Clack

happy holidays to my veterans @SammyG @Anthony_Ulino @Tracksuit Assassin

The reason as to why he was pushed out directly contributed to the decline of the playerbase. You seem like you have enough sources to leak things for you, you can ask them the specific reason. If your sources don't have the answer, let me know. Your timeline is also messed up, I am sure he was forced out in November which was last month, so how come you're stating that he was pushed out 4 months ago?

If you aren't willing to take any criticism of players who have previously cheated or are still actively doing it, you will be left with 10% of the community to speak with. Management's inability to implement a decent enough anti cheat has forced players who have been victimized by unrelentless cheating to start using cheats themselves, mainly as a precaution of not getting "caught slipping". If you are in an active PK war and your enemy is using nametags while you are not - you are 100% going to be ambushed and killed. This is not about a "learn to lose" mentality. Unfortunately, the only way you can outplay the P2W players is to be a P2W player yourself. I suppose your answer is to gather sufficient enough evidence and report the said person, right? Let me show you what happened the last time I followed that advice: The following counter report involved four videos of me (Francis Lanahan) logging in game and following very specific steps on catching another player (Dragan Arsic) from STCO cheating. TLDR: I followed all steps required in order to prove that he couldn't have any idea that it was me riding on a stolen bike, with a new skin, masked up. He was still able to identify me and shoot me down. He was initially banned for nametags until he decided to ban appeal months later. Despite having an entire documentary of his cheating, he was somehow unbanned. I have no bad blood with aidens however I am just giving this as an example of how your ways of countering cheaters just doesn't work. I am sure the community can give you countless of examples of how some of their clear cut reports were tarnished by staff members for "lack of evidence" because they knew that the ban would've been overturned in a staff report. All of your ways of handling cheaters just encourages more cheating. That is entirely management's fault and you cannot blame the players for doing it. You would rarely see an experienced LSRP roleplayer starting to cheat out of the blue, it is usually motivated by the lack of adequate punishments for cheaters or the absolute lack of punishments at all. Two wrongs don't make a right however you have to understand this point of view as this isn't personal, this is how the majority of your community thinks.

@n0de101 in terms of Mmartin's activity on LSRP, it has also became a public secret at this point of his whereabouts and what he is currently doing. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I was in IFT between April '25 - November '25 and we only got to speak with him somewhat in detail about a drug withdrawal system. We've had a lot of discussions about different topics however that was the only one he personally took part in. All of that was discussed in late May, early June. Whether he is active in the LSRP staff discord, I wouldn't be able to confirm that... However, his forum activity is public for the entire community to see. His last action on the forums is this: In his defense, he did log on the forums on the 14th of December 2025. 👍 So to rephrase Flaxxer's words, he hasn't been active on the forums for more than 6 months.

The entire narrative around how developers are sacrificing their free time is also relevant to your average faction leader who arguably spends a lot more hours on the server trying to manage his own faction and contribute positively to the community. That narrative is also relevant to any average roleplayer, legal or illegal, who has contributed with their roleplay to the community, with their activity both in game and on the forums. That narrative is also relevant to any adequate Tester who is willingly helping players in game with their questions and who is also doing solid forum work in terms of administrating. That narrative is also relevant to regular Administrators who have to deal with Player Reports (IG & on forums), general administrative work, etcetera. And that narrative is extremely relevant to one of the most overshadowed teams on LS-RP: The Illegal Faction Team. I can confidently say that I have spent an unhealthy amount of hours doing my job and trying to make this server better. That involved handling complex Faction Reports, actively participating in IFT threads, discord discussions and meetings, coming up with new and interesting concepts of how we can please all the current illegal factions. I can go on and on about how much work I have personally put in however it is more important to focus on the obstacles that I've unfortunately had to deal with when it comes to eventually forwarding any ideas to developers. While MMartin was still around, we were discussing something like a withdrawal system or at least drugs having a negative impact on your character. Evidently that did not happen, never implemented - forgotten. Several IFT meetings were all about discussing new implementations however once we all just collectively agreed that the developers aren't really interested in any of our ideas, naturally we all just gave up. It was pointless to even talk about it on the meetings, let alone cook up a thread and literally "beg" for the attention of the Development Team. As a former detective in LSSD, I also had a lot of suggestions in terms of the Detective Job as it is severely outdated. I forwarded a lot of them to the Development Team however we got nowhere with it. Mind you that it wasn't about anything oddly specific or new, my suggestions were mainly about tweaking current scripts to make them more modern. Why am I saying all of this? It's not just the Developers sacrificing their free time and doing volunteer work. It's the entire community doing that, from your regular roleplayer to your Lead Admin. We are all doing this in our free time.

1. Provide me with any sufficient enough statement from a Lead Admin+ in terms of any significant improvement of SAMP in this current calendar year. If you do believe that you can "grind your way" to Lead Admin from Tester by truly being invested in LSRP and contributing positively, you are mistaken. It's a public secret as to how people go up the hierarchy and it's no different than your regular 9-5 office job. 2. All of the developers are currently focused on RAGE. Do you realistically think that management would hire someone as a developer if his sole purpose is to code on SAMP? Their clear intentions are to transcend to RAGE entirely, so even if someone had genuine interest to do that, he wouldn't get the job. 3. There were plenty of factions that were very active and improving the quality of the roleplay that we have however if you managed to read half of the posts on this thread, you would realize why those people refuse to contribute further until things change. 4. Plenty of talented mappers have done a solid job on LSRP however (for some reason), mapping additions were very selective and some took months to be implemented. Aberdeen cooked up a mapping on Star Street for the SOVA business and I'm not even sure if that mapping was added after all. I had to beg to management and the mapping team for a map to be implemented, MIND YOU it was done by a player who isn't in the mapping team. All they had to do was add it in and that took them (if they even added it) more than 4 months at this point. 5. You have proven to everyone that you have read all of our posts diagonially.

On LSRP with the current script? Maybe. But I have seen upcoming SA:MP servers who have a fully customized weapon and vehicle system. A lot of dope things can be implemented on a SAMP server, it's all up to the dedication of the developers to do it. However, the majority of the people who have commented here have stated that the script isn't why they've spent so many years on this server. Those players are usually good enough roleplayers to not be dependent on script features to come up with good roleplay concepts.

I've heard nothing other than "RAGE is the future!" from all of those who prefer V over SAMP. That is entirely your opinion and I am fine with that, however all of us who generally only play SA:MP have provided more than enough reasons as to why we believe the V project is doomed and we have provided multiple solutions on how to fix the SAMP server. If you are not actively trying to contribute to this discussion by trying to further elaborate on your point of RAGE being the future without truly providing any valid points other than "SAMP is an old game", how do you expect people to buy into your idea? As I wasn't really around when the first RAGE server was opened, can you please let the community know as to why that server failed? I genuinely want to hear your side of the story as it seems like you have spent a lot of time on that server. What has management done, in your opinion, to prevent another failure of an opening of the RAGE server?

A very convenient approach to just letting the angry lash out their frustration and move on with their day, hoping that they will grow tired and become careless. That approach is only effective short term. The community has evidently had enough. The absence of staff members sharing their opinions on the matter will result in further trust lost, something that you will hardly be able to get back in the future, whether that's on SA:MP or V.

BIP

The lack of an adequate anti cheat encourages hacking. The lack of common sense upon reviewing cheater reports encourages hacking. Both of those are Management's fault. Kev's opinion in terms of how easy it is to cheat on this server is pretty much a public secret at this point. I believe we either spoke in the IFT chat or it was during an IFT meeting that I tried to explain how the lack of a good anti cheat is going to lower the playerbase. From what I do remember it was you, @badhbh, who couldn't understand how a poor anti cheat system can negatively affect the playerbase and cause it to shrink. Correct me if I'm wrong. Mind you that LEO factions are also heavily cheating, I have been part of several chases in which we wouldn't be able to find a certain suspect without the usage of nametags. PD/SD's usage of nospread was always accredited to their "training" and "well, that's their job. They are all good shooters" so that as well was nearly impossible to prove on forum reports. The reason for the lack of a decent anti cheat is subjective, my personal opinion is that it is very easy to do however that will mess up the gameplay for certain players as they are not able to operate without the usage of tags, aimbot and nospread. If a community like SOLS can withstand the nametag cheat, I fail to see how LSRP isn't able to combat it. That is, if they ever wanted to.

@jack The removal of Kev's comment is a prime example of what's wrong with these type of discussions. I know you personally haven't removed it (I certainly hope so) however that only shows to the rest of the community that you cannot even reason with staff members properly. He gave out valid points and majority of it came from his experience as IFC/Tester. If he is not fit to share his POV, we might as well lock this thread.

The lack of transparency from staff to players and the lack of adequate punishments for cheaters and severe rule breakers are the main reasons for the downfall of LS-RP. This is a concern that me and multiple other dedicated IFT members raised ever since late Q1/early Q2 as we started recognizing the patterns that brought the server down back in 2020-2021. There are multiple threads that I have created back on the legacy forums, I would've gladly shared the link however those forums are currently down. One specific thread was in regards to players remaining unpunished for subpar roleplay (mainly in terms of provoking, robbing, deathmatch, etc), a thread that Martin Busato and Michael Dippolito were also contributing to and I am sure that they remember that. Veteran/experienced roleplayers didn't quit LS-RP because they got old or real life responsibilities took over. They gave up because of the standards of roleplay and this is something that players themselves cannot be blamed for as they are not the ones regulating the standards. The same 25+ year old players who were "tired of RP" are now very active on GTA World and I can assure you it's not because GTA V is much more pleasant to roleplay on - it's about the standard of roleplay. Many have complained about the over the top restrictions that World has however that approach is evidently working. It does get annoying at some point however it's simple quality assurance in terms of the overall standard of the community. You aren't able to speak your mind on LS-RP, let alone accuse certain individuals of ruining the server with their imcompetence as it is considered "bashing". You are also not able to lash our your frustration over things that you believe are absurd as that is also considered "bashing". The usual answer that you get from staff members to any of you "crying" is: "Why are you still playing then?" Once you create a "civil" general discussion like this one, it will inevitably grow into fed up players who have a genuine passion for the server to come and start "talking shit". I will refrain from using my regular approach to these kind of threads as I don't want to see this getting locked. I know they are just waiting for someone like me to pour their heart out and have an excuse to throw this in the bin. Many will ask me as to why I even bother commenting on this thread, considering that I am permanently banned and will most likely never be allowed back in the community. To give you my answer in advance, I truly cared for this community for many years and I wanted to share my two cents. Unfortunately, I don't see a scenario where players can regain the trust of the staff members and continue as if nothing happened. I became a Tester in early November and was basically advised by staff members to accept any incoming applications, as long as they haven't used ChatGPT in their stories. That itself shows how we have allowed literally anyone to join the server with the hopes of increasing the playerbase. We allowed the migration of players coming from low tier roleplay servers to disrupt the roleplay of veterans, leaving their subpar roleplay unpunished because "we need players". That only made experienced roleplayers leave and you were left with the players who can barely string any decent /me or /do without the usage of ChatGPT. TLDR: Management is at fault. No future for LS-RP without transparency and genuine dedication.

diabolical editing