in their 3rd or 4th generation and are now as northern as the norteños in their 'breeding', so to speak. It's just that if you're born into a 13 neighborhood instead of a 14 neighborhood, you're going to be an upstate sureño. I'm not totally familiar with all of the cultural differences between NorCal and SoCal sureños and how that plays out in prison, but I know that they are significant. Upstate sureños are notably different to, for example, an 18th St member. The Eme-NF truce inside the prison system has been very confusing and frustrating for both upstate sureños and for the norteños who have them in their communities. These gangs are brought up to hate each other in a way that is probably fiercer than most other gang rivalries, but are then told they are not permitted to fight them once they get to prison. Just an interesting point of trivia. I'd like to encourage discussion on this topic, and the possibility of having both norteños and upstate sureños roleplaying in Grapeseed/Paleto Bay. If roleplayed properly, there is potential for extremely interesting gang interactions and dynamics.

Indeed. The so welcomed emphasis on illegal roleplay shouldn't overshadow other fields of interest. Artistic RP usually generates external media (photography, songs, music videos...) that can be converted in engagement for the server, specially on YouTube or Soundcloud.

I agree. This is why we've installed a cut-off point in terms of what factions and players can use. As far as real life references goes, this just gives players the options to roleplay things that aren't actually available to them in game. Anything we already cover will be unaffected. Key events that come from the likes of the government, police department, sheriff's department and anything that's got the potential to be homegrown will assume precedence. For example, there is no Eric Garcetti, there is a Los Santos' equivalent. Michel Moore isn't the chief of police, our equivalent is. Anything we have control over takes precedence. This will mostly target live events and news that can add substance to our roleplay, substance we don't ordinarily have access to. Sporting games, certain news and generally anything we don't have covered. I think this is why it's important to acknowledge this now.

Yeah exactly, agree wholeheartedly on this point. The server is naturally going to progress in its own direction and folks shouldn't be afraid of doing that for fear of being told "this isn't happening in LA" and to some extent, "this wouldn't likely happen in LA". As largehazard said, it's good to set things up properly in the beginning, then see where the RP naturally takes us.

teach me da wai

I don't think it's entirely realistic to keep vehicles in-game when considering the vast amount of crimes likely to occur and the high number of vehicles thefts. In real-life, you can lock your vehicle and go inside your house. If your alarm goes off you'd likely hear it. Whereas on here, we will be limited to the amount of playing time we can dedicate to the game due to real-life obligations. I think spawning and depsawning is necessary due to the constraints we have.

I think the biggest thing we need to remember is we can reference LA for the formation, but once we begin, we don't need to stop change because our counterpart that we emulate ourselves after hasn't. I think this is important to have publicly made to ensure our roleplay isn't hampered with misunderstandings as to references we can use in-game.

Y'ello there. Also I still play Fallout 4 so much and my game is modded to hell. Not as much as Skyrim tho, that's basically a new game.

We've got a few prison factions/STG's already established such as The Black Car, Mexican Mafia, Nuestra Familia, White Car. We've got a little "Prison Council" discord where leaders of each car can tap in with each other, criticize suggest, and plan out ideas for prison roleplay. If everything goes according to plan and they way we expect it to, prison roleplay is going to be enjoyable.

Generally, I don't agree entirely with a wholesale replacement of California with San Andreas. It leaves very little scope for us to define our own history, and the LSPD and government agencies alike have their own history and policy that isn't 100% based on their real life equivalent. To scrap that all the way up to 2019 can be damaging to the factions. The weather system is based on California but exaggerated so that more extreme weathers like fog, snow, storms, etc are more common and the weather forecast is available ingame via the weather app on the phone. Weather & Temperature Weather App Most other things look good to me, though. Bordering Oregon and Nevada doesn't sit well with me because we have a very real coastline in San Andreas. How could you explain away the east or north coasts? How could we possibly hope to enforce a "San Fierro doesn't exist" rule, or Liberty City for that matter when so many people incorporate it into their roleplay and character? I don't think it should be officially mentioned but it certainly can't be banned. San Andreas has always been roleplayed as the 51st state, a small island state in the Pacific Ocean. I see no reason to change this. We can still model from California; many places, especially police departments, use the LA model. NorSan and SoSan is also completely viable without having to completely erase California.

I agree. Cypress Flats needs some projects and actual neighborhoods too, seeing as that area's supposed to be based off of Long Beach. Hopefully then people would stop trying to make LBC gangs in vespucci beach.

moo

♥♥♥ Oh, he knows! Lol. Most of his viewers are people I know! 🥰 Last time I checked you were perfectly content with being thrown out of the plane. Aww, thank you! ♥