Biskit

Hello everyone, I'd like to start by introducing a little bit about myself. I'm a long-term member of LS-RP, I've been roleplaying and been a part of this community since December 2008. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was my favourite childhood game and LS-RP has been home for me for quite literally a decade and change now. Over the years I have learned a lot of useful things that could benefit me as a gamer and individual on LS-RP which includes a little thing called modding which is what I want to primarily talk about on this topic. I want to beforehand state that I don't mean to offend anyone by any of my following statements, I'm merely voicing out my own opinion and bringing awareness to what is happening between Rockstar Games' legal team and some modders. Rockstar Games has a parent company called Take-Two also known as Take2 or T2 . Now what is Take-Two you might ask and why am I mentioning it in this topic? well Take-Two is an American publisher, developer and distributor of video and computer games but overall to simplify, Take-Two is sort of the legal branch of Rockstar Games. Now this company has publicly stated that a group of modders knowingly committed copyright infringement by reverse engineering GTA III and Vice City. Now they have filed a lawsuit against these modders which reverse engineered two of their popular titles under project names such as re3 and reVC which is why I've created this thread. Being an amateur self-taught Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas modder I've decided to voice out my opinion on the matter and raise awareness about the ongoing situation. Now you might ask what is re3 and reVC? well re3 is a project from a software developer and modder who goes by the alias td512 which simply put ports things into other games. In this case these two projects are completely focused on GTA III and Vice City. To once again simplify it, they simply enhance player experience for your average joe to enjoy the game more, they DO NOT harm anyone or anything. They might alter some things and open the doors to other modders or users to have a more joyful experience and share the creativity and love that the creators themselves have for the video game titles and the project, that's all. However Take-Two sees this as theft as can be seen in the following which was written in the lawsuit: "Defendants have made the games fully and freely available to the public, have appropriated a market that belongs to Take-Two (namely, the market for modified or handheld versions of the games), and enabled countless others to now create their own unauthorized derivative versions of the games." It clearly noticeable that they feel threatened that some other people (modders) will use this software to further on re-create or shape their titles without their consent or legal ownership of these digital components which is completely a-ok because as a content creator/modder myself I wouldn't want someone else to use my stuff without my consent unless I've released it to the public because at the end of the day I've put in work to create that project and it is up to me now as the legal owner of that project to decide what to do with it, right? However what isn't okay is the lack of vision that these projects do not harm anybody or the original content itself. From my point of view as a fellow modder these guys were simply expressing their creativity, inventiveness and good will to create something that will benefit the whole community of those video game titles. Because lets be honest most of us have at some point used some sort of modification in a Grand Theft Auto game, may that be a skin, a weapon, clothing, mapping, textures, script or whatever else you can think of. Now what is the big problem in all of this? the big problem is that Take-Two decided to resort to such drastic measures to sue a modder which might as well could've of been me, or the person who is reading this who is familiar with modding for simply trying to make something better for their own and others enjoyment as said here: Take-Two is seeking damages and injunctive relief against the mod team, and suggests the group has already acted in bad faith by filing counter notifications that "materially misrepresented the legality of their content" when Take-Two initially tried to have both projects shut down. "When Take-Two attempted to remove Defendants' infringing source code from the internet, at least three Defendants (acting in at least one instance with other Defendants' participation and direction) knowingly filed bad faith counter notifications that materially misrepresented the legality of their content, apparently claiming that because they all 'reverse engineered' the games' source code, they somehow cannot be liable for copyright infringement," adds the filing. "Yet while making this claim, Defendants also have bragged that their derivative versions of the Games are functionally and visually identical to the originals, and have even suggested they be used for unauthorised 'modding purposes.'" Along with statutory damages, Take-Two is demanding all materials related to re3 and reVC, including all copies of the modified games, financial information, and the source code itself, be turned over. Which they successfully have achieved as can be seen here: To be open about it, I don't know these content creators who have done this but I'm definitely seeing some sort of hypocrisy to an extent here. I would like to now take a moment and voice out my own opinion about modding in general from my own perspective on a Rockstar Games title (San Andreas). First and foremost San Andreas is a 2004 game but the online community of sa-mp has advanced beyond any persons imagination. Those very people who bought the title and played it wholeheartedly decided to learn how to make the game better, fix the small issues left behind by the original developers after they've moved on to other titles and so on. But never ever have I heard personally about someone harming someone else by creating a harmless script which might fix something for example like the rain bug in San Andreas or a trainer for changing pedestrian skins in singleplayer mode, have you? Many other communities have lost their whole foundation because of the spree that has been going on and it just seems that more modders are going to get hit with a lawsuit and have their work deleted. Here's an example: It is safe to say that what they are doing is going a bit too far against the very same people who are so passionate to learn about their projects. Now recently a known modder and developer who goes by Silent who has created things such as the SilentPatch and Silent's Asi Loader and so on has voiced out his opinion on the matter and partially announced his departure from modding because of the recent events, he has some key points so I'll leave the image below for those interested in reading his opinion on the matter: Now this isn't democracy nor do I have any malicious intent with any of this. I understand both sides of the story and I partially remain unbiased which is up to my own opinion. After seeing many modders departing from years of creation and Take-Two seemingly crumbling bigger content creators in their own games I can't help to wonder, who's next? It kind of seems that modding in general is coming slowly to an end in general because modders are now being threatened with lawsuits. The question I have is what do you guys think about this whole thing? do you think they will prohibit GTA V modding, do you think this is the end for modding in general and that every server will be forced to play on a stock game with no mapping, unique scripting or any other sort of harmless modification? I sure hope not but hey don't shoot the messenger, ok? I just haven't seen anybody talking about this so I decided to bring it forward to see what LS-RP as a community thinks about this. Thank you for reading all that if you have, I know it was a long journey to the bottom of this post but I believe it is a good topic for a conversation. I'll leave below also a video of someone else commenting on the matter as well. Peace!

Ah seems I misunderstood some elements of the post but overall you did make it clearer and I'm definitely keen to agree with you after getting a better understanding for it. I am however an illegal roleplayer and understand where you're coming from. In general I haven't really been ever a member of GTA:W or the other server that hasn't launched so I was giving an opinion from the perspective of someone who hasn't really experienced things from their end of the rope. My only real reference is from word of mouth and forums. I still stand by what I've wrote in my first post about definitely being with you on the topic because I do indefinitely see the value of the things brought forward to the attention of the community. I never meant to discredit you like Anthony might've thought but if I came across in that way then that's definitely my bad. Overall I'm pretty sure that LS-RP being the behemoth it was on SAMP can tackle things objectively and that majority of the things won't be a problem or seen to arise here. I'm sure that LS-RP will experience growth in terms of playerbase seeing that GTA V is more popular than SAMP and that the influx of these new players might bring different roleplay to it but however at the end of the day even those newcomers will eventually have to adjust to the way LS-RP functions. The reason I think that is because it is an already pre-established community where things like how heavy the roleplay, faction leading whether legal or illegal & similar other things are common knowledge by now.

I'm with Redz on this. Also on the topic of prison sentences, the SAMP LS-RP had a problem which I'm sure most of you are aware of which was inactivity within the prisons, majority of the activity was created by the correctional officers and at times by factions which decided to open within the prisons but didn't last very long except a selected few. The fact is that whenever there were factions opened in the prisons that's when the prisons were fun to roleplay in and that was a huge problem for the server to not have a functional and active roleplay scene within the prisons. I remember there being an FMP (Faction Management Public) thread on the old LS-RP forums about this where a lot of the staff members voiced out their opinions on the matter, the biggest problem was that LS-RP couldn't force players to roleplay a lengthy prison sentence because there was nothing to do, people will/would get bored and complain at some point which wasn't what the server was about, you want to have fun playing a video game and not be bored, right? I do however agree about the fact that there should be increased timers for violations. The SAMP LS-RP timers weren't as fun because majority of players didn't experience the prison system roleplay. Now with a fresh beginning for LS-RP I do believe that they can create some sort of new system that can increase roleplay within prisons and make it fun to roleplay there again, by tackling that obstacle it will achieve players wanting to roleplay these lengthy prison sentences. However having something like 700 minutes for a murder (just giving an example, I don't know what the actual time given for murder on SAMP LS-RP was) and then having the option to either go out and simply roleplay within your character's development that you were gone for 2 years or god knows how long when in fact OOCly you've been gone for two days isn't much of an option. I think players (especially illegal players) are very nonchalant about committing crimes. There's always the exception where a player does the whole phase of stress and what not, when they properly roleplay fear of being caught and everything else but it ultimately results them going back out on the streets after laying low for a short amount of time. I think that players should be more fearful of committing crime, especially things like murder, attempted murder, big heists & similar and I do think that can be achieved by having a functional and lengthy prison sentence which could stop and make their characters think twice about doing some of them because of the consequences. But I do also think that the prisons really need to be worked on so that those players who do end up there have someone or something to roleplay and have fun just like on the outside instead of AFKing their sentences away.

This. However there also can be an alternative for sure. You could in some sense restrict them. I don't think that the correct approach is completely removing a specific amount of luxurious expensive vehicles from the server, you could simply restrict who's buying them with some alternative method like taxes, income rates, company positions or similar. The fact is that majority of our thoughts are based on the SAMP LS-RP economy, we don't know what the new economy on the server will look like, maybe they already have found a solution for the problem, maybe they will implement some sort of restriction that they thought of already. I'm sure on one thing though and that is that all the vehicles should be available in a sense, maybe some could be restricted and available for donators only like it was on the SAMP LS-RP.

Overall a worthwhile read. You've brought forward some key pros and cons from both the LS-RP and GTA:W servers, the only thing that I don't really see is what the end goal is for starting a thread like this except raising awareness in some sense which I do believe is common knowledge nowadays, people know about the problems that GTA:W has, the problems that LS-RP has and vice versa. I do believe that this is some sort of benevolence and that in general there was no ill will or depreciation for GTA:W in a sense from your point of view but I do think that at the same time some passionate people might take offense which is completely fine. Both servers are in a league of their own. They have their negatives and positives like most other things. With that being said I don't think that we should indulge in retrospective of LS-RP's past cons in order to avail a positive result by changing them to pros simply because Grand Theft Auto V is new waters for a shark like LS-RP. I do believe that in general there are a lot of other great roleplay servers with their own respective great communities that some of our community members might view in a sense as competitors for LS-RP but at the end of the day I do believe that LS-RP isn't in general in competition at all and that isn't me being out of line by saying so, simply stating the fact that LS-RP is a home community for members who've spent years on it. You've also covered the topic of staff corruption in a sense where you said; And once again I do agree with you because you do bring up a very solid point but I do disagree in general with the idea of creating a thread with a big title like "Learn from GTAW's Mistakes" simply because I don't think that's right. I believe that in the long run we don't have a reason to comment on GTA:W's infrastructure or way of handling things from the perspective of us being LS-RP members. I'm more than sure that both the LS-RP and GTA:W management are doing their best in their own way and are more than aware of some of these problems that you've brought forward in this topic. And I do completely stand with you on that. But if there is some issue or faultiness to address about GTA:W, why do it on the LS-RP forum? I do kind of guess that this thread serves its purpose for LS-RP community members to comment their own thoughts. I do also guess that you've created it so that key people who are able to make a change and avoid these bumps or bruises that you see that GTA:W is experiencing can see them in order for LS-RP not hitting them on their way up which is why I don't think you've meant to insult GTA:W in any way with this thread. Overall if I got something wrong feel free to correct me, I was merely stating my own thoughts on the matter.

I really don't think there is much to discuss here. I think it is quite obvious that we as players of this server want a realistic economy and I can without hair on my tongue say that I'm a 100% sure that the staff team shares that wish with us. The only problem is getting there and having a functional system but that task entirely depends on the developers. I believe that they will work towards the goal of achieving a realistic AND functional economy and try to get a result that is identical if not the same as the real life economy that we have now across the globe. However with that being said the real life economy in itself has flaws and is messed up so creating something that is faulty in itself is messy. I think that the developers are definitely more than capable and that they deserve a thank you for time after time providing LS-RP with great updates and improvements. I also think that the old LS-RP was created years and years ago when people weren't as capable and experienced as they are now and the times were also different so the old LS-RP economy before the game server was shut down was definitely messed up as you all know, people had 100 million & more, every other person had a ton of money in some sort of way which didn't make much sense but people for the most part didn't abuse it (e.g. roleplaying poverty inspired characters while making use of their account's enormous funds). Needless to say if there is something to be done about it, they will do it.

I understand where you're coming from Duckling, in general the way the LS-RP players engage with each other in regards to this topic is very simple. Majority of the players that have been for a while part of the LS-RP community now know that we do roleplay real-life things on LS-RP, things like movies, series etcetera is very acceptable because it is considered a small fraction of real life being brought to the virtual world. However big things such as COVID, racism, national socialism or political matters shouldn't be brought to the game server itself because it simply doesn't make any sense. The server has its own country (San Andreas) which has its own government so on and so forth, it simply doesn't make sense. To dumb it down, small fractions of real life can be seen being brought to the server but bigger things not. The way every player should look at this is simple, what doesn't the game server have or can't provide to you as a player in terms of resources that you can replace with real life information? movies, series. LS-RP and San Andreas doesn't have any unique TV shows, movies or series to bring forward so you bring them forward through creativity and real life information to fill that void and maybe spark an interesting conversation in-character.

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Rick says nice. 10

Exceptional update. Everything shown from the user friendly UI to the actual functioning of the clothing system and how stores operate is absolutely phenomenal. Nothing but positive feedback, good job to everyone who made this possible!

I don't play retail but I'm still enjoying collecting achievements on a community called Warmane nowadays. Its good to kill time every now and then.

Not much man, what's up? I should be the one saying that to you lol Lowkey no cap, he talks a lot of shit but that man is built like a pig. I wouldn't step on his toes lol. Go stupid aaaaaa, go crazy aaaaaaa

No, I'm from Serbia Evening madam Yoooo

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What's up?

I think GMT+1 or +2 works best for LS-RP. That's the way it was before and nobody seemed to complain about it.

Hello, I've decided to create a thread for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, this was the game platform for the LS-RP community before moving over to Grand Theft Auto V. If anyone still plays this game, wants to share their memories, thoughts about Singleplayer or Multiplayer then feel free to do so. Things like videos/memories are also very welcome. I'm sure just like me, many of you have grown up playing GTA San Andreas and have probably made plenty of friends and memories over the years whether on LS-RP or some other community/server. I don't support advertising other servers on LS-RP and I would advise you not to do so, you may share your memories and story from another server but keep in mind that advertising isn't acceptable. I'm looking forward to seeing your contribution to the thread whether in form of a story, imagery or videography. 🙂

Hi Dustie

Hi chief

What's good fella?

Nala n Key 😭

Yes. Wagwan traveler? That’s my uncle. ❤️ Test up fella If I’m the chef then definitely not unless you like tasting charcoal Que the gospel music, I made it

Hello 🙂 /me waves back Arigato Wagwan

Scarster