SCANDALOUZ

While I appreciate the "noble" and idealistic approach to the situation, we need to be more realistic than that and look at the matter more "historically". Players will take what they can and what is given to them. If you make trucking pay 10K a hour, everyone will be trucking. If you allow criminals to "suicide by cop" in an 1vs20 at the end of a pursuit in order to avoid jail time and a criminal record (more meaningful consequences), and hence just respawn and right go back at it - then they will do that, and they are doing that. Edit: Or let me spin it in an idealistic way. Indeed, we need to push these "bad apples" or whatever in the right direction, and IMO a good way to do that is with policies and systems that DISCOURAGE bad apple behavior in a first place. Beats forum report drama daily, IMO again. "Don't metagame" and basic shit like that. Is that -really- the bar?

Because? Someone mentioned that one of the main problems with CKs is character slots and name changes costing real life money. Basically two fundamental problems come when CK's are involved. 1. We either give free namechanges upon forced CK, and essentially the consequence is nil anyway because generic gang banger #1231 becomes generic gang banger #2817381 and is right back at it. 2. We don't, and we end up in a situation where people are forced to pay to play since they are running out of character slots. To that I said: "The inability to delete CKed characters and subsequently running out of slots and having to spend IRL cash to name change sounds like a development flaw/shortcoming/oversight that can be fixed and furthermore - the unwillingness to implement more meaningful IC consequences such as character kills and excusing that with said development oversight sounds... Sorry, but unserious. " EDIT: Half this community memes GTA:W for being a "shit-tier" RP server and even they enforce CKs for stupid shit. So what that make us?

I just want to also add, before someone comes up with the: "It's just a game, relax and have some fun lol" Yes, this is a game and a very specific niche genre of gaming that is taking up from my /real/ time. Furthermore: Roleplayers have fun in role playing. If your version of having fun is clashing with basic role playing fundamentals - then we have some form of a problem and as I have mentioned in the OP - we need to establish a clear direction on what we want this community to be, so that people can make their own decisions from that point on.

A good way to make consequences be properly roleplayed and for players to think twice being doing stupid shit is actually implementing meaningful consequences.

Personal takeaway so far (as result of the ongoing conversation) #1 - The majority of the community agrees that there has to be some form of consequences for actions and stupidity (even if not instant CK) and if I can take the liberty to expand on that, I would word it like this: We need systems and policies in place that automatically discourage stupid behavior and subsequently help prevent it from happening in a first place as opposed to waiting for it to happen and then having to deal with it via forum reports and etc. For the sake of everyone. ---------- IC Actions = IC Consequences has been a topic that has been picking up steam all across the community from a decent while now. You can see it implicated across several general discussion threads as well as all over discord servers. Kane has asked me to write him a forum PM on the matter when I started bitching over to him as well. So, I am writing this thread, which I will forum PM to Kane. I'm writing it here and subsequently posting it in public, because I feel like a lot of people have some form of an opinion on this and it would be nice to have a more proper discussion. Honestly, a /lot/ has been said on the topic. A lot of suggestions, debates and any of that. I've taken the liberty of taking a lot of the shit that I have been personally bitching about all over discord and running it by ChatGPT to just "easily compile" it into a more easier and pleasant to read textwall. Just to avoid me having to re-write a boatload about the same thing over, and over and over again. With nothing further to do, here are my very generalized and simplified two cents on the matter. I'm willing to expand upon all the topics like I have been all over discord, but I think this should be enough to get a conversation started. ------------ Our server is designed to prioritize realism and immersive roleplay. We aim to create a sense of development and progression in the game world. For instance, our economy is somewhat hardcore, so owning a 500k car carries significant meaning. However, there is an issue we need to address. While we have well-defined systems in place to reward players for their successes and achievements, we lack mechanisms for meaningful consequences when things go wrong. This creates an imbalance in our RP approach, leaning towards a play-to-win culture, where once you acquire something, you keep it forever, regardless of your actions. To rectify this, I would like to see the implementation of policies that actually bring meaningful consequences to our server and world. One idea is to enforce character kills (CKs) for players engaging in suicidal behavior, such as taking on overwhelming odds against the police. Life sentences, faction shutdowns and asset removal/confiscation are also examples of suggetions aimed for more significant and meaningful consequences. I believe that roleplay etiquette should reflect the principle of Actions = Consequences. Currently, our community seems divided between those who approach the server as a storytelling experience and those who treat it more like a cops and robbers RPG. If we want to incentivize a proper, RP-friendly approach, then that should involve facing the repercussions of one's actions. While I understand the concerns and various viewpoints within the community, we must decide on a cohesive philosophy for the server. We claim (I believe?) to be a heavy RP server, but recent events have shown instances where actions lacked meaningful motives or consequences, leading to disputes between players. To maintain the integrity of the server and ensure a more consistent experience, we need to reconcile these clashing philosophies and choose a clear direction. This process may require making tough decisions, but it's essential to create a balanced and immersive environment for everyone. ------------ This conversation starter in mind, I'd like to see some of the other vocal people about the matter on discord come in here and expand on to this entire thing and generally leave their two cents as well. This is a better place to have the topic than on messy discord anyway. TLDR: We want to eat the cake, but to have it too. This applies to this entire thing and every side involved. Players do, the staff does with the policies implemented (or not) and etc. EDIT: Please note that this isn't about the implementation of forced CKs or anything in particular. This is about coming forward and sharing your two cents and admitting that there is indeed a problem (I believe that there is). I believe that we first need to, collectively and as a community, actually agree that there is indeed a problem. Only when we do that - we can actually sit down and talk about how to combat it. The point is - don't grasp onto the *specific* systems/policies. Grasp onto whether there is a problem or not to begin with. EDIT 2: You cannot please everyone, but by doing nothing you're upsetting BOTH/ALL sides. You need to actually decide on a vision for this roleplaying project and go forth with it, so people know what to expect. EDIT 3: I want to make this clear that this is NOT a shot at neither the administration, nor a particular section of the community. We all have our different views and takes on things. We all like different things and I'm no one to judge any of you. Not to mention the administration does all this administrating for free. This is just role players discussing roleplaying and things surrounding it as far as I'm concerned. It's all coming from a good place and the desire to have better and better role play in the game server. For all its worth, I think the administration as a whole has been doing a good job in "listening" to the community, and this is just me trying to be heard on yet another subject.

Does your character have a solid criminal record? Because if they do, then all the points about being "frisked for no reason" are kind of obsolete.

Good luck. Last time I suggested some form of role play quality control people said that this is subjective as hell and who is anyone to tell anyone what is quality and what isn't. Staff also said that staff is already doing their job in punishing non-rpers.

Unfortunately, this is nothing but facts. I like how you brought up extreme real life cases. Roleplaying works with stereotypes, not extreme and unique cases and it does so for an obvious reason. To combat mary sue writing, these poor escalations and etc. This is a fifteen year old community and most of the people claim to be old schoolers. How do you (not you, quote) not get this in 15 years, or are you even here to roleplay? I don't see an easy solution sadly. Let's at least make guns much harder to get.

To add on, before someone says we are just mall rats bashing on illegal roleplay. Get a reality check, the world isn't black and white and being an illegal character doesn't mean you have to be in a shootout or a police pursuit 24/7. I roleplay around Vinewood. The place is all OCGs and ALL criminals. The only shootings we get are when some trigger happy "gangster" comes along. We all, or for the most part, have crystal clean criminal records as well. Major Crimes are breathing down people's necks, but yeah. My character is criminal as fuck. And he just shook hands with the Chief of Police last week. This is illegal roleplay. The smart and lowkey criminals chill out in the world. The dumb ones are in prison or dead. In LSRP - the dumb criminals just respawn and go right back to being dumb criminals. Something wrong with that picture.

I'd like to see CKs fly with whatever system you have in mind (e.g. mine or alternatives others have suggested in the same thread). Let being a rambo have an actual danger element to it that makes people think twice. Other things too, like permanent license revokes, car confiscations, lifetime in prison, etc. Just consequences. I can kill 10 people, evade the cops, die in a shootout with cops, respawn, spend $1000 on an easily accessible gun and go right back at it. Like c'mon is this heavy rp, or are we just saying it?

TLDR: People evade the police and shoot them up, yet only to avoid a speeding ticket, because said people are not here to roleplay. I don't give a damn on what they say, how they try to spin it or what full of shit, far-reaching justification they have. They aren't role players and they aren't here to role play. The server is treated like an RPG (not text based rp) and they are just looking for their daily dose of action. The administration is hesitant to react and bring down the hammer on this behaviour, because the server is barely holding on to life as far as online numbers are concerned. The "playerbase" that we're discussing is probably a quarter of it. The biggest problem is that roleplayers are interested in and attracted to roleplay. Newcomers will join the server, try it out, and depending on their experience they will stay or go. Well, there's a 25% chance (take my statistics with a grain of salt) that their experience will be rather negative, or if not experience, then at least impression. I don't care for low level anti robbery rules and etc. Stupid behaviour is stupid and you don't have to be robbed. Sometimes just witnessing it is enough. So, we're in this cursed circle of where we can't just instaban the RPGers if we want the server to be remotely alive, and we are also not as appealing as we could be to new people, because the server feels like it's full of guys banned for non-sense and DM on GTA:W and they just moved in here. How do we fix it without instabanning people? C o n s e q u e n c e s

This guy gets it. As for the proposed guidelines/policies, certainly they have to be mulled over and what-not, but I'm supportive of the general idea.

Anything is better than nothing I suppose.

I don't know why asking people to not die more than three times in the same weeek in if they want to keep their characters alive is considered such an impossible concept and grand feat. So this is a Cops & Robbers server?

We should be wanting to attract role players, not people out here looking to RPG-TDM. That's the point. Seems like just another decision to be made/integrated into the system, not a huge complication as you already came up with 2 potential options on the matter.

There hasn't been a SCANDALOUZ text wall in a while, well here it is. Inspired by this thread: TLDR on the thread above (although you should really read it as it goes in depth on why what it is suggesting is a good thing): For All The Dogs was suggesting perma-death/CK (instead of PKs as we know them) in order to add a whole new dynamic and improve the role playing quality of the server indirecty, by first improving the aspect of In-Character Actions = In-Character Consequences, thus making people be more careful and realistic with their characters and subsequently tackling the problem of the fearless and immortal acting Rambos that flood the streets. Now... While his suggestion probably isn't ideal or plausible at this stage of the server (as we have to cater to more players than just the most "hardcore" roleplayers and etc reasons), I'd like to take it, modify it and run with it. I'm curious about what the community feels. But first, a little premise: The Problem: There's very little consequences to being an absolute moron and subsequently providing sub-par role play / just engaging in "poor portrayal". People do all kinds of stupid shit and often get away with nothing more than a PK. They don't lose money on a PK, they don't lose all of their items, and they obviously don't lose their characters. They just get PKed, respawn and are right back to doing dumb shit and being unrealistic characters all over again. Yeah, I know, they lose guns and drugs. You lose a pistol costing less than $1,000 which you can make by less than a day of AFK-ing in-game. Big deal. There are no consequences. The Counter-Argument: People will say that there doesn't need to be a system, suggestion or policy against the problem above set in place, because unrealistic and fearless characters can simply be monitored and punished by our administrative team. Just report them, bla-bla. Well, no. It's not that simple. Forum Reports are a taxing process for everyone involved. You have to record footage, you have to make a thread, you have to go back and forth in the thread for a couple of days and then the player gets an admin-jail. Wohooo. Then they go right back to being a moron as soon as the timer expires. Then the whole taxing process repeats itself, and the troublemaker likely gets banned in the end if they don't learn. By that time we went through an exhausting process, a lot of "fun time" in-game was ruined by said troublemakers and in the very end - nobody really fucking won or benefited, let alone the server as a whole, since we just lost a player that we had to ban. Obviously admins and reports are necessary, but something else needs to be done in order for dumb behavior to not be essentially incentivised by the lack of consequences surounding it. The Suggestion: A lives system. Please don't "grasp" on to the specific numbers provided in the suggested system. Obviously numbers have to be crunched and some fine-tuning has to be done for the whole thing to be pleasant, yet still do the intended job. This is just a proof of concept. It's actually very simple. Each player-character has scriptwise lives. Let's say three. Everytime you die scriptwise/are PKed - you lose one of these lives. Upon losing all three of your lives and hitting 0 - it's an automated CK. But, hear me out. Since you're all pussies and won't agree to it still, because "reeeee, my character. What do you mean I can't treat Davis like Iraq and just shoot up the place every 15 minutes" or "reeeee, fuckin hyperrealism this is a game let me have fun by ruining everyone else's fun, mate", there's more: Lives can be recuperated. For example, if you stay alive for 1 WEEK without being PKed - you recuperate a life. The cap is 3, so you can't have more than three, but the point is that even if you get killed, you're not stuck on 2 lives forever. You can simply stop being a moron for a week and get back to your three lives. So, essentially - get fucking shot up (probably for a reason) 3 times in a single week - congratulations, you have been CKed. You should have been more mindful of your actions in-character. Better luck next time. What About The Police: Same system, except cops get more lives, let's say 6. For obvious reasons. The very nature of their factions put them at the risk of death at any given second. Ideally, we want everything to be fair and for everyone to have said three lives, but we need the LSPD to have a member base and to exist, and this is a sacrifice that we should be willing to make. What About DeathMatching: Once again, very simple. Forum reports and refund requests exist. If you lost a "life" as a result of a deathmatch, the administartion should have a simple command at their disposal that allows them to add/refund lives. But why, Scandalouz: Once again. In-Character Actions should have In-Character Consequences. This directly affects OOC culture and approach to role play and in-character and "encourages" people to be more mindful of how they role play their characters. As a result, we get better and more realistic portrayal - such as characters (supposed to be living, breathing people) that actually care about not losing their life. Less fearless rambos on the street = better roleplaying quality of the server overall. Bonus: MIght as well introduce some medical bills, too, just to add on to the consequences, besides Roze was thinking for a money sink anyway. You should lose SOME money when you get PKed. Pretty straightforward, I won't go in debt about that one. I'm a girl IRL, please make this happen Mmartin.

No lol. GTA 5 is a 10748194+18x better platform than SA. Being used to it and returning to SA is just not plausible.

Hello community, I'm sharing with you all some internal documentation that I've done for The Pit Stop to make life on both our bartenders and customers easier. I hope at least someone will find some use in this. General Guidelines Usage of Commands: Utilize the commands /ame, /melow, and /dolow exclusively. Avoid spamming the entire venue and its occupants when serving a single person a beer. Use /melow and /dolow for direct customer interactions. In all other cases, refer to /ame. Example: /ame turns to the fridge and retrieves a beer for Wrynn. (The preparation action is included under /ame to avoid excessive messages at the bar) /melow serves Michael Wrynn his beer. (Order serving is managed through /melow and /dolow to make sure that the customer can actually see and acknowledge their drink being served as it can be missed via an /ame) Roleplaying Efficiency: While we appreciate your attention to detail as skilled role players, it is necessary to prioritize speed and brevity in this setting. We aim to avoid situations where multiple individuals wait at the bar for extended periods due to lengthy descriptions of serving one person a beer. Please be quick and concise. Save elaborate details for other scenarios. Uncertain Orders: As we understand that not all bartenders are professionals in real life, it is acceptable to be brief when unsure about an order. For instance, if you receive an order for a cocktail that you are unfamiliar with or unsure how to prepare out-of-character (OOCly), a simple response suffices. Example: /ame prepares Wrynn's cocktail. < No further explanation is necessary. Please note that it is considered good practice to still get yourself familiar with some basic mixology. Feel free to use this Cocktails Master Recipe List (thanks .skier). Script Usage Serving Drinks: /servedrink [playername or ID] [glass/plastic cup/bottle] of [drink name] Drink names: Beer, Vodka, Tequilla, Whiskey, Brandy, Bourbon, Single Malt Scotch, Cognac, Rum, Champagne, Vintage Champagne, Red Wine, White Wine Beer is only available as a "Bottle". Vodka is only available as "Plastic Cup" and Bottle. Everything else is available as "Glass" and "Bottle". This is case sensitive. For instance /servedrink ID Plastic Cup of Vodka Please note that you can enable the "Plastic Cup" option for other beverages as well, I just have it disabled for the Pit Stop as you can see above in order to make life easier for both bartenders and customers a-like. Other Orders/Notes (Food & Tobacco): There are scripted-in food and tobacco (if your business has permits to sell those). You can see all the things we offer in that department by using /buy in the interior. You can roleplay this as a menu to give out to customers. It has items, pictures, prices and everything. You just role play preparing and serving the item. They /buy it. Use /pos ID for orders that aren't existing script wise items. When in the pos menu, payment description should be "The Pit Stop". Select tax set to 7% sales tax. Item Name, Quantity and Price is for you to enter situationally. Don't use /pos for cocktails, use /servedrink for the primary alcohol of the cocktail. Like scriptwise vodka for a bloody mary. Use /pos only if you are unsure what the primary is. Don't ask customers to pay manually, the scripts charges them automatically. They can pay via both cash or card. ------------- Once again, I hope someone finds this useful. Cheers.

Wow

The activity in the server comes primarily from factions. Excluding the government ones, it's all illegal. Mafias, gangs, MCs. Realistically, the patriarchy is strong with these and women are rarely let in on the big bidnizz. If you roleplay a female and wanna hang around an MC, don't be shocked to be the club's bike. If you want a less patronizing approach to your female character, look into different groups to hang out with.

Yeah of course. These are already a thing though, I dare say /most/ of the venues are ran by factions precisely as you described. The interior design is being the biggest hurdle that owners are fighting right now.

While I get the reasoning, I'm heavily opposed to faction-ran businesses being a priority. Factions have enough shit to do as it is, and it's everyone else we need to worry about. Many people are already unhappy that the schemes are gatekept behind factions and individuals cannot get on board on the sole merit of their characters. If businesses go down that route, all these individuals/general player base will be at a worse state than we found it. Edit: Businesses are coming, just give them time to setup their licenses, interiors and all that fuss, but the map will be a lot more active soon.

You can't, outside of the business section. I'm looking at the company team/owners discord. Lemme peep for you. Current "active business" owners (so, actual venues) -- roughly 14. Our average pop is, what, 80? Half of which are in serious faction commitments like the LSPD. My own business employs 4 to 6 of the online population when it's up. City wide staff shortage inc. Might be a blessing in disguise. Said owners might/should invite their friends to join the server and help them out with their businesses. Edit: oh, also here https://community.ls-rp.com/forums/forum/527-licensed-businesses/

The role playing quality is comparable. The script is obviously 7 years behind, BUT. The difference maker has been the staff, honestly. The staff is approachable, listens and actually gets shit done without taking 28 business days to do so. Props to you all. Amidst all the critique, you guys deserve some flowers, too.

Closing the business applications every now and then is good. We already have a /lot/ of businesses due to open and I honestly do not know how they will get staffed in a first place. On topic, the company team has been nothing short of spectacular. You guys got a lot of hate-mail earlier on for businesses not being incentivized and what-not, but you took all the critique in stride and actually made moves to improve and fix all of that. Dos Santos personally has been extremely approachable about everything and has empowered the right people to help him out with the whole thing. I love you Roze, and Sal for admin, when? Things are not only being done, but they are being done well /and/ hastily. Obviously comparison to other places will happen at this stage of the server, and so far you guys have been killing it on that end.