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RoryR last won the day on September 22 2023
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Ahh okay. Ngl it's impressive to see someone that dominant but would prefer to see more people up there fighting for 1st place tbh
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Based on today's quali pace I doubt it, would love to be wrong though
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Was nice to not hear the Dutch national anthem for a change ngl
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I might be biased because I RP there but it seems like a pretty good spot. Good split between housing / businesses, a number of factions based there, plenty of unclaimed businesses there too. There's one or two spots to add some rental cars as well.
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I think a big part of the issue in regards to the playerbase are these shock changes that come out of nowhere but have massive impact to people's experience. To list a couple, trucking was suddenly completely nerfed, then it was reverted, then another update which left it in a state it should've been originally. Another was the PF gun prices. Why would raising the prices 10x ever be a good idea? Even as a short term fix, it was ridiculous. It isn't even about the short term affects these changes have, but how they were so obviously the wrong decision to make and these types of decisions are made time and time again. And this is proven when the player count is noticeably affected when these sorts of changes are made. And that's a common theme, there's aspects of the script which make you think, or rather know, there hasn't been much forward thinking put into them or have been entirely glossed over. I remember one community meeting someone asked if you can sell a car once the loan is paid off, nobody knew. Considering how GTA servers are played, that is such a crucial thing to not only implement, but even know if it is implemented or not. It all just screams incompetence and poor management. The gambling scripts would be well received. A weekly lotto could bring a bit more excitement to the server. I'm picturing a lotto ticket item purchasable from 24/7s and the winner is picked automatically and announced, the money sent straight to their bank account. Blackjack would be a really good addition too. Poker would be great but could take a while to implement, nevertheless I think this and blackjack should be prioritised as it would make the gambling scene a lot more viable, as right now it's painful to use /rnumber and /dice and so on. Gambling is one of the things which tends to blur the worlds of legal and illegal RP as well which is why I think it's such an important thing for the server. The vehicle changes sound good, but it feels like there needs to be a bigger overhaul for how all this works. There's no way to preview the changes you're making to the car, and the mechanic controls it all. Instead the customer should be able to configure what they want done to their car, actually see it previewed on their vehicle, and then submit a request to the garage. The mechanic working for the garage can then accept this request and begin performing the roleplay for the job. To add on to this, more visual mods should be added like bumpers, side skirts, exhausts, wheel colours, etc. Performance mods should be added as well, but I think visual mods should be prioritised over them for now. On a similar note, add the ability to spawn in multiple vehicles at once. And why is /v setpark even a thing? Just make it /v park and you can park anywhere. I've also made a pretty lengthy suggestion here which would add a lot more depth to vehicles on the server and boost the second hand car market. It could be a bit overkill and a money sink for where the server and the economy is right now, but it is quite modular and could be implemented in phases. The furniture system, while already pretty good to be fair, is missing some key features which would make mapping much more user friendly. The ability to copy the location and rotation of one object and apply it to another would be very beneficial. It also seems like if objects do not face north, then using the static movement doesn't actually work, say if the object is facing north east, pressing up will move it towards north, and not north east, which is incredibly frustrating and makes mapping so much more time consuming when trying to line up walls and so on. What should take a couple seconds max can end up taking 30s - 1m, which when applied to a whole project, is substantial. Add more furniture items too. Having to retype /furniture and navigate through the furniture screen after performing certain actions wastes a lot of time too. If these things could be sorted then mapping would be so much faster. There also seems to be a lot of hand holding on the server which can slow things down. Why an admin needs to set the spawn point for the interior is beyond me. Players are given the freedom to map custom interiors but not choose where players spawn within those custom interiors? I don't even know what the reasoning would be for this, it seems like a pointless restriction. If someone is going to abuse it, police it when it is noticed, don't gatekeep the functionality for the entire playerbase just in case someone abuses it. Similarily selecting different interiors for your properties. This could be something that is done via the UCP and removes work for the admin team. Again, if an unsuitable interior is selected, that should be reported and dealt with accordingly, but put some trust into the playebase that 99% of people will pick appropriate interiors. On a similar note, custom interiors should have to match the exterior of the buildings. There seems to be a lot of interiors that are much bigger than the exteriors or have a completely different layour / footprint which does seem a bit cheaty. I think the gun and drug schemes could be changed massively. As @memooh mentioned, gun parts should be able to be bought on the darknet and you can assemble these to make a gun, this would also give illegal roleplayers more things to trade. Serial numbers on PF guns should be able to be filed off. Similarily PF guns should be a lot harder to acquire (but not more expensive). Make the process more time consuming (even if artificially inflated), require a test of sorts, some roleplay IG with a licensing official (an interview, check of the player's home to make sure the gun can be stored appropriately, etc). As for the drug schemes, you could add the ability to buy items and create drugs from them. Get seeds from the darknet and grow weed which takes time, requiring you to water the plants and so on. Other drugs like meth, all the chemicals could be bought which need to be combined in a series of actions to result in the end product. These seeds / chemicals can also be traded as well then. You get the idea. This doesn't need to replace straight up buying the drugs or guns, but go alongside it (and be cheaper). Another thing to keep in mind is software development takes time. Ideas are all good and well but they take a lot of effort and time to implement, so players can't expect the world immediately. Even these barebones features we are missing, don't expect those to come in a week or two. If people want to see the server grow and succeed, try to look past some of the downfalls for now and enjoy the server for what it is. You can still have a good time on the server if you seek this out. My faction The Road Slayers Motorcycle Club and I even struggle with this sometimes when thinking is it even worth hopping IG when we see the playerbase around 40 - 60, but then we do and open one of our businesses or host an event like our recent car show and end up having a great turn out and it motivates us to play more. It has to be said that the community here does feel a lot better considering the player count and people are more open to roleplaying with people, so just keep doing that, give the script time to mature and the playerbase and playing experience will no doubt improve.
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From the pre-release / fishing days
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Consequences & The Feel of Playing 2 Different Gamemodes at Once
RoryR replied to SCANDALOUZ's topic in General Discussions
The server definitely does not feel like a heavy RP server at times. Randomly being offered guns at the trucking depot, from another trucker, does not scream heavy RP. On the other side, seeing police drive just as badly, if not worse, just to catch someone and 'win' isn't the highest quality either. I can't really speak to the street gang RP because I haven't been involved in it, but it sounds like the quality is just as bad but in the form of constant DM. The people doing these things need to be educated that what they're doing doesn't align with the aims of the server. I don't think anyone should be banned or CKed or anything extreme, just pushed in the right direction. -
Why are there not more active businesses?
RoryR replied to For All The Dogs's topic in General Discussions
Businesses are slowly starting to open up, but there isn't much variety. Not exactly sure why business applications have been closed so early, especially when there seemingly aren't that many active businesses. -
It was brought up during the meeting but the answer was pretty much "we don't know", but what happens when a player wants to sell / get rid of their financed car?
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RoryR changed their profile photo
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Initial impressions: Overall UI looks really clean The phone functionality is really good The text messaging features are very impressive The banking app is very good Haven't used it fully yet but the car configurator thing looks really good too Money seems quite hard to come by, probably intentional and could be better off long term Considering rental properties are quite cheap and car financing is available, this doesn't seem like such a big deal Little bugs / places where some polishing is needed but other than that issue-free for the most part
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As others have said finding the balance of an economy in a game which is meant to be fun to play is really hard. I'd say just for the sake of realism and continuity of the server, I'd lean to a more realistic / restrictive economy. No one will ever be able to make a truly realistic economy, but I think as long as the staff are willing to step in and make changes if things start getting out of hand things will be fine. I'm not too sure about an actual economic model or anything, but I have a couple ideas of how the script and economy could interact. I'd like to hear people's thoughts on these suggestions and if you see any holes in them, especially the IRS organisation one. The economy will be a crucial part of the server and I think these changes would add quite a lot of realism to it. These additions would require a fair bit of effort from both the players (IRS members, receipt generation, etc.), as well as staff and developers for further planning something like this out and actually developing it, but overall I think it the realistic money laundering and tax evasion elements alone are worth it. Taxes Suggested types of taxes: Income tax (paid on any income earned personally, handled automatically but at least displayed/recorded for script based jobs) Sales tax (paid when selling and/or buying a goods or services, again handled automatically for script based things) Property tax (paid when selling and/or buying property, heavier taxes should be applied for those buying/selling more than one property) Wealth tax (paid based on a character's net worth when receiving a paycheck) High end vehicle tax (paid when buying high end vehicles to further restrict high end cars, could be extended to a tax each paycheck) For income, sales, etc. where tax isn't automatically deducted receipts would need to be generated. I'd suggest these being an in game item anyone is capable of creating which would be configurable to state X good or service was provided for Y amount on Z date. To stay on top of your taxes which aren't automatically handled, you would need to work out and pay the appropriate taxes each month. Would probably require some sort of IC web portal to be developed. I'm not too sure how receipts would be stored in game, as having an item for each receipt definitely wouldn't be the move. Perhaps they could initially be an item when first generated, but then you store them in a book / computer / something which stores it along with all other receipts which have been stored within it. You could argue that this is a lot of effort just to pay taxes, but it's realistic and adds more to the process of being a business owner / service provider. Would only really be necessary if the following suggestion was implemented in some form. IRS Organisation This organisation would primarily investigate large deposits of cash into banks, large transfers of money between bank accounts, and the finances of businesses. The organisation's members would have some sort of system which would display these deposits and transfers with some details for them to invesigate. The banks would of course have a character's basic details such as name, age, address and contact information. If businesses and business bank accounts are to be a thing, this would also include them and they'd have basic business information such as the industry, location(s), book keeper(s), etc. All of this would remain almost entirely IC and the investigators would need determine whether or not such deposits, transactions and sales are legal and/or legitimate. Purchases and expenses would need to be recorded as much as possible. From some of the videos released it seems like this is at least somewhat considered. The point I'm trying to make is there needs to be enough logging of transactions for there to be a reasonable and provable trail which someone could plead to the IRS. This is where the receipts for things where tax is not automatically handled would come into play. In theory you could operate a business / service without paying tax or keeping records. But if you were to ever get investigated by the IRS, you'd basically be screwed as you'd have no proof of your income, expenses, or wealth. This would also open up the possibility for underground versions of businesses such as casinos / gambling parlours. Cash heavy businesses would also be able to launder money by generating fake receipts. It may seem like you could just generate receipts to paint a picture of your business, which is true, but it would have to be realistic and believable. For example, a car wash's sales may typically be in the $20 - $100 range, so it would be strange to have multiple $500 receipts. Or over the course of a year 90% of your sales were in a 2 month period, something doesn't add up. For example, let's take the same car wash and say on average it makes $20,000 per month with an average sale of $20 (1000 sales). For a car wash to launder a sum of $10,000, they could generate some fake receipts and bump sales by 10%, totalling an extra 100 sales ($2,000 per month). They'd do this over 5 months and would've laundered $10,000 in a believable and realistic way which they could plead to the IRS if they were to ever investigate them. This is much more realistic and means that any illegally obtained money being laundered is tied up for some time, rather than simply doing '/me launders the money' in the back room of a business and calling it a day, and of course not all of that $10,000 would remain after paying some tax on it, but without the cost of actually making the sale. When it comes to money laundering, determining the legitimacy of a receipt is something that could be handled in a number of ways. The first method that comes to mind would be to have the seller be stated on the receipt, and optionally the buyer could sign it as well and provide their details. This would only make sense on large purchases such as a car or house, as you wouldn't offer your details and a signature for a $2 drink at a gas station. So maybe purchases over X amount are legally required to have a signature from both the seller and buyer for taxation reasons. I think the dates on receipts should be configurable when creating them, as if the current date/time was used that would pretty much completely nerf any possibility to launder money. Gambling Chips Gambling chips would be an item you would receive in exchange for real money. All legit and licensed casinos / gambling parlours would legally be required to have chips in play. I think the best way to do this would have a setting for gambling tables/lobbies to use cash or chips. This would mean players would be require to cash money in for chips when wanting to play, and exchange their chips for cash when wanting to cash out, receipts given for both. This would mean any winnings and losses could be kept track of and more importantly taxed. This alone would give enough reason for people to setup and play underground games. How the actual taxation of gambling winnings would be enforced is something I'm not set on. I think the best method would be to leave it down to the player using a public web portal of some kind once per month. This would mean that over the course of a month you could work out your overall winnings/losses from your cash in and cash out receipts and determine how much tax you should pay. IRS officers could also target casinos as a source of their duties and investigate frequent gamblers about their finances. You could make gambling tax automatic when cashing the chips in but I think that would be bad for a number of reasons: You only pay tax on how much you profit overall. For eaxmple say the tax on gambling winnings is 10% , one night you win $1,000 and pay $100 tax, then the next night you lose $500 and pay no tax, now you've paid too much tax. Keeping track of a gambling 'session' would be too difficult. People could time out, or cash in on Monday, keep everything in chips and then cash out on a Wednesday (after being given/giving away chips, server restarts/crashes, etc.) Relying on players to pay their own tax is more realistic, and introduces the opportunity for tax evasion which offers more RP for everyone involved. I had a thought that each casino could have its own unique chip item, but that might be a little too much and require more development than necessary. Some underground games may opt to use chips as well which is why I think there should just be a generic gambling chip item. You could also split it up into $1, $5, $10, etc. chips, but again may be more detail than needed. Crypto currencies This wouldn't be for investments, but rather alternative methods of transferring money. There would be an IC site (exchange) where you could buy various different crypto currencies for X amount, where X would always remain the same. These would be stored in an online wallet which can be unlocked by entering a username/account number (public key) and password (private key). You'd send money via usernames / account numbers and that would pretty much be it, just a way of sending money which wouldn't be able to be tracked by the IRS. I mentioned a choice of various different crypto currencies, but that's only for realism, they'd all behave the same and have no advantages over each other. Technically there could be a single, generic crypto currency. I don't think the value of these crypto currencies should ever change, that isn't really the purpose of this suggestion. At that point you're basically developing a fake stock market which sounds like it would just be a mess, so purely alternative transfer of funds - that's it.
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I think a lot of lessons have been learned from running the SA:MP server for so long, as well as seeing what has and hasn't worked on other GTA V RP servers (mainly GTA:W), so I'd say the overall running / organisation of the server. The script looks really clean and rich from what we've seen as well, just hope the whole script has that same quality and that we haven't only been shown the nice, flashy parts of it.
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A mostly legal gambler (casino rat)
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Casinos / Gambling Parlours I think to begin with there should be a small number of server owned casinos and gambling parlours. This would require scripts for poker, blackjack, slots, roulette. I don't think you'd need any more games than that but you could have others. Further down the line players would be able to acquire casinos and gambling parlours as you would for other businesses. Kind of an IC issue but they should probably require a gaming license, which should be limited in number to prevent 10s of casinos popping up. A license limitation would also open up the opportunity for underground games and establishments. A chips system could be added to add some more realism. At a casino you'd have to exchange your money for chips in order to play, each time you'd be given a receipt and have to pay tax on your winnings. IRS Business / Faction This might be better suited for the economy thread or elsewhere but an IRS organisation would be good. The main function of this would be to investigate any large transactions between players, as well as any large cash deposits. Some script support would need to be added of course. This could tie in with the gambling scripts quite well. Playing at legit casinos would require you to pay taxes on your winnings (not sure how best implemented to be honest) and the chips system would enforce this otherwise your winnings would be useless. Tax evasion would also incentivise underground games / gambling establishments which would create more RP for legal and illegal players alike. It'd also be one of those things which could blur the lines of illegal and legal RP for some players/characters which is usually a good thing.