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Mmartin

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  1. Mmartin

    We need to talk ...

    By Mmartin,


    Community Updates
    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
     
  2. Mmartin

    Clothing System Preview

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hello,
     
    We're still hard at work and today I'd like to give you a few development updates so you can see what we've been cooking up. Before anything though - I KNOW! You want to see some of that juicy illegal faction action. Drogas, gats, theft, all of that. Well sorry but not today.
     
    The Faction Team + some other members of our team have been hard at work preparing a thought-through bullet proof scheme to give our illegal scene the attention it deserves. LS-RP prides itself on being home to the most legendary factions of any online Roleplay community and we want to be sure we're doing things right before we start parading them around. So shoutout to all of you and I promise I'll show you some stuff you're going to love soonTM
     
    For the time being, let's talk about our clothing system. Which is your favorite hoodie? Is it Drawable 92, texture 12? Or Drawable 200, texture 0? You know... the yellow looking o-- forget about it. Forget about sliders and arrow buttons to click through every clothing item out there.
     
    Highlights
     
    The system is entirely integrated and you will never have to think about an undershirt again. If a shirt has an undershirt counterpart, the system detects it and uses it. There are no concepts of "undershirts" visible to the player. You can see a preview of any clothing item in your inventory, or in a store - without even trying it on. Some items have alternative states (hoodies with hoods on, unzipped jackets, etc). You can switch between those & the system will match your perfect undershirt for it. Just make sure it's compatible, or you'll be walking about with your belly button out. Clothing items are inventory item entities, which means you can store them in furniture (drawers, closets). They can be placed in bags, given to other players, stolen, etc. Different stores will hold different types of clothing items. Don't go looking for a fancy suit in Sub Urban. We're adding custom models for clothing. We aren't decided yet whether to use IRL brands or not. Let me know what you think about that.  
    TL;DR, show me the video
     
     
    Besides that, there's still a lot of work going on behind the scenes. We're preparing electronics stores, character applications (which should open soon for our Patreon supporters), Kane's cooking up a great damage & death system and much more.
     
    It's been great to see the community engagement since we've opened the forums up. Love seeing new and old faces around. Thanks for all the support, can't wait for you all to play!
     
    Kind regards,
    Mmartin
     
  3. Mmartin

    July Update

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hey everyone,
     
    I'd like to update you on what's been going on the last few weeks. We've resumed development in a limited capacity after I had to take some time off due to personal issues and boy we've got a lot to talk about. As promised, it's July 13th so we're bringing you more information on the release timeline.
     
    When does LS-RP come out?
    Given the scope of remaining work & testing, we're currently targeting to release in August. Vast majority of features are either finished or in final stages of development. All features will be re-tested in the coming weeks in case our latest work messed with anything made previously. Concrete date will be given at least 7 days prior to release. This is to ensure that in case we encounter an abnormal amount of hiccups, we don't have to postpone. I know you'd rather a number to look forward to, but I'm sure you'd rather not have to see another delay announcement. I know I don't want to write one.
     
    Where are the snippets?
    The hype we had built for the February release date was something that'll be hard to replicate. Or at least so I thought until we hit a record number of attendees on our first staff meeting back (over 50 at one point!). Some of the activities such as development streams will be left out for the time being to maximize productivity; however as a part of our release campaign to build up interest and hype again we'll be posting a new snippet every day — Starting today. Some snippets, such as today's one, will be accompanied by a short description to give you more insight into our thought process.
     
    So join us on Discord at discord.gg/ls-rp so you don't miss any of them.
     
    Patreon
    As of July, we've paused our Patreon billing cycle. We've raised enough funds to get us off the ground and any further funding will have to be secured through a product/credit purchase in our web store, after we launch. As a token of appreciation and an apology for the extended delay, we'll also be adding 20% credits on top to every patron who supported us (example; 10 EUR tier * 6 months = 120 EUR * 120% = 144 EUR worth of credits).

    In conclusion, the next few weeks will be us wrapping up, merging finished features into the main codebase and getting ready for the big day. Once again thank you for your patience, feedback and enthusiasm. Hope you're enjoying summertime; see you around on Discord
     
    Martin
     
  4. Mmartin

    We're done.

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hey all,
     
    If you've been following along on Discord you've probably seen the great amount of progress we've been able to accomplish lately. I'm happy to say that after overcoming more hurdles than I was ready for, we're now done with feature development for the release.
     
    Over the last month especially, we've been pushing hard to bring the last necessary features through the finish line. We decided to include more than initially planned because we felt like the server just couldn't launch without them. As much as all you really need to roleplay is a little more than /me, /do and IC chat; we're determined to start with a foundation that allows us to build the next big thing in the GTA V RP scene.
     
    As of tonight, we're starting the feature freeze and enter the very last phase of development, the final testing. During this phase we'll focus on fixing the bugs we caught along the way, and any new ones that come up from the recently introduced features. We currently stand at 7 critical and 18 major bugs that we have to deal with before launch. Like I mentioned, this number may grow a bit before it all falls near zero. 
     
    To help us accomplish this, we've appointed @jack as our head of quality assurance and recently took @Duco on board into the development team; welcome! They, along with the rest of the development & staff team have been very helpful in that final push just ahead of the finish line. Since we'll go full ham on re-testing everything now, we should have a clear picture about the amount of work we still need to do to fix & prepare everything and should have a release date ready very soon.
     
    I want to thank you all once again for the incredible patience you've had while we create something we can honestly be proud of. Our test server has been open to the early supporters for a few weeks now and it's been incredible to see dozens of players ingame on the gamemode that I've played solo or with just a few staff members for what feels like forever now. If you are an early supporter and haven't joined the test server yet you should; it's a lot of fun and I can't wait for it to be open to everyone.
     
    In an effort to increase transparency, we also made the #test-git channel on Discord available for everyone a while back. You can see real time changes being pushed to our codebases there and see what's being worked on. So if you haven't yet, join our Discord for updates as soon as changes happen.
     
    See you all IG soon!
  5. Mmartin

    December 1st Development Update

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hello everyone,
     
    As we enter December (already?? time flies when you're having fun), I'm eager to share some of the development and general progress updates. The last few weeks were once again very productive and even though there's still a lot of work and polish to be done, we're inching closer to an MVP every day.
     
    One of the major achievements over the last two months was that we were able to put together a final list of features for release, including detailed blueprints of how these features will work. This allows us to focus on development only as an overwhelming majority of the brainstorming is already done. If everything goes according to plan, we should be ready to announce a concrete release date within a week. The release date depends on how many issues we encounter during testing, how busy I'll be with work and how smoothly our final infrastructure deployment goes.
     
    Let me highlight some of the features we've worked on recently to hopefully satisfy your hunger for the new LS-RP.
     
    Drug System
    One of the most difficult systems for me to approach was the drug system. Every drug on the server will be unique in the effects it provides. These effects are divided into three categories - Visual, Positive and Negative. It's almost an art to find a way to balance the three aspects of each drug, while keeping them unique and desirable. We're launching with a handful of drugs only, but we already have plans for the near future to expand the system with more and more substances.
     
    Visual Effects
    Some of the drugs will have visual effects that affect the player's graphics and camera. With every drug, visual effects start as barely noticeable to mild for small and regular doses. The effects get more pronounced and wonky the more high you get, so it's up to you how much of the visual experience you want.
     
    Positive & Negative Effects
    While no drug will make you a superhuman, some of them tie into the damage system to give you an edge one way or another. The type and-or scale of the effect is different for each drug. It's worth noting that it also depends on the dose you take, in case of overdoing it, you might be overwhelmed by the negative effects more than helped by the positive ones. This paragraph is intentionally vague to encourage exploration after launch 🙂
     
    Other interesting aspects of the system include an overdose script, which is different for alcohol, stimulants and opiates. Make sure to keep a Narcan handy!
     
     
        
     

     
     
    MDC
     
    The MDC on LS-RP was light years ahead of any other SA-MP server and we're aiming to achieve the same on GTA V as well. The UI is a simulated old Windows-like OS, complete with a window management system, process system and different programs for Legal tasks. The MDC will be available to the PD, SD, FD and GOV to handle their duties. We aim to move as much game-related functionality and record keeping into the game, instead of using external tools.

     

     

     
    In Conclusion
    Once again I'd like to say that your support and patience has been great. It's rewarding to see the interest and hype surrounding this project and I can't wait to jump in game with all of you to Roleplay in Los Santos again. Big thanks to everyone on our Discord and forums for keeping the community active, and everyone on Patreon for making the launch of this project possible. Exciting stuff, can't wait to show you everything else we've been cooking up 🙂
     
    If you'd like to join us on Discord, come over at https://discord.gg/ls-rp - check out the #snippets channel for exclusive content!
    If you'd like to support the project, please consider a pledge on our Patreon, over at https://patreon.com/lsrpcom
     
    Kind regards,
    Martin
     
  6. Mmartin
    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
  7. Mmartin

    Release Update

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hello,
     
    As I mentioned on Discord already, due to reasons out of our control we are unable to release on the 24th as originally planned. This is due to real life circumstances and an attempted break-in into my apartment because of which I had to spend the last week and some change making sure my family and I are safe. Although I've gotten some of my time back to focus on the finalizing work I would've been doing, I'm still not 100% back and won't be for the next few days as it's an evolving situation & ongoing police investigation. 
     
    Can't say this pleases me, since we were going to be able to make it on the 24th but shit happens. Server will come out very soon. We'll post 24 hours in advance once we're ready so you can adjust your schedule. During the time I've been dealing with this mess, the rest of the team was hard at work getting what they can ready & tested. Huge shout-out dev team, leads & the entire staff team. Shoutout to our Discord too which is growing RAPIDLY - love to see all the activity there.
     
    You'll see things rolling out this week, such as faction threads being open, new features on the UCP, & other parts of the server before the game server itself opens.
     
    Thank you for understanding & your continued support — appreciate you all. It'll be worth it in the long run and I know you know.
     
    - Martin
  8. Mmartin

    Forum Launch, Character Applications

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hey all,
     
    As we announced earlier this month, we're opening up the Community Forums to everyone tonight! We did our best to set up all boards that are necessary for now, if you feel like something's missing then you can share your thoughts in the General Discussion topic on forum improvements. We did stress-test the forum, but nothing really compares to real-life traffic, so please bare with us in case of any issues, we'll resolve them as soon as we can.
     
    Character Applications
    I'm sure you're wondering if you're going to be able to create a character before the server launch and the answer is - yes of course! We're already working on a new and improved application system. The applications are set to launch in advance before the server opens for you to get your character ready. In order to not overwhelm our team with handling applications, we're going to open Early Access Applications on the 19th of October, for everyone who's a "Early Supporter #2" or higher tier on Patreon at the time of submitting their application. This perk is also a replacement for the Community Forum Early Access perk, which becomes invalid tonight.  
     
    We don't currently have a date for when the applications open for everyone, but I'll make sure to let you know in advance.
     
    Kind regards,
    Martin
  9. Mmartin

    Future of LS-RP

    By Mmartin,


    General
    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
     
  10. Mmartin

    Applications Open

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hello,

    As of this moment, registrations and character applications are open for everyone for up to three characters. Head over to https://ucp.ls-rp.com/ and create a character. The character creation server remains locked for our Patreon supporters until the 20th of February, when it becomes available for everyone. Please be patient with us tonight in case there's any issues — we'll try to iron them out as soon as we can.
     
    Also, everyone gets to take a quiz to get a refresher on our rules and general RP etiquette!
     
     
    Please note we don't currently offer a path to account recovery. If you've lost access to an account you've had in the past, we aren't able to help you. You can try resetting your password, or making a new account.
     
    See ya IG soon,
    - Martin
     
  11. Mmartin
    Hey everyone,
     
    We're now just a little over two weeks before our scheduled release and new features are getting added into our game mode left and right. There's still a lot of work remaining and we're going full steam ahead, though I can really tell it's all slowly coming together. Allow me to give you a few updates on the upcoming two weeks so you know what to expect.
     
    Character Applications
    Everyone will be able to submit a character application starting February 14th. Until then the applications remain locked for our Patrons only. We anticipate a large amount of applications, so if you want to be 100% sure yours gets handled in time for the release, I suggest you submit it before the 14th.
     
    Similar story goes for the character creation server, which will become available to the public on February 20th. You will be able to customize your character however many times you wish before the server launch. After launch, you won't be able to alter an existing character appearance - just set it once and it's done.
     
    Staff Reinstatements
    We've decided on all staff reinstatements submitted and will be announcing & processing them on February 14th along with public character applications.
     
    Development Updates
    Due to the sheer amount of updates that are happening recently and how close we are to release, I won't bore you with paragraphs; here's some screenshots instead.
     

     

     

     

     

     
    Etc. If you've been keeping up with #snippets on our Discord, you've probably seen some of these already.
     
    On a personal note ...
    Today also marks a special occasion for me personally — it's exactly ten years since I got accepted into LS-RP and started roleplaying. It's been a wild ride and what excites me the most is that it's nowhere near over. The opposite actually, we're inching closer and closer to the next chapter for the community and I can already tell it's going to be awesome. The sheer amount of energy, effort and dedication from everyone starts to show and despite any hurdles we may encounter during launch, I'm certain we've got something great on our hands. Anyway, I'll save the speech for later; just wanted to thank you for keeping me entertained for the past ten years, and letting me create cool shit for you to enjoy for most of them.
     
    Stay posted & Keep in touch

    - Mm
     
    https://discord.gg/ls-rp
    https://www.patreon.com/lsrpcom
    https://twitter.com/lsrp_official/
    https://www.youtube.com/c/LosSantosRoleplay
    https://twitch.tv/mmartin_
     
     
  12. Mmartin

    October Staff Update

    By Mmartin,


    Community Updates
    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
  13. Mmartin
    Hey everyone,
     
    June 16th (2023)
    is when we want to go live. Here's a summary from today's Community Meeting detailing how we'll get there. 
     
    We're finishing the last bits of work and fixing what's remaining of our release-blocking bugs. Over the last week, we fixed 24 bugs and we've 2 blocking remaining, both of which are simple to fix, we just haven't gotten around to them with the amount of work yet.
     
    The Communications Team ran a survey recently and among other things, it's clear that three things are of the utmost importance to the player base. Transparency & communication, character customization and a fair staff team & roleplay quality. We've done our best to hit these three points in the weeks and days leading up to the announcement. With establishment of the Communications Team, I'm happy to see positive feedback on the first point, Sal has done an amazing job so far bridging the gap that was forming between the leadership and the community. We've implemented some last minute, yet very important script changes to allow for further character customization as well; not limited to a more open-ended clothing system, more granular character customization, Menyoo imports and so on.
     
     The release timeline is as follows:
    Finish remaining bugfixes and script work until 31st of May. Code freeze 31st of May, or 1st of June, depends on how things go. Jun 1st - Jun 6th, Production deployment and setting up the main server. Jun 1st - Jun 6th, Along w/ prod setup; Fixing custom mods to comply with latest R* & RageMP policies. Jun 7th, Pre-release & Production Testing. We'll open up the main server to Premium members and staff, to make sure everything is working as it should. Apply hotfixes as needed and finish setting up whatever is left over that needs completing. Jun 16th, Release Date.  
    While some of these dates may change by a day or two, we're set to release on June 16th 2023. More information on the pre-release opening will come as we approach that date.
     
    In the meantime, here's a quick update from our sub teams and what they're working on:
     
    Sub-teams Updates
    Aside from the Development and script situation, many of our sub-teams are actively working towards ensuring that the launch goes as smoothly as possible. These include: 
    Modding Team: Still updating branded textures. Mapping: New Head of Mapping assigned: Duco. Legal Factions: Additions to FD roster. Company Management: Awaiting launch. Property Management: Rental properties being set up. Player Support: Wiki population continues. Faction Team: Contrabrand and Prison schemes approved.  
    Communications Update
    We talked through some of the survey results and actions being taken as a result, including:
    Communications Team established  Menyoo importation added Character customisation options added Recruitment focuses prioritised for specific factions Ensuring Visions for the server as a whole match with everyone's expectation Speaking to Team leaders to feed back relevant findings from the survey Continue surveying for overall sentiment  
    Feature Showcase & Demonstration
    This week we gave community members an exclusive look at the Trucking system - we'll be uploading the video to our YouTube channel a bit later in the week. 
     
    Once again I want to thank everyone for their patience and support. This is it baby, we're in the final stretch. 
     
    See you IG soon,
    Martin
    on behalf of the LS-RP Team
     
     
  14. Mmartin

    Major Update 1.1

    By Mmartin,


    Development 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. 
     
  15. Mmartin

    Pre-release

    By Mmartin,


    Community Updates
    Hello,
     
    The game server is now open for pre-release. You can join server.ls-rp.com if you have an accepted character, and active Premium Membership. If you're an early supporter, you're now able to redeem your credits at https://ucp.ls-rp.com/ and activate Premium Membership.
     
    The goal of the pre-release is to test the game mode in production before the gates open during the full release. We're happy to invite you in game, however bear in mind that you may encounter a few bugs or some of the scripts not fully set up yet. We'll work tirelessly around the clock in the next week to deal with fixes and finetuning to make the main launch as smooth as we can. Be ready to endure a bunch of restarts and other minor inconveniences as we work on the final polish. I'll note a few things here that I feel many would be asking:
     
    - There won't be a wipe before the main release. We intend to keep everything; however we reserve the right to remove assets from any account if it's necessary due to an exploit we found, or a misconfiguration that caused people to gain money too quickly.

    - Everyone spawns with $500 in cash and will receive $285 into their bank account every 60 minutes spent IG, until you reach level 3. This is considered starting cash but instead of a lump sum it's spread around. We know that the economy is very important for long term stability and are ensuring that there are systems in place to monitor economic growth, inflation and any abnormalities.  
     
    - Rental properties are set up. There will be no personal property ownership in the very near future before the economy is stabilized. We've had some issues with our interior mods and had to change course last minute, so all properties currently have the same 2 basic interiors. This will change over the course of the next week as we add presets our mapping team has been working on. Everyone who rents a property will get one free property interior change to choose what they like.
     
    - There's a grace period of three weeks starting tonight where you don't have to get a driver's license. Law enforcement won't punish you for not having one. You can do all the jobs, with the exception of trucking, for that you've to get a driver's license and CDL. You've these three weeks to get a license.
     
    - Accessories (watches, hats, etc) will become purchasable in clothing stores throughout the week, to be set up.
     
    - Why premium only? We want the pre-release a bit more controllable to find immediate issues that pop up. We also want to reward players who've financially supported the server and allowed us to pay the bills to spin everything up for everyone. Release for everyone is scheduled for next Friday, time TBD.
     
    - You're expected to play as if the server was fully released. Make sure to follow the RULES as they'll be enforced. Stay In Character at all times, like you normally would. If you have an issue, please submit a /report or a /helpme request. 
     
    - Please remember that this is only the first iteration of the server, and we will be continually improving (not just fixing bugs) as we continue to grow. We will be releasing a list of features included at launch, as well as upcoming features ordered by priority. Community surveys and feedback will play a vital role in shaping the future of the server, so keep an eye out for these when they are published. 
     
    Our mission is to provide a fair, fun and enjoyable server for our community. If there is a feature not currently included in the server, or you have strong opinions or thoughts on things we must take into consideration for the server’s launch, please post these in the suggestions board. 
    Please bear with us as we iron everything out and get everything ready for the official public launch, set for next Friday, 16th June, time TBD. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
     
    See you in game!
  16. Mmartin

    Server Release

    By Mmartin,


    Community Updates
    Hello,
     
    The server has been released. The IP is server.ls-rp.com:22005
     
    I want to thank everyone who helped make this happen. The development team for creating an incredible piece of software, and our entire staff team for thousands of hours of testing and valuable input. It's great to see so many experts and generally passionate people come together to make something out of pure drive to do the best they can. I also want to thank our community for the continuous support through thick and thin. We made this for you, I hope you'll enjoy it.
     
    Just to give you some insight, we've spent over 8000 hours on the test server. During development, around 800 bugs were found and reported, most of which were fixed. The entire stack is proudly made in house, with the exception of purchased maps and mods.
     
    Before you hop in-game, please allow me to leave you with a note for the following days. Keep an open mind and explore the server. See what's around. Some features were intentionally omitted to release as soon as we can. If you feel like things could be improved, please make a suggestion, we'll let the community vote on what the priorities are. The next weeks will be primarily finetuning and bugfixes with the odd feature sprinkled in-between. I wouldn't advise you to spend too much time in the character creator in the first few days during peak as despite our best efforts to avoid it, there may be some instabilities and we'd hate for you to lose your character creation progress. You can reset and start over with your appearance until 1st of July. You can also import a Menyoo XML if you'd prefer.
     
    The server may be unstable in the following days, should any unforeseen issues arise. Rest assured we'll be on top of any issue immediately and keep you informed throughout.
     
    There's a grace period for getting a Driver's license of two weeks starting from today. Take your time to get it, it doesn't have to be today, the police won't ticket you. Robberies and scams are not allowed for the time being, they'll be allowed shortly. 
     
    Special note to factions old and new, I know your eyes are on us. I understand the expectations you have and we'll work to make LS-RP the place to be for faction roleplay. Give us time, let us work things out and I'm sure you'll love it.
     
    And that goes for everyone — hop in-game and enjoy the game. This is the start of the second generation of Los Santos Roleplay, and you were here.
     
    - Martin, on behalf of the LS-RP Staff
  17. 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
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
  19. Mmartin

    ATM Preview

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hey all,
     
    This is the first post I'm making in 2022 so I'd wish you a happy new year and all that, but I feel we're all over that already given it's the 20th. That being said, there's no doubt 2022 will be the year of LS-RP. To kick the showcase off for the year, I'd like to show you what I've been working on for the past few days on and off - the ATM feature. The video is pretty self explanatory so I'll skip right to the chase.
     
     
     
    We created a part of this system LIVE on Twitch. If you'd like to see more development streams, let me know in the replies; also let me know which feature you'd like to see being developed! (Visual ones, such as the ATM interface are easier to do live).
     
    I'll try to bring you more updates in the form of posts and videos in the coming days as we finalize some cool features; in the meantime you can check out #snippets on Discord for the odd tease here and there.
     
    Thank you all for the continued support, whether it's here on forums, Discord, my DM's, or directly on Patreon. Let me know what you'd like to see next.
     
    Yours truly,
    Martin
     
     
     
  20. Mmartin

    Nostalgia

    By Mmartin,


    Community Updates
    Hey all,
     
    Hope you're ready for a trip down memory lane because as of now, our legacy forums are available to be viewed again. They've been transformed into a read-only mode, you won't be able to make, or edit any posts or send messages. So head on to check out the history of LS-RP and grab whatever you were missing over the years.
     
    We've also made a thread in General Discussion to share cool finds.
     
    Please note that the forums come with zero warranty or support. If you can't log in, lost access, or anything similar, you're out of luck. We'll make sure they go back up should the forums crash, but we don't currently have any resources to provide any support at all. Also please keep in mind that the forums are over 10 years old, filled with data and running on outdated software. They will be slow, especially from the beginning as the cache populates. Big shoutout to @Ben who took the time to prepare the forum for release.
     
    Happy browsing! 
     
     
  21. Mmartin

    Economy Update

    By Mmartin,


    Community Updates
    Hey all,
     
    The server's economy is very important to us. You know this because we've been talking about "trying to get it right" for a while now. This article should give you a brief overview of the system we will have in place, and some changes being made today.
     
    Our goals with the server economy are:
    - In-game prices should reflect real life prices
    - People should not get rich quick
    - Grinding shouldn't give players major advantage
    - Money is a tool to facilitate roleplay
    - Players should have access to assets without a stockpile of cash
     
    Mission Rewards
     
    Our initial formula to set paychecks was that if a player spends 7 hours working in-game, they should earn an equivalent of a week's pay for the same job IRL. For example if a lawn mower makes $673/wk IRL, player doing the job should earn $673/7hr, or $96/hr. This formula is flawed because it's linear and gives advantage to players who can spend more time doing the script job.
     
    Our solution to that are tapered paychecks. Effective today, you'll earn more money per mission initially, but the more you work, the less you earn. After 2 hours, it will be borderline not worth it to continue working just for the money. The IRL weekly pay equivalent is still split between 7 hours, with each reward being exponentially lower. This limit is reset every 8 hours, after which you'll earn the full amount again. Here's a real-life example of how this formula works:
     

     
    There are several advantages to tapered paychecks:
    - They allow players with less time to spend in-game to earn money without grinding, and doesn't put more active people into an immediate advantage.
    - They allow players to focus on roleplay and not sacrifice a significant portion of their ingame time to earning money just to get by.
    - They will take strain off of the job script at launch.
     
    People who enjoy doing the jobs could see this change in a negative light because of the diminishing returns. Alternative rewards, such as the CDL XP will still be applied as before. We will look for other alternative rewards for the other missions. That being said, the tapering paychecks will also serve a good purpose by forcing people off of script jobs to RP.
     
    These changes of course apply to faction paychecks as well. Along with a hourly pay, each rank has an assigned "Reward Cycle Limit".
     
    tl;dr: Rewards will go up, but taper off over time. Like XP in CS:GO.
     
    Vehicle Prices
     
    Many of you rightfully pointed out that the vehicle prices we set at pre-release were incorrect. The differences in prices are too significant one way or another to correct for this manually, so we've opted to refund all vehicles. Shortly after this message is posted, all of the following will be refunded: Vehicle purchase (/buy), vehicle down-payments, loan interest payments, loan principal payments, vehicle number plate changes (credits). All vehicles will be detached from their characters, and all loans will be marked as paid. These loans will later be deleted from the database, to not skew the statistics and your character's credit, once that's a thing.
     
    We apologize for the inconvenience, however this is an expected part of the pre-release.  You can see the detailed list of vehicle changes here. In addition, we also lowered the interest rate on all vehicles to 5%. This, in combination with faster earnings from the tapered paychecks should give you more purchasing power.
     
    Other Updates
     
    Besides that, we're working on a plan to support both active and passive roleplay based companies with favorable loans and grants. This is a careful process as we don't wish to inflate the economy by injecting it with unreasonable amount of cash, so bear with us as we finalize the proposal. A separate scheme is cooked up for factions.
     
    We've adjusted the way trucking is paid based on the CDL Level you currently have. Lower levels earn less, higher levels earn more. Lower levels have a lower reward cycle limit, higher levels have the limit raised higher. We've also added more trucking routes, more loading bays, larger containers for the mules, and support for vans. We will be making CDLs bound to character ID instead of character name soon. People who've purchased their CDL twice will have their XP merged.
     
    To continue monitor and adjust the course of the economy, we'll be establishing an Economy Team. This team will be led by people with background in economics and finance. They will have access to the tools necessary to monitor the flow of money on the server, and work with development to cover blind spots.
     
    It's important to remember the economy will be tweaked further. This is not its final form, just first significant change.
     

     
     
     
  22. Mmartin
    Hey everyone,
     
    Today we're launching character customization for those who already have an accepted character and are a member of our staff, insider program or an active1 patron. To find out if you're eligible, simply log in on ucp.ls-rp.com and you will see a prompt:
     

     
    After whitelisting your IP, give it a few minutes and you'll be able to connect to server.ls-rp.com using your RageMP client, where you log in with the same details as into the UCP. After that, you'll be prompted to choose a character and customize it. 
     
    You can customize your character as many times as you want pre-launch. If you don't like where you left off, you can return another day and change it entirely. This is something that won't be available after launch - key features of a character won't be adjustable with a few minor exceptions. We're working on adding more outfits, especially female ones, so you'll be able to go back and change it as well.
     
    If you face any issues with the character creator tool, please reach out to our staff team on Discord and they'll be able to guide you, or forward your issue to our development team. RageMp released an update today to a core system we're using in the character creator; so we anticipate there may be some issues. Last thing worth noting is that we've heard you and we'll be increasing the character slots to 2 pre-launch, probably sometime next week.
     
    TL;DR
    Make sure you have an accepted character and are insider, staff, or active patron Whitelist yourself on ucp.ls-rp.com Wait a few minutes for the whitelist to refresh Connect to server.ls-rp.com on RageMP ??? Profit  
    Kind regards,
    Martin
     
     
     
    1 We've chosen for "active" patrons only to provide a new incentive for folks who keep supporting the project even after creating their character. If you aren't an active patron anymore, you will be able to customize your character once, a day or two before launch.
     
  23. Mmartin
    What up LS-RP Fam,
     
    Since the announcement of feature freeze we've been grinding testing, bug fixing and final touchups. So far we've confirmed over 46 bugs to be fixed and another 24 are pending retesting after they've been addressed by the development team. As it is, we face another 7 critical, 28 major and 73 minor bugs. While we'll try to address as many as we can, the main pre-release focus is on the critical & major ones. Despite a bunch of bugs being found recently as testing ramped up, I'm happy to say we're fixing them much faster than finding new ones — that's good!
     
    We also reached out to our Early Supporters who have access to the test server to gather their feedback and first impressions. We've compiled a list of low effort high impact improvements we'll sprinkle in between the bug fixes. Those include importing character appearance from Menyoo, adding more keybind alternatives to commands and vice versa, various UI improvements to make life easier and more.
     
    While it's hard to quantify because each bug is different, I'd say we're about halfway through the testing and data filling process. I'd like to remind you that if you'd like to follow our progress more closely, the #test-git channel on Discord is just the place for that, as you'll see changes as they get merged to the main codebase.
     
    LS-RP Trailer Remastered
    If you've been around long enough I'm sure you remember the legendary trailer posted in 2011. To get everyone in the mood we remastered the video with the current game mode. Big thanks to danielswe for directing the remaster, Xanakin for putting the clips together, and everyone from staff & early supporters who participated in the recording. Enjoy!
     
     
  24. Mmartin

    September Update

    By Mmartin,


    Community Updates
    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
     
  25. Mmartin

    Internet & Updates

    By Mmartin,


    General
    Hey all,
     
    As another week went by we're back to give you an update on what we've been up to. The week was very productive in terms of infrastructure setup, but we've also got some visual things to show so let's get into it.
     
    Community
    Last Wednesday we opened our community forums to all of our Patreon supporters. We're slowly getting the forum, and the entire community suite into a state where we feel happy inviting everyone soon (October 1st) - it looks better every day. Out of nowhere, our Discord actually reached Level 3 boost thanks to your support, which is just great to see. We've also recruited a few new members into our Faction, Modding and Mapping teams; this puts us into a position where we now have an expert for every area of the server that we could think of. Overall the activity's been amazing and I'm very thrilled to see all of us working towards a common goal.
     
    Development
    Although the main focus of this week's game mode development was bug fixing, small features and improvements as we take a deep breath before diving into yet another advanced feature after Inventory, there's still some progress to show as far as new features go. We've had the idea of an In Character internet for a while and the prototype's been done for months now, but we pretty much finished the feature this week. Our goal is to have an enclosed, In Character internet which integrates into many of our script features. Not only that, but companies, factions, businesses or even individuals will be able to create a website to reach their audience better. See for yourself:
     
     
    On the other front of Development, the Modding Team has been working hard to create and collect mods to use on the server. The main focus this week have been liveries for IC agencies and assets for a wide spectrum of players (leo, illegal, prison). A discussion has been started in the Mapping Team, in collaboration with the SD and Faction Team as to how we want to make the prison work.
     
    Factions
    The Faction Team Council has agreed upon and presented a schedule for the Faction Team to work through over the course of the next 4 weeks, this consists of:
    Rules of Engagement & Faction Reports Distribution Schemes & Turf Map Official Illegal Factions & Illegal Systems Faction Properties & Leasing  
    The team is currently focusing on week 1 and has started reviewing the current Rules of Engagement, as well as the way Faction Reports are handled. With the Rules of Engagement being LS-RP's core function for the Illegal Roleplaying scene, members within the faction team are consulting and editing what they deem would fit LS-RP's GTA:V server.
     
    At the end of each week, the Faction Team will be holding a meeting to provide a general overview and agree on what should be implemented. You can expect a more detailed post after conclusions have been made. 
     
    Legal Faction Boards
    We successfully set up all legal factions with their new forums. The structure isn't all that different from what we've had previously on lsgov, but before setting them up we polled all legal faction leaders to see what challenges they faced with the previous setup, so we can improve in these areas. We've taken steps to make sure the new forums can be easily maintained, the software is always up-to-date and faction leaders have access to uploading custom content (ranks/images) without the assistance of a Developer.
     
    I hope this post gives you some insight on what's currently going on. We've some exciting projects in our sights for the next week, so don't forget to check back as we announce these. If you aren't a member of our Discord, come chat with us and check out cool snippets before they hit the website or YouTube.
     
    https://discord.gg/ls-rp
     
    Kind regards,
    Mmartin
    on behalf the LS-RP Staff

Los Santos Roleplay

Los Santos Roleplay is a text-based heavy roleplay community on GTA, providing gamers a creative space to play since 2007

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