Gary Bruces feedback of Eclipse RP after 150 hours of playing

[garybruce]

The learning curve

The main issue I discovered in playing the game is that the learning curve is far too steep for people beginning on their own without a friend explaining things. I understand there is an idea that people are supposed to learn IC about many of the mechanics and features, but this is very difficult to do when everyone is mostly just speeding around, busy with their own thing they have going on, and there are only a few dozen people online.

From the experience I had interacting with other players in-game, and interacting in the discord, I believe one of the primary root causes of this is because much of the playerbase has played for so long that they have forgotten what it was like to be new, and many of the things which are confusing to a new player seem obvious to them, and this even results in a hostile reaction from some people to questions.

I did meet new people who seemed to be finding it easy, but many of these were joining to play with a friend who was already playing or joined a group early on.

An example would be getting jailed at Sandy Shores police station and then released. This happened to me on my 1st day. At the point of being released, and with nobody around to give back items, and nobody to explain what has happened or how I get my things back, I'm just stuck in the middle of nowhere. I have no GPS, no idea where I am or what direction anything is in. I spent a few hours just wandering around the desert. Many people would probably have quit there. Somebody saying "Go get a CityBee" doesn't help if you don't know what that is, or where it is.

I think it would help a lot as a new player if in the script you got your GPS back automatically upon prison release.

More allowance for creative RP ideas / a culture of encouraging creativity

The current setup of the server feels mostly like an RP rules system designed for organised gang/police warfare, and dealing with non-RP squabbles between players and factions by providing a rules system under which they must do it. A lot of people like that cops and robbers thing, but for me it wasn't that interesting and I wanted to do something different.

On day 5-6 of my playing two guys did an interesting tunnel car bomb RP situation which I got caught up in. When they did it I noticed how the police officers at the scene seemed to enjoy and like that those two guys were being creative and making something with more depth than just a police chase → arrest → putting a guy in DOC → guy gets released in 1h 20mins → situation repeats, and let them bend the rules a little given they weren't doing it out of any gain for themselves but were trying to make some fun for all involved.

Based on that I wanted to try some kind of multi-week RP story arc thing with my player in the hope of giving the police players and cityhall something more interesting and something that might inspire others to have ideas also. The plan that I envisaged was "Gary Bruce slowly becomes Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and develops an unhealthy obsession with the chief of police". I spent days preparing resources, grinding for money and items for doing it, making other accounts I needed for certain parts of it, planning out routes and steps in order to make different parts of it work whilst staying within the rules where possible with the idea of working on it over weeks, and on top of all that spending 500 euros of real money on credits and I was even looking into offering to pay Eclipse for allowing me to bring in some temporary custom assets I might need to do certain parts of it.

I didn't even get onto day 2 of my plan before I hit a wall of "You can't do this because there is no FDO in your apartment that nobody else can go in where you prepared these items" and they shut down the whole thing without having any interest in reading what I was saying. I later discovered I was actually banned for this and that I didn't log back in when the admin messaged me to do so (It was Monday morning my time and I have real life things to do like getting to work, I had logged in to quickly do the days part of the roleplay plan, and I didn't log out in combat or anything like that) and resulted in me getting banned with the reason of "NATRP"

This left me dumbfounded at the admin culture. I wasn't going to all this trouble to buy new cars or items for my character, but to try create an entertaining fun situation for a part of the community that I thought might enjoy something with more depth to it.

The attitude in these situations shouldn't be one of "My job as an admin is to find anything you've done which gives me an opportunity to shut this idea down", but one of "Tell me what you're trying to do / what you think you're doing, and I'll help you do this / bend the rules a little / help you stay in the rules, if it's something that is going to be fun and entertaining for all and not just you doing something for your own gain at others' expense", especially given I had mentioned I had plans to do an RP story arc.

There should be a culture of cultivating and encouraging others to create higher quality RP situations, which also leads to more people having fun, more people wanting to play and giving others the inspiration to do similar things like the two guys in the tunnel had on me.

Easily findable tutorials

I don't know if it is technically possible but I think some optional tutorials, similar to the driving test, on basic activities would be helpful. Things like how to use city parking, or the sequence of events you're expected to step through while being robbed or arrested.

I never did a robbery of another player during my playing as I was actually concerned I would break the rules somehow by doing so by not doing the correct sequence of steps. People will say "Well it's in the rules, go read them", but they need actual practical guides to explain them. It would be good if there was content which was easy to find which laid out the steps "Here are the RP steps you're expected to do when doing a robbery", "Here are the RP steps you're expected to do when you're being robbed", "Here are the things you can't do in these circumstances because they would break rules A, B, C".

Understanding of crimes and the new player questionnaire

In my first few days I was arrested for bad driving and also GTA.

After doing these crimes I had some idea in my head that although serious, if I played for several months of no crime they wouldn't impact future options. This was because of conversations with other players that led me to have incorrect ideas. For instance in one conversation in my first 2 days someone said "Don't worry, unless you do violent crime on your character, then it has no impact and you can get a lawyer to remove them". Another person told me if a person did a history of good deeds they can also have them removed, and that there were also RP routes for getting them removed (they meant exceptional cases). Had I understood then that they were talking about situations where a person pleads not guilty, and that things like GTA convictions don't go away if you plead guilty, I would probably have immediately started again so that if years from now I wanted to do something that didn't allow convictions, then I could.

The police in those situations also gave me the impression that the best option is to plead guilty on the form that pops up, and that the contents of that page are just roleplay things and that all other options except guilty just mean that you stay in longer and pay a higher fine, by saying things like "Don't worry, I didn't add all the charges, so just click guilty and you'll be out quick".

It wasn't until day 8 when in conversation with a police officer I realised that my understanding was wrong and that the serious charges never go away except in extraordinary circumstances. As someone who did not want to have multiple characters, and didn't want to be a criminal, this was quite demoralising, as although 100 hours will be nothing to long-term people, I had put that much into a character that was now in my mind 'ruined' in its future options. Had I fully known this I would have made a 2nd character earlier on for playing around with illegal activities and kept Gary clean.

I know the rules already stated things about crimes but my suggestion to help this is that on the questionnaire when you make an account, it should have the person answer in text a question about what is the impact of doing crimes on their character's future options, and also the guilty/not guilty mechanics. This way by having to read it and then type it out, they 100% fully understand this and the implications and doesn't allow for misunderstandings in conversations with others.

OOC whining whilst in-game

As a new player in my first few days it was pretty off putting whenever I went into Bennys to get my car fixed that there would be the same players there, complaining on voicechat OOC about the recent car changes for what seemed like hours on end. The existing community might be used to these people doing it and think nothing of it, but when you have first arrived and are really enjoying what has been made on the server and the immersion, it isn't great to then have these people sat in such a key location going on like that with nobody telling them to be quiet. As the kind of things they were saying make you question whether the server is the place to be investing any time.

More fear among the gangs

It's been explained to me that it's a sensitive subject but I think it needs addressing. There isn't enough fear of the police among the criminals. I have read people saying that they think the police are over-powered, but they should be. That over-powered nature should be what makes the criminals be good at what they do and be careful what they do. It shouldn't be a case that they can spend parts of the day driving around chasing the police. Many days I was on the server it seemed like the police were being hunted in the city when just a few of them were on.

Although an extreme example, yesterday while playing because I was scared of ruining an RP situation I was setting up by getting caught by the police for outstanding charges whilst having a bag of illegal items, I ran from Paleto Bay to the city, through the mountains ( I would have used a bike if i had one). I think that's the level of fear and caution the criminals should have rather than one of "It's fine if the police stop us as there's 4 of us and we'll just gun the cops down".

This lack of fear is what I think partly leads to the city turning into total mayhem during quiet hours of the day, with the police unable to deal with problems and everyone knowing they can do whatever they want without repercussions.

I also think that if done well, that level of fear and caution can lead to criminal RP being much more fun and played at a higher level of RP quality

Thats all for now, if I remember anything else Ill add it in.

 

Edited November 18, 2025 by garybruce

[imran]

i played more than 6000 hours in multiple RP servers from SAMP to RAGEMP and 800 hours on eclipse RP, i have to say that i was enjoying the server at the start, i used to grind and enjoy players intractions between players, like people who looking for fun via active adn not nerdy activities, until i face the real experience when i becomes wealthy, i stoped the grind activity and found  collecting more assets no longer fun, so i started focussing more in players intractions, but players nowadays are extermly annoying if you asks me, only care on collecting assets so they afford more guns.
i would say crim RP nowadays don't exist, only PVP RP from robbers in labs and toxic behaviors, even the current systhem in the server is expensive and requires assets to be creative, 5k minimum an hour to cover repair and food/water costs, and maximum everage income of 12k an hour.
add on that the recent update that even ruins more the crim RP by increasing the costs of high end vehicles....

[Bala]

@garybruce Appreciate the time you took to make the post and provide your perspective.

I think something that people don't always understand when they come to play here, is that it's really an environment that is equipped to handle ideas outside of the template of what a player or faction should be, there are exceptions but for the most part, the people that last here change to fit in. I think some players come from the FiveM content servers and assume they'll be given the resources to go and create these interesting personal tales, like some of what you've described.

The reality is, we don't do that here. ECRP is your typical pre-FiveM/Twitch roleplay server where you have your cops, your robbers and anyone that isn't either, they're 'other' or civilians as we like to call it. This isn't really the environment where people tend to play an in-depth character or if they do, that comes out when it's convenient.

I actually believe that is actually probably why ECRP has been successful, because there is a market for people that just want that vanilla RP experience where you don't have to think too much and you can just do the things that are setup for you to do. As much as people in the community have maybe tried to make it something else, it's that. Again, there are exceptions but for the most part, everyone preserves the status quo.

I read what you put and honestly, I agreed with quite a lot of it especially about the experience of being a New Player. It's easy to forget because for a lot of us, we've not been new for years now but people that come to a server like Eclipse, they want to come in and get stuck in straight away.

The best advice I can give someone new to the community is that if you want to stay here, conform to how things are done, don't expect things the server to change for you. Not you specifically but in general. I think there will certainly be some improvements in the server but they'll be within the boundaries of what the server is, rather than a wholesale shift to being something else at this late stage.

I think in terms of accepting your charges, I'll be honest, this is where the court stuff loses me because it's not really setup to serve people like yourself. It's more like big RP situations but it's sort of integrated into that whole process.

We sort of pick and choose when we take elements of our characters seriously, I can understand why it's confusing for a newer person to make sense of it. Sometimes I don't and I've been here since 2019.

[MiETillis]

On 11/18/2025 at 3:09 AM, imran said:

i played more than 6000 hours in multiple RP servers from SAMP to RAGEMP and 800 hours on eclipse RP, i have to say that i was enjoying the server at the start, i used to grind and enjoy players intractions between players, like people who looking for fun via active adn not nerdy activities, until i face the real experience when i becomes wealthy, i stoped the grind activity and found  collecting more assets no longer fun, so i started focussing more in players intractions, but players nowadays are extermly annoying if you asks me, only care on collecting assets so they afford more guns.
i would say crim RP nowadays don't exist, only PVP RP from robbers in labs and toxic behaviors, even the current systhem in the server is expensive and requires assets to be creative, 5k minimum an hour to cover repair and food/water costs, and maximum everage income of 12k an hour.
add on that the recent update that even ruins more the crim RP by increasing the costs of high end vehicles.... survival race

Thank you for sharing

Edited December 17, 2025 by MiETillis

[Smoke1]

I have seen your character around i've role played with him a little bit. I also understand where you're coming from we do have for example F5 brings up the wiki, From there you need to navigate to the home page from the left-hand side of the screen and click the home page and you can learn all about a lot of stuff, Jobs gangs factions ect ect. ECLIPSE Roleplay

 

We do have guides in the forums posted here!

Eclipse-RP - GTA V Roleplaying Server

Server messages that pop up that /report 1  reminding you that you can ask staff questions that you may have! 

 

I appreciate you taking the time to type all of this out I would suggest maybe taking some of your ideas and adding them to our community suggestions area Eclipse-RP - GTA V Roleplaying Server  The community the server staff and the devs do read this stuff and if you have good ideas Please feel free to add them one by one for discussion there are no promises they're going to get added but the community will Discuss why they agree or disagree. As an online gaming community, we try to create an environment that all players enjoy and we are open minded in discussing changes. I think a lot of old-time players would agree We as a team are very committed to trying to make it fun for everybody again

 If you browse into the archive of implemented suggestions, you'll see there's a ton we do listen as well as there is a really good thread about the Los Santos Police Department and everything they have changed to try to make it more fair and even/ fun for more people 

  With all this being said it is just to show you that we do listen and act on topics!

Edited December 16, 2025 by Smoke1