SAGOV Corruption & Overreach

[AtlasOLimbo]

Just now, idgafashlee said:

crazy how you're always speaking on behalf of others whom are exceedingly capable of voicing their own opinions. i'm sure mel is delighted you're bringing her views into an unrelated forum topic. 
Weasel says they're capable of dealing with things ICLY. The majority of Underground started a new group and have been thriving despite the disband. If you're so bothered about SAGOV, do something about it ICLY. FM doesn't owe anyone anything, we shouldn't act entitled, anyone can create phenomenal RP without altRP and staff support. 

She gave me this specifically to send on her behalf regarding people making assumptions on why she left and UG disbanded.  I'm not here on this thread for the petty catfights and drama you seem so interested in partaking in though, I've said my piece and backed it up. I'll be moving on now.

I've also brought up the counter-argument to most of these points previously, and I really don't feel like repeating myself.

[Bala]

1 hour ago, Soupiestfork said:

This is nonsense. In a free society, state-sponsored media is typically given immunity. The BBC routinely posts negative content about British politicians, and the CBC is *constantly* shitting on the current head of government.

Your argument that they're being state-funded means they should be the equivalent of the PRC's state media is... unfounded.

I wasn't making a political statement when I said "No different OOC than it is now."

My point was, that perhaps in-character having Weazel News being privately owned moving forward, rather than funded by the Government in-character would make more sense, for their roleplay. Perhaps the funding might need to be reviewed somewhat as they wouldn't be a gov funded faction but still OOCly sponsored.

Out of Character, they would still be funded by the server as they couldn't sustain themselves without it, but they wouldn't be a Government-funded entity anymore. 

GOV then isn't responsible for them in-character and it saves GOV having to deal with a headache. They can put out the content that they want to put out but they'd be independent. Hermann can do his thing. If they start breaking the law, there's no GOV protection for them.

They'd be expected to follow certain rules OOC but the IC dynamic would change.

For me, that has been my only real problem with Weazel. It's not what they write about, it's that they are collecting their salaries from the same place as me, it seems silly.

[Bala]

Double Posted, opa.

Edited June 11 by Bala

[Ash]

Does Lewis and the government make silly ic decisions sometimes, yeah absolutely, plenty of times.

But it’s undeniable that it’s created a LOT of roleplay at the end of the day which is a huge benefit.

On the weazel thing, they could definitely do some kind of rp like hiking prices of their services and using that money to buy themselves out and rply becoming private in the way Bala said as an end point to this. If this second news faction thing goes ahead then one can be in the pocket of the government and the other can be “private”.
 

Clanks point about subverting your own perspective about it being a democracy is a good one because on an ooc level, Lewis is there to keep the ball rolling and I’d absolutely prefer things to be handled in character through a “dictators” actions as opposed to it all being policed purely oocly. The main people who have been icly fucked over by gov chose to go down that route and whilst I don’t know what they think on the topic, I think the likes of Herrman/Dante, Cyrus Raven, Andy Tyrie etc all did it to have some interesting roleplay knowing the potential consequences, because it’s fun tbh.

My main criticism would be the way in which JB has been icly screwed over a few times. But I don’t know enough about the inner workings as to whether this is an actual ooc issue just an ic thing.

Im curious how many people feel like it’s an ooc issue and that their rp has been screwed by it. But for me personally, I’ve always viewed it as this is how it is and we roleplay around it and create opportunities from it all.

Edited June 11 by Ash

[AtlasOLimbo]

6 minutes ago, Ash said:

Im curious how many people feel like it’s an ooc issue and that their rp has been screwed by it. But for me personally, I’ve always viewed it as this is how it is and we roleplay around it

Like I said, key people in this RP, even people you have mentioned, feel extremely fucked over OOCly. A lot of them do the RP because no one else is willing to take the hit to try and make the server better, and sometimes they still hardly get anywhere.

There needs to be SOME kind of recourse or relent for the government, something, anything. 

[Pazz]

4 hours ago, Clank said:

I don't think this would happen to be honest, I always tell Pazz that if anyone tried to arrest them ICly they would have to fight off the LSPD kill squad first.

[HobGoblin]

6 hours ago, idgafashlee said:

time for an IC Underground revolution, tell your friends.

Told them and we are sat outside the HQ. See you soon. 

[Richie194]

Welp I started reading this thread and got lost on what the convo is about but referring to the original post, yes corruption can piss people off on an ooc level but at the end of the day it provides several rp opportunities. I personally hate how crim rp is so PVP focussed, if you're not a clap crew, your crew doesn't exist. Having the corruption in these legal factions brings purpose to criminals worrying less about pvp over a fucking lab and gives the chance to rp more with detail that involves several people from both legal and illegal. I loved underground for that reason, yes we felt fucked over from time to time but the motive behind the rp was there. I love the interactions between gov, weazel and PD because it provides tons of opportunities it just relies on players to take those chances. I would love to see protests, riots and revolution in game, obviously its going to be hard to gather those players to do said activities especially seeing how a lot of crim groups focus on guns and rolling labs.


Overall I'm probably saying a load of shit but don't look at too much corruption as bad in an OOC way. there's tons of opportunities they just need to be worked on ICly, its annoying on an OOC level when it doesn't work out but thats the way it is. Quality RP is far more important than being a forum warrior and far better than being someone who just wants to fight. 

[Netlok]

The only problem with any sort of revolution RP is that PD has always been way too hard on stomping it out and turning it into non stop pvp gun fights from my expierence rather then letting the RP scenes play out when stuff like this has arrised. Any protest i have organised has resulted in PD escalating the situation into a riot which in turn becomes counter productive to the players who are trying to have more story based gameplay rather then non stop pvp scenes. I think having some corruption in goverment is healthy for RP but the police officers often dont let the RP build to any meaningful point often leading to these types of players becoming demotivated and leaving the server such as with many members of the Underground. They instead go for quick and easy arrests on minor stuff like unlawful assembly during these situations and just ruin the potential RP that could have unfolded.

[Quietthecutie]

15 minutes ago, Netlok said:

The only problem with any sort of revolution RP is that PD has always been way too hard on stomping it out and turning it into non stop pvp gun fights from my expierence rather then letting the RP scenes play out when stuff like this has arrised. Any protest i have organised has resulted in PD escalating the situation into a riot which in turn becomes counter productive to the players who are trying to have more story based gameplay rather then non stop pvp scenes. I think having some corruption in goverment is healthy for RP but the police officers often dont let the RP build to any meaningful point often leading to these types of players becoming demotivated and leaving the server such as with many members of the Underground. They instead go for quick and easy arrests on minor stuff like unlawful assembly during these situations and just ruin the potential RP that could have unfolded.

Basically this.

Prior to UG going out with a bang we were getting turned off at every corner by LEOs. not countered, turned off. no situation/RP was allowed to develop, we were heavily supressed. once arrested the charge stacking resulted in the rest of the night being spent in DOC causing most of us to log. 

In brief, it just became very unfun to try to be part of an anarchistic gang. OOCly alot of the LEOs didnt seem to grasp what we were trying to create and just saw us as easy arrests. none of the RP ops we tried to develop were allowed to come to fruition, all of them ending in petty arrests and tissue thin escalation, nothing that was a breach of the ruleset, but none of it fun. so alot of our members left/went inactive and the org folded.

Broke my heart cus whenever UG was on one it was hella fun, stealing TARVs, graffitiing mission row and city hall, kidnapping GOV employees and this was before the Panim update. imagine what we coulda done... 

[SquirtleSquad]

Because this has been said a couple of times in this thread, and before this thread gets derailed to how "PD bad", I am going to quote, and link the source of this for Charge Stacking. Mentioning that WILL derail this.

Quote

Ranger ツ — 27/02/2024 14:08
Charge Stacking is where you pointlessly get charged with the same charges multiple times, not you being given 5 different charges. Believe it or not, if you shoot at cops, evade, and rob a bank, you'll get those charges. I'm sorry you were caught. 

You're just malding, charge stacking isn't real (just like gaslighting), just do the processing RP then go outside and touch grass to cool off.

https://discord.com/channels/229240178441584645/229240178441584645/1212113989337874532

 

While there may have been instances where LEO's didn't give crim factions the RP they wanted, that's not always due to the fact that LEO's couldn't; either they didn't know what was being given, nor wanted things to escalate from a crim organization that's a known terrorist group. Why not squash the bug before the infestation overwhelms the already low number of LEO's online when UG was out doing their RP. UG stood against corruption, and in turn developed a name for themselves and their faction members had a number of severe charges.

LEO's IRL and in-game would be fools to not resolve that ASAP before things escalate outside of what they can control. There have been a number of times that LEO's had to let UG go about and do what they wanted to do because LEO's were wiped out.

That's all on this, this can continue back onto SAGOV corruption, and not PD. A new topic for LEO's can be made.

[Quietthecutie]

5 minutes ago, SquirtleSquad said:

 

While there may have been instances where LEO's didn't give crim factions the RP they wanted, that's not always due to the fact that LEO's couldn't; either they didn't know what was being given, nor wanted things to escalate from a crim organization that's a known terrorist group. Why not squash the bug before the infestation overwhelms the already low number of LEO's online when UG was out doing their RP. UG stood against corruption, and in turn developed a name for themselves and their faction members had a number of severe charges.

Because it woulda been something fun, new and refreshing? alot of people on this thread are preaching that aww, itll be such cool ops if people made a movement. no it wont, not currently. as you just said LEOs wont let it fly. if we were getting squashed during our playing hours we would get nuked trying it at peak times. so you can have it one way or another, you cant say "oh sort it out ic" and then say "oh we would be mad to allow you to sort it out ic. squash that bug before it turns into an infestation and all that."

Edited June 11 by Quietthecutie

[Netlok]

1 minute ago, SquirtleSquad said:

Because this has been said a couple of times in this thread, and before this thread gets derailed to how "PD bad", I am going to quote, and link the source of this for Charge Stacking. Mentioning that WILL derail this.

https://discord.com/channels/229240178441584645/229240178441584645/1212113989337874532

 

While there may have been instances where LEO's didn't give crim factions the RP they wanted, that's not always due to the fact that LEO's couldn't; either they didn't know what was being given, nor wanted things to escalate from a crim organization that's a known terrorist group. Why not squash the bug before the infestation overwhelms the already low number of LEO's online when UG was out doing their RP. UG stood against corruption, and in turn developed a name for themselves and their faction members had a number of severe charges.

LEO's IRL and in-game would be fools to not resolve that ASAP before things escalate outside of what they can control. There have been a number of times that LEO's had to let UG go about and do what they wanted to do because LEO's were wiped out.

That's all on this, this can continue back onto SAGOV corruption, and not PD. A new topic for LEO's can be made.

This kinda just proves the point i was making. We shouldnt have to wipe PD to have the chance at peaceful RP. I get we have charges and IRL officers would wanna go after a repeat offender but you also got suspend your disbelief and remember this is an RP server and usually we are trying to make a story. Many of those charges we did get and shootouts with PD we got into we felt were escalated by PD. So on our side it feels very unfair for PD to escalate a situation with us, often occuring outside our own HQ, and then use our reaction to that situation as justification to stomp out our more story based RP we attempted.

[Quietthecutie]

If im being honest i believe this contributes alot to the clapper mentality problem too. LEOs being inflexible in any kind of RP op, so why bother? lets just roll labs bro. just gonna get my black hoodie, pants socks and sliders on, top it off with a tshirt mask so LEOs cant profile me on sight alone, grab myself a fries and water, a joint if i have one, 4 stack my black kamacho (License plate 11ill1i) and go so far off the grid i might as well be playing on a DM server.

[DontSniffSugar]

34 minutes ago, SquirtleSquad said:

Why not squash the bug before the infestation overwhelms the already low number of LEO's online when UG was out doing their RP.

I really don’t wanna participate in the crim vs PD topic that is forming, and this is all I’ll say in this topic. I hear this argument every time we used to do our RP ops, and I just have to say a lot of us didn’t have a choice in what times we were active, the majority of us were NA players and had IRL obligations such as working full time jobs or had to go to school, and we tried to coordinate our RP at early times to provide GOV/PD/SD with better RP opportunities. A lot of us could literally only be active during the daytime on weekends or our days off of work. If there was or is an issue with less players for time zones try to focus recruitment on late timezone officers.

Edited June 11 by DontSniffSugar

[Pazz]

2 minutes ago, DontSniffSugar said:

try to focus recruitment on late timezone officers.

I'm only really going to engage with this reply because it's generally respectful and not engaging in what is forming.

If it were that easy, it would have already been resolved. First, there was a Head Administrator who practically verbally abused and degraded LSPD recruitment members for even considering selective timezone recruitment, now that he's no longer with us, attempts are made but it is still difficult.

It's hard to recruit for late timezones when late timezones, or early depending on where you're at, are for many where the "issues" (very subjective, of course) arise, drives them away, reduces numbers, which then, in turn, makes it difficult to retain new members in those circumstances for that specific time slot.

We've done the math, it's damn near rocket science, and I wish it were as easy as to say "Okay, we're going to recruit for this time and this time only". We're still assigning and advancing people to positions of responsibility internally based on knowing that they will be able to provide more guidance and direction for our members in this time slot to help with player retention, but it is a very, very lengthy process that is not as simple as we would hope it to be.

[SquirtleSquad]

15 minutes ago, DontSniffSugar said:

I really don’t wanna participate in the crim vs PD topic that is forming, and this is all I’ll say in this topic. I hear this argument every time we used to do our RP ops, and I just have to say a lot of us didn’t have a choice in what times we were active, the majority of us were NA players and had IRL obligations such as working full time jobs or had to go to school, and we tried to coordinate our RP at early times to provide GOV/PD/SD with better RP opportunities. A lot of us could literally only be active during the daytime on weekends or our days off of work. If there was or is an issue with less players for time zones try to focus recruitment on late timezone officers.

I am not in anyway blaming anyone here. I am merely stating a matter of fact. I'm not stating "crim bad because LEO low", but instead stating that a lot of the RP that you are hoping to receive can't be delivered compared to server prime hours. It's just not feasible. You have been in the faction, are in the SD faction, which doesn't fully have this issue.

To boil it down in the simplest way:

• We have people calling 911 because someone called him mom fat
• We have people bored calling 911 for a bomb threat here because lulz
• We have people who call 911 because their CityBee got stolen
• We have people who are organizing a protest at CityHall and GOV is worried and wants unit presence
• We have NPC's calling because an ATM is being smashed
• We have NPC's calling because their house was broken
• We have 3 people calling for impound, pissed off because they saw a cruiser drive past, since that unit was going to clock off

We have 100 obligations that are needed to be taken into account, and not enough to do it with. If we can get ahead of something, we will try to and when numbers are low, we need to figure out anything we can do. Is this a YOU issue? No, not at all, however it is also not an US issue. It's just an issue that, while it sucks, just is something we all have to compromise. I work a 9-5, and I'm usually on the server between 6pm - midnight Eastern.

A couple of people that have replied here are Pacific timezone, which is around the tail-end of my time online. So again, this isn't me faulting anyone for the time they play. This isn't me faulting people saying you only do this because there are low LEO. This is me merely stating that what you are asking for from LEO isn't always feasible DUE to low LEO. This is why the RP can't always be delivered.

[Quietthecutie]

48 minutes ago, SquirtleSquad said:

I am not in anyway blaming anyone here. I am merely stating a matter of fact. I'm not stating "crim bad because LEO low", but instead stating that a lot of the RP that you are hoping to receive can't be delivered compared to server prime hours. It's just not feasible. You have been in the faction, are in the SD faction, which doesn't fully have this issue.

To boil it down in the simplest way:

• We have people calling 911 because someone called him mom fat
• We have people bored calling 911 for a bomb threat here because lulz
• We have people who call 911 because their CityBee got stolen
• We have people who are organizing a protest at CityHall and GOV is worried and wants unit presence
• We have NPC's calling because an ATM is being smashed
• We have NPC's calling because their house was broken
• We have 3 people calling for impound, pissed off because they saw a cruiser drive past, since that unit was going to clock off

We have 100 obligations that are needed to be taken into account, and not enough to do it with. If we can get ahead of something, we will try to and when numbers are low, we need to figure out anything we can do. Is this a YOU issue? No, not at all, however it is also not an US issue. It's just an issue that, while it sucks, just is something we all have to compromise. I work a 9-5, and I'm usually on the server between 6pm - midnight Eastern.

A couple of people that have replied here are Pacific timezone, which is around the tail-end of my time online. So again, this isn't me faulting anyone for the time they play. This isn't me faulting people saying you only do this because there are low LEO. This is me merely stating that what you are asking for from LEO isn't always feasible DUE to low LEO. This is why the RP can't always be delivered.

Im not saying in any way LEOs have it easy when it comes to priortising, and none of my posts are trying to single anyone out or assign blame. im simply recounting my past experiences from my perspective, and providing reasoning as to why i believe in the current state of the server, that attempting to change SAGOV via RP ops and IC interaction is simply impossible, even at peak hours this isnt able to develop. because peak hours means more LEOs but also more crims, meaning the priority will still be to shut it down ASAP. TLDR; the server time factor is almost a moot point.

Edited June 11 by Quietthecutie

[Smoke1]

Lewis's biggest mistake was turning a hospital into gov pvt parking . I understand why people would be upset loosing vehicles. I personally don't think a news agency needs jugs an Rhineharts was more for "fun" an rewarded for advancement in rank then served any real ic purpose. I don't know the current drama going on but if a criminal faction was messing up icly they would have a reward taken away has happened many times.. sounds like this is what's happened? I assume some articles or something come out that paint gov in a bad light and they were punished icly.

 

Imagine for 1 second you log into a game to have fun and are the leader of a gov faction for a rp server and basically deal with people mad or upset all the time and still choose to continue logging into that game and putting up with it all and helping a community of hundreds of people for years!!!!. Icly we might not agree with some things he does. Oocly thanks for everything you do

[AtlasOLimbo]

3 minutes ago, Smoke1 said:

Lewis's biggest mistake was turning a hospital into gov pvt parking . I understand why people would be upset loosing vehicles. I personally don't think a news agency needs jugs an Rhineharts was more for "fun" an rewarded for advancement in rank then served any real ic purpose. I don't know the current drama going on but if a criminal faction was messing up icly they would have a reward taken away has happened many times.. sounds like this is what's happened? I assume some articles or something come out that paint gov in a bad light and they were punished icly.

 

Imagine for 1 second you log into a game to have fun and are the leader of a gov faction for a rp server and basically deal with people mad or upset all the time and still choose to continue logging into that game and putting up with it all and helping a community of hundreds of people for years!!!!. Icly we might not agree with some things he does. Oocly thanks for everything you do

This argument isn't great. Lewis used to be extremely hands off and the amount of attention/hate directed towards him was much much less than what it is now. The upset nature of the people is quite literally a result of his own actions. 

[Smoke1]

Sounds like something that should be delt with icly. oocly he's a head administrator and is putting his free time into trying to help the server. We may not agree with everything he does icly but if it was that bad trust it would be delt with.

 

Edit: spelling

28 minutes ago, AtlasOLimbo said:

This argument isn't great. Lewis used to be extremely hands off and the amount of attention/hate directed towards him was much much less than what it is now. The upset nature of the people is quite literally a result of his own actions. 

 

Edited June 11 by Smoke1

[Lewis]

Hi, thanks for creating this topic.

The Government's goal is to be entirely player-run, with Governors (part of server management) stepping in only when necessary. We've made significant progress, with players handling nearly every aspect, including lawmaking (except in extreme RP scenarios requiring an Executive Order). Governors now have more of an oversight role, intervening only during extreme situations, such as if the constitution is stolen. Otherwise, power is delegated among various Government Faction roles. We've also introduced a Chief of Staff role with sufficient IC authority to run the government and act as Governor in our absence.

The incident with Weazel News stems from In Character actions. It's important to remember that Weazel is a government-funded news organization, and its leader is appointed by the Government. The vehicles and equipment that Weazel (and other government-funded departments/agencies) use are provided and controlled by the government as part of budget allocation In Character. The situation you are upset about is a result of In Character actions, not OOC motivation; it's a build-up of events. I would love to see more self-sufficient businesses/agencies free from government control, and I fully support script support for this. However, development support can take time as we only have two developers focused on projects. Solomon Cobb and others who have done this in the past/present have done a great job, but I understand it's driven by enthusiasm and interest since there's not much to be gained at the moment.

There is also some reference to the "old days," where laws were created by the Chief of Police together with the Governor (singular), there was no Government staff around to create RP scenarios, properties were handed out without a system, and factions struggled to get their requests handled (e.g., equipment requests). The old days were not the Government we intended to keep; it was always meant to expand and become more relevant in the server with players at the spearhead. Today's government is filled with innovative and enthusiastic members. Despite the difficulty in retention due to the paperwork-heavy nature of the RP, we still maintain and have opened up many different RP opportunities for people. I do not run a one-man show in the Government; decisions are made collectively with its members, and I participate in them.

I will consider creating a roleplay feedback subforum for GOV where players can submit good and bad feedback similar to what SD has. Until then, please feel free to use our Internal Affairs Reports, as you can submit OOC reports, and no matter who you submit it against (even me), you will get a response from a member of Government, especially if it's an OOC complaint.

In the end, if you think that the Government is somehow bad and is ruining the server, and that I'm a bad person who should be impeached, you should reach out to our GREAT founders over Discord. They are more than welcome to review the Government faction and the IC actions that have occurred, as they all have IC context and can be explained.

I would like to end with some words of wisdom: it is important that roleplay that occurs in character stays in character. If I got OOC upset every time someone said something about me IC, I probably would be unable to volunteer at Eclipse and might end up needing a psychiatrist.

Have a great rest of your week!

- Lewis

[Alexx.]

2 hours ago, AtlasOLimbo said:

Lewis used to be extremely hands off and the amount of attention/hate directed towards him was much much less than what it is now. The upset nature of the people is quite literally a result of his own actions. 

You should be happy that we have an active Head Administrator keeping an eye and helping out both OOCly and ICly the community for so many years, has he made wrong decisions? sure, who hasn't, but I think Lewis does a good job at balancing everything out for all factions and the team he has built behind him OOCly and ICly makes a good team effort to make everything work out.

If you know Lewis then you would know that he is not the type of guy to "force" his opinion on anyone, instead, he will go back to his team and ask for opinions on a matter and make a collective decision so I think it's a bit unfair to say that Lewis is doing a lousy job when all he does is being supportive to anyone that approaches him and tries to help the community out with any possible way he can. If you think that Lewis did something that's out of pocket I'm more than sure that Lewis would be very open to a discussion if you reached out to him and help find a solution.