CalvinKlein

Remember council days the official gangs had 60 slots as well, if im not mistaken, and now we're at half of that, with many smaller groups. And imagine if instead of the rule changes, there was better guidance from FM, on what to Demand from gangs, to what extent the wars go, etc and for example what conflict seems reasonable for extortion vs an all out hunt.. (Except the war system was made for only 1 war (WCA war), then never used again, said it's getting remade, and here we are 6 years later without a war system) or a proper framework for gang conflict aside from escalate a situation, kill all, NLR now, find new situation and escalate again later, or run it in labs imagine if instead of the backup rule, there was guidance on what allows for a backup, and what doesn't, and to what extent can alliances be utilized, i feel like the easy route was just complete dissection.

Weapons aren't the problem. "Right now, you can get yourself 1000 guns, keep them, and for the next 12 months just do nothing but fight the whole server. What do you care? " sounds like a Not here to RP issue to me, which people get banned for. If I play for 2 months, get a bunch of guns, quit for a month, when I come back I shouldn't go over it again because my life needed me somewhere, or I had to lockin on my clinical work.. anyways let's agree to disagree homie and remember it's a game.

that's just your experience and your opinion brother. you think I'm lying, I think you're still hurting and I'm sorry crime didn't work out for you. I'll confidently say any day, despite the more strict regulations and all the newer rules etc aimed to improve the "RP quality",. the RP quality has detoriated and there was more RP back then, even if some cases were exceptions, talk about day to day, we lost the plot... And even those exceptions I believe occured because there was no real system for gang conflict, whether small scale conflict / skirmishes, or all out war. look at Zeta vs SeaWeeds war, Seaweeds said fuck it we aint paying tax, started a war, both sides enjoyed,... where was a "I'm bored let's push them out".. Another war I was a part of with old council while in Zetas was against CapiBaras., even the last war with council had so much politics, build up, events leading up to it, and during it. Talk about lore? look at Dojin Kai, and their Dojo RP, or FSO (All of this was before any Lore rules)

The problem is, what if I need to go on LOA or have some IRL shit and don't play for a while, why should my stash go away? expiry date on guns will just make re-stocking more frequent, the interaction would mostly be me talking to contact, going picking up, done. I think that will make me wanna either not play, or will sit and have to grind again and get the guns again, which puts me in a cycle thats not very RP-enticing

read my replies above about that culture, i think we agree

Everyone loves the action, the speed, the races, chases, the adrenaline, the shooting. The Lab PVP zone culture was created because of restrictions on real conflict RP, and lack of a system with rules that prevent the flow of conflicts between gangs. Back in the day people still rolled labs, robbed in labs, fought in labs,. but it was never likes this

You know what's crazy? Alllll the changes to take the server to a more "Heavy RP" and adding more rules etc, starting from the robbery rule change many many years ago, and mostly the FM changes to do with crime, and everything done to take the server in that direction... With everything changed, I genuinely Feel as that those times, the "Old" times many people miss, and many hate on, actually had MUCH better RP, people still played Characters, and yes they robbed you in the gas station for no reason, and had a council, alliances, taxing. But the people played characters FR, and wasn't just a OOC guy talking through his VOIP while following Meta rules, as 99% of players are now, at one point for example... Zetas used to have a deal to a degree with PD, don't come try provoking us, looking for petty stuff etc, and we dont shoot cops.. Most of the things people asked for now, and changes done to accomplish said things, actually had an opposite result. IF you look at those "Old" Days, there was a lot of fighting, but most of it had context, most of it had history, story, RP behind it, meetings, wars , conflicts, and RP, even with PD between Crims and Cops, we had more RP before we even had the prison sentence caps, cops weren't afraid to lose in a scenario, and crims took the L. Being here since 2017 I am honestly not sure at this point if it's the gradual changes made by staff that got us here, or just the community (mostly different people now). P.S, I love shootouts, I love getting in shootouts, and PVPing in GTA RP, BUT not without purpose, or story, or context behind it, for that I go play DM servers, I like the action, build up, climax and conflict RP. And recently that's been so minimal, the dialogues are limited to "hands up" and it's more Ruleplay than anything. Most criminals genuinely despise PD, and feel like they get their enjoyment or fix, based on how bad they fuck someone over, and it's like everyone just fucking lost the plot. I think we need more community meetings, more listening to suggestions, revamping FM as suggested (I so agree with you on the impact that's had over the years). We need to have proper guidelines on conflict that allows conflict to happen VIA RP without being a report war and actually have people roleplay the shit,. the WAR system we have is non-functional, and it's crazy to think the server had 1 war... Conflicts need to have reason, story, escalation, climax, resolution. Conflicts are healthy for the server and criminal RP, and add depth to the PVP we all love instead of it being bullets hitting player models, It's becoming Tarkov RP instead of GTA RP. I don't say this saying let's have less shootouts, less PVP, just have it RP oriented. When's the last time you saw a gang pull up to another's block and start a brawl with baseball bats for example? How often are gangs kidnapping their enemies kidnapped nowadays? instead of just caught, demands, shot. When's the last time you heard of a ransom situation. It's crazy to say but before there was any staff enforcements on "Lore" etc etc. gangs had more Lore, and stuck to it. The wanted did their races, The Mexicans did their low-rider events, the Irish did their pub stuff, the street gangs did their baseball brawls, and alllll of it was organic. I think criminals were almost metaphorically strangled on the server to where everything became a rule, and a punishment until crime almost died out at one point (we had a goooood bit with barely any gangs). then there was more relaxing, and after that crime returned in a much much lower quality, and I think adding more restrictions will not help, what is needed is multiple stages of community meetings, where criminals are heard, and the best case scenario for EVERYBODY on the server is discussed, and goals are set and worked towards together by the community. The game will need certain re-balancing aspects, and the dynamic IC and OOC between Cops/Crims/Staff/Civs, needs to be worked on, because rn most people login and just drive, talk, cruise around, maybe get in a shootout if they run labs. The encouragement shouldn't be on how often you go to an empty warehouse and do /me's and /do's for RP and post them, but rather the actual STORY, players are proactively participating in, with the server overall, and actual players, bring more interesting elements instead of things always being too predictable and routine, allow some more crooked cops, bribery, more bench trials, (Those from SAMP remember, if you ever got arrested and requested a trial and DOJ was online, you were instantly taken for a bench trial instead of directly prison) For businesses, they should have custom items that serve different purposes.. for example, player wants to open a printing press. starts printing newspapers (as a phsyical item) Makes business cards (you'd get inv items you can share as a business card). Say you want to open a pizzaria, then you get Pizza as an item, that as a food has x better effect than store food, to encourage more player to player interaction. Re-create / Fix, a social hotspot, at one point the bank was a hotspot ( we all miss bank thots i know), and then we had the Pier, sadly the pier was slowly killed off by ways that could've been avoided, I personally liked going there despite never fishing because it was a place for Kevin as a character to do things outside just being a "gangster" and actually having "a life" aspect to his character, now the equivalent of that is driving around or sitting with a few friends, which gives less player to player interaction. Do community votes on certain things, and let the people get involved to a degree. I don't think labs are the problem, or guns, but rather the system, and the players, and the system to a degree made the players, so now both need heavy diagnosis and treatment, and not with "Decay stashes" For example fighting cops is shown as a Not-here-to-RP typa activity.... it shouldn't, it never was until PD went so heavy on supression checks, and gangs fought back together at the late nights, people got upset when losing, and the culture shifted, and that there was a dangerous tipping moment, because right now 99% of criminals, would rather have 0 interactions with police, whether negative or positive,.. Evading them is a diff story because of the zerg-y convoy you get with every type of vehicle on earth, havocking the entire city. So not bashing PD, but saying the entire dynamic between cops and criminals needs adjustment to where both sides ENJOY the game, and ENJOY one another's interactions and company, regardless of Win or Lose, people need to remember criminals arent bad people you need to fuck over, they're players playing the game, and this is their style of playing, some like the rule-strict, law-abiding , guy.... some like the action, and both are VALID, and both can contribute RP positively. Add minigames in prison where prisoners can sneak out / escape, guards gotta catch them, crims gotta work together, ability to smuggle phones or methods of communicating with the outside, and AFTER the escape, PD is alerted too, if they make it out , they make it out, and that's that, if they're caught, they're sent back, possibly with extra time (when's the last time you saw a prison escape btw??) Police chases should be limited to x amount of cars, when there's a chase, the whole city knows, and if you're on the road, you pray it doesn't pass through you. For the private labs, big - to be honest... Public labs are good and the payout doesnt need nerf with how expensive everything is, and as an old player, I see some things with almost x10 increases. But loooook heyyy. back when gangs operated organically with the underworld having structures etc with no intervention, going to hit a gang meant REAL consequence, beyond just dying , doing it again,. or killing, doing it again, or stealing then doing it again.. So yeah alliances, heirarchy, all of that was RP, people hated.... The problem didn't come from the big bad council (I was in Zetas and Aztecas on council side), and (WCA and Murdablock). So I have been on both sides, the problem was with the CONFLICT system that doesn't exist, for example... instead of all the rule changes, you could've added a conflict system, with levels of conflict on what you could do, based on where the RP flows, and for many types of conflict, it CAN only be GANG 1 vs GANG 2, without any interference / backup. There you could've fixed the alliances problem... Say you're a gang that ONLY goes around robbing and shooting everyone, sure make that your RP,. but if all gangs hunt you down, that should be your consequence not a rulebreak, but should be without an end until the gang is ran out the server, meaning every conflict should include group x wants this group y wants that, winner has it their way. FM only overlooks that in terms of Reason for conflict / level and adequate responce / keeping track of conflicts and where they escalate / who's winning etc. Right now the HIGHEST form of gang to gang conflict is : "We find them in a lab, OR, they push us in a lab" or " We found them with a heavy and now it's a chase" ,.. or some situation happens, then whoever isn't NLRed is just hunting whoever started said situation, without an actual story about how gang x did this, gang y did that in response, and X was the outcome. I kinda just brainstormed this and it went from reply to Bala to a reply to the thread.. and thought about a few things having different insight after playing Red Dead RP for the past year, which is so different, and seeing how incorporating the good from Red Dead, with the good from GTA together gives you one hell of a recipe. Also I think if private labs are brought back, it should be Outdoors, without the explosion stuff, to where gangs / PD can still find you, maybe make it produce a smoke thats visible ish once close. ( still against private labs, specially with the most recent update of how often they blew up) P.s, Turf wars, allow gangs to fight and do politics over turfs, with different turfs giving different rewards, in a system that has fair Competition for them. Finally I'd like to ask @Lewis, is it the FIGHTING in general you'd like to see less, or is it more about fighting with context / RP / Storyline as I've outlined above, that you personally, and as staff would like to see?

i think it was still better than now imo

You're focusing on individuals rather than the structure, the problems lie with the structures imo, not Lewis himself on a personal level. If an OLD SAMP server (that both Lewis, Clank, and I came from ) its def possible, and we can def do it better, Imma leave it at that for me. read some of the points I wrote to clank highlighting old judicial system there and gov splitting etc (all IC events monitored and facilitated by FM)

I don't like funding being part of this since it's basically just money spawned with infinity vehicles/weaponry/ anything with cost being available for any of the factions.

One can say the same about gangs however there is Faction management for Legal and illegal factions. The same way Cartel exists ICly, a "shadow government or corp" can exist ICly to possible interfere if the IC mixed with the OOC and FM's IC intervention was needed.

it can be very doable and somewhat minimal , and I have seen servers on GTA V implement it where you just need to clip your evidence from the arrest, i dont think it is hard to have POV saved with your arrest / situation the same way it is for OOC situations, except for OOC it'll involve OOC typing / responding to admin inquiries etc which is hectic and stressful (if u fucked up lmao) while ICly this will create a nice roleplay scenario that can be concluded in less time it takes to clean up a scene sometimes

I dont think the problem has to do with Lewis but rather GOV in its structure as an entity, with how it operates and functions as a faction and its contribution to the roleplay experience in-game (not on forums etc / paperwork ) and the same for judicial.. There still is Faction Management for OOC interventions etc and running things smoothly (the same way it is for gangs, we do have Legal faction management) Election campaigns would bring so much RP, the competition , politics, whether it was corrupt RP, or RP with integrity, it is RP at the end of the day. Those things bring life to the Civilian RP that is always emphasized as "we want to push more civilian RP" . For example, one can criticize PD or SD as a faction (on a micro level) but in the end, those factions have direct RP impact, and create RP , and contribute to your daily in-game experience when playing the game, so regardless of any imperfections or points you can criticize , they do create a more interactive gameplay , and have heavy presence in-game if that makes sense

Clank I dont think it is "what we have now" that is the issue, but rather the implementation and execution for it, Moey was amazing but I am pretty sure someone can come close to doing a job similar to his, with adaptive alterations to fit the server's nature, however you look at the website and all the threads / posts and you think WOW this is an amazing system when in reality it is more about what it looks like than what it is, and more about what words are there, and how many of this is written, all good on theory but almost nonexistent in practice.. From an IC standpoint you basically get sent to jail (even if you can be proven innocent in court) and you file an appeal , wait 10 months without a conclusion after you server your sentence which is a total imbalance of power here, and honestly it makes Judicial completely useless, ( might as well not exist at that point since it is just some people doing forum posts and the in-game RP experience is not enhanced or engaging in any way) I don't think anyone by then cares about their 10 months ago charges they did time for lmao

Bro I feel like this is more for monarchy systems or so, however realistically a "governor" for a "state" or a police chief / commissioner would be a "servant of the public" rather than a ruler ya get me

Well rather than the term" nepotism" I would say it happened through networking for a more correct depiction, you and I both come from NGRP on SA:MP,. and despite it being on a game that is 18YO now, with no VOIP and just Text RP, there was literally a better judicial system on there than ECRP's Judicial system at it's peak.. let alone the fact that an IC dispute took place with the governments splitting, and the establishment of Tierra Robada (with TRAF as its army and its own gov, the War RP that happened between them multiple times, and other lore that took place) those are all things that are more possible, and facilitated with the engine we have (Being GTA V, with Eclipse's script on RAGE) than samp ever was, which shows the problem is rather the system. On SAMP, You would get arrested, and if you dispute your charges, get taken directly to court instead of straight prison, where you had to RP through court etc, to determine whether you are guilty and go to jail or if you were innocent, (except in rare cases with no DOJ online), nowadays you get "go file a court appeal, or there is no DOJ online, and even if there was it is "go post an appeal" , which takes beyond forever, I have 2 active cases, first one being from Sat Aug 26, 2023 ' That is nearly 10 months of "forum posting" on a thread to come to a "court decision" on a video game...

there also is the depiction that "We are roleplaying in the US" said often in the past years, when it came to many of the law, and structuring template etc, judicial as a concept was good, but seemed to be very limited and eventually became a subsidiary of GOV rather than a separate entity, (handpicked positions via nepotizm,. etc and the previous IC "Drama" leading to many people leaving / being removed) Constitution was added that doesnt really constitute for much.

I see, and you are correct, I think the issue pointed out somewhat comes from the fact that the "dictatorship" has been established somewhat through/under OOC merits rather than it happening purely IC through progressive roleplay storyline, with the OOC influence being the final line dictating the IC situation if that makes sense. It's not like you had some elected officials, lets say become "corrupt" IC, and do X Y Z to terminate opposition and RPly subdue the citizens, if there was to be some form of IC revolution/counter for this, it would genuinely be ICLy impossible for OOC reasons.

+ but not inside private properties, have certain areas (fields mountains etc) where you can go and have your own plantation operation making it discoverable and potentially raided by other crims or LEOs

We were given a nice few updates, I’m not sure why a few unnecessary unwanted nerfs were also thrown out on the side, like we can just have nice updates without some sneaky nerfs specially when it comes to money

driving skill issue, they are mostly on sidewalks

Not sure what lead to this but seems like its bothering many players

The suggestion / thread was initially opened by me, mostly for players like you who dont have 9 vehicles out there to just use after a suspension, while it inconveniences me, its just not as much, and when analytically thinking about it, it serves no one no value and takes away from people who want to play the server, and / or are limited, because again this isnt a city with traffic, crowd, transportation system where you get around x to z etc, losing mobility on GTA is very de-motivating for some players to play, for me it is just an annoyance i can brush off, given I can have people drive me, or give me a vehicle, or take one of my other vehicles, but critically speaking on the general player, its an unhealthy mechanic, and you as a somewhat new player, described the experience and analytics of it better than me or anyone on this thread, so thank you

-1 on this , what rp value does this bring ? Imo none to me , its just adding less “quality of life” and conveniences when there’s already many

+1 would make shit more immersive