The Art of Gang Warfare

[Bala]

Following a recent report, of which I don't want to specifically delve into the details of, I'd like to raise a discussion topic regarding the attitude (specifically staff attitudes) towards shooting and IC violence between our criminal factions as I think we're reaching our nadir as far as the criminal side of things in Eclipse. While a lot of that will be to do with the lack of any real update for the criminal community in quite a while, it also has to do with the options currently available to our criminals at this moment in time.

I've been involved in GTA roleplay for the best part of almost 15 years and during that time, one of the key areas when it comes to criminal roleplay is the expression or act of, violence. People pick criminal roleplay because they don't want to play by the IC rules. It's supposed to be dangerous and exciting. The interactions are best when they rest on a knife's edge. The intrigue, a powder keg waiting to explode. That's part of the appeal for criminals. Actions should come with consequences.

What concerns me is that in my view, Eclipse is becoming increasingly bland and conservative when it comes to the action side of things, particularly over the last twelve months and I feel that it's contributed as much as seasonal change and easing of COVID restrictions to the decline in the popularity of our server and the alienation of long-term players. Requests for easing off in these matters is shut down and branded anti-roleplay. We've all seen the "it's a roleplay server, it's not cops and robbers." comments but with the respect, we've were always a server that has balanced the action and the roleplay well. That is why I feel we became successful in the first place. There are other servers that are full action, there are other servers that are full roleplay but the charm and USP of Eclipse is that it's a middle-man server. A server that beginners can easily get to grips with, with enough sauce to keep the better standard of RPers entertained.

I feel that there is a lack of meaningful representation for criminal role-players in this server and there has been a push particularly over the last 12 months for Eclipse to become less dependent on cop/robber roleplay and more on making it inclusive for the civilian. This is in my view in part due to the amount of representatives within the staff team that do not hold place as much importance and value on criminal roleplay, in part because they are not actively involved in criminal roleplay themselves or they don't want to be on the other end of this kind of roleplay.

I've been a big supporter on improvements to the criminal side of things without being a criminal myself, partly for selfish reasons. I'm a cop, catching criminals is my business. The more crime, the more there is to do for myself and my fellow faction members. I'm of the belief that this sanitising of criminals in our server has had an adverse reaction, not just on the server overall but on the law enforcement factions. There are significant portions of the day where it's boring to be on duty because nothing is happening. Yes, I could ticket a car or talk to someone at the pier but there is a time limit on that stuff for a lot of people. The intrigue is in variety, not doing the same thing over and over. 

I don't advocate for turning this into a gangsters paradise but at the same time, you've got to let a gang banger be a gang banger for fuck sake. I see complaints about rule-playing and people abusing the report section for petty reasons but in all honesty, if you add rule after rule, what do you think is going to happen? It's more and more reasons for the losing side to hide behind. Our player-base has become soft and unable to take anything that resembles losing and why?

Because the option of fighting in-character is becoming less and less acceptable. Someone loses their bag and gun, they don't fight back in-character, they now fight back on the forums. If you are my enemy, I don't win by beating you in game, I win by getting you banned from the community. This becomes an OOC fight which leads to people taking sides and spreads OOC toxicity amongst the community. That shit spreads like a wildfire and eventually, it consumes communities, even communities as big as this one. I've experienced it first hand before and I don't want ECRP to go that way.

Shooting for no reason is unacceptable but at the same time, I think the staff team needs to take a broader view on what is and is not an acceptable reason to try to kill someone. While you might think that gangs trying to kill each other is anti-roleplay, consider the following;

• PD and SD require criminals to commit crime in order to function. 
• MD requires injured players in order to function. Yes, people might fall off things or crash their cars but crime creates injured players.
• DOC requires caught criminals in order to function.

That is the four most populated factions on the server that all benefit directly off of crime being committed. Criminals are the most important competent of our roleplay ecosystem.
I'm not someone that likes constant shootouts but I do enjoy them from time to time. We should remember that this is a GTA roleplay community and not Second Life or The Sims. We should strive for realism but not just when it suits our argument. 

The world can be a violent, aggressive place and our server should reflect that. Shootouts between rivals can serve both an IC and an OOC purpose. It's a chance for disagreements to be settled and for people to also blow off steam. It ends and creates other roleplay. It's also allowing a natural hierarchy to form. I didn't like The Council being on top of the criminal world for so long but that was a natural evolution of things, they earned and protected that spot. Good and bad.

I apologise for the directness of my post but quite frankly, I don't want to pussyfoot around. I'm not trying to disrupt any server operations, I'm trying to improve them. If we want good, solid criminal factions to grow, we need to be supportive of the things those factions are supposed to be doing. Right now, it feels like any criminal faction that does well is doing well in spite of the server, not because of it.

That's a problem, so how do we fix it?

• Work with the criminal role-players to amend the rules and expectations of criminals in the server, in a way that both encourages roleplay but also, a certain amount of action in the server.
• Understand the important of criminal role-players in Eclipse and back them accordingly.
• Stop with the mindset that shooting is bad or that cops and robbers is a dirty phrase. It's the milkshake that brings a lot of the boys to the yard.

My direct messages are open for any staff member that wants me to elaborate further.

[Clank]

The main problem right now is that it is easier to take your opposition out in a forum report as opposed to taking your opposition out over an RP scenario over time. If someone is malicious and wants to take out their opposing gang, all they have to do is continue posting forum reports until one of them gets accepted. Literally find a weak point in the armor and then boom. They're going to be severely crippled.

Our current rules do NOT support conflict. Which is not how things should be. Conflict can be insanely good for a server/community. If you continue spamming DM reports on an opposing member, eventually one will go through and two possible scenarios will happen:

1. They get banned for their second DM punishment.

2. They get their first DM punishment which will lead them to playing the game completely different for the rest of their time on the server.

 

Conflict should be natural and should flow naturally. A couple of days ago, Almost an entire gang was punished for opening fire at someone that ran their leader over. Accident or not, it should never have gone to the forums. The person reporting was apart of the opposing gang and knew that an active chase/ambush was happening. They accidentally ran over the leader of an opposing force and got shot. Thats completely IC and his own fault ICly. Yet it was taken to the forums and got accepted and an entire gang has been deleted from the server just like that.

 

I personally have forum reported people like 3 times total over the course of my entire tenure on this server. Anything can be solved IC. The whole report-to-win mentality is ridiculous. 

"Playing to win" always carries such a bad reputation. Yet everyone wants their character to succeed no? Yeah some people have their niche personality-type characters which involve them just having fun. Other people though, get their fun from their character succeeding. In the end EVERYONE wants to have fun no? 

Sure, play to win, play a hardcore gangster etc. Just don't complain when you eventually get caught or get killed and lose everything.

 

When the community stops relying so much on forum reports to take their opposition out, then the community will be in a stable place. 

 

[Jufro]

Well said and just so yall know the Brotherhood isn't dead

[XeV]

This is so well said and spoken and I thank you for taking the time to write this up and post it for all us crims out here just tryna be crims, and yes as Jufro said The Brotherhood is not going anywhere  

[Jay_Valentino]

+1

What a well written post. I agree with everything said. Thank you for taking your time to write this Bala. Good Job

Edited November 8, 2021 by Jay_Valentino

[DC2MT74]

This post pretty much nailed it. At this point crim RP feels like stepping on eggshells trying not to get banned. 

[Krish Roshan]

#Letcrimsbecrims been saying this for time more gang related crims need to be connected with staff for the betterment of the server 

[Grimlock]

Bala for president! Honestly this is a very well written and thought out post and I agree 100%. Being on both sides of roleplay being criminal and PD it gets very boring. PD need things to do. Criminals need to be able to do criminal things. 

[Phil McGee]

A lot of good points raised. 

I straight up think the server has a lost a lot of its fun factor from the nearly 4 years ive been playing. The rules are way to restrictive and the jail times are absurd from a criminals points of view. Not to mention there is nothing to do in jail and it never gets addressed regardless of X amount of +1 . The interpretation of the rules  themselves ie " public robbery" is choking enough that you cant even get into a punch up. 

While I commend you for writing down a well thought out idea @Bala I fear as always nothing will materialise from it as people have been screaming for change for sometime and nothing is done sadly.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Phil McGee

[Destuin]

Another excellent post from Bala. Appreciate all the work you put into the criminal suggestions and the server as a whole.  Big +1.

[tuffy]

I agree with this post heavily especially when @ClankH talks about the DM punishment. A lot of times and i’ve talked to a variety of people(also have had to deal with it myself) and when you get your first dm punishment as a crim it puts a lot of stress/pressure on you because your rp consists of gangs, conflict, drugs, ect. You have to be extremely careful and id say it makes it a lot harder to rp so that you don’t get banned. I also agree with the fact that the a lot of people on the criminal side are quick to report and hurt them oocly for anything possible rather than accept defeat. Also I agree with @Bala, I feel as though people should have a convorsation with someone whom they felt have broken rules and try to resolve it rather than running to the forums in hopes to get them a punishment. A lot of times unless a extreme rulebreak  I tend to try to resolve situations with people because I understand how punishments stack up and as Ive been banned before I would not want to put anyone in that sort of situation.

+1

Edited November 8, 2021 by tuffy

[ToriHatake_]

I couldn't agree more with this post. A lot of the criminal life has turned into Ruleplaying. Criminals don't want to get in shootouts because if their reasoning doesn't EXACTLY fit what the rules say is a valid reason for violence, the other party can report them. And if the admin see anything that doesn't suit their fancy, you're banned. All because you wanted to have some action and progress the RP. I agree that some of the reports are for valid reasons. But a lot of the time its people that are bitter they lost and so their goal becomes to get that person banned from the server. No one can accept a loss anymore. 

[TheCactus]

I have to agree with most of the points brought up by @Bala and all those mentioned by @ClankH.

I wouldn't say that all the violence in the server should result in shooting and I did not enjoy when the criminal part of the community used to shoot left and right around the map every minute (2 years ago). At the same time, there should be more freedom related to violence and not everything should result in forum reports and eventually a breach of the DM rule. As @ClankH said, if I run someone over by mistake, they should be allowed to at least shoot at me. It would make sense to get shot for running someone over. An eye for an eye.

While a good part of the community (and I am not talking about all of us) should keep in mind that not every conflict has the objective of "shoot & loot", the rules should also support the random conflicts more than they do now, lifting some of the restrictions.

Edited November 8, 2021 by TheCactus

[Symere]

In order to make a change to eradicate the current "play to win/report to ban mentality" that has been very common over the past year we need to look at what has influenced this behavior and need to make changes to fix it. With being apart of one the largest gangs on the server while I was playing, it was almost impossible to not see at least 1 rule break when clashing with another gang. Players often find themselves looking for potential rule breaks in their opponents roleplay then caring about the current roleplay at hand. I feel that the rules of the server have a major factor in this, Players are currently too restricted in what they are allowed to do on the server which only further fuels this type of report mentality. I'm not saying to take away the rules to make the server a all out warfare, I like some of the newer rules like joint frequencies and off-roading in expensive cars. But what I am saying is that the rules need to make sense. About a year ago the term "rule playing" was unheard of and very rarely reported this only became a thing because of the more restrictive rules added.

With the play to win mentality I feel that this has come from the constant "nerfing" of criminal roleplay. The price of basically every criminal item has raised by multiple factors I feel that the outrageous price of firearms has only caused both rule playing and report mentality to further spread in the community. Suddenly getting robbed or dying has caused you to lose a big chunk of money now that any heavy is 20k-40k just to import. It has only made taking that L more impactful and made more of your money and time wasted. If you just spent a lot of time grinding to make money so you can buy that AK and you lose it you're obviously not going to be happy about your time being wasted. This I believe causes most of the report to win mentality. If a gang member from a opposing gang keeps robbing you or is good at shooting over time there will be some sort of bias towards that player. I'm not suggesting that prices of guns go back to what they were because before they were extremely cheap and they needed to be nerfed I feel that they should be slightly tweaked to not make the loss of one as bad as it currently is, at the end of the day seeing a criminal with a heavy should be rare. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Someone loses their bag and gun, they don't fight back in-character, they now fight back on the forums. If you are my enemy, I don't win by beating you in game, I win by getting you banned from the community.

I could not agree more with this statement. All of a sudden if you get a leader or high ranking member of a opposing gang banned or some sort of punishment this will only help you and your own allies. The more players you are able to get banned the more your chances of winning increase. Playing to win and mass reporting are directly intertwined. 

Another factor is that gang relations are left to get worse and worse. If a player just got killed/robbed the night before, the same player will not think twice about engaging in another fight/robbery with the opposing gang because the player is still upset from the mass amount of money they lost from the night before caused by the nerfing of criminals. Now imagine this but over the span of multiple months. This is the exact situation I found myself in while I was still actively playing on the server. This did nothing but cause more and more reports and more players banned from both sides of the conflicts I was in. After a gang gets wiped by another gang they are supposed to forget the conflict and go back to neutrality based off the NLR rule, but this does not happen.

I feel the perfect way to get rid of this exact scenario that has been played out on the server for multiple months is to encourage the players to go to war (if there is enough rp backing it). There has not been a official gang war on the server in a long time. The last time I remember a attempt at a gang war was the Aztecca/LFM vs Triad/Irish conflict where it was forcefully stopped by the admins.  Players on both sides never got the chance to officially clash out and settle their conflict. 

Again I do not want the server to turn into a DM server but sometimes you have to let players fight their differences out so both sides can move on and not breed hate over the course of multiple months.

This post is not a attack on the admins or server or anything like that, I have zero experience running a server and I bet it is harder and more stressful than I can imagine it to be. I have a lot of respect for all members of the staff team that devote a lot of their own time into this server. I feel that tweaking the rules just a little bit can help the server greatly. Instead of restricting the players more and more, give them more freedoms to roleplay how they would like. Leave forum reports for major rule breaches and if a rule breach occurs attempt to resolve without taking it to the forums, if a few small changes are made I believe that the community will be in a much better state and grow more than it currently is.  

 

 

[Buk Lee]

Couldn't agree more Bala, big +1 from me!

[Harley]

I 100% agree with this post. Rules do not currently support conflict, and it seems any conflict that happens right now ends in someone in /b, or it going to the forums.

As a player who plays a lot of Crim, and has for years, I can confidently say playing a Crim in conflict nowadays always involves being worried about being punished for a conflict.

I've played ECRP for about 3 years now, and have been a contributing member for the entirety, yet conflicts on my Criminal Character have lead my Panel to be as long as a CVS Receipt.
Is this because I'm a cancer to the ECRP Community? I hope to think not; but more a conflict turning into OOC hate towards someone and it leading to "We win the War when they're banned" mentality.

[AnakinB]

+1 I get people want to win but what's the point and taking it to the forums anytime u lose Just accept the fact you lost and start fighting back icly its boring having to pussyfoot around because you dont know if the other party cant take an L 

[Copes]

Agreed.

While I respect what Eclipse has been doing to try and cut down on excessive conflict on the criminal side, I believe it's gone too far. The way I've interpreted the criminal landscape nowadays is that conflict between gangs is frowned upon and has become more tedious than ever. Fighting via the forums instead of in-game has always been around, but I feel as though the room for error now has only fueled that problem. In 2019/2020 when conflict between gangs was far more prominent, forum wars would happen out of spite, but I was never concerned about it because I was confident with my knowledge of the guidelines and what was acceptable.

My character has always been a criminal, but now I'm pretty much a civilian. Why? Because the idea of heavily involving myself in criminal roleplay like I used to genuinely makes me nervous. That is a problem.

[justpositivity]

Ah yes, I remember the days, during war, refueling alone gave you an adrenaline rush cus you knew that any moment someone could peak out of the bushes or someone from the opposing gang could pull up, not everyone favored this but I always loved the thrill, like we always have we found ways to live through this and often never refueled alone, because you knew at anytime things could go south. Good days, lovely post as usual Bala AKA MLK for us crims.

[Carl Daquarius]

+1. I have recently been punished with a DM from a conflict with another rival gang which I believe is unfair. Honestly, I'm scared of being banned from ECRP. I don't want to participate in killings/robberies anymore, as I know it can get me banned if I break the rules in the slightest. I've put so much time and love into the RP I've created, and now I don't have the spark I used to have when playing this server.

[Danyby]

Honestly, couldn't say more, but I'm afraid it's just too late...

[Charlie Mchoe]

Kinda pog.

Being on DM#1 since 26/Aug/2020 and having to play differently because of it is not pog.

[Levi Handley]

A lot of what has been said is why I do not come on eclipse much at all anymore, constantly treading on egg shells because I am worried about being banned and every time there is a shootout which is rare these days there will always be a /b save pov and its true criminal RP is boring now majority of things have been done and if its being done again you just get mocked, there 100% needs to be some sort of rule change or something new implemented for crim rp. the only way to make decent money is to cook and me personally will never cook again its the most boring thing in the world it pretty much takes players out of the game for hours because they are stuck in their apartments. Banks are not worth doing because you get hero cops that just run in guns blazing against 10+ gang members,  the only way currently to do a bank successfully is to get as many people in the vault take the cash and run and you risk a 3 hour jail sentence for 30k if you're lucky. personally i liked the old chop shop system where there was a certain amount of chop locations for a certain period of time where as now there's is like 10+ so you cant do any of the holding chop shop rp and tax people for chopping cars, running labs is frowned apon because you now need a reason to go into labs not to just rob people, there needs to be change there is a lot of people in the thread that has made good suggestions it is just down to the staff to implement it now, there has been too many crim threads about change.

[Bala]

To be clear because sometimes these kinds of threads come across like folk just want to avoid the rules, because every one responding has some kind of story.
If you (attempt to) kill someone on the server for no reason, then you deserve the deathmatch punishment. 

That being said, I think the core point of the thread and what most people have alluded to is that we've become overtly controlling on the violence in our server to the point that we've gone from it being out of control and needing admin intervention to being actively frowned upon and kind of needing to happen to an extent. We've over-balanced the scales basically to the point it's negatively impacted the criminal side of things.

I can appreciate that some of you have openly said or indicated you've given up but don't do that, we're not at the point where it's unsolvable but in order to resolve it, we've got to treat it with the same energy we'd treat a bunch of ban-evaders or hackers. Now is the time, not 3.. 6.. 9 months from now.

[CalvinKlein]

it seems like everything you talked about unfortunately existed and was gradually frowned upon and changed so I don't know