Martin_Busato

Given how far the server has fallen and with many capable people leaving for various reasons over the years, there's no question finding a suitable leader is a tall task. What I would like to see is a proven, respected, experienced leader and roleplayer who brings forth a vision that the community will rally behind; a uniter and strong team-builder who is willing to put the community's interests ahead of their own, meaning compromising their own personal desires for the greater good and reinvesting donation money into improving the server instead of lining their own pockets. They need to be taking the job out of their love for LSRP. In my mind, it doesn't have to be a current or former administrator because many of the most capable people for this position have never had the desire to climb the staff ranks due to the menial tasks involved and would rather focus on roleplaying, but they may have interest in a monumental position like this where they can focus on big picture solutions that brings life back to LSRP. No matter who it is—whether they have prior LSRP staff experience or not—they will have strengths and weaknesses, so they will need to be an effective delegator who can keep the ship moving in the right direction. They certainly don't need to treat it like a full-time job but they do need to be available regularly enough to oversee the operation properly and engage with the community. I don't know who would be interested but I'm confident an opportunity like this may bring some old legends out of the woodwork. Whoever's track record and proposal best meets this criteria would get my vote. I greatly appreciate the discussion so far and understand morale is low right now but must say I do question the intentions behind some of the "LSRP SAMP is dead, stop beating a dead horse" type of comments. If that's your opinion, fine, but what are you doing here? I don't think anyone here believes we can return to the golden age of LSRP when it was regularly hitting 500+ players, but we can improve upon the current state of the server and make it a great place to roleplay once again. With the right leadership, vision, and teamwork, we can make a new golden age that looks a little different, albeit on a smaller scale. It is possible, but the negative, defeatist, apathetic mindset I'm seeing in some of these posts doesn't help the cause.

Thank you to the admins for letting this topic breathe and everyone for the respectful responses and valuable contributions to this discussion. Many excellent insights and ideas are coming in. Let's keep that going and hopefully someone from the administration is compiling a list of suggestions to consider going forward.

For those who missed it: there was a general discussion topic called "Will LSRP survive?" that went viral yesterday which was flooded with constructive criticism and solutions to improve LSRP. The thread was locked in response to a small minority of people doxxing, leaking staff information and derailing, and someone within the staff team crashed out and merged all of the faction threads into Bellantonio's. This prompted staff to rollback the forums to recover the faction forum, which resulted in the deletion of this topic. I've been told others have tried reposting it only for it to be deleted again but I'll give it another go, although I want to frame the discussion slightly differently to push for a more positive, solution-based discussion. Censorship certainly isn't the answer here and will only serve to shatter any trust left in staff and push the few players left out the door. Please keep this thread up if you know what's best for the server. If people are derailing or breaking rules, deal with those individuals accordingly but the rest of us who wish to see LSRP revived should be allowed to say our piece. Roughly a year ago I posted the first iteration of this topic and it was received quite well by everyone. I was very pleased with the staff response and moderation of the topic, but seeing what happened with the topic yesterday was a reversion to the kind of censorship LSRP had been known for years ago and was deeply disappointing. Linked below is the topic I posted last year which goes into detail about my vision for LSRP and is ripe full of great ideas put forth by the community: A VISION FOR THE FUTURE - Page 15 - General Discussions Archive - Los Santos Roleplay Today, however, my post (initially written as a response to the topic that was deleted yesterday) will focus on what I believe to be the crux of the issue. Given my faction has been staring down the barrel of description threats recently, I don't take posting this lightly but I want LSRP to succeed and believe it needs to be said. I want to start off by acknowledging and thanking the staff members who have helped make LSRP be a great place to roleplay over the years. As a member of this community since 2009, former member of Faction Management, an official faction leader from 2018-2024 and having still represented Valenti in many of our correspondences with Illegal Faction Council beyond that, I’d be remiss not to highlight the vast improvements seen in the Illegal Faction Team in particular compared to past eras where it was marred with incompetence, toxicity, and corruption. Factions today have access to more perks than ever before, official faction selections have been handled sensibly for the most part, and the IFT has generally been more supportive and transparent than ever before. Despite recent disagreements with IFC's handling of my faction, I greatly appreciated the honesty, accountability, insight and consideration shown by @Aloosh, @Rye and @unlawfulact in their responses yesterday and this gave me a renewed sense of confidence that the IFT is still in good hands. I'd also like to thank @badhbh and @Dos Santos for their immense dedication to this server and being a pleasure to deal with during my time as an official faction leader last year. When we brought Valenti back, I urged our people to set the bar low in terms of expectations for LSRP. Not because I didn’t believe in the potential for a major comeback on SAMP, but because the staff, more specifically, the management, had let this community down time and time again, and the return of the SAMP server seemed more like a last-ditch marketing gimmick for LSRPV than anything else. I wanted our people to enjoy this last ride as much as we can without dwelling on the failures of the staff team. Fortunately, despite the recent decline, this SAMP run overall has exceeded my expectations and much of that is thanks to the staff putting forth more of an effort to satisfy the community’s wishes, at least initially. Beyond that, the success affirmed that there is still an appetite and market for SAMP. Unfortunately, that market is shrinking by the day and will vanish if things don’t improve in quick order. I’ve only recently returned to playing after a year-long hiatus so I’m admittedly writing this from a limited perspective, but I’ve kept in the loop and been around long enough to pinpoint what I believe to be the main reason LSRP is on a steep decline: inactivity, complacency and a lack of leadership at the management level. No, this is not the only problem. Yes, I do agree with much of what was said in the discussion yesterday, but many of those problems are symptoms of this primary issue. When @Mmartin and Surreal took over from Damian, I showed my support publicly and still believe it was a much-needed change at the time. Some positive changes were made over the years and when Mmartin was actively contributing, developing and engaging with the community earlier in this run, the community was undoubtedly better for it; I am grateful for his contributions over his many years here. However, being a good leader isn’t just about knowing when to step up but also knowing when to step down when it’s clear you are no longer the person for the job. That time came long ago and it’s time to act on it. Every leader has a shelf life and there's no shame in that but it's abundantly clear a major change is needed at the very top to restore any level of morale and confidence in staff by the community. By no means is this an attack on Mmartin; in fact, my interactions with him both IC and OOC (the times he responded) were always good, but an active and engaged leader is essential for any hope of a revival for LSRP. The community should vote on a new manager and that’s who Mmartin should pass the reins to; doing so would rejuvenate the community, potentially salvage the staff’s reputation, and hopefully bring about a vision on the best path forward. I personally don’t have much faith in LSRPV but if that’s what Mmartin and others want to focus on, fine, but there needs to be a dedicated manager and team for each server, not one divided and dysfunctional team covering both. I don’t mind managers being paid for their efforts and wish LSRP was successful enough financially to pay all of their staff because I am extremely grateful for their contributions, but donations to the SAMP server should go towards the SAMP server and LSRPV donations should go towards LSRPV. Once either project is sustainable and successful enough, only then should managers and/or staff get paid. With foresight and an actual vision, there will be more to go around in the long run, but if the status quo persists, donations will dwindle away to nothing. The LSRP brand exists on SAMP, not on GTAV, and it’s glaringly apparent the SAMP server needs to be more of a priority going forward. LSRP SAMP failing is a marketing disaster for LSRPV. Plenty of good ideas have been presented and I have no doubt that people within the staff team have pushed for many of the improvements we are asking for, but ultimately it starts at the top. Management needs to seek player feedback more via discussions like this, feedback surveys, allowing players to vote on important decisions, etc., then utilize those findings, set out a vision and get everyone pulling on the same rope. The disconnect between staff and players needs to be eradicated and instead we need to be one cohesive team. I know this sounds like a pipedream, but I believe the right leadership can make it happen, at least to some extent. TL;DR: Management needs to step it up for the community, put forth a comprehensive vision that we can all work towards, or step aside for someone who will. LSRP's future depends on it. What's your vision for the future? If you bring forward a problem, do so respectfully and also bring forth a solution. Please keep it clean and let's have a productive discussion that can hopefully help shape a positive future for LSRP.

Congratulations to Ludwig, Voro, Connor and everyone involved. Well done.

Congratulations and welcome to the newest additions to the family. Very well deserved.

Thank you for all the interest shown so far. I do want to point out that this adjustment does not mean joining will now all of a sudden be easy. We strive to roleplay everything realistically IC and recruitment is no exception. In fact, much of Valenti's success across all eras can be attributed to our stringent recruitment/progression process; delayed gratification has worked wonders for us in many other facets as well and will continue to be foundational to our success. There are other LCN factions where you can simply have an Italian name, ask for a drink and they'll hire you to do dirty work, but that won't cut it here. Working your way in will still require the ability to portray a realistic character, creativity, and patience. It's no secret our activity has been below peak levels for a while now and the server as a whole isn't as lively as it once was, so we felt a public Discord channel is an appropriate move for the time being. We're giving you a few nuggets on where and when you can find us to make joining a little more convenient, but it's on you to plan a realistic character and find your own pathway into the faction from there. In regards to the recent decline in activity: don't worry about it. All factions experience peaks and valleys when it comes to activity and ours are unavoidable due to our memberbase being much older than the average faction and increasingly pulled away from the game due to real life responsibilities. The beauty of Valenti, though, is that it's very rare that people ever leave the faction; they'll take a break from roleplaying and return home when they have time to get back into the game. Our ability to retain players over long periods of time is simply second to none and rest assured myself and countless other Valenti loyalists will return home when we have the time. We have experienced far greater activity slumps in the past and rebounded to incredible heights; I have no doubt that will happen again. All that to say: don't let our recent slip in activity deter you from joining, but rather look at it as a prime window of opportunity. The inactivity currently is at the associate level, which means naturally there will be a higher demand for manpower and more room for characters to advance than in many previous eras. That doesn't mean it will be quick or easy but now is certainly a great time to get involved if you'd like to make your mark on our historic storyline. With that said, I hope this adjustment dispells the misconception that we are a closed club full of elitists and don't want anyone to join because that couldn't be further from the truth. This is the Mafia; our exclusive nature IC is self explanatory, but on an OOC basis we are thrilled to have new people join. We may or may not be as engaging as other factions are in their Discord channels, but we are also cognizant of creating an immersive roleplaying environment IC with no OOC strings attached. Every single one of us was new to this faction at one point and we can all speak to how helpful the faction and its members were in developing us as roleplayers. Valenti has lasted so long because it's always been a breeding ground for the best LCN roleplayers and we are looking forward to seeing the next generation emerge and helping them along the way. Just two cents from the dead boss. Keep up the great work everyone.

Congratulations Trentino, DeNoia, and Angiolini. Very well deserved. Welcome to the family.

Further instructions can be found in our OOC Information section (post #2 of this thread). Thank you for your interest and best of luck.

Good to see our old friend Novarese back in action. I have high hopes that the new chapter of the Valenti-Bellantonio saga will be something special.

Congratulations, Stompanto. Very well deserved. Welcome to the family.

I will be back on a new character in the future when my schedule permits. Needless to say, the show goes on. New topic for all usergroup members to read: https://community.ls-rp.com/forums/topic/14600-leaves-of-absence/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-212203

Why is this goof allowed to troll and derail my topic? Ban him already so he can move on with his life and we can get back to a constructive discussion. Those posting here have provided a wealth of feedback and suggestions for management/staff to utilize. Someone should be monitoring this to ensure it stays on topic and blatant trolls are dealt with accordingly. The purpose of this topic is for the community to come together to find solutions to improve LSRP. The hyperbolic "LSRP is dead" comments aren't helping the cause. If you think it's dead, what are you still doing here? I have been quite busy lately but I will chime in on the discussion again when I have time.

New private forum topic for all usergroup members to read: Borgata - Private Forum - Los Santos Roleplay Keep up the outstanding work, everyone.