joxii

Lookin good!

congrats peeps!

GANG

There's evidently a lack of communication and understanding from two spectrum's of the community, and I'm not sure on how it has come about. The LSPD and LSSD are emulating their real-life counterparts whilst incorporating new ideas that accommodate the game, but the direction itself is the key part which needs to be understood. What factions are going to be damaged by this stance? I understand your concern with bordering Oregan and Nevada, but to have a long-term lasting direction we will need to make short-term sacrifices for the betterment of the server and I seriously believe this is one of those things. The north and east coast can be role-played as what it is, but it's more-so aesthetically people can mention Oregan and Nevada during role-play, rather than evidently show it. I agree that we shouldn't out-right ban the topic of San Fierro or Liberty City, but we shouldn't endorse the speaking of it per se — this however, then creates an awkward divide once again. I don't know where people have gotten this mindset of us role-playing San Andreas as the 51st state, because in my entire time of being on this server, in this community and in multiple factions and different areas — we've never role-played this or even had this discussed. I've never role-played this, the Administrative team never endorsed this and the server (publicly) never pushed that mind-set, so where has this come from?

Congratulations!

Scripted-jobs aren't player involved and they should be the minority rather than the majority. Keep the ability to create 'jobs' via role play as the main drive here. Hunting can be accomplished by role-play and it can be great if the script itself accommodates hunting (animals and so forth) but we should keep the amount if script-wise jobs to a minimum for role play integrity.

Appreciate the response, cleared up my concerns!

Can I get some clarification on the fluidity of this process, are LSFD going to arrive to a privately-run hospital with a patient (if you are online) and you are going to treat them? Or are you going to be privately-run medical responders on par with LSFD? If the LSFD are treating a patient and bring them to a PRIVATELY ran institution, the liability from an IC-perspective is insane and you'd be sued for pretty much every possible thing in the world. Government responders wouldn't treat individuals via a private-medium. I may be incredibly stupid and misinterpreting what the idea is.

Looks great!

The original parking and storage system(s) are fine and has never posed a significant issue. People who abused it were usually caught out so the system itself works how it is supposed to. I do think the scripts and systems that could be created here would invalidate the need for parking vehicles though, as we would be able to create in-depth storage systems with actual substance and importance towards them in properties and vehicles — but this is a long term goal.

Home burglaries are quite a unique experience but need scripts to accommodate it. The inventory system could come in handy here with furniture, equipment and so forth — selling stuff to stores or pawn shops would make an eco-system for it, but I definitely think for this to be actually feasible we'd need the inventory system to work in tandem with things inside houses. Administrators can spectate them and review them, however, the time-constraints of having an Administrator spectate this whilst simultaneously having order reports to handle can be a strenuous job. It's hard to have a balance but I do agree basic monitoring of the burglary should be made to ensure role-play quality is there and someone isn't just spam checking for inventory spots.

The university idea would work better in GTA V. However, it needs to be ran a certain type of way so it doesn't result in it becoming a cult of e-roleplay with no actual role play inside it. The main aesthetic of the university is the college-dorm life and teens being teens, not the learning. No one willingly will sit in a class room for ages and learn something nobody knows anything about. Put emphasis on group-orientated role play and group chats, college dorms, dramas, feuds, fights and drug selling/buying, BMX'ing, skating — it'll work well and can actually be very enjoyable.

Licensing is (in theory) a good idea, but has never been executed well. Dispensaries from medical licensing would create an extreme strain (no pun intended) on the LSFD and having weed be on a waiting time until someone logs in is pretty boring. Realistically, weed should be legal. Practically, and having the server in mind — it should remain illegal in some aspect. The way it could work is just for legal factions to have an internal policy for how much weed can be seized and the person not be arrested, this would in turn solve the issue and allow it be used by everyone and still pose for interesting role play. This is good for now in my opinion. I think it solves all battles whilst still ensuring there is some type of illegal role play to be had.

Civilian role play is a key part of an immersive experience for me. LS:RP had this weird divide and toxicity in relation to both criminal and illegal — we were mainly an illegal-focused community at the time and actual civilian role players were very far and few between. The importance, in my opinion, that we ensure the sides are half full for both aspects of role play within this community is high. Other communities have been conceptually destroyed by complete civilian role play, but this is a community-wide issue and not something that you can just change over night. It's a delicate problem with very little clear ways on how to combat it directly. In my opinion, the key factors that we, as a community, need to remember is that both illegal and legal can only work by working in tandem. Legal role play is a fantastic form of immersive role play and needs to be given the right tools to flourish. Scripts (whether it be phones, business-related scripts that support illegal role play with legal roleplayers) and direction are the most important. The legal role players in history were criminally underrated and they contributed a huge amount of role play towards the community over the years. The economy is a very delicate issue, but I've never really came to a fix or strategy to actually keep it at a stable level. An economic enforcement of prices IS a good idea, but if it becomes comedic then people will just make their own prices up that sound aesthetically realistic. I find it important that we do have a structured economy but it needs to be reasonable and thought through. The problem I have with these jobs that pay ludicrous amounts of money to all players to work in bars for four hours, is that they have absolutely no idea how to pour a drink or what alcohol is — this has ALWAYS been my gripe and something that money isn't necessarily good for. You're not going to hire someone if they don't know anything about the position, are you? So why did we excessively do it here? To merely open a business, and this IS an issue — but comes back to the feasibility issue legal role play has and always will have. I don't know if this has been spoke about so please direct me if it has but the limitations on certain types of the same business opening at the same time NEEDS to be enforced. If we have five bars open at one time, none of them will look busy and this isn't the aesthetic that we should pursue. It will be extremely deflating and underwhelming going into five different bars and having a stretched player-base. I've always been a fan of having a maximum amount of two 'bars' open at one time for an hour or so each. This allows a fluidity of different individuals being able to open their businesses on set times and allowing people to experience different bars with the same amount of players, rather than going into three bars with no players and one bar with all of them — it's important.

As someone who's role played both sides of the spectrum for years, I do agree it's bad (as a general thing) and I've always hated it as I personally feel it ruins immersion. It's a harsh reality that LEO factions do actually need it though, otherwise typing and trying to do things becomes an impossible task and ultimately wouldn't work. I understand your issue but I reassure you this faction (and SD) have come leaps and bounds to avoid abusing it over the last five years. Internally there are extreme restrictions on when they can use it — we don't live in a perfect world and it can/has been abused in the past and will be in the future, but as long as the faction from an internal standpoint continues to punish those severely who do it, we will make progress.

Role playing different times and sticking to that is impossible. It'll create an awkward divide between people who already are understanding of the concept, and people who have never heard of this approach before. There's absolutely no reason why we should role play set times for distances, just role play between whoever you're with or role play it what it is. Creating this awkward paradigm will make things convoluted and unnecessary.

To expand on this concern of yours and in reply to the new recruitment system post I made earlier — we're not looking for cops, we're looking for characters. This new system will allow us to gauge an individual, their motives and what they plan to do (I.E if they state they just want to do LEO-related activities, this isn't something we will pursue with that individual). The recruitment and training sides of the faction are putting heavy emphasis on character development, realism and wanting people to put their characters first, not being a cop — it's something that internally will be monitored and new individuals will be gauged on throughout their probationary and pre-join period. Quality over quantity.

To provide some transparency on the recruitment system being used by the LSPD — the long (and ancient) in-game method of entry via an in-game academy has been removed entirely. We are moving towards a forum-focused recruitment system with a departmental interview to test out of character mindset, role play quality and character motives. We are putting a heavy emphasis on characters with this new system. We don't want cops, we want characters. We want people who provide in-depth, substance-filled role play and who can immerse themselves to portray realistic people. We are focused on ensuring that the faction does not endorse individuals who are merely here to police, rather than role play. We find this change is required to move towards a better, more efficient process. The recruitment system will be structured as follows; Submit a preliminary application. Departmental Interview (We will be heavily assessing role play quality, mindset, character motives and general plans for the individual's character) Invited to an 'Off-map' academy which gives them access to a theory side of the forums, which will contain theory of policies, mindset, character expectations and exam questions, this will be in-depth as we will only have one exam from now on, rather than two. Takes the Theoretical Exam which will be around 25-30 questions in total, in-depth and revision of the faction's policies, approach to role play and character expectations is expected. Passes the exam, graduates and begins role-playing in the faction. We aim for this process to take days at max, rather than weeks. If anyone has any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me or @lynx.

Very important points. Point 1 and 2 are key issues that have been prevalent for years within this community. The issue(s) presented with the ''fix'' for those problems are that people who are right for the position are far and few between, and getting someone to handle the workload without having that management-type experience is a challenging task itself and always results in bringing people in who don't have the genre-specific experience, but the staff-specific experience alone. I think this community (and its staff) have moved in a much better direction in the last couple of years. Transparency, communication and cohesion between the community and the people who staff it has significantly improved — albeit with issues here and there. One gripe I have always had with discussions and hot topics being debated over public mediums is the premature closure of them and it was (from experience) something that was cracked down internally pre 2020. I think it's important to let these threads run their natural course and let feedback be taken as what it is, feedback. People get frustrated and throw jabs here and there, however, one person shouldn't result in the execution of many others and their potential feedback. Your last point is something I agree with, but you know as well I do that we've had several instances of people making abhorrent decisions without oversight, and this causes a faction and server-wide issue when it trickles down the grapevine. It should be competency-based and it should be case-by-case in my opinion.

not much my likkle slime just miss your voice x

Restriction is the first way to ruin someone's experience. If you wanted to do something and the server automatically didn't let you do it, it would put a distaste in your mouth. I understand where you're coming from, however, it's not feasible or ideal. The server will have its hubs, and it will have its general areas of congregation but that's how it has always been. Players aren't meant to be all in the same area, I've always been a fan of the spread playerbase because it allows you to role play around different cultures of characters. I've never been a fan of multiple types of the same business open at once though and that is from a feasibility point of view — the business sector will need to be handled delicately (I'd argue the way we did it on LSRP, or a slightly altered version would be ideal long-term) due to the stretching of the playerbase already, it would only creative a negative perception of business activity.

@Baker ? in what world

The MDC's windows 98 aesthetic

MY king