Mmartin

Hello, I've got some exciting news for you today — from all angles! We're releasing the Major Update 2.0 for our RageMP server and have some news on the timeline and remaining work for relaunching our SA-MP server. RageMP Major Update 2.0 The 2.0 update has been in the works for quite a while and as the stars aligned, it includes several sought after features once again. It includes bangers such as Burglary System, Blackjack, In-Game Social Media, Character Export to Menyoo, and other features and fixes. The full changelog is as follows: [Major Update 2.0] - Adds Blackjack - Adds Burglary features - Adds /addcontact [phone number] [contact name] as a shortcut to add contacts - Adds /delcontact [contact name] as a shortcut to delete contacts - Adds /faceinvader (aliased /fi) to access Faceinvader while in-game - Adds the ability to export appearances into Menyoo XML format via the UCP - Adds placing items (such as weapons) inside of properties - Adds a non emergency hotline (991) - Adds ability to toggle furniture item collisions - Fixes certain appearance features' opacity not loading correctly - Changed the DMV practical test to automatically set /limiter - Changed the DMV knowledge test to increase the timer from 5 minutes to 10 minutes - Changed the DMV knowledge test to remove the long fade transitions - Changed the UCP character application process to only be necessary for your first character Blackjack It is now possible to play blackjack on any furniture item of the 'ch_prop_casino_blackjack_01a' model. You don't need to be in a casino to play it, all you need is a property which you can furnish, or access to one. You can manage the settings of the table with /bjtable. The table settings also support a "Practice mode", which lets you play without deducting your money at all, making the game available to you even if you're strapped for IG cash. Make sure to enable the table and put some money in the till so you're able to play. The game supports up to 4 players + an NPC dealer. Hitting, standing, splitting, doubling and surrendering are all supported. If you're unsure how to play, or want to check the table's rules / settings, you can view the rules via the "Info" option when approaching a seat, or by clicking the rule book icon in the Blackjack UI. Quick note, we haven't added crowbars and lockpicks to the stores yet to give players a chance to upgrade their home security systems. You can read more about this feature in its documentation here: Burglary System An important part of roleplaying is finally getting the attention it needs. Gone are the days when you forgot if you locked your property's door or you feared that anybody could just break into your apartment and steal your hard-earned drugs & cash. With the new Burglary & Property Security system, we're offering opportunities for legal and illegal roleplayers alike. You can read more about this feature here: SA-MP Relaunch Milestones With our 2.0 release out of the way, our major point of focus for the upcoming weeks will be preparing the SA-MP server for launch. We added a SA-MP section to our roadmap which you can find here: SA-MP Roadmap · LS-RP Roadmap (github.com). We're currently targeting three milestones: - Staff release: Open the server for the staff team to begin testing its integration to our current systems. We estimate this milestone to be completed in less than one week from now. - Pre-release: Open the server for our valued donators who've the premium membership activated. During this phase we'll give our infrastructure a rigorous test and finish work which is necessary for the release. We estimate this milestone to be completed in 1-2 weeks from now. - Release: Open the server for everyone. We estimate this milestone to be completed in 2-3 weeks from now. We offer the aforementioned estimates in good faith and are working hard to meet them, or even deliver earlier. If anything changes or we encounter any hiccups along the way, we'll be sure to inform you ahead of time and explain what's happening. In the last two weeks, we've done a lot of work behind the scenes ranging from preparing our infrastructure, migrating processes and consulting our teams on how to make the relaunch go as well as it can. Some core takeaways are: Focus Key focus for all teams will be in-game activity and providing support for business openings and factions, so everyone has the tools they need to roleplay. If you own a business on SA-MP and are planning to open, contact Commerce & Estates. Business auctions will take place after the first two weeks, assessing business activity. Community engagement will be focusing on promotion of both the SA-MP and RageMP server (graphics, videos, ads). Events team will be focusing on an initial launch event, and aiming for one event per week. Our eventual goal is to host two events every week, one for the RageMP server, one for the SA-MP server. Official Factions Factions which were official from one year prior to closure of the SA-MP server will be able to apply for an official faction status. Schemes Illegal faction schemes will work slightly differently, more info to be released in a few days. We are assessing the current situation of stockpiled weapons and such. In other news, we've closed both tester applications and staff reinstatements. Both are now being reviewed and we thank everyone who's applied, the results will be revealed by the end of the month. We want to make sure that come release, we're equipped to handle supporting both servers. This and much more was premiered today on Discord during our Community Meeting. Join our Discord community to stay at the forefront of breaking news and updates from your friendly neighborhood roleplay server. Love, Martin

Hey everyone, I'm happy to announce that we've relaunched faceinvader.net, our LS-RP:V (RageMP Universe) In Character social media website. Currently it's available to access through your browser, but as of 2.0 which is coming later this week, you'll be able to access it in-game as well. Please have a look at the faceinvader rules before making an account. @badhbh has been appointed as the Head of our IGSM Team and will be responsible for running the moderation team on the sites. The site offers variety of features besides making friends and posts. It allows you to post events, sell items on a market place, post and search for job offerings and much more. Explore it yourself and have fun. We're in the process of setting up an equivalent IC social media site for our returning SA-MP server as well. For news about that and more SA-MP related topics, please tune in to our Community Meeting held on Discord this Sunday, 9 PM Server-Time (CEST). As with any new service, please allow us some time to finetune the site and work out the bits and pieces. Preview of how faceinvader looks like in-game (2.0) Example of a job offer on faceinvader Kind regards, Martin

Hello, Today we bring you yet another game update which includes two new features: nails and pointing. It also addresses a few inconsistencies and bugs, the whole changelog is below. [Game Update 1.9.4] - Added /nails - Added pointing system (B) - Added /vest to toggle body armor / vest - Removed default stance after shooting a weapon or fistfighting - Removed collision detection for cinematic camera In other exciting news, so far it looks like we're on track to release 2.0 next week. This update will include Blackjack, Burglary system, and some other heavy hitters like IG Social media. For the SA-MP crowd, we've also been hard at work getting everything set up for the release of the SA-MP server. Work has begun on process, reinstating staff members to provide support to players on the server, and some of the initial necessary UCP changes. If you're interested in what's going on, make sure to join our Discord server at discord.gg/ls-rp, where we'll be hosting another community meeting soon to keep you update on our progress with both SA-MP and RageMP. Kind regards, Martin

Hello, Big news today. Never thought I'd be announcing this in a million years, but here goes. Due to popular demand, we'll be re-opening our San Andreas Multiplayer server. Normally, I wouldn't consider this decision because all of our primary focus goes into developing our RageMP game mode, however due to things being a bit quiet lately we've concluded that it won't do us any harm run both servers side by side for the time being. We'll be releasing the SA-MP server in pretty much the same state as it was last turned off in 2021. We won't be deleting any characters or assets. We'll have to do some database cleanup at least, but it'll be very minimal. This of course opens a whole new sets of challenges, both personal and technical. I'll try to answer some of the more pertinent ones right off the bat, and the rest will be clarified as we go: We'll continue to use this forum and create new sections that are necessary. The old forums will remain available as an archive as they are now. Staff members will be staff on both game servers. Reinstatements into the staff team will be available, even for members who only want to play on SA-MP. We don't want to set any expectations in regards of longevity of the SA-MP server. If there's reasonable interest in it, players want to play it, and it'll support itself financially, this can be more than a limited time experiment "nostalgic blast from the past". Most legal factions will, at least for the time being, remain with shared boards and leadership across both game modes. Reinstatements will be possible, even for players who only want to join on SA-MP. Technicalities of this implementation will be made available later on. Factions will be fully supported by the IFT. We're also going to facilitate some form of asset transfer (cash) from SA-MP to V. This will of course have its restrictions to avoid just massively flooding the RageMP server with hundreds of millions; however with our pending economy overhaul on RageMP, assets will be much easier to come by regardless. As far as the timeline goes, the main technical challenge why we can't just turn it on now is that some functionality on the SA-MP server heavily relied on the old UCP (spawn change, skin change, etc). We need to re-add this functionality to our current UCP, and adjust our infrastructure to support the new (old?) server. There's also a bunch of small tidbits that aren't compatible with our current database structure (bans and such) that we need to adapt. This won't take too long, but given our track record with release dates, I'll save it for when we really know. But since I can't help it, my current estimate is 3-6 weeks from now we should be open for business! Keep in mind that some of the information above may change, if it does, you'll know. I'm sure you're wondering what exactly this means for our RageMP server. The way I see it, opening the SA-MP server up will help us with our current goal to reach the players we've left behind one way or another throughout months since launch. We hope that by engaging players in our community and platform, we'll be able to show you all the incredible progress we've made on both our game mode and process since launching last year. Our primary development focus will remain on RageMP and improving on the already great game mode we've created for you. We've a new defined set of priorities that we want to follow, and most of our focus will be going towards customization, ease of access to assets and features with a non-restrictive economy, and support for illegal factions. Check our Roadmap to see what we're working on right now as a part of 2.0 update, which includes long-awaited features such as Burglary, Social Media, Blackjack (yes, I know), further character customization and more. We're on a good track here, with both Burglary and Blackjack going into testing next week. All of this was announced earlier today on our Community Meeting. I believe that essentially stopping doing these after launch was unfortunate, however hindsight is 20/20 and with the constant chaos going on, it was easy to forget why they were so important. You can expect these to return on a semi-regular, roughly bi-weekly basis. I'd like to close this post by pleading to those who left our community because they were unhappy with the direction, or features we launched with. Now that the chaos of initial months are over, we're steady building on the solid foundation we laid out. Over the months, we've released many great features such as Graffiti, Pets, Purchasing properties, Drug packages, Cinematic mode, Startshift, Turf map, Facial expressions, thousands of clothing, animation and furniture mods, Second hand car dealerships, Spawning multiple cars at once, Hair ties, Paintball, Modshop, new Makeup script, Scratch off lottery, and many, many more. We've fixed hundreds of bugs and hosted around 40 official events. And we're going to keep doing that and more. Our sole motivation for doing so, and keeping on even when times are tough and the player base isn't what we'd have hoped it to be, is that we want to bring you, the community, a fun place to play. So consider (re-)joining a faction or creating a one, or joining the staff team. If you believe you can make LS-RP better, reach out to me directly and if it's in the best interest of the server, I'm sure we'll find a way for you to be involved. If you've unresolved grievances that stop you from returning, reach out to me directly as well. I'm here to hear you out. Martin on behalf of LS-RP Leadership

Hello, we're bringing out yet another update from our workshop tonight, which includes two new features. One is the first feature in our Gambling update series - a scratch off script. You can now buy scratch off tickets in gas stations around the city and win prizes up to 10 mil. Second important part of this update is a complete remake of our makeup script. You can now use /makeup anywhere to edit your look, and also save and load makeup presets. [Game Update 1.9.3] - Added scratch off ticket script - Added new makeup script - Added ability to buy multiple items of the same type from stores at once - Maintenance work on the script I'd like to also remind everyone there's a rally event hosted in-game tonight at 10 PM server-time with cash prizes totaling $60,000, so come join us for a chance to win. We're also hosting a community meeting tomorrow at 9 PM server-time on Discord, where we plan to announce important changes to our community and clarify on the future of what's going to happen with LS-RP going forward.

Hello, Today we're releasing our sixth version of the year - 1.8.3 - and it's still only January! I realized we haven't posted the last few changelogs here on forums so I'll use this post to update you on those as well. We'll talk briefly about some of the highlights of 1.8.3 and the Development Roadmap we put together early on in the month. Some of these have previously been announced on Discord's #announcements, #game-changelog and #snippets, so it may not all be news to you but for the sake of keeping the blog post comprehensive; so let's kick off by today's feature highlights writeup by danut: Cinematic Camera Mode Stepping your screenshot game has never been easier. Gone are the days when you were trying to place your mouse in the most awkward angles or try to get the best with what the native GTA V camera offered you. Now, with /cinematic you can tilt, twist, move and turn your camera at any imaginable angle so you can get that crisp screenshot for your faction's thread. Cash as Inventory Item (Cashpack) Another feature which we've implemented is the addition of /cashpack that allows players to create money inventory items out of the cash that they hold onto their person. This feature should enhance roleplay for illegal characters, keeping their dirty money outside their bank account and the government's greedy eyes. Development Roadmap Admittedly this has been in the works for longer than it should, but we finally found a way how to have a roadmap that is both transparent and realistically maintainable. We wanted to avoid releasing one just to stop updating it after a few updates and by integrating it into GitHub that we all use every day, it's just easy to keep up to date. You can find the roadmap by clicking "Roadmap" in the upper bar on the forums. The roadmap is grouped by release milestones. You can see the last one or two releases that are out at the top, so you can immediately see what's been implemented recently. Below that you have planned releases with what's being worked on in each. While this remains for everyone to see, please keep in mind the roadmap is still fluid and we can add & move things around. In-Game Events For the past three weeks, we've had events every Saturday, courtesy of Events Team & the Govt. faction (shoutout Mouse!). We've hosted a fishing tournament, Mt. Chiliad Rally, and a trivia night. These events have proven to be a good boost to our weekend player-base, so we look forward to hosting even more of them. Marketing Campaign As we approach the 1.9 and more importantly the 2.0 release, we're going to start a major marketing campaign. It's been a bit of a challenge to get off the ground, since we've struggled with keeping an active head of Community Engagement Team (formerly known as Communications Team) for months now - so if you've any real-world marketing experience and are keen to help out, please reach out via a forum PM. We expect to start this project soon however, so don't hold off on applying! Complete changelog for 1.8.3 - Added ability to pack cash into inventory items. (/cashpack) - Added cinematic camera mode. (/cinematic) - Added toggleable typing indicator. - Added toggleable facial talking animations. - Added livery change options for admins. - Added additional pet commands for admins. - Changed player list behavior to put local player at the top. - Fixed pet emotes. Complete changelog for 1.8.2, released on January 14 (includes patches 1.8.2-P1 and 1.8.2-P2) - Added ability to change facial expressions - Added automatic closing doors on /lock - Added ability to refresh trucking missions - Added message showing total pay and company cut when completing a trucking route - Fixed tourniquet and bandage self not working - Fixed company log viewing - Fixed tabbed warning not showing correct time - Fixed weapon wheel not working in cars - Fixed weapon adjustment causing UI freezes - Fixed /setcar liveries not saving - Fixed custom liveries not setting (e.g. on the Buffalo STX) - Fixed pet emotes not always showing - Changed /cc to correctly hide chat depending on your chat size - Changed furniture mass selling so cannot be done with other players in the property - Changed trucking success message to show company cut - Changed payday notification to include company cut - Changed trucking pay bonuses to be fairer in relation to other jobs - Changed trucking cargo loading detection area to be more consistent PATCH 1 - Added missing HRMC tattoos - Fixed liveries being set incorrectly PATCH 2 - Fixed new trucking models showing Unknown Model - Fixed forklift forks not detecting properly - Fixed /vehiclecolors ID 139 (green) showing as blue incorrectly Complete changelog for 1.8.1, released on January 5, including patch 1.8.1-P1 released on January 9 - Added coloured blinking fuel indicator HUD elements and digital % display - stringer - Added /sellallfurniture - danut - Added ability to replace structural furniture - danut - Added ability to /helo in SD and FD helicopters - jack - Added a spend limit of $500 to company cards without an appropriate override permission - Imperium - Added rename option to furniture select menu - danut - Added more than 350 new furniture items for walls and floors - danut, Mouse & jack - Added phone animations - danut - Added Burger Shot building to Mirror Park - Imperium - Added a way to create fishing areas on the fly - Imperium - Added fishing spot to Mirror Park - Dos Santos - Added /vicinity - Addresses duplicating furniture not keeping the same tag - danut - Addresses g6speedo not being able to do ATM mission - Imperium - Fixed an occasional bug where some players would not receive a "your vehicle is ready" message from PDM - jack - Fixed invalid attachment bone data - jack - Fixed an issue where more than 4 weapons would not show up in the weapon wheel - jack - Fixed an issue where social security was not increased to 500 from 300 - Imperium - Fixed female clothing mod ID desync - jack - Fixed property stock groups not working - danut - Fixed G6 clothing mod texture issue - jack - Changed taxi and trucking contracts to no longer be paid by the government - Imperium - Changed flatbed load time to make it slightly quicker, and increases pay multiplier for flatbed mission rewards by 25% - stringer - Changed 'Government Contracts' to 'Contract Access' - Imperium - Changed fish prices to about +50% of current prices - Imperium - Changed PDM wait time from 2 hours to 1 hour (instant if premium) - stringer PATCH 1 - Fixed an issue where companies did not get profit from trucking - Fixed an issue where vans would not reliably be able to be loaded with a forklift - Fixed an issue with straps not aligning correctly for non-flatbed trucks - Changed weather to be more in line with a pacific state (not mirrored with Los Angeles however) - Changed reward multiplier from CDL level to use the truck's CDL level - Changed trucking payouts to check company balance Thank you for your continued support Martin

Sorry, fixed!

Hello gamers! Welcome to the October 2023 Staff Update. First and foremost I want to go over major changes to our leadership structure. If you've been paying attention over the past week or two, we've made quite a few changes. Ben, who's been the Head of Community (later renamed to Head of Operations) has stepped down due to lack of available time. He remains with us as a game admin to fully enjoy the fruits of our labor over the past years. I want to give him a big shoutout and a thank you for all the work he's put in over the years. He remained in the team and helped us rebuild LS-RP after the mass leadership exodus during the attacks on our SA-MP server. It's safe to say there'd be no LS-RP without him today! With the now vacant spot in Management, we made the unorthodox decision to promote someone from below lead to Ben's previous position. We chose @Dos Santos for the position as he's undoubtedly a great fit and has the energy, time and skills to lead the server. That out of the way, congratulations to our newly promoted staff members ... Management Dos Santos (Head of Operations) Lead Admin kendrick (asst. Head of Operations) Nature (Head of Testers) Junior Admin bobster Trainee Admin Eagle Developer Zagros And welcome to our new Junior Testers for the first time ... ChandanW - Dat_block - Endri Fantasia - HydraPlayer - Kenado - Stinkywinky - _CYBER_ badhbh.x - danut - xtcGOAT Mmartin on behalf of LS-RP Leadership

it is now

Hello, Welcome to September's update. I want to go over staff changes and address a few recent topics, some of which we touched on in my last "We need to talk..." post. I've been keeping up with the comments on the thread and read all of them. I want to thank everyone who took their time to write down constructive criticism and everyone who shared words of support. I want to share my thoughts on some of the discussions that raised from the topic, and add a few of my own. Development Team Last week, we added three new developers to the team. I'd like to welcome GiamPy, java and matical. Neither of them waited a minute to jump right into the trenches and start contributing. Good luck and I'm looking forward to see what you guys bring to the server. Together with the rest of our development team, they put together their first update 1.3.7: I'm glad to say that by week 1, we managed to finish about half of our two week plan mentioned in my previous blog post, although we rearranged the priorities a little bit. The rest that wasn't implemented yet should come in next week's update. We've also spent some time eliminating any bottlenecks in the development process. A lot of the activities which relied solely on me are now a shared responsibility among the Development Team. ImperiumXVII is also taking on a more leading role within the team as the Head of Game Development. This all essentially means that a lot of the steps in the development lifecycle that were dependent on me exclusively are now delegated to the rest of the team, letting them do their thing even if I'm busy with other tasks. This all should allow us to do more work, more frequently. Our goal is to have an active release schedule, but it may take a few weeks to get there as we strengthen our processes. Circling back to pre-launch, we talked a lot about wanting to include community in development decisions as much as possible (suggestion voting, etc). We'll be trying out a more solidified community driven approach to development starting next week (after the 10th). More info on that later. In order to facilitate that, we created a new position within the Development Team - a Project Manager. The role of a PM will be to: - Organize community feedback and understand the needs and wants of the community - Be the bridge between the community and development team - Prioritize development work based on community feedback and server vision - Liaise with Team Leaders to understand their needs and priorities In essence, it's a nontechnical position within the Development team to make sure our priorities are in order and in line with the community's needs, while developers' focus can be primarily on developing. This position will be filled by Dos Santos, as he's demonstrated his capabilities within the Company Team, where he accomplished substantial improvements with a continuous feedback loop with company owners. Thank you to everyone from the staff team that applied for the position. We're still looking to onboard one or two more developers in the coming weeks, so if you didn't apply yet and are interested - now's the time. Stability We've had connection issues a few times since the launch of the server. Rarely, if ever, are they completely in our control. Lately we've been a frequent target of DDOS attacks which impacted our uptime and stability. This is a never ending cat and mouse game which will never be completely resolved, although I can assure you that during downtime, it's all hands on deck on finding a solution for the particular problem we're facing. I'm grateful for other server owners, and even rage dev themselves who have been instrumental in helping us reinforce our protection layers. In this case, I want to ask you for understanding when attacks do happen. We'll keep you updated on Discord in #updates if there's anything going on that would impact connections. Other Concerns When I say I read every single bit of feedback under blog posts and in general discussion I'm serious. I often choose not to engage too early or at all in order to not derail the conversation or turn it into a WPM typing contest. We've aggregated a lot of your feedback and tried to identify the underlying issues of problems players face, and proposed a solution to each of them. Some of the priorities in the near future will be (in no particular order): Adding more ways to make money, both as a legal and illegal character, and both P2P and NPC; Improve furniture UX; Make mapping easier & more appealing; Invest more time and money into marketing; Find a way to organize more events; Crack down on DM & poor reasons to kill in-game; Add more non-visual perks to drugs; Allow being in even more player-owned companies at once; This is an oversimplified, curated sample of some of the proposed solutions to some of the main concerns raised by both the staff, and the community. We'll address each point more in depth as it gets addressed and we have something to show for it. Together with the development changes, I'm very confident we're on the right track. Make sure to follow our Discord, namely #git and #snippets to stay close to the source with information re. new updates. Check #updates for announcements re. server status. Staff Changes Congratulations to our promoted and returning staff members... Senior Admin accursed — Amine Game Admin Kotwica — Bizarre Returning Junior Admin Zagros To put an end to the post, thank you once again for all your feedback and support on our last blog post. It means a lot to the team to see the community so passionate. You're why we do it, and who we do it for. Martin

The downtime that was caused by our host's planned maintenance could've been avoided - we weren't aware the maintenance was planned because I didn't receive an alert. It was very poor timing as I was without internet when it happened. Our takeaway from this is to figure out how to set up custom alerts that we can prevent this in the future. On the other hand, that was about the only downtime that we had since launch, which couldn't be attributed to attacks or provider network issues. We've been hit by DDOS since pretty much day 1 and there's several types of attacks, and for each we have to adapt individually. There's no blanket hail mary "protection" that protects you from everything, a lot of it is tweaking and changing up your setup to make yourself less vulnerable. We've been lucky enough to get help from other major servers in the space and even rage dev themselves, so we've been able to patch all holes so far. With time, I'm confident our protection setup will be decent, although this is a never ending cat & mouse game that's been around since there have been game servers, or any servers for that matter. I think on this front we've been doing rather good, always adapting to what's thrown at us and even switching providers when no immediate relief is available. This has cost us a significant amount of money and time, all just to keep the server online. That being said I understand why it's frustrating from a player POV, I hope you understand how we see and deal with the situation. I agree that promptness with #updates could be, in some cases, faster.

They'll be back up soon, I'm moving them to a new host but got busy with the attacks this weekend.

I'm right here and of course we read every single comment on the post. I won't engage in discussion there as I'm sure it'd go sideways very quick but we'll be addressing some of the points individually.

Hey everyone, The last dozen or so posts we've made have been more or less pragmatic, to inform everyone about updates & what to expect next. It's been a while since I made a post about the server and its direction in general. I want to open a honest dialogue about where the server currently stands, and how we can move onwards and upwards from here. There's no sugar coating it — we're in a tough position right now, from multiple angles. The player base has been stable for quite a while, but took a major hit in the recent week or two. We had a day and a half of downtime recently caused by network issues and a DDOS attack, and after bringing the server back up we're seeing peak numbers that are lower than we had during the premium only pre-release. Saying it's sub optimal is putting it mildly. I will do my best to avoid any excuses and focus on facts, problems and solutions. If you ask ten people, you'll get ten reasons why the player base has declined. I'll dive into details of some of the issues we currently face. We've solutions for some of those problems, but I'd like to extend the discussion of how to handle some of these issues to you, the community, as well. Failure to manage expectations I feel that one of the issues we had from the beginning was our failure to manage the expectations. Handful of us worked on the gamemode for roughly two years, in the spare time we had when we felt like it and weren't working or otherwise busy. The aim from the beginning was to create a barebones MVP, which we could then expand on. I feel that I failed to communicate that, and as a result of that, a lot of the community expected us to be an equal competitor from day one. This led to a massive spike in interest initially, with the player base dwindling over time once more people realized that the experience we offer isn't as complete as they might need. Other players seeing the decline in player base could be another contributing factor to further decline. I feel like there isn't a simple solution for mismanaged expectations after the fact. I will use this as a much needed learning experience. Development not keeping up Another major contributor to the decline in morale and by proxy in player base is the way development progressed after release. We simply aren't doing enough to measure up. Initially, our main focus was on ensuring stability of the server and fixing critical issues post-release. We got some much-requested features out, but we haven't had more than a handful of completely new features come out since release. That's a major problem. With only a few exceptions (big shout out to Imperium, who has been carrying the team for the past month or so), the majority of our Development Team either became increasingly busy with work after release, or simply burned out. This was my case as well, as I started a new job in May and had to do a lot of adjusting and some travel; the time I had left was mostly spent on maintenance, handling technical issues, legal/biz aspect and managing the server as a whole. The timing was unfortunate, because we all knew that the real work begins post-launch to make sure the needs of our community are met. While some aspects of this can't be affected by me, I still came short — I failed to keep the development team motivated and to make sure people don't burn out. This, in the end, lead to some promises left behind, which is something I really wanted to leave in the SA-MP era. Unfortunate. There's several solutions that can be applied here. We'll be once again taking in more developers in the coming days to help us with the amount of work that needs to be done. I'll also look for a way to offload my work with managing the system infrastructure, so even fewer things are reliant solely on me and can be handled by another developer as well. Leadership & Communication I feel that a significant chunk of us in the core team (leadership, team leads and devs) switched to a coasting mode too quickly. We got comfortable and complacent. I believe that motivation and strength comes from top to bottom, and we as the leadership must do better to innovate, push forward, show face and communicate everything with the community. This became harder in the recent weeks and there's no other way about it, we simply must do better. Of course the list above isn't exhaustive. We're aware of the frequent shootouts, abundance of weapons in the server, frequent shootouts, jobs becoming stale, etcetera. We put together a two-week plan of action of things we'd like to accomplish. I'll share it with you, but please take it with a grain of salt as it may change and some things may be added, or taken out. Immediate (today/tomorrow) - Communicate the current state of the server (this post) - Add more developers to the team - Reach out to player-owned companies and factions to make sure they've everything they need - Reach out to admins regarding long report times, and not answering difficult reports Week 1 - Fix vehicle loan payments, and transfervehicle after paying off loan - Ability to "trade in" a leased vehicle, with the ability to get a % of your principal back - Add more clothing mods - Make Horsepower affect vehicle performance - Level requirement for equipping a weapon (across all characters) to curb DM - Add interior presets & interior change - Add separate group for /setprop access, so property reports aren't reliant on Leads - Adjust mechanic / vehicle part prices (wheels, etc) Week 2 - Some gambling script (even if just slots, lotto or blackjack) - Graffiti - Add more vehicles, whether existing GTA ones to pdm, or modded - More trucking routes - Investment into marketing - Schedule another community meeting To reiterate, we probably won't be able to do all of these, but these are some of the things we've identified need immediate attention. Despite the admittedly grim situation with the player base right now, I believe we can turn things around. The entire situation is very humbling and has been a big reality check and a learning experience for me. We've a lot going for us — we've a great staff team, a lot of knowledgeable and dedicated folk on our side, other major servers providing us assistance whenever we need it. But most importantly, we've fostered an awesome community which is what I focus on when it's time to push forward no matter what. I'm sorry I let some of you down, it hurts especially because I know a lot of people really believe in the project and want it to do well. This is where I'll turn the post towards you. If you're good at something and want to use your skill to help us make the server better, please reach out. If you've opinions you want to share, please do so below. I welcome opinions of anyone with the best interest of the server at heart. Martin

Hello, As promised, we're adding spike strips to the game today. They can be placed by any members of law enforcement with appropriate permissions and are collision-based, which means only the tire that actually goes over the spike strip will be popped. You can use /spikestrip (/ss) with an optional parameter to choose a model of spike strip you wish to use. There are currently 4 models available of varying sizes. Additionally as a QOL update you can now press 1-9 keys when a context menu is open to select an option. We're planning a smaller QOL/Bugfix patch tomorrow. We'll continue with more feature deliveries next week. We're also looking into adding more company slots to players, just need a few days to think about how to do it in a balanced way. Thank you for playing!

Hello, We're back with yet another long awaited feature. As I advised on yesterday's post, we're adding Roadblocks to the game. All the legal factions were asked to provide a list of roadblocks they'd like to use and we added them to the system. The feature is available for GOV, PD, SD, FD and the events team for the time being. We plan to make it available to companies where it makes sense as well, for example construction companies. Spike strips aren't a part of this update but it's among the next few features coming, so you can look forward to that either this week, or early in the next one. We've also increased the pay for the flatbed mission by 2.5x, since it was heavily underpaid. You might notice that your trucking earnings aren't as high as they used to be; this is because we've introduced player owned companies with access to the mission scripts. You can now join an existing trucking company, or if you dare so create one. So watch out for job listings. Hope you enjoy & looking forward to deliver more. Thank you for playing, Martin

Hello, We're following up yesterday's 1.3 Feature Update with a patch to address some bugs and minor additions. Perhaps most importantly, we're enabling the Vehicle Theft script for everyone to try. We understand that it may be discouraging to have a lot of the illegal features locked behind a scheme or an application, so we'll try a different approach when implementing new features for the illegal scene. We'll start by opening it up with an attempt to balance it to the best of our ability, and then if it causes issues (such as overwhelming amount of vehicle thefts in this case), we'll continue to balance the script out until it fits well into the server. A lot of thought goes into these features so we want you to try them and enjoy them fully. This of course doesn't mean all schemes will become available to everyone, but we'll continue in our effort to make them more accessible and allow individuals to apply for some of them too. The changelog for today's patch is: - Fixed issue with inventory not loading if it had too many (~100+) of items. It will load the first 70 that you can move to access the rest - Vehicle theft has been made accessible to everyone level 4 and above for the time being - Added more vehicle theft containers, max 10 thefts can happen at once - Added max. amount of vehicle stolen over a rolling 8 hour period, currently set to 30 - Added messages sent to LSPD/LSSD when medics go on duty - Added /tems for LSFD - /outfit inside company and faction properties - Fix /setstation inside vehicles - Fix for businesses not getting correct visitor reward - Fix for company vehicles not being added for newly created companies We're planning another feature update ahead of this weekend to introduce long awaited Roadblock script. Spike strips are also in the works, but I'm not sure if we manage to push these out this week or the next so don't want to promise it yet. Some other bits currently being worked on are auto low settings per-player and per-property, graffiti system (not behind a scheme!), and more. Additionally, we've changed our #git settings to also include pushes into branches other than the master branch. This means you'll now see what our development is working on that wasn't merged into master or fully approved yet; so take it at that face value - what's being cooked. So keep in mind not everything will necessarily be brought to the table, too.

I think we've gathered enough feedback in regards to people's first impressions of the server. The thread has been derailed for a bit; please refer to a separate general discussion thread to discuss individual concepts, or suggestions board to discuss features. We've learned a lot and will continue to learn as we implement highly sought after features in the upcoming days and weeks. I hope we can show you that through consistent development and updates.

Hello, Today we're releasing our first Major Update 1.1. Let me share some thoughts on the features that are implemented, how the development process will change going forward, and what our immediate next plans are. We've listened to your feedback on forums, Discord, game, and basically anywhere you were willing to share it. I now understand just how important customization and the access to roleplay opportunities is important to our community and the updates from here on will reflect that. The full changelog is: - Added Tattoos - Added Makeup - Added business entrance rewards - Added loan extra payments & option to repay loan - Added another motorcycle and bicycle dealership with more showroom slots - Added ~1500 new furniture items - Added ~250 new hair styles - Added /confiscate for pd sd - Added LSFD siren, pager - Added auto cancelling inactive missions - Added Social Security payments even after level 3 (every 2.5 hrs instead of every 1 hour) - Added LSSD West Vinewood Station - Changes to the LSPD Traffic Station - Changes to the LSFD Faction Vehicles & Stations - Enabled weapon stores [setup may be pending] - Re-enabled reset appearance on UCP - Fixed dealership showroom vehicles not respawning - Fixed /localtime 0 - Disabled /extras for non-admin Tattoos Perhaps one of the most important missing pieces of character customization were tattoos. We decided to split the tattoo feature into three releases, with the base script starting today. You can find several tattoo shops around the map and use /tattoo to configure your appearance. The system allows you to specify 6 levels of opacity for each tattoo, it can be as transparent or as opaque as you want it to be. As with many things in the gamemode, we aim to create consequences for your character's actions. To remove a tattoo, you need to attend a laser removal session to decrease the opacity of the tattoo until it's completely gone. The lower the initial opacity, the faster it is to remove. This baseline tattoo script is released with the native tattoo set. We've reached out to Factions and are compiling a pack for faction-oriented tattoo, to give every type of a faction enough variation to represent their character accurately. If you'd like to be a part of this, please reach out to DDaniels. Custom tattoos are currently very high on our priority list and we already started working on them. In the third phase of the tattoo system roll out, we want to add faction/company specific tattoos and allow players to create their own tattoo parlors, to give unique tattoos to other players. Other Customization Besides tattoo, we've also added over 250 new hairstyles and over 1500 new furniture items. We've finally populated and enabled our makeup script - you can find a few beauty stores around the map marked by a blip of lips. The initiative of course doesn't end here and we're looking at adding more clothing items and accessories next. Economy We put a lot of thought and effort into our current economy system. We got some things right, but clearly we've missed the mark in some places. Here are some of the changes we've made in 1.1 to stimulate the economy: Social Security is extended past level 3. You will receive payments like before, except every 2 hours 30 minutes instead of every 1 hour of play time. Entrance Rewards for businesses. Your business can now be configured by Company Team to receive a cash reward for every unique visitor over a period of time. It's hard to extract the same profit from characters in-game as you can IRL, this system is meant to reflect realistic earnings a business would have. Our goal here is to promote RP and encourage players to set up businesses that are frequented by players. You can now make exceptional payments, or pay off any loans early with zero interest. All furniture items are temporarily free. The list does not end there. We're currently revisiting overall earnings once again, and will be increasing them in the near future. We won't be changing the economy model as a whole, but rather shortening the earnings cycle to allow everyone, regardless of their available time to earn more money. Release Cycle From here on, we'll focus on a more dynamic release cycle. We chose to bundle several highly requested features together for 1.1 and we won't be doing this for updates going forward. Instead of working on a single update for 2-3 weeks, we'll instead release features as they're ready. This will allow us to test faster and deploy more frequently. Player Retention The server roll out is currently going according to our predictions. After initial spike of interest, the numbers are starting to settle down and we're approaching a baseline for our community from where we can freely grow upwards. We do however understand that we could be doing much more for player retention. We've identified a few steps to take within the staff team and will be implementing them, if we haven't already, shortly. Thank you for all your extensive feedback. We value it and learn from it as we enter the new space that is GTA V.

Oh, hello there, [Player's Name], We are just over the moon thrilled to read your oh-so-constructive criticism of our roleplay server. The level of sarcasm you've sprinkled throughout your post is simply astonishing. But fear not, dear player, we are more than ready to respond in kind. You see, we are absolutely delighted that transitioning to a realistic and immersive economy has left you feelin' all warm and fuzzy inside. We apologize profusely for creating a system that challenges your desire for instant gratification. Who needs meaningful progression anyway, right? We'll definitely take note and revise our entire approach to cater exclusively to your whims. Ah, the favoritism accusation. That's a real gem right there. We are thrilled to inform you that our team members have been secretly organizing favoritism parties, where we hand out all the goodies to our dearest friends while you, my friend, are left toiling away for minimum wage. It's like a modern-day fairy tale, where only the chosen ones receive the treasures of the land. We are truly grateful for your suggestion to abandon any sense of realism and hand out duffel bags filled with virtual goodies without any justification whatsoever. Who needs immersive roleplay when we can just throw random items at players without rhyme or reason? It's the recipe for unparalleled excitement, isn't it? But fret not, because we have been diligently working on our ego-stroking skills. Nothing brings us more pleasure than making everyone dance to our arbitrary rules while we sit back and bask in our supreme authority. You are absolutely correct in assuming that none of our admins will ever experience the agony of spending hours on end fishing at Del Pierro pier. We just sip martinis and laugh maniacally as you grind away, my friend. In conclusion, we are truly humbled by your incredible insight and wisdom. Your suggestions will undoubtedly guide us on the path to becoming the greatest server of all time. We hope you continue to bless us with your delightful presence and your invaluable feedback. Sarcastically yours, [Your Team Name]

Both Faction Team and Company Team have schemes to reward RP with money. Not sure if the faction one has been officially announced yet, but reach out.

No, there's no nefarious motive behind it. We are brainstorming ways to get more people into the server and this was one of the ideas I found interesting so it was pushed out now.

Maybe give it a second chance at some point. Our economy is designed in a way that puts people who only have a couple hours a week to spare, and those that have all day every day, on a somewhat even playing field. It may not be 100% there yet, but that's our goal anyway.

Hello, I'm happy to announce starting today we're introducing a Referral Program. The LS-RP Referral Program allows you to earn Credits by inviting your friends to play Los Santos Roleplay. After signing up to the program, a unique link will be generated for you. You will receive credits for any player who clicks your link and starts playing LS-RP. You'll be able to use the Credits to redeem any items from the Premium Store. When a player invited by you spends 36 hours in-game across all their characters, you will receive 500 Credits. For any credit purchases made by players you've invited, you will receive 10% of their value, regardless of their time spent in-game. Any player signing up through your referral link will also receive 500 Credits after spending 36 hours in-game. For example, if a player you invited spends 36 hours in-game and purchases 2500 credits, you will be awarded 750 credits in total. This is one of the few initiatives we're starting to get more people interested in the server. Word of mouth is more powerful than anything, so if you're referring your friends to the server, we want you to have something in return. This isn't applicable retroactively, so it can't be used for any players who've already made an account. Applying it retroactively would open a whole pandora's box, so we decided against it. The system is live now on the UCP and you can find it in Premium Central > Referral Program. Yours truly, Martin

Hello, I'm happy to say that after a rocky first few days, our game server is now stable. If you were facing connection issues before, you should be able to log in game now. If you experience crashes after loading the game, this may be due to your mods or other issues we haven't properly diagnosed yet that affect a very small % of the playerbase. For the majority however, you're good to go in-game! If you're unsure how to, check out our How To Play step by step tutorial. Our main focus this past week has been stability and hotfixes. We'll be closing the suggestion board down sometime during the weekend to go over what's been posted so far and sort the suggestions between what's already been done, what we'll do and what we won't do. Join our Sunday's community meeting where we'll be more concrete about what the next feature priorities are, and how you can help decide the next steps. Here's some of the changelogs of recent server updates: - Added spawning at last location within 30 minutes of logout - Added /attributes, /examine - Added /phone, /ph to toggle phone - Added /phonenumber, /pn to view your phone number - Added /trunk support for a bunch of vehicles which have two doors in the back - Fix vehicle fuel not decreasing properly - Added vehicle /limiter - Added blacking out chatbox (/blackbehindchat, /bbc) - Added /togmap to toggle map radar - Last cycle of F7 now hides map radar and nametags - Fixed fuel not saving on /v park, /apark sometimes - Fix pagesize/chatsize sometimes setting to 1 line - Reworked vehicle access code to address crashes - Temporarily removed inventory limits - Fixed command delay - Fixed game crash related to MapTypesStore limits - /leavecompany /leavejob timer lowered to 30 minutes, 3 minutes for premium You can find changelogs on Discord's #changelog. See you ingame!