[L'Ultima Famiglia]

Loving the post, Nothing but good RP from you guys, keep it up. 

[Los Santos Triads]

Whilst the Triads have been growing and improving themselves, so have the relations with the old gangs of the city.
The Triads had been working alongside Los Zetas and The Clowns during the recent war.

Now that was was finished it was time for some proper business.
A meeting was called and held in the board room in one of the Triads legal organisations.

After discussing internal matters and clearing the air with any issues the Triads moved onto discussing their future. 
Recently the three gangs had been attempting to organise a large meeting to formally introduce the majority of their members.

Now that the location had been set everyone headed down to the area, the entrance was secured to prevent any unwanted visitors.

The initial discussion finished and the groups explained why everyone was gathered here today. 
The higherups of each organisation then headed to a more private location to discuss the fine details.

Each organisation had their points to put forward and ask any questions relevant.
Numbers were exchanged for those who didn't have them and some big business plans were set in place. 

The most important section of the meeting had concluded successfully and things were looking good for the three groups. 
The men then headed back down to the crowd and began celebrating, chatting away, getting to know all of the members present.

A strong bond was formed on this day and the city of Los Santos should be expecting some big things to come.

[Deadshot Monkeys]

Overall post styling and content looks good so far, hope you keep up the standard. Looking forward to seeing what comes of this.

[Lighting and Graphics Overhaul]

Recently a lot of people have been posting media in which they're using modified graphics and lighting packs.
As far as I'm aware these are approved by multiple admins on the server and provide no advantage over others who do not have the pack. 

As no one has officially shared the graphics update with anyone, I'll provide this below.

Here are two links which will allow you to download and install the packs: 

Link 1 for the Lighting and colouring: http://www.mediafire.com/file/3e6yyt1p0h8bpzc/Natural+Vision+Remastered+for+Rage-MP+by+Firesky.rar

Link 2 for the entire graphic overhaul: http://www.mediafire.com/file/vlju854uunnfl84/Overhaul+by+Firesky.rar

These packs are fairly simple to install (Drag and drop into a folder). Inside each pack there is a notepad file that provides further guidance. 

Beware that the graphics overhaul is particularly power intensive so you will require a decent spec PC for a good experience whilst using this.

Screenshots:

Videos:

 

[Los Santos Triads]

The Triads have recently reached back out to their old friend Pong Xing who had successfully pulled off an arms shipment for them.
The Triads made a new deal that would ensure consistent arms shipments arriving in the city of Los Santos.

The group then headed to collect the first shipment. Mr. Xing had successfully held up the deal once again. 

The helicopter arrived and dropped off the shipment, the men then moved down and picked up the crate.

The Granger was brought out to assist in the shipment of the crate. 
They then headed back to their area of operations and inspected the goods.

After some time had passed the second shipment was due to arrive in the city.
The Triads headed down to the area and secured the perimeter.

This shipment was delivered by boat to a private docking area. 
Xing done this to avoid making the same methods of import flag up time after time. 

The group headed down with a bullet resistant truck and two large off road vehicles to escort the shipment back to safety.
Now that the Triads were stocked up it was time to move onto the business of selling the weapons.

[[SOLD] 2G Vinewood House 🏠]

I withdraw my offer, managed to get another place. 

[Los Santos Triads]

A man who had recently been rolling with the Triads as a test of his worth asked Bruce to meet him for a business opportunity.

Not long after meeting the man a SWAT team rolled in and cleared the building, eventually finding us on the top floor. 
Bruce had never been to prison in his entire time in the city and the SWAT finally caught him.

The arresting officer Paulo Witherfork made a personal promise to Bruce earlier that month.
"I will be the Officer to finally take you down once I reinstate."

He is a man of his word.
Bruce had over 40 outstanding warrants for his arrest and he was going down for a long time.

There was no reason to fight against the SWAT officers and Bruce accepted his fate.
He was then transported to the prison in the normal cruiser alongside being escorted by the SWAT.

Now that Bruce had successfully arrived at the prison it was finally time for him to be added to the system.
The prison guards almost forgot to take the mugshots as they had expected Bruce to already have them.

Alongside the mugshots the prison guards made sure that Bruce paid his outstanding fines. It was quite the sum.

Whilst in prison Bruce met up with another Triad known as Niko. 
None of the Triads even knew Bruce was in prison until Niko got an unexpected visit from Lu Wong.

Niko updated Lu on what had happened to Bruce and the rest of the members were informed.
They successfully smuggled in a radio so they could assist their organisation from the inside.

Now that Bruce's sentence had ran its course and he was about to be released.
The Triads arranged a convoy to come collect him from prison.

Now that Bruce was out of prison it was time to hunt down the man who was suspected of setting him up.
Whilst looking for Justin, Paulo Witherfork showed up around the area and stopped for a conversation.

Bruce decided to have a little bit of fun with the officer and this resulted in a large chase throughout the whole city.

Luckily after a long chase, Bruce and Brian managed to successfully escaped.
They parked up in a remote location and spent the night hiding out in a barn until the heat dies down.

[Ability to drop off bodies at Sandy MD]

+1 to this, doesn't make sense logically that one MD allows for players to be dropped off whilst the other doesn't.

[Can shoot in animations]

He was shooting as if he would be aiming the pistol as normal 

[Crime]

Gangs:
1: All official gangs and most unofficial have dedicated faction handlers and a rule-set to follow for managing their gang. If you're not involved in a gang you may not notice this as it occurs behind the scenes.

2. For a gang to even apply for official they need an active player base greater than the minimum requirement and must display good RP. This is all tracked and managed as well.

3. Gang class tiers already exist and are followed by the majority of the gangs. There are: High, Middle, Low. This can all be found on the Faction Guidelines under Player Factions.

4. I agree that gang wars need to be more regulated, but having your char PK'd from the gang war would be terrible. One interaction and 95% of the war would be done, they would turn into normal shootouts and not wars if this was the case.

5. Gangs requiring to display higher quality RP than civilians, this point shouldn't apply to gang only. The entire server is encouraged to provide good RP at all times. If one person wasn't to follow this out an entire faction (both criminal and legal) I don't believe the faction deserves to be punished.

Drugs and Guns
1. I like the idea of importing both drugs and guns, however the street value for drugs would need to return to make this even worth time as it would just be a scripted import and then run to a scripted sell point reducing RP. Perhaps drug dealing (like you mentioned, however drop off points should stay.) and mat running could be implemented better to help with this. Mat running could be used to allow "Lower tier" criminals to gather the materials required to make lower class guns e.g. pistols and perhaps level up with XP eventually getting pump shotguns etc. This broadens the gun importing and selling RP as currently only official factions can import them illegally. 

2. I totally disagree with the point of restricting one gang to one operation. On paper this sounds like a good idea but if this was implemented all the gangs would go for the best money solution, leaving the others abandoned. All gangs should have full access to criminal activities as it's already limited as a system in it's current state.

3. I like the idea of reworking the benefits given from using the drugs. I believe this used to be implemented but was removed.

4. Gun imports are already restricted in the form of Official Factions and specific members importing, on top of this there is a minimum order quantity meaning if you want 1x Shotgun you have to order 10x Shotguns, restricting the open flow of guns by increasing import costs. With the import costs there is stock on every order, currently there is a problem at the rate the gun ammo stocks up. There are currently 5 gangs that share this limited ammo supply.

Wanted
1. I personally like the idea of this system however, it shouldn't be on a time based punishment it should be acquired from receiving certain charges, otherwise we're going to have half the server having their banks frozen over Reckless Operation Charges.

2. PD already have a way of convincing criminals to turn themselves in due to the constant warrant hunts and having vehicles impounded. I personally disagree with the RP of a Gang Criminal turning themselves in to sit out a "Max sentence" to receive their car out the impound. 

Prison Time
1. I agree that prison time should be increased with certain aspects but overall charge times need to be reduced. Currently you go in for a max sentence over 3 Reckless Operations.

2. Prison time if it was increased should still be kept reasonable, no one wants to come home from work or school to serve a 4 hour prison sentence. In my opinion prison time should go down when fully logged off of the game, meaning whilst a player is on an alt the prison time will not go down. 

3. Prison in it's current state feels like an OOC punishment for being a criminal due to the non-interactive way you serve the time and rarely produces any good RP. To help with this maybe prison jobs or other jobs can be added as an option to not serving the sentence. An example would be the player could mine rocks or clean the prison, each task reduces the sentence time left or the player could be a postal/truck driver but receive 0 pay for doing the jobs.

 

[Server Announcement - Bank]

+1 to removing the auto announcement. Perhaps it could be given to Weazel News as a job, this integrates the business more into the server.
 

1 hour ago, Chris Bluestone said:

+1 Yea make it more realistic ! 

Also would be nice if the Bank doors would be closed after 22:00 and Open 08:00 so you really know that the bank is closed 

As for having the bank doors close, I disagree. The bank is the only place you can deposit large sums of money into ATM's as most of the others are empty at all times. 

[Unrestrict speakers URL]

Radio URL's have only been restricted temporarily. There was a critical technical issue with them and this was a quick solution until the proper fix has been implemented.

[Add cigarettes to the game]

14 hours ago, Astrox said:

+1

Would be cool if there was an addiction system to surround it, and with that players can harvest tobacco and either brand there own companies, or sell it to a manufacturer.

i.e

Player goes to tobacco farm > harvests tobacco

Player crafts cigarette

Player faces choice > craft (20 / 10) cigarettes into packet, sell it to stores, or sell cigarettes to manufacturer (redwood)

 

Would also be cool if there was the option to roll tobacco as well.

There already is an addiction system in place, you can get addicted to cocaine etc. Would just need added onto this list. 

[Los Santos Triads]

One man under the name of Tywone was interested in becoming one of the Triads, as always he must prove his worth.
The group staged an illegal bare-knuckle boxing match between one of the Mountain Master and Tywone.

Unluckily for Kwang, Tywone was an experienced fighter. Kwang ended up getting dropped to the ground unconscious.

The group moved in to check if Kwang was alright, He was still out cold so Bruce decided to slap him.

Now that Kwang was semi conscious, Alberto placed a redwood in his mouth.
He magically sprung back to life with the help of the men and began puffing away earning the name Li "Redwood" Kwang.

[Add cigarettes to the game]

+1 to this, adds another RP money sink even though it may be a small one.

[NCZ Suggestion]

-1 to the whole adding extra NCZ' There are plenty of clothing stores across the city that are less popular, go there instead.

As for the car park, if you don't want to run into anyone when parking your vehicle don't take it to a PUBLIC car park, there are plenty of places to hide your vehicles.

Through your entire post all you seem to do is target and talk down of Zetas, seems like more of a retaliation post rather than an actual suggestion. There is a reason they're the biggest criminal faction in the server, they've been around for a long time. They also don't just take any member of the street unlike some other gangs that carry out the exact same actions directly influencing new players to do this.

As for the point of gangs robbing "random" Civilians, talking from my own experience this mostly occurs when the civilian is openly carrying a weapon, perhaps a proper way to conceal carry could be introduced to prevent this. 90% of gangs robbing people are either ex gang members, un-associated criminals or other gangs, civilians don't run into it as often that's why it bothers them even more.

At the end of the day longer prison sentences or not people will still always rob civilians, gov employees and other gangs.

Instead of potentially increasing PD punishment on criminals perhaps look at it from the criminal perspective for a change (A lot of PD are open criminal haters both IC and OOC. I've been in PD and seen this). Introduce more ways for criminals to make money and be active outside the city etc as they're restricted to chopping/drugs/gun running/robbing when you don't include any form of extortion RP etc. Perhaps if PD didn't disable 60% of the labs for 4+ hours each lab everyday they would be in them instead. I'm not saying to remove disabling labs but reduce the downtime it brings as it's currently longer than two max prison sentences.

I agree that prison times could be increased a little (needs to still be reasonable) but the majority of people work, coming home after work to do a 4 hour prison sentence where you AFK and generate 0 good RP whilst doing so is a poor experience and feels more like an OOC punishment for being a criminal rather than an IC punishment. To fix this longer sentences should go down when logged out, that way criminals are out the city either way. Giving the choice for criminals to do unpaid work to pay off their time could be added, e.g 1 hour of trucking instead of AFK'ing in prison, this at least brings in some form of player interaction. 

People will disagree with my points, but I thought it would be best to share my opinion having seen both ends of the RP.

Cheers.

[Can shoot in animations]

I was one of the people he tested this with, his hands do stay up whilst shooting on both clients. 

[Los Santos Triads]

It was time to reward members of the Triads who had been putting all their effort into the organisation.
To prepare for this Bruce went to the stores and gathered up the supplies from the promotions.

Now that the incense for the promotion was bought from the regular store. 
Bruce headed down to the clothing store of choice to buy the new masks and jackets.

Whilst Bruce was out gathering the supplies from the ceremony it was time to gather everyone. 
Ding arranged for the members to meet up at a secluded location in Little Seoul.

Nick and Zach are some of the oldest Triad members and have been very dedicated to the cause.
Hard work is always rewarded in the Triads. The ceremony started with Nick.

Nick was receiving a special honour and was promoted to the rank of Incense Master.
The contents inside the bag that Bruce handed to him gave this away before it was announced.

Now that Nicks promotion was complete he took the chance to make use of his new gift and lit a stick incense ahead up Zachs promotion.

Zach had been one of the 49ers for a long time and was another stand out member across the group.
Due to this he skipped a rank and was promoted straight to Red Pole. 

Nick moving on from Red Pole to Incense Master left a gap open in the structure and there was no better choice to fill this gap other than Nicks brother Zach Chang.

[Prevent hunger from killing you]

The latest update introduced the hunger and thirst bars. When these bars deplete (Which happens extremely fast) you begin to lose HP.

In my opinion it's pretty unrealistic to die of hunger or thirst after 4 IC Hours when IRL you could last as long as up to a full week.

Solution: Hunger should only reduce your health to a limited amount e.g 50% and could impact your aim/run speed etc.

[Introduce Water Fountains]

With the new update that requires a large consumption of water and food it would be ideal to add free locations to get water whilst moving around the city.

This could be done by: Adding water fountains at specific areas of the city that would allow for free consumption of water.

The best areas to implement these would be away from the bank and in other areas as this would help in spreading out the population density.

[Hunger / Thirst Bar Misplaced]

Off the screen for me but not unaligned. Resolution also 2560x1440

[Los Santos Triads]

The Triads and The Clowns decided it was time to have another catch up meeting to see how things have been going.
Unfortunately the meeting was interrupted by a lone police cruiser showing up to the meeting.

Both of the groups jumped in their vehicles and headed to a second meeting spot, hopefully out the way of the cops.

It turned out one of the Clowns was being traced by detectives and they showed up to the second meeting.
Most people managed to escape but some were blocked in by the cruiser.

The SWAT team was moving in to the building, sweeping each area. The Triads set up to hold their grounds.

One of the SWAT officers came round the wrong corner aiming his gun and then opening fire at the Triads.
This didn't end well for him.

Unluckily for the men there was backup waiting round the corner.
They stood as one and went down as one like true Triads.
 

[[SOLD] 2G Vinewood House 🏠]

575

[[SOLD] 2G Vinewood House 🏠]

I'll start off this by bidding 500k.  You know my number.

[Make High End Cars have Manual Transmission]

+1 to introducing the option but not restricting it to any specific cars. It should be a command that can be toggled. 

But this isn't currently an option available in GTA so I can see this being hard to implement.