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Aellerix

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Everything posted by Aellerix

  1. If the map size was an issue, we'd just block off 90% of the map so that people are forced to roleplay together. That's not how it should work, however. There should be enough room to accommodate for everyone. Implementing this would create a ton of role-play. People would finally be able to RP going on vacation (not to Paleto). There would be airlines, boat companies. Right now, planes and boats literally have no purpose. Having a flight from LS Airport to Sandy is useless. We've never had the opportunity to RP any of this, not in GTA 5, not in SAMP, but we finally do. I think it'd be stupid to not take advantage of this. It also doesn't seem like a huge area, maybe the size of Sandy Shores? The pros massively outweigh the negatives.
  2. That could work. I don't personally know what the impact would be, but it's definitely realistic and more than nothing.
  3. No, that's not. Right now, you can /vstats if the vehicle is locked. Press F or G and while your character is in the anim, do /vstats. If you keep walking (not even try the door), no one will know that you used /vstats. As a car thief, you can literally walk past a vehicle and know everything related to its registration, insurance, security, mileage and modifications without even touching it. Heavily abusable. You can't /engine unless you're sitting in the driver's seat (AKA the hud is also visible). Make it the same for /vstats... I don't think that it is due to Rage. You can't see the mileage of the vehicle (in the HUD) or do /engine if you're not fully inside the vehicle. I think it was just omitted when the script was implemented but it should be an easy fix?
  4. Something should still be done about it. We can't take the next step and start selling cars, houses and businesses in-game just because the game server costs money to run as well. There's workarounds - for the server, some cool perks that were non-essential and didn't give anyone an unfair advantage just because of OOC wealth - has been found. Why not look for something for Facebrowser as well? The solution is not to remove it entirely, not to keep it like this but to find a different way. And there's plenty of solutions here already. The verification system is also a massive metagaming breach. From an IC perspective, what did those people do to get verified? Have their parallel universe master pay make a payment in a different currency and economy? What would be the IC reason why a random police officer is verified and a police captain isn't, while having the same social status? It's literally legal metagaming.
  5. Give people the option to issue a refund or convert to WP, taking into consideration the amount of time left and how heavily said perks were used.
  6. It does make sense but I can see this being abused in some way - people promoting their own factions, businesses, suggestions etc.
  7. It's different for /bad - that's doesn't make a business seem any more or less important than it actually is. Plus, you are still able to have a blip if you hire an advertiser ICly. Having too many business blips doesn't mess up the business scene nor the immersion, though. Having too many verified profiles does. Facebrowser should be entirely IC, from my point of view. A ton of people donate, on a monthly basis, to support the server and keep it running. Facebrowser is fully pay-to-win right now which again, shouldn't happen on GTA:W. If you want your profile or business to have some recognition, you'll have to pay real money to have your posts boosted, your profile verified and your page promoted. Or you can take the long way and go step by step. That's the definition of pay-to-win. Pay for $1,000,000 IG or make it, dollar after dollar - same situation, different scenario. The next step is to start selling IC vehicles for IRL cash.
  8. The rules should be different but that's the point, there should be rules. A complete lack of rules is not the way to go. Regarding real estate, it's not the same but it is a similar situation. Houses have market values which act as a price cap, just like the brand new prices work for vehicles (again, not exactly the same but similar). Even more, you won't be able to sell a $35,000 Forum Drive apartment for $120,000, even if the supply is limited, nor would the rules allow you to do so. And no, vehicles are not unlimited. There's a specific numbers of vehicles available on the market at a given time. Yes, you can argue that you are able to buy a new one at any point - which is, most likely, what you mean by unlimited supply - but that's just theoretical. In practice, few people choose to buy specific vehicles as brand new and tune them, because the vast majority of players would much rather spend their time and money to look for one, thus having a cheaper outcome. The supply is artificially limited by the lack of interest in purchasing new vehicles - which will never change. Which brings us to the topic at hand, used vehicle dealerships are clearly taking advantage of this - and no, there's nothing wrong with that; it's a business, it has to profit. The issue is that exact profit, from an OOC perspective, and how this market is generating totally unrealistic numbers. RP quality management will approach a small store owner who's driving a Pariah, because even if he can afford it script-wisely, it wouldn't be realistic for them to do so from an IC perspective. In the same way, a person running a used vehicle dealership, no matter how developed it is (with few exceptions) shouldn't be able to afford a $500,000 vehicle either. The issue is that... they do. And with the current standing, it's totally realistic, as they make enormous amounts of money from literally sitting in the middle of a parking lot all day - again, no matter how much the RP lacks or is developed. Yes, there's dealerships which choose to not go for crazy profits for realistic reasons and there's dealerships which don't know how to deal, thus either losing money, not making money or making very little. Those are not the issue. The issue are the few which do make money, and make a ton of it. The issue is that there's no rules surrounding vehicles, vehicle trades and player-owned vehicle dealerships. Limiting the amount of dealerships will only fix half of the problem. You won't have a ton of unrealistic characters with enormous bank accounts, you'll only have a handful of them. That's not much better. If your house is on fire, restricting the fire to the kitchen is not really a solution.
  9. But that's not an argument. There is no shortage of houses, just like there is no shortage of cars. If you want a house, post an ad and you'll find one. If you want a car, post an ad and you'll again - find one. If you specifically want a maxed out Komoda with a custom paint job, you might or might not find one, just like if you specifically want a trailer in Sandy Shores, you might or might not find one. Cars are not unlimited either. If you go on the UCP, you'll see a number stating how many player-owned cars there are on the server. Yes, you can buy a brand new one and pay more but really, a small percentage of players do that, and only on certain, specific occasions. Cars are just like properties. There's rules for properties (and reselling properties), so there should be rules for vehicles (and reselling vehicles).
  10. Facebook doesn't check IDs, why would GTA World? And no, I wouldn't send in my real life ID either, just to be able to log into a game. You're talking about making your private information (and in the cases of some countries, sensitive information) public. No, I don't trust the GTA World staff team - I'm not saying they're not doing their job, they are, but they still are random strangers to me and I'm not going to give my very personal information to some random strangers. And as was pointed out previously, everyone else who, in one way or another, has or will have access to this database. Like really, I'm not going to have my personal information in my own country's database, in the FBI database and in GTA World's database, that's ridiculous. This would just lead to the server losing a lot of players who are mature enough to know that posting your ID on random websites is not a thing to do.
  11. In that case, the cooldown for property purchases should be removed as well. If having seven different vehicles in a single day is realistic, then going through five different properties in a day is not realistic. There should be limits on either both or none, don't you agree?
  12. Yes and no. In order to say "there is only so much you can do" you have to do something first, but nothing was done to regulate the activity of dealerships. PM limiting the number of dealerships does not help in any way, from what can be seen and it still is unfair to have such earnings by just waiting around. I mean, if I'm smart and I find a way to sell food for $5,000,000 a day while abiding to all rules, that doesn't mean that it's realistic or okay.
  13. That's literally what I said ? That's the whole point of this topic. I was part of the problem, there's no debating that, and if I'm coming forward with our numbers and view on the whole used car dealership industry, I can raise an issue that most people didn't even know was there. Someone like you, with perfectly okay dealerships, wouldn't have a leg to stand on - besides speculation, and other people who are part of this problem would rather enjoy their money and never come forward. It's a similar issue to scripted jobs, it's literally grinding. Something was done about those, something should be done about these as well.
  14. I'm not sure why people keep saying that the numbers are fake. Logs can be checked if anyone has any concern but no, they are not fake. All of those sales / trades were our dealership's activity during the last week of activity. The spreadsheet was the way we kept track of what was coming in and out and whoever bought or sold at Denov can confirm that that was our tactic. And it worked. And we did make millions in weeks. And... we're not the only ones who do. Yes, Sunset, Autopia and one or two more dealerships are focusing on the RP, not solely on money. And that's perfect. But most people are not. And again, yes, we were part of the problem - we were focusing on the RP but we were also highly focused on the income. We did have an office (which, by the way, didn't make the RP any more or less enjoyable or realistic) and a business that would be profitable in real life was probably one of the most profitable on the server. That makes no sense and that's why I personally feel that some regulations should prevent people from being able to make big bucks by flipping trashy vehicles. We were buying Rusty Emperors for $5,000 and selling them for $15,000 - market price. That's a ten thousand dollar profit on a fifteen thousand dollar car and that makes no sense. Yes, it's the customer's fault for falling for it but that doesn't make it fair from an IC perspective. Not when most of the people on the server, whether they are drug dealers, bartenders, security personnel or CEOs, make that kind of money in months, not days. That's why I feel that it is unfair, that's why I feel that there should be rules surrounding vehicle sales / used vehicle dealerships.
  15. Yes, the owner of Denov was banned for unrelated reasons. The numbers were our daily revenue and profits, as the table was the way we kept track of our stock (updating it after buying or selling a vehicle, every time). I'm sure we weren't the only ones with that profit.
  16. Since we're not operating anymore, just to clear things up, I'll tell you my strategy. We had the Denov website which, among others, hosted the dealership price guide. Take a Granger, for example. I didn't care whether it was maxed out or stock, as long as it was insured. Our website showed the price to be with a low range of $46,000 so I would offer $38,000 and up that to $40,000. I always sold vehicles at either market-price or lower, but the asking price was higher, so I could negotiate it. And they would sell. Always. Except for one vehicle that wasn't bought through the dealerships, all of the profits were of $10,000 - $15,000 per car, in average. I got a Fugitive for $28,000 and sold it for $49,000 - or somewhere along those lines. It's all about sales and communication skills, not the car itself. I've had people sell a Hellfire for $140,000, I would sell it for $180,000 and then buy it back from the same person for $140,000 in 30 minutes because they didn't like it. There's a billion cases and methods and they all work. Yes, we were ripping people off and that's exactly how we made our money. That's exactly how most dealerships do it, for that matter. Some do it for the RP, others do it for the money, others do it for the RP and money, but most fit in the second category. And the sad thing is that they are not fake. That's the spreadsheet that me and my partner used while we were trading vehicles, updating it after each trade. That was our business plan and it worked perfectly from day one until we closed. People are willing to take huge lowballs and overpay for vehicles. And yes, it's natural and it's on the players for allowing themselves to get ripped off, but that doesn't mean that dealerships are fine as they are and that millions of dollars in profits in a matter of days is realistic or acceptable. Trading used vehicles might be a way to get by, but definitely not a way to become the Jeff Bezos of GTA World. If we kept the dealership running for a year, with $2,500,000 in a week and a half, let's say 2 million a week, that would've been at least 104 million until next summer - and we weren't that active. That being said, something should be done about it, even if it's all fair from an IC perspective. Something was done about properties - there's a 14 day cooldown period before you're able to sell it, after buying it, so why not have something like this for vehicles too? It made real estate agencies way more realistic, it would make vehicle dealerships too. -> Just imagine what it would've been like for the property rules to not exist, you'd have random players flipping houses on a daily basis, making the same profit since properties sell slower but for higher profits. That was regulated, why isn't this too?
  17. From an OOC point of view, Autopia is the best out of all of them, by far. Huge stock, fair prices, great overall business. We have to remember that most dealearships are more like Denov than they are like Autopia. And it makes sense. Someone who has the chance of making a ton of cash and deliberately chooses to make a small amount is not being realistic, but rather stupid - from an IC perspective - so having dealerships lowball and overprice vehicles is as realistic as it gets. Yes, we were lowballing and yes, we were overpricing. Why? Because it worked. If I can get a house for $1 and sell it for $1,000,000, I'm not going to say no. That's a great deal for me. But that's not the point of this topic. The point is that there's a million things wrong regarding and surrounding dealerships. The sped-up RP is one of them, but a small part of the whole thing. The money that goes into the owners' pockets is a huge issue. You're going to have small-town car dealers driving 10 Ferraris and you can't say it's not realistic, because the money is legitimate - althought it is not realistic. The problem is that there's no problem. Having someone buy 40 vehicles a day and sell them the next day is also an issue - car sales don't work like that in real life. And yes, it can be argued that there's a demand and that it works. That's exactly the problem. The rules surrounding car sales and dealerships are so few, almost inexistent, and so vague that almost anything is allowed. Just because it happens and it works, it doesn't mean that it's realistic.
  18. Of course it was nice, I'm not saying that it's not. I also am aware that it was highly unrealistic. Yes, I am banned, for unrelated reasons which still don't change the fact that dealerships are making millions in a matter of days by doing nothing but sit around. So again, I can't see where the connection is. I can bring it up whenever I want and I chose to do so now, then there you go. And instead of bashing or inciting, you could contribute. Exactly but the thing is that if a dealership is OOCly forced to buy a vehicle, keep it for a week and only then sell it, there will be the time and space needed for all realistic roleplay to happen (inspecting it, applying the custom dealership plates, maybe taking it to a garage etc.) and the profits will be drastically slowed down, which will bring them to a normal. There's nothing wrong with a few people making millions but 99% of the times, they are not fully developing their characters, but rather have two immigrants arriving to Los Santos and making millions in a week from selling second-hand cars. That's the problem. If the current car rollover if of dozens a vehicle a day, changing that to dozens a week will make everything better. It is supply and demand but it is also very damaging to the economy.
  19. The problem is that, as a dealership owner, you make that 100k in an hour. And that's it. The large amount of dealerships and little RP involved are issues, but the biggest issue, by far, is that even if everything is perfectly role-played, the lucky people who run these dealerships will make millions per week. If you make a million dollars of profit a week, that's approximately fifty million in a year. That's ridiculous. There has to be a cap to regulate this. Make it such that you have to keep a vehicle for a day / a week before you can sell it, and then we're talking about realism. That's the case for properties, why not for vehicles as well? If you want to make an investment, you think twice - in real life, you can't buy a car at 10 AM and sell it at 10:30 AM because it just doesn't happen.
  20. It's still unrealistic, unless some drastic measures are taken. In their current state, the few people running the dealerships will make millions in a really short time by not doing much while others who work twice as hard in jobs that realistically make ten times more money - barely get by. If there was a time limit on when you can buy and sell a vehicle, instead of going through five cars a day (even as an individual), the story would be different. And again, everyone's starting a dealership. Yes, that's how the economy works here, but there have to be some rules. I think there's a pretty clear issue here, seeing how much they make compared to other businesses, and the problem is that there's no rules being broken for this to be accomplished. It's all perfectly legal, both ICly and according to the rules too. It's not about the RP, it's about the money, from my perspective.
  21. This is not a vehicle collection, this is a dealership and the prices on the cars (which are uninsured) is close to market price. Scam.
  22. What do you do about people using the cliffs nearby to jump into the prison? It's more than possible. Yes, that's unrealistic and should be sanctioned but until it is, people will be strolling through the prison like there's no tomorrow.
  23. I can do some of the math for you. Let's say you own 5 Carbonizzare's which will put you back around $1,250,000 if you buy them second-hand. Insurance costs $27,000 for one, so $135,000 for all, per month. If, on average, the business opens every day and they are all taken out twice, so 10 times a day * $2,000 per vehicle will be $20,000 a day. Now, if the business opens every other day, that will give you around $300,000 a month. It would cover the insurance, definitely, and make some nice cash on the side. It would be a hassle to get over the initial investment, however, so you could use a government credit - if those are still active - to have the vehicles in your possession but RPly owned by the government until you pay it off. Another option would be to lease the vehicles individually, from the UCP, which will still put them in your possession but have them taken away if you don't pay the lease. That would, however, put you back a few hundred thousand since the leased vehicles are initially unmodded and unregistered. If I were you and if it works out, I would choose the option to lease the vehicles. Besides that, you can easily keep your business a decent profit if you invest in running it properly. Although, let me warn you - it is boring. I've ran a dealership and trust me, sitting around in a parking lot, no matter how much you make, is not fun. If you only realize that after you invest in it, then you're in for a fun time. If you think it through beforehand and you're sure you want to do it, though - at least in theory - it would work. You also have to take three other things in consideration: People crashing and... Not coming back => the vehicles would be everywhere Coming back and needing another /vdup (since if you /sv the car, you're not protected by the rules anymore, as far as I know) People stealing the cars for pursuits which, trust me, happens A LOT and if you don't know it and don't /reportstolen, the car gets impounded for a week and you also get a citation - and again, that happens A LOT People stealing the cars and trying to scam you for any other reason I think there's a lot of headaches involved but if you really put your mind to this, it could work. The more vehicles you have, the bigger the headache is. The fix is to find employees, but that will dramatically reduce your profit.
  24. I don't know how popular or unpopular this opinion is, but I believe that used car dealerships have to stop. It's an OOC abuse of the system that GTA World runs on. How? Unlike real life, most people on the server change cars really often - as often as multiple times a day which, in turn, makes car dealerships the most profitable businesses on the server while, in real life, they would barely function - as they do. There have to be rules regarding what can and can't happen because, as it stands right now, anyone can just do an ad saying they're running a dealership and that's it. I'm speaking from experience. While I ran Denov Dealership, I've seen dozens of different dealerships, some more official than others - from Autopia to Wilson's Dealership that was selling cars through SMS. That's not realistic under any circumstances. Moreover, the profit made from these businesses - which is all IC, that's the issue - is enormous. You probably don't have exact numbers but I can tell you what we made so you can get an idea. Two people running the dealership made in a day around ~300,000 in profits. On bad days, $200,000 and on good days, up to $600,000. That's just profits. I've personally managed to go from $300,000 in total assets to $2,500,000 in two weeks. Again, without breaking any rules and fully role-playing it (including an office, checkups and everything). Some make less and some make even more but I consider this to be an exploit and I want to know what other people think about it. And some first-seen insider information, to clarify what I'm talking about, here are my profits during the last week of activity. There's two sheets, check them out and see what I'm talking about. CLICK HERE Objectively speaking, I don't find it fair for people, myself included, to be making half a million in profits in a day while others make $3,000 from bartending or as little as $2,000 from taxi-ing around all day.
  25. Instead of public doors, just make it so that the door's lock status is saved and loads for everyone entering said interior. That way, doors will be synced and if you decide to make a door public, you just unlock it.
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