Things the community can do to grow bigger?

[Smilesville]

We could do with making the server much less focused on "cops and robbers" roleplay.

 

Everything is so adversarial, it's difficult to think of businesses that aren't owned by criminal enterprises, and you can hardly walk a few feet outside during certain times without someone waltzing up to rob you with the minimal acceptable roleplay. Couple that with the fact that the command list on the forums is nowhere near a comprehensive list of the commands you'll need to play the game, and you end up with an atmosphere with a very steep learning curve.

 

Fixing up the list of commands and typing up guides for new players would do wonders, and I plan to do a bit of the latter once the holidays settle down.

[Fenrir]

I think the cops and robbers attitude happens mainly due to the low-ish population. Once more people will join up, there will be more and more opportunities for RP, including legal businessmen and such. The main issue is that most RPers from other SA-MP servers would most likely like to join but they either don't have a good PC (80% of the cases I know about claimed this) the others would join but they don't feel like dropping out everything they've done. Sooner or later they'll start coming over though.

[Okawari]

One thing the community could is not to just punish players that have poor roleplay skills but display that they want to learn and are willing to participate in the scene. Yesterday I had a scene where an Admin just told me to rush my RP, so he could jail the person who had poor RP, while the person did display poor RP, he participated in the scene and I believe he showed that he was willing to learn and I was willing to continue the scene nonetheless.. Things like this don't make people want to stay on the server.

[Scorgasmic]

I think there's a few things.

 

Voice RP seems to be the new crave when it comes to GTA V multiplayer platforms. Now, believe me, I really don't want it to be implemented, and one of the main reasons I joined this server is because it's text-based. But when it comes to numbers, I think it plays a role. Someone mentioned Voice RP ends up being quite unrealistic and quite frankly dumb most of the time (which I agree with), but credit where credit is due I've seen some videos on YouTube of quite immersive Voice RP. Still not really my thing though. Lool.

 

Another big factor I think is, I remember when I first started looking for mods similar to SA-MP but for GTA V. I found a bunch of them which were either in development at the time or just seemed to be pipe dreams. Then I think it was Five M which actually got released. Then GT-MP and GTA: Network came about. GT-MP pretty much died. GTA: Network became Rage MP I believe. And then there just seemed to have so many options and in the beginning it was so confusing, whereas with GTA SA it was MTA or SA-MP, and SA-MP was dominant. It was pretty easy to actually setup multiplayer for GTA SA. But as a newcomer, getting into multiplayer on GTA V can be a bit confusing. You need to figure out which platform you want to use and then that will determine which servers you can play on, and even how many people are in a server and whether servers have NPCs and so on. But, there's also the issue that if you search something simple such as GTA V Multiplayer Mod or GTA V SA-MP Alternative, Rage MP is not on the first page of results. Five M is number one, and GT-MP still follows closely behind.

 

I also think a lot of people still don't know that Five M and Rage MP exist because GTA Online is still running. It could also be that they don't care for Five M or Rage MP because GTA Online still exists. I wouldn't be surprised when GTA Online shuts down or starts losing numbers because Rockstar runs out of ideas to keep it entertaining - or whatever the case may be - that Rage MP and Five M numbers will shoot up. And that could be a good thing and a problem at the same time as many of those players probably don't know even know what roleplay is. Lol.

 

And the last I'd like to bring up is - just as mentioned previously - there's a lot of people who still don't have a PC capable of running GTA V. And building a PC these days is getting more and more expensive which isn't helping the situation.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Scorgasmic

[Wisci]

On 12/28/2018 at 9:23 AM, Okawari said:

One thing the community could is not to just punish players that have poor roleplay skills but display that they want to learn and are willing to participate in the scene. Yesterday I had a scene where an Admin just told me to rush my RP, so he could jail the person who had poor RP, while the person did display poor RP, he participated in the scene and I believe he showed that he was willing to learn and I was willing to continue the scene nonetheless.. Things like this don't make people want to stay on the server.

This.

 

1 hour ago, Scorgasmic said:

-snip-

That's not necessarily the issues however. We've had the population in the past, but it was 'trimmed' by various management staff in favor of quality. And here we are now, which I think Okawari sums up how I feel about that whole situation.

 

But I hate to be the one to say it - all this push for quality may have improved the server on the greater scale to an extent, nothing has notably changed in my typical player interactions. Sure, in the past I'd run into occasional people clearly below the bar, but I haven't noticed even a slight improvement in the average player quality since then even attending a variety of public locations. It feels the same as the server always was, just the interactions are far fewer and further between. The server feels empty again. Note that I did go on hiatus for some time but I've been through the thick and thin since release, I mean I guess the faction quality has improved? Not that the accuracy or detail of each individual faction is really that important unless they're really bent out of shape.

 

Where's the draw anymore? It's hard to encourage a lot of roleplayers to play when many come from backgrounds where the games they played didn't support roleplay at all, but permitted them the freedom to do what they want. Once you start trying to explain all the script to worry about it sounds a lot less like a heavy roleplay server, especially coming from major communities like Garry's Mod.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Wisci

[Haymaker]

Every year there are less and less roleplayers given the origins go way beyond computer games back to 60s, 70s. Every year less and less people seem to be interested in roleplaying as those generations are slowly being replaced, But that said, pushing for quality is only viable option if you have numbers.

[Tseard]

What made me ultimately leave the server is the fact that Los Santos is a ghost city. Players are barely seen throughout the city, occasionally you'll see a car drive through Strawberry and you meet a person near the beach but that is it. People huddle up at Mirror Park or around the area where their gang is located (which is compared to to the map a tiny fraction of the world). Driving from one populated area to another feels dead and boring since there is nothing in between the areas, you don't meet other ''traffic'', only the vehicles that are going way too fast and speed by which touches on my other point.

 

Since I was a part of the LSPD, I've dealt with countless numbers of pursuits and at least 3/4 of the pursuits were cancelled off because the vehicle was way too fast and outran the police vehicles in no time. The LSPD now has an HSIU unit which can be deployed but I am not fond of that, not only is it unrealistic, it is in my opinion also not the right solution in solving the issue. Anyways, since I am an LEO role player, this impacted the day-to-day roleplay and made the entire tenure ''boring''. Due to the server population, there aren't frequent 911 calls to respond to and it gets boring to roleplay at the station day in, day out, trying to fill in the air. 

 

Overall, the roleplay was repetitive from what I've done due ghost city, less population and vehicles which are too fast. I've stayed here for quite a bit and contributed to the faction that I was in to keep the run cool but at the end, I'd realized I'd spend more time in projects where I get more pleasure out of. 

 

 

[Atiku]

2 hours ago, Tseard said:

What made me ultimately leave the server is the fact that Los Santos is a ghost city. Players are barely seen throughout the city, occasionally you'll see a car drive through Strawberry and you meet a person near the beach but that is it. People huddle up at Mirror Park or around the area where their gang is located (which is compared to to the map a tiny fraction of the world). Driving from one populated area to another feels dead and boring since there is nothing in between the areas, you don't meet other ''traffic'', only the vehicles that are going way too fast and speed by which touches on my other point.

  

Since I was a part of the LSPD, I've dealt with countless numbers of pursuits and at least 3/4 of the pursuits were cancelled off because the vehicle was way too fast and outran the police vehicles in no time. The LSPD now has an HSIU unit which can be deployed but I am not fond of that, not only is it unrealistic, it is in my opinion also not the right solution in solving the issue. Anyways, since I am an LEO role player, this impacted the day-to-day roleplay and made the entire tenure ''boring''. Due to the server population, there aren't frequent 911 calls to respond to and it gets boring to roleplay at the station day in, day out, trying to fill in the air. 

  

 Overall, the roleplay was repetitive from what I've done due ghost city, less population and vehicles which are too fast. I've stayed here for quite a bit and contributed to the faction that I was in to keep the run cool but at the end, I'd realized I'd spend more time in projects where I get more pleasure out of. 

  

 

This is quite a common complaint, but it's hard to know what the answer would be? Would you like to see more active businesses that encourage people to come RP? A more appropriate 'hotspot' such as Vespucci Beach or do you have something else in mind?

[Tseard]

4 minutes ago, Atiku said:

This is quite a common complaint, but it's hard to know what the answer would be? Would you like to see more active businesses that encourage people to come RP? A more appropriate 'hotspot' such as Vespucci Beach or do you have something else in mind?

 

More businesses are always a step in the right direction. Little shops, restaurants, tattoo parlours are something I personally enjoy and would visit to roleplay at, I've seen a countless number of clubs and bars but the little things such as mentioned above are something that appeals me. Travelling from Mirror Park all the way to Vespucci Beach is quite a long drive, it's too stretched from each other and the distance between those two feel empty due to the streets with no traffic.

 

Is there a direct solution to this? I don't think so. The map of GTA V is massive for roleplay, maybe a bit too massive. You can't cordon off areas with fences to keep people in an area. I think management did a good thing with not allowing businesses/houses in a certain area to promote it somewhere else but it's still not enough. Perhaps a team of people who create certain types of callouts/events for the police/citizens to react to would be a good idea to boost up people their motivation and enjoyment to keep the flow of events going. 

[Scorgasmic]

8 hours ago, Tseard said:

 

More businesses are always a step in the right direction. Little shops, restaurants, tattoo parlours are something I personally enjoy and would visit to roleplay at, I've seen a countless number of clubs and bars but the little things such as mentioned above are something that appeals me. Travelling from Mirror Park all the way to Vespucci Beach is quite a long drive, it's too stretched from each other and the distance between those two feel empty due to the streets with no traffic.

 

Is there a direct solution to this? I don't think so. The map of GTA V is massive for roleplay, maybe a bit too massive. You can't cordon off areas with fences to keep people in an area. I think management did a good thing with not allowing businesses/houses in a certain area to promote it somewhere else but it's still not enough. Perhaps a team of people who create certain types of callouts/events for the police/citizens to react to would be a good idea to boost up people their motivation and enjoyment to keep the flow of events going. 

You might be on to something. Similar to how on Five M servers they put a call out that if you want to be in a roleplay scene, head to X location. Which works for Five M, as the max number of players is only 32.

 

If higher level admins or a specific team as you say could get the liberty to create situations in-game (small or large), that could keep things interesting.