Ways to increase player count in ECRP

[Clank]

Just now, Tomvd682 said:

Unban all banned players except Hoxton Curry

Real shit

[Salvador Rivera]

6 hours ago, Tomvd682 said:

Unban all banned players except Hoxton Curry

Someone I know was falsely banned and on the same day -4 people left the server. This would actually solve a lot of things

[alexalex303]

Staying banned on ECRP is very hard, in fact, just from history I know several people that replied to this thread were banned and unbanned several times over.

Any person that is never welcome back has done some proper questionable things like cheat or dox people. I would not want them back.

[Phantas]

12 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

Staying banned on ECRP is very hard, in fact, just from history I know several people that replied to this thread were banned and unbanned several times over.

Any person that is never welcome back has done some proper questionable things like cheat or dox people. I would not want them back.

Real as long as you arnt cheating/knowingly benefiting from someone doing it, doxing or ban evaded a punishment you can make a return

[Ritchie Stones]

20 hours ago, Tomvd682 said:

Unban all banned players except Hoxton Curry

Open the gates of hell!!! Let rhe demons spawn again, DM everywhere, aimbot !! &nbsp
RWT economy !! Hackers!! And worse of all…… loud mic voicers !

[Quietthecutie]

A mass unban will never happen. That would undermine the entire appeals system.

If people wish to get unbanned, they may go through the system and submit an appeal. If they cant be arsed to do even that bare minimum, why should we unban them?

Also some people, cheaters, ban evaders, DSO RWT etc should never be unbanned. They poison the server.

[Bala]

I feel like it's a simple answer but a difficult task, within the boundaries we find ourselves in.

You have to retain the interest of current players, re-ignite the interest of former players and also, recruit new players. If you can manage that, your server population grows. 

How that is achieved, obviously isn't so simple but this is what I'd do.

Firstly, I'd focus on the playing experiences of the primary government factions (PD/SD/MD/DOC) and the criminal on Eclipse. The reason being, they're all linked. PD/SD are antagonists for criminals, criminals are antagonists for PD/SD, DOC is reliant on criminals and quite a bit of the need for MD comes from criminal activity.

I'd split the task into two phases, the first being consolidation and the second being growth.

The first phase of consolidation would be looking at things like the quality of life and how can we make things more convenient for these players to do what they do, in ways that make sense. Less about something being a PD or a crim buff but more of how can we change the every day playing experience to be more interesting or rewarding or convenient for all these people. Whether that is what happens in prison or how the impound is used or how MD heals people or how crims rob a store or whatever

Stuff that we have in the server right now, that can be repurposed to give us easy and instant wins. People don't really want change, they want improvements on what they know.

I wouldn't focus on criminals as faction members or whole factions but looking at those criminals as just regular criminals and how we could make the activities that they do to make money, more engaging. It doesn't need to be rocket science but even a splash of flavour would be an improvement.

We've got a loyal player base and if you reward that loyalty, they'll show up for you.

The second phase of growth is where you build on the base you've re-established in Phase 2. This is about adding in new ways to make money or activities that pass the time. You can support the other factions down the road, but without crims and the primary gov factions, we don't have much of a server.

[k0ma]

Now I agree with some points that were mentioned in this thread, I would like to give my humble opinion on this, and without talking about Law Enforcement because yeah... people already know.

I wanna mainly focus on crim RP because thats what I only play.

I feel like back in the day, people were more invested in building their criminal factions, and actually RPing to its standards and building stories. There was a sense of identity beyond just "cook drugs, get loadout, push others that are cooking drugs and repeat..."

There were many more ways to show dominance as a criminal faction other than "which gang wins more fights in labs". The change of only being able to cook in public labs has created more engagement indeed, which is good but it also created a hyper-competitive, loot-focused environment that kills organic RP before it starts.

Now don't get me wrong, I personally am not against labs or PvP, they have their place and its an essential thing, at the end of the day we are all here to have fun and "escape reality". But when it becomes the only viable form of crim RP, we lose depth. We lose storytelling. We lose the essence of what made gang rp compelling in the first place.

I also was asking some of my friends earlier, why are there no street gangs occupying Grove Street? Its crazy how the server only has one or two street gangs that are currently showing presence. And I think the reason for that is that the server is simply not beginner friendly, crim faction leaders simply don't want to recruit new players and why? Because they're simply broke and cant buy PvP kits to help fight in labs lol who would have guessed. 

And even if new players decided to start a street gang in grove street, they won't have the chance to survive a month on the server because they wouldn't be able to cook drugs and make money to be able to buy weapons to survive in the labs and as you can see we go back to the same loop! And thats why you see them quit, because its just so hard for them to survive.

So many things need to be changed to fix that and its just so hard at this point, I feel like even the staff team don't know where to start from, and I totally understand and its just sad to see honestly.

[moment]

On 8/12/2025 at 10:25 AM, k0ma said:

Now I agree with some points that were mentioned in this thread, I would like to give my humble opinion on this, and without talking about Law Enforcement because yeah... people already know.

I wanna mainly focus on crim RP because thats what I only play.

I feel like back in the day, people were more invested in building their criminal factions, and actually RPing to its standards and building stories. There was a sense of identity beyond just "cook drugs, get loadout, push others that are cooking drugs and repeat..."

There were many more ways to show dominance as a criminal faction other than "which gang wins more fights in labs". The change of only being able to cook in public labs has created more engagement indeed, which is good but it also created a hyper-competitive, loot-focused environment that kills organic RP before it starts.

Now don't get me wrong, I personally am not against labs or PvP, they have their place and its an essential thing, at the end of the day we are all here to have fun and "escape reality". But when it becomes the only viable form of crim RP, we lose depth. We lose storytelling. We lose the essence of what made gang rp compelling in the first place.

I also was asking some of my friends earlier, why are there no street gangs occupying Grove Street? Its crazy how the server only has one or two street gangs that are currently showing presence. And I think the reason for that is that the server is simply not beginner friendly, crim faction leaders simply don't want to recruit new players and why? Because they're simply broke and cant buy PvP kits to help fight in labs lol who would have guessed. 

And even if new players decided to start a street gang in grove street, they won't have the chance to survive a month on the server because they wouldn't be able to cook drugs and make money to be able to buy weapons to survive in the labs and as you can see we go back to the same loop! And thats why you see them quit, because its just so hard for them to survive.

So many things need to be changed to fix that and its just so hard at this point, I feel like even the staff team don't know where to start from, and I totally understand and its just sad to see honestly.

To be honest you have some quite valid points. What I can say after being a main crim for almost 6 years and saw tremendous changes throughout that time, rules have differently changed the outcome of any RP scenario. 4 years ago, the roleplay presented was more natural between factions, you couldn't wear their colors or step up and talk shit or there would be consequences, you could steal cars anytime you want, you could rob any time you want, the consequences always were there.

Nowadays can't even say one insulting cause god forbid I'm gonna get /pm save POV. I think the non-roleplay rule should definetly get removed or tweaked. The high risk vs low reward concept shouldn't be dictated over the rules but over your IC character own actions. As the Fear RP rule was changed recently, I think the non roleplay rule needs to be looked quite a bit and will present more natural and more RP infact. The amount of people I know are scared to initate any roleplay cuz of the rules it's quite dissapointing really.

[Jay Plague]

Stop thinking the server is only cops and crims, and do something to help CIVs.

[Ritchie Stones]

2 hours ago, Jay Plague said:

Stop thinking the server is only cops and crims, and do something to help CIVs.

i want underwater diving suits and breathing masks, 

[vZelfeR]

I’m with Jay on this, more things to do outside of Crim vs LEOs would be amazing.

 

hanging out with a friend and being asked “what do you fancy doing?”, I’m faced with a very small choice. Adding buyable parachutes to base jump, better business infrastructure as outlined in the “civilian super post”, activities for couples and friends that can be done would be great.

 

Sad to see the Cayo mansion has now been gated off and can’t be accessed. One less thing that a couple or group of friends can go do and hang out, when already there is already very little. 
 

+Rep to Out of Towners, Plague and all other factions who hold events, as without which, we would be in a very bad state

[NinerTwoGolf]

I'm with Jay, for a few reasons. There needs to be more things to do besides just work and crime.

Just as a 'Holy Wall of Text Batman!' Post covering a few issues a things I've noticed since starting and looking back at old dev logs/threads. Just skip to the TL;DR if you want.

I feel the Crim vs Leo is just a long running Arms Race that is now on the precipice of going 'Nuclear' because neither side wants to take their finger off the button. Crim's got easier access to guns, LEO had to increase tactical response. Crim's started using more high performance cars (that should be more rare but aren't) and Police had to up their fleet in order to keep up. But now that genie can't be put back in the bottle, neither side wants to agree to a disarmament and be the first one to blink. No one wants to be the first to give up an advantage with only the promise the other guys will follow suite. (EDIT: Rereading this, I want to make it clear I do not blame criminals for this. I meant this to more read that as development allowed criminals to gain access to these things, and thus take advantage of them, Police had to up their response to counter and maintain order on the server.)

I feel big updates are too few and far in between. I remember when the clothing update came one of my faction leaders (who had been there for almost 2 years at that time) mentioned that the clothing the faction would be getting he had no input on, and was designed and decided far before he was in charge and with zero in put from him. At time of writing this post, the 'upcoming vehicle update' was revealed almost a year ago. We've recently been told 'Soon' but no firm release date means I'm not holding my breath.

I feel while the freelance updates to Trucking and Busing are great, they were the odd choice. Jobs that encourage people to  interact, like Road Workers or Garbage would have been the better choice. Hell, some of the connections I made working Road Workers when I first joined ECRP I still have, and do come in handy occasionally.

The archeology 'hobby' was cool at first, a fun interactive distraction and a way to make money. Even I had a nice little side hustle going selling Metal Detectors to people who didn't want to wait to charge their batteries or didn't know they could. But as people trickled out, more ne'er-do-wells came in since there was less resistance and started robbing people over and over. Now it's not worth it to put in the time and effort just to get robbed, so I rarely see people still doing it, if ever.

It would be nice to see more hobbies that once again encourage people to gather in areas and hang out. Fishing would be awesome and might help revitalize the pier, since Gov has put a lot of time and effort opening public stores at the pier. Would be fun to be able to play Tennis, or Golf, or Darts like base GTA. Chess would be fun, as my partner and I love playing chess. If Halo: Reach can do it, so can we! Scuba Diving and Base jumping for the thrill seekers. It's sad to be what use to be fun hangout areas, such as The Cove and the Cayo Manor, get turned into drug labs or just arbitrarily gated off.

I also feel factions are getting less and less rewards, a big one use to be clothing. When I started my faction that was still an award for a certain tier, but changed after our first promotion. It was a bit disheartening at the time, even more so now that our Faction has been around longer than others who came before us with clothing.

I feel other parts of the server's population is neglected when it comes to updates. The Mechanic's and DCC faction have been asking for years for improvements to their RP experience with nothing in the public pipeline. I get they are only a portion of the community, but throwing them a bone once in a while (besides just giving them a new faction vehicle or two when appropriate) would go along way.

The economy doesn't support businesses as well. It takes a million dollars to to buy a property, tens of thousands to advertise, and depending on the business, tens of thousands to stock it, for what is something like a $500 profit margin on any items if you want people to actually buy them. It's why raffle tickets became the thing everyone does because in the early days you could make a million dollar profit on an Elegy Retro Custom. Now a days, everyone does it and everyone is equally burnt out on it. That's why you see people open a business once or twice, realize how much of a money sink it actually is, and then never open again. The Gov reimbursements help a ton, but that's more treating the symptoms rather than fixing the issue.

I think there has just been a general turn of overall poor attitudes in the community that have been allowed to perpetuate and grow, in all organizations and levels. Whether IA Reports against PD, OOC reports against faction members, or forum reports about rule breaks; there is a lack of, or perceived lack of anything changing. Whether it was genuine no wrong doing, or perhaps protection for leadership due to ranking or status in the organization/community, a lack of change or progress in these areas are across all communities.

Lastly, I've known an increase uptick in (In-Character) high ranking officials actively shit talking groups they represent and trying to stir the pot in situations, then Pikachu face when those factions become disgruntled or when people decide to DM one another over the pettiness of reasons.

TL;DR: Arms race of PD vs Crim reaching the inevitable breaking point with neither side willing or able to back down. Development of new things is super slow, which is only exacerbated when they updates are previewed way too early. Updates for freelance/hobbies should be done to jobs that encourage interaction and RP. Give some love to legal jobs. Give some fun activities to everyone. Economy doesn't support natural business. Poor attitudes prevail in all sides of the community and are allowed to continue. High ranking characters/high ranking server members need to remember that their words do indeed carry weight, ICly and OOCly.

 

People leave all the time for their own reasons. Some leave in groups over internal or even external factors. These are just a few things I have noticed that have soured my personal experience on the server that has gotten me, to varies degrees, thinking about spending my time elsewhere. Maybe others feel the same, maybe others can call me a crack pot. It's what a discussion is for anyway.

Edited September 21, 2025 by NinerTwoGolf
General illiteracy.

[Bala]

Don't think it's so much about increasing the player base at this stage, so much as it's about retaining what we have and getting the most out of what we do have. Consolidation, I believe they call it. At this stage in GTA V's life cycle, there are a lot less 'new' players and so that growth for ECRP would probably be more about improving the server and enticing the players that have left, to come back and play again regular.

But, there has to also be the environment to do that in the community.

That means that both developers need to be active and willing to commit serious amounts of their time.

It also means that the staff team has to have the desire to want to improve the server and not just simply maintain it and their positions. From the outside, I see quite a lot of apathy at the top of the administration pyramid. People that have been here 5+ years and have been worn down by things not going well, to really want to push the community.

For all the talk of the devs not really doing this and that, there are as many fundamental issues within the community as there are with the development side of things that have not been addressed.

Finally, as players we also have to be open-minded enough to be along for the ride as well. Not just that mentality of 'this will benefit me and mine' but overall will lead to something better.

The cop threads, I really feel people need to understand that ganking the police factions won't make your playing experience better, it'll just make it easier and they are not the same thing.

I could go into a bunch of specifics about what I think would help, but I've done that a bunch of times and it's gone nowhere so, there is no point under those conditions.

[NinerTwoGolf]

I'd also add these conversations are also one sided, usually focusing on retaining players rather than attracting new ones. It's focusing on half of the equation.

It's odd, during my play sessions it's not like there is an insignificant amount of New Player's joining the server. More than enough where if every one of them stuck around, it would result in plenty of replacement, in terms of numbers, for player attrition.

So I'd be curious on those stats. How many of these new players log in once and never again? How many are still logging in after week? A month? 3 months? 6 months? How many make it to their one year anniversary?

Might be interesting to see why they left. Is it because the amount of new things being thrown at them are overwhelming? It is because they are bored? Is it because people avoid interacting with them because of the New Player tag? (We all have our horror stories, even I tend to pucker up when that New Player in a White warrener rolls up.)

Might be worth some focus on helping these players better get started on the server to have them stick around.

Edited September 27, 2025 by NinerTwoGolf

[Jay Plague]

I just genuinely think if you focus on "what does a legal or criminal do when they aren't clocked on or "working" you would see a higher retention in the server. As of now it seems like the second you clock off, stop grinding, or stop doing criminal activities. The amount left to do is minimal. This is why 90% of legals sleep in their respective locker rooms and have no life in the city outside of work. 

[Ash]

24 minutes ago, Jay Plague said:

I just genuinely think if you focus on "what does a legal or criminal do when they aren't clocked on or "working" you would see a higher retention in the server. As of now it seems like the second you clock off, stop grinding, or stop doing criminal activities. The amount left to do is minimal. This is why 90% of legals sleep in their respective locker rooms and have no life in the city outside of work. 

this.

[Bala]

4 hours ago, Jay Plague said:

I just genuinely think if you focus on "what does a legal or criminal do when they aren't clocked on or "working" you would see a higher retention in the server. As of now it seems like the second you clock off, stop grinding, or stop doing criminal activities. The amount left to do is minimal. This is why 90% of legals sleep in their respective locker rooms and have no life in the city outside of work. 

That is how it's always been though and the focus when ECRP was at it's best, was criminal/cop. The server could manage without civilian roleplay, but it can't without criminals and cops. That's the bread and butter of most GTA 5 servers and that'd be the main area to focus on to improve, simply because it effects the most people.

The rest matters to those people that choose to prioritise that sort of roleplay but they're still the minority. There are far too many events, and the amount of events feel like a bit of a gimmicky distraction from the fact there isn't much else going on. Only so many times you can go to a new club opening and do dancing animations.

I think culturally as a server, we're honestly all over the fucking place. To me, there is no sense of direction, so I don't really know how you're supposed to "fix" it.

[Jay Plague]

8 hours ago, Bala said:

That is how it's always been though and the focus when ECRP was at it's best, was criminal/cop. The server could manage without civilian roleplay, but it can't without criminals and cops. That's the bread and butter of most GTA 5 servers and that'd be the main area to focus on to improve, simply because it effects the most people.

The rest matters to those people that choose to prioritise that sort of roleplay but they're still the minority. There are far too many events, and the amount of events feel like a bit of a gimmicky distraction from the fact there isn't much else going on. Only so many times you can go to a new club opening and do dancing animations.

I think culturally as a server, we're honestly all over the fucking place. To me, there is no sense of direction, so I don't really know how you're supposed to "fix" it.

I understand Cops and crims would be the top priority, and they are overdeveloped to say the least. Civ RP should not be shunned away as it is the true unique experience you cant get in most other games. 

Instead of giving CIVs another freelance Mini game. Give us long-lasting changes, like cooking, farming, crafting, the ability to open a business without buying weazel ads, a functional gym, bowling, golf, boxing, paintball, fishing, and hunting that isn't super lame, and I'm sure more people have a million other good ideas for recreational activities. 

It's so crazy to me that this server is like 6-7 years old, but when you go to a restaurant, you can't even order real food... it's like RP food, and you are handed a cooked piece of meat. 

Civ RP gets no love and without CIVs it's just a bunch of cops and crims looking for excuses to PVP. And I really think a lot of people are over that. 

[HobGoblin]

5 minutes ago, Jay Plague said:

I understand Cops and crims would be the top priority, and they are overdeveloped to say the least. Civ RP should not be shunned away as it is the true unique experience you cant get in most other games. 

Feel like civs get more development than crims over the past few years. They need to focus on crims not random civ things imo.

[Jay Plague]

28 minutes ago, HobGoblin said:

Feel like civs get more development than crims over the past few years. They need to focus on crims not random civ things imo.

Name one thing for a civ to do that isnt a freelance job, clocking into work, or going to an event.... 

[Earl Mud]

20 minutes ago, Jay Plague said:

Name one thing for a civ to do that isnt a freelance job, clocking into work, or going to an event.... 

You left off the rigged casino. Tbf it's stale for all walks of life right now. Crims have a small rotation they can do as far as activities go. Same with civs and cops. The city is massive but feels empty since there's no other activities. 

[Quietthecutie]

5 hours ago, Jay Plague said:

Name one thing for a civ to do that isnt a freelance job, clocking into work, or going to an event.... 

Last thing I can think of is video urls and what a whopping success that turned out to be. Its barely used, not only because its so much easier to either stream in a discord call or just share the link in /b, but also because its incredibly buggy, limited to youtube, and paywalled. Ironically they are mostly now used by factions for events or training.

Outside of that...yeah pretty much everything is based around a job of some description, even events are massively script starved. I remember one time brit god love her did an entire golf event with 0 script support. the fact it was well received was nothing short of a miracle.



 

[Bala]

13 hours ago, Jay Plague said:

I understand Cops and crims would be the top priority, and they are overdeveloped to say the least. Civ RP should not be shunned away as it is the true unique experience you cant get in most other games. 

Instead of giving CIVs another freelance Mini game. Give us long-lasting changes, like cooking, farming, crafting, the ability to open a business without buying weazel ads, a functional gym, bowling, golf, boxing, paintball, fishing, and hunting that isn't super lame, and I'm sure more people have a million other good ideas for recreational activities. 

It's so crazy to me that this server is like 6-7 years old, but when you go to a restaurant, you can't even order real food... it's like RP food, and you are handed a cooked piece of meat. 

Civ RP gets no love and without CIVs it's just a bunch of cops and crims looking for excuses to PVP. And I really think a lot of people are over that. 

No aspect of the server is over-developed in 2025. You're in the LSPD faction, I don't know how you can legitimately say that it's over-developed. Crim especially though is still the area, the most in need of development.

This is what I mean about people having the tunnel vision for the things that matter to them. I'm not going to sit here and belittle your efforts with your business or anyone that chooses to engage in civilian roleplay, because I'm sure it is hard and I'm sure in an ideal world, it'd be great to flesh these things out more.

That being said, this isn't one of those FiveM content servers, it's Eclipse. People looking for PVP, like it or not, is half the selling point and it always has been tbh. This server is only as good as it's criminal playing experience and player base.

Let me put it this way. If everyone tomorrow stopped doing civilian roleplay, I think it's fair to say that the effect would be limited overall.

But then imagine everyone stopped doing criminal roleplay. It's not just the criminals that rely on that. Without criminals, we don't have a need for our two cop factions anymore, we don't have a need for our prison faction and there is no need for GSB or JB either.

The main area of the server needing development and improvement right now, is the Prison. Respectfully, as long as any other area has been waiting for improvement, the Prison has always sucked ass even since I got here in 2019.

[Ritchie Stones]

7 hours ago, Bala said:

No aspect of the server is over-developed in 2025. You're in the LSPD faction, I don't know how you can legitimately say that it's over-developed. Crim especially though is still the area, the most in need of development.

This is what I mean about people having the tunnel vision for the things that matter to them. I'm not going to sit here and belittle your efforts with your business or anyone that chooses to engage in civilian roleplay, because I'm sure it is hard and I'm sure in an ideal world, it'd be great to flesh these things out more.

That being said, this isn't one of those FiveM content servers, it's Eclipse. People looking for PVP, like it or not, is half the selling point and it always has been tbh. This server is only as good as it's criminal playing experience and player base.

Let me put it this way. If everyone tomorrow stopped doing civilian roleplay, I think it's fair to say that the effect would be limited overall.

But then imagine everyone stopped doing criminal roleplay. It's not just the criminals that rely on that. Without criminals, we don't have a need for our two cop factions anymore, we don't have a need for our prison faction and there is no need for GSB or JB either.

The main area of the server needing development and improvement right now, is the Prison. Respectfully, as long as any other area has been waiting for improvement, the Prison has always sucked ass even since I got here in 2019.

you do understand that prison isnt suposed to be a fun thing right ? 
when i get cought i just deal with it, mentality is just getting more weak by the year, 
people need to get smarter and there needs to be more reward making it worth going through such a time