cheatonus

All three of these organizations certainly have their own RP. That's their RP. That's their style. It's cool in it's own way but that's their RP. Other organizations have different styles. They are more open, more aggressive, and yes would expect more interactions with police. But that doesn't have to mean constant interaction with police, especially when we're in the confines of our own compound. There needs to be a wide latitude in how the RP is approached between cops and crims that allows for different stylistic choices. And to me in many ways its not the forcefulness of RP of the interactions with PD that were the issue, and not even the jail and fines, though they do suck, it is the frequency of the interactions. LFM were roleplaying a cartel. We were heavily armed, aggressive, and quick to become hostile. Irish in many ways RPs the same way. They never contacted us once prior to or after they got official status to discuss turfs, make declarations or otherwise have any relationship with us outside of fighting for territory. That's their style and it's fine. I'm never suggesting that the PD should be weak. Only that they should be perhaps smaller and less pervasive. Allowances should be made in the face of a heavily armed well funded PD to give crims more chances to escape in creative ways instead of less as long as those ways aren't ridiculously unrealistic (i.e. supercars up mountainsides). PD should, in the face of heavily armed, aggressive criminal organizations sometimes take a more intelligent approach that considers the value of the lives of the officers involved. This would not only create much fewer stressful and frustrating RP scenarios and allow crim orgs to develop and actually do RP internally it would help OOC relations. I won't address the OOC concerns and to me that's a part of it and it's ridiculous and it's not limited to any one faction. There are also huge issues when it comes to the pvp aspect of the game where hacking and other exploiting is concerned but that's a discussion for another thread. I'll leave you with this, this is a video of a mexican cartel flexing their power. While we understood this could never happen in ECRP this is kind of how we viewed ourselves and our RP. While we know having this kind of power in ECRP would be ridiculous, just a little bit of fear, trepidation and respect for who we are and our capabilities should be expected not only from PD but other groups as well. Crim RP could be improved in many ways but to expect every crim organization to operate in darkness in a shadow consortium kinda way I think is taking away RP opportunities. And PD confronting and raiding these organizations every time someone carries a pistol in an HQ I also think is bad RP and far fetched and ruins RP opportunities. Let crim orgs breath a little. Let them have areas they claim which even the highest ranking, heavily armed swat officer would be concerned to go into. There are parts of my city that the cops don't go unless there's something to clean up. I'll be done with this now, I hope that in some of my ranting people have found some constructive points.

I think this is the fundamental issue here, though. No one on the crim side is trying to act like a "real" gang. We're ECRP gangs. It's all caricature, exaggeration and tropes. That's all it will ever be because it's GTA RP. We're not professional actors and we're just trying to take a few moments off from our real lives to have some fun pretending to be something we're not. This idea of "Realism" is flawed and frankly who the hell wants realism? Do cops want to go in after their day and have to explain to their superiors where every bullet they shot went? Do crims want to spend life in jail because they murder someone? This is GTA RP, not second life. It should be lighthearted, character driven and fun. In it's current state it seems to me PD are the only ones having fun, and probably civ RPers and the crim RPers are simply here to give the cops something to do.

My AK-47s on wholesale comment was sarcasm. I would beg to differ, the server starts to feel like Fallujah every time the crims feel like they have no power and start to get frustrated. And again, I don't know why "realism" has to be the thing instead of just reality in the context of ECRP. And why that reality can't have some sense of balance.

Thanks for the rational reply. I guess my point is it's currently too much, too often and to harsh. 50% of crim RP shouldn't be prison RP in my opinion. Some concession has to be made on occasion to look the other way, turn a blind eye and just let us have our open world RP. Even if this means giving more PD corruption so they can help crims stay out of jail. We want to be able to go out into a remote area of the map and have a big gang meeting and flex our gear and show our strength to one another without getting merked by cops. Lately it feels like every time we step into a chopshop, every time we step into a drug lab. Anytime we engage in any RP out in the open for more than half an hour there's a police presence. RP at gang HQs and turs should be ignored by police unless flagrantly dangerous, i.e. heavies out, shooting etc. But seeing a few gang members with pistols and masks... just ignore that shit. Let us have our RP with each other. You come across 80 gang members heavily armed having a meeting in the hills... recognize they're trying to have an RP scene and let them have it. I understand this is RP and on some level it's supposed to be spontaneous, but there always has to be allowances for letting people RP and complete their RP and have their fun without interference. Crims literally can't come into PD and interrupt your things, it's against the rules. All those guns we have to grind for. All those cars we have to grind for. Those meetings we try to have take hours to organize. PD folks can literally log in go on duty earn money all day and never pay a dime for any resources they use. This is out of balance. It's not fun. It creates a lot of OOC resentment because of the inequality simply because someone chose to play a rogue over a warrior. I understand it's RP and it's not that black and white, but none of us is really here to RP a poor sod that can't get ahead. I'll be straight with you. I'm done with playing here. I find little joy in it. It's 15 minutes of fun followed by hours of silly one sided RP I have no interest in. I make these posts in hope someone will at least attempt to look at it from our side. Consider fun and balance over "realism" and realize "realism" isn't necessarily fun. Try to understand the players who play the other class aren't bad people IRL and want to have fun and enjoy their RP too. Adjust the RP and rules and IC laws to allow for this. Criminals shouldn't be broke and cops shouldn't be multi-millionaires on salary alone. Balance is key to fun in games.

"During the pre-dawn raids Tuesday, LAPD officers and special agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives" This was not just PD. Also they used 800 officers to arrest 87 people. They used the combined force of local and federal agencies to take down a targeted group of people after spending exhastive hours planning and investigating. This wasn't "Oh god they have a gun lets roll boys get the heli!!!!." The way you initiate, conduct, and your justification for raids is ridiculous. The presence of a percieved, or even a group of perceived criminals, armed or not, is not a justification for a lightening raid. It's unrealistic, it doesn't happen like that. So if you're shooting for "realism" then don't do that. Look, if you want to have criminals to interact with then you need to give them some power. No one is playing the game and RPing to be a broke-ass, 2 bit criminal. RPly the criminal organizations you're interacting with are the biggest and baddest in the city. Those members of those organizations are RPly fucking dangerous, ruthless, and and the baddest mofos in the city. If we're to extrapolate out and assume this is a city of millions of people in how we RP, then those dudes are the TOP. You should treat them with fear, respect, and a great deal of distance. You're the police not the military. You want to go home to your wife and kids every night. These gangsters don't give a fuck. You're just there to take away their freedom. They've basically already given up their lives. Yet Sam Martin rolls up next to me, a leader of one of these gangs at a gas station and shouts "Dead gang!" Give me a fucking break. You have your RP backwards.

Every creative way we've tried to escape has been taken away. Vehicles nerfed. Escape paths walled off. Very few of us ever shoot first. Do you realize how long it took them to take down Escobar? The investigative effort that was used there? Do you realize that Escobar had nearly gotten the run of the whole country at one point? They only took him down when the US government got involved and poured their resources into the process. Bottom line is we do get caught. Repeatedly. Even when we're being careful. There's no no escaping PD. There's no escaping their gaze, or their pursuits. So many of our characters are broke because we basically grind for the next arrest. People don't get into crime to be poor, they get into it because it's easy money with high risk. You guys are so convinced you're right in what you're doing you can't see the issues. You honestly believe that two of the largest gangs in the city decided to disband over one incident? This has been coming for months. My point about the police being invasive is the map is small. It's difficult to move around without being seen. There's only so many places to go and ways to get to them. And here's the thing. Criminal have acted different. We've been told not to chase others in the streets. We don't. We know engaging with police is a lost cause at this point so typically we don't. Thing is no one wants to go to jail. I think that's honestly pretty realistic thought. Any criminal will do whatever they can do in their power to avoid this, that includes shooting cops. The issue is the cops don't seem to ever have any avoidance thoughts when it comes to engaging criminals. I'm sorry, but there's nothing realistic with the thought processes behind the PD. However, if the goal was to reduce the overall number of people engaging in criminal RP and have ECRP be heavily PDRP focused, that's a reality you've created with very high success.

The issue is you don't understand WHY law enforcement doesn't get killed. It's not because they overwhelm and overpower the criminals on the whole and the criminals just capitulate. it's because they don't engage. They don't take big fights. They can't respawn and they don't want to die, they're normal people with families who do a job. Officer smith and jones who sees a large gathering of gang members having a meeting as they patrol are far more likely to ignore it than call it in. "You calling that one in, Bob?" "No, Jim, I don't really want to die today do you?" "No, Bob, best to let that one be" They do their research and investigation and take people down one at a time or a few at a time in small raids. I'm sorry, Alex, but you're incorrect in your ideas. The reason we have civility and order in big cities is because most people are civil and orderly. Any police department in any city could easily be overrun if the citizens chose to do so. And look, you're making my point for me. ECRP is not reality. It should not be reality. Realism shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be allowing people to have their RP and enjoy themselves. Either way, I'm sorry. But the PD don't have the upper hand anywhere. If they did then there would be no criminal organizations. They would simply wipe them out, much as you've done here on ECRP. If you think these "injunctions" actually do anything you're way off base. It's just a way of PD to make it look like they're doing something about the problem to their average citizenry. There was a time on ECRP where PD was down really bad. We'd get robbed at Bayview by an armed gang and call it in, no one would show up for half an hour if they showed up at all. I don't think this should be the case either. However, the compensation for this reality has been WAY overblown. People want to have fun. It's a game. Games need balance, rp or not, and the balance is way the hell off.

I am commenting on this statement alone. This is fundamentally false. There's not a large city in the world where this is true. Chicago has a 12000 officers for 2.71 million people. Los Angeles has 9000 officers for 3.7 million people. There's not a large city in the world where police have the upper hand. This is an idea people have here on ECRP and I'm not sure where this comes from, but it's factually incorrect. The only way this is ever true is in situations of military rule and even then it's not really true. By and large police departments everywhere in "western" style countries are underfunded, undermanned and barely equipped enough to handle any sort of organized resistance. Large criminal organizations are typically taken down through slow methodical investigation and working through the inside to disrupt operations not wholesale armed raids on gang run facilities. If you want realism in police power cut the PD numbers in down by 75%, put them in cars that can barely crack 20mph over the speed limit and handle like balls. Take fully automatic weapons away from PD because at least here in the states they don't have them (but the criminals do). Make guns cheap and easy to get for criminals, because that's how it is anywhere in t he world (AK47s on wholesale yall!). That would be far more realistic than what you have now, which is a PD that is basically 1/4 of the population of the server at any given time of day. I comment on this statement not because I think Bala was making an intentionally false statement, but that he honestly believes it is true, that "the odds are always naturally and correctly in the favour of law enforcement." It just plain is not true in reality. This, however, seems to be the general philosophy behind law enforcement in the current ECRP environment for the sake of promoting some sort of realism. In reality it's not remotely realistic. The fact is PD in ECRP are overbearing on the crim RPers. They're too present, too pervasive, too hard to escape and frankly way out of balance to make it generally fun to engage in criminal RP. Ask criminal players how often they login to the game to wind up in prison within the first 10-15 minutes of logging in? How many hours a week they're spending doing prison RP instead of open world crim RP? And this isn't for a lack of crims trying to be careful, it's the PD is ever present and inescapable. This is all due to the fact that those who are in charge think this is what a real PD is like which is fundamentally incorrect. There's nothing realistic about the way PD are operating currently. Frankly there's nothing realistic about the game in general. It's cartoonish and the map is small. Not only are you trying to push "realism" into a scenario where it doesn't really need to exist (ECRP can and does have it's own reality) the changes that you're making for the sake of "realism" aren't actually realistic. My advice, not that anyone asked, is focus on fun and character driven RP instead of trying to make everything "realistic" because ultimately this is an impossible task. If the idea is for ECRP to be a PDRP arrest simulator then you've done a damn good job achieving that. But that's not realistic. Balance and everyone who plays the game enjoying the game should be the end goal of any game developer. Realism always takes a backseat to this, even in RP.

On the issue as it relates to the drag as a "meta vehicle" and that there shouldn't be any use of vehicles for their advantages in an RP game this is purely opinion. Any criminal organization is going to look around at the environment they're working in and seek to find ways to have an advantage. If that means they find a certain vehicle that can help them they will do it and other organizations will pick up on it. Frankly, PD currently has every advantage and from an RP standpoint the drag was being used in some really fun and interesting ways with crim orgs coming up with very creative ways to get their people on to the vehicles to escape during a pursuit. In a situation where a criminal is faced with a long jail sentence and heavy fines why do we expect them not to try and find small advantages to increase their odds of escape? To expect otherwise is unrealistic. My honest opinion is the biggest issue with the Drag was it's removal from the stores originally. The bike should have been nerfed at that time instead of removed and creating a runaway second hand market. I think very few people would complain at this point if they hadn't spent ridiculous money on these things. I also agree with the fact that this bike, in reality, should handle like crap. There's nothing about the geometry or purpose of the drag which should make it a nice handling bike. It's basically a muscle car in bike form, meant to go fast in a straight line. However, to nerf it after the fact and remove yet another small edge a criminal player may have to escape capture is not a deterrent to the "win" mentality it's another logical error in what constitutes "reality" in a game. The ultimate result of this, which is already proving out, is more shootouts and ambushes and less pursuits where the person simply just gets away because they manage to creatively get themselves onto a superior vehicle. Realistically speaking criminals aren't spending their days driving around in pet cars while their doing business. They're buying vehicles which have good utility and value that will help them achieve their business goals. Real drug runners aren't using low riders to make drug deals in the desert. They're not using Kamachos to make deals in the city. To expect groups and individuals to always use a pet car simply to conform to a third party's idea of what the organization's or individual's RP should be is bad for RP and bad for the server in general. To be blunt what I see is the legal entities on the server pushing a narrative that criminals should never win when law enforcement intervenes. This in and unto itself is unrealistic, and considering the size of the map as it relates to the size of the police department the intervention is very high probability and inevitable. So, in conclusion, please explain why we wouldn't expect criminal entities to seek to find ways to swing these situations to their advantage especially since the "enemy" outnumbers them 5:1, has zero risk, zero cost, and frankly nothing to lose at all in the situation? Unlike cops, realistically speaking, criminals are always on duty, always at risk, and in the current ECRP economy have to constantly grind to just be able to buy fuel, food, and water. One jail sentence not only wipes out a significant portion of a person's bank account, but also prevents them from continuing to make money so it's a double swing. In this case a criminal may own a pet car, but that's not what they're going to drive every day. They're going to find vehicles which will help them avoid prison and keep their business operating. I realize this thread is about the drag specifically, but the issues around the drag, why it was removed originally, and nerfed eventually are a larger topic than just the vehicle itself.

I think this is immersion disruptive. It can also be metagamed to a point (i.e. I see a cop ((tabbed out)) I know I don't have to slow down passing him at high speed). I'm not sure exactly what the purpose of putting this in was, though I can see it's uses. But, I think perhaps it should only be available for admins/staff to see and maybe in certain areas. Overall though, I think it's distracting to immersion and honestly not very nice to look at in the UI and should be gone or a lot less obtrusive.

Ya as the rule is written you would have to buy a new bodycam every 2 IRL days. Unless you're PD, I think they consider body cam as part of their uniform loadout. Maybe it would be nice to have a bodycam object that can be purchased from stores, even if it doesn't actually do anything. Also keep in mind you have your phone and the /record command to RP recording as well.

The race was on... A massive shipment of contraband had arrived in Los Santos for LFM. Everything had gone as planned in the shipment, delivery, and receipt of the goods. Suddenly there was a hitch in the plan. Per usual Los Santos's finest had to stick their collective nose in LFM business. Taylor Garcia pushed the Ribla to the limit to escape but it was no good. The cops were too fast and they were attempting to pit them at every opportunity. The call came over the radio for help. There was no hesitation, LFM sprung into action and called in some favors with friends for help. Luckily for the brothers in trouble the cavalry wasn't far away having been conducting business on Mt. Chiliad. The obvious setup spot, with the pursuit speeding up the western freeway, was the Chumash toll plaza. Bobby Forsyth hopped in his truck and was the first one down the mountain. There was no time to lose, the blockade must be established and quickly. He sped southbound on the winding freeway towards the toll plaza bridge. The cartel command and soldiers arrived at the toll plaza with little time to spare. They cleared out the government workers and started setting up the blockade. They wouldn't have time to rig the booth open. The incoming friendlies would have to abandon their vehicle and run to another vehicle, along with the goods, to escape. It would be on the support to occupy the cops while the escape was made. As the convoy pulled into the toll area guns were drawn and readied. Bobby Forsyth's red Contender blocked the southbound lane. The only way through was the northbound gate. As Taylor maneuvered the Novak into the choke point the LFM troops opened fire forcing the PD to focus on them instead of the vehicle they were pursuing. Taylor and his two passengers sprang from the Ribla and hopped the gate to the friendly side. There were only seconds to spare and as Benjamin Trell, a passenger in the Novak and the man with the goods, made it to an escape vehicle. Bobby Forsyth went down to enemy fire. Two policemen were taken out before the escape was made. With the mission accomplished command made the decision to escape. There were Blaine County SD troopers inbound from the north which would leave them sandwiched between hostile forces. LFM and their allies quickly abandoned the firefight and fled to their vehicles. As Bobby lay bleeding in pain he couldn't help but have a feeling of satisfaction. Some things are worth more than money. The survival of LFM is key and his life is forfeit to this cause. The weapons saved in that shipment would be insurance to this survival. Ultimately Bobby survived and found himself in the familiar surroundings of Bolingbrook Penitentiary. A small price to pay for his Familia.

There are several suggestions within my post on how to improve this. The overall suggestion is increase the reward and/or reduce the risk for the criminal. Do you have any suggestions or feedback on my suggestions and feedback?

My goal here is to be respectful but also honest. Please understand I'm approaching this subject with a clear head and trying to remain objective. To put it in a nutshell I'm quite confused about what the goals are for the server in regards to where criminals fit into the picture. Frankly, regardless of all the script support and the fact of the matter is it is currently extremely difficult to be a criminal on ECRP. I do not, however, agree that crim RP is dead but I do think that the underlying game support for criminals is extremely... and I mean extremely, out of balance. I'll try to be concise and hit on a few major points here. Realistically criminals, especially when you consider our characters being playing characters, should not be struggling day to to to make ends meet. There is very little reward for the risk right now, especially if you're avoiding min/max type scenarios. Drug sales pay very little, chops are few and far between because cars despawn off the map, weapon sales are difficult especially now with the raise of the price of heavy weapons. Meanwhile police officers are driving supercars, living in mansions, and basically have carte blanche and zero IC repercussions in an RP scenario involving criminals. We have full time cops owning and running the largest mechanic shop in town, which in and unto itself should be a full time job. Moreover these jobs and positions are considered "government" job, which is a discussion for another post but also doesn't make much sense outside of actual government services. In the real world criminals, especially higher-ups in organizations tend to be quite wealthy. Police officers on the other hand tend to be rather poor or middle class, even high ranking officers would be far below that in wealth of a high ranking cartel member. However, every few months an update is made to ECRP which further makes the grind more and more difficult for a crim, but not for any other player in turn. Beginning with the rise in the fines for prison, which was followed by a heavy increase in police presence, which was followed further by a decrease in the vehicles available to criminals with which they can realistically escape a police officer and now an increase in the price of weapons available to the criminal which will further reduce the income to payout ratio. In short it has become much much more expensive to run a criminal character than it has any other type of character on the server while the risk of loss for the character has also increased. This is a huge balance issue. I won't cover the time spent in jail as an issue other than to say on top of fines the extreme amount of time spent in jail also reduces the ability to generate income for the character. It seems to me that the powers that be have set up a scenario whereby they want to reduce the overall criminal population on the server. To that end they have succeeded. There have been quite a few notable criminals players who have either switched to legal or law enforcement characters or left the server entirely. This trend continues. I myself admit I contemplate being done playing altogether because I have no desire to play a legal character. However, the time invested in my character and the friends I've made keep me playing here. Most of this is in relation to financial hardships for my character and inability to make any sort of gains for my character. No matter how careful I am/we are or try to avoid interaction with police but ultimately it happens and the jailtime and fines quickly add up and any gains I've made are quickly wiped away. It's extremely frustrating. Inevitably someone will respond to this by saying "if you can't do the time don't do the crime" and my response is I'm not a criminal, my character is and all things being OOCly fair my character shouldn't have any more trouble accumulating wealth than anyone elses, it would just be done by different means. And if the risk is going to be so high then the rewards need to be far greater. Chops need to chop for more, drugs need to sell for more, and guns should be prolific and cheap. My personal opinion is every day I feel more like I'm basically playing a mob that is here for the entertainment of the police department. This feels like a PD RP server where I'm making the choice to play a character that is fodder for PD RP. It seems I'm intentionally being made to struggle to keep my character weak and easy to take down. This is how I feel and I would like to think I'm wrong, but with very little communication from the administration about where crims fit in the overall picture and what the ultimate balanced picture of the world in which we RP looks like it's very difficult than to just form my opinion based on my observations and the current state of my character and those I RP with. I would ask for the senior administration to please reply to this post or create their own post outlining their goals for crims and how they see us fitting into the world, because currently we really don't. And again, this is ignoring the script support, which is extensive and I think is quite good, this is purely from an IC and RP perspective. this is purely an attempt to quell some frustration many of us feel in regards the utter poverty of our character and the inability to make any headway in improving it without what I would consider hardcore hours and effort in gaming terms. I liken this to being in a hardcore raiding guild in WoW or being competitive in a shooter or RPG game. RP, in general, shouldn't be a huge grind and frankly the fact that a huge grind is required to stay on top of your characters financial wellbeing as a crim leads to a lot of the min/max attitude people seem very determined to deter on ECRP. Players who choose to keep their characters legal never have the same constraints or hardships applied to their characters. They may have some mandatory hours and participation requirements but outside of that there's zero risk to their characters wealth or status. In other words legal characters have zero risks and pretty decent rewards. Crim should be high risk, high reward, and currently IMO these are intensely out of balance with one another. I'm not looking for my character to be rolling like a playboy in Vinewood. But living well in Vespucci canals shouldn't be difficult. Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

Awesome shit, Red. When can I download the book to my Kindle?