There are a number of things that I want to say about the current events in the Department. I am currently a faction leader (Michael Briggs) in the LSPD and have been continuously backing roozles and the majority of our Command Staff in an attempt to remove unrealistic aspects of our faction, such as high-speed interceptors, overuse of airships, generally poor and unrealistic character portrayal from police officers and so forth.
Over the past few months, these are all things that were clarified to us by the community (many of them illegal role players), e.g, the play-to-win attitude shown time and time again by police department members. Myself, the majority of Command Staff and roozles himself were appointed with the mandate to revamp the Department, remove poor role players, and change the mindset of the faction to focus entirely on a realistic police agency, providing quality police role play for this community.
This was no easy feat — the faction currently comprises almost 200 members, each with differing ambitions, goals, problems, ideas, and visions for the faction. Many of these faction members were stuck in a vision of the faction that is no longer applicable, where faction members are allowed to provide an unfair experience to illegal role players and focus entirely on winning. Naturally, many of our changes were met with fierce retaliation, resulting in an often overwhelming number of reports. Many of these reports were based around the fact that we were removing the 'fun aspects' of the Department (such as focusing on shootings, pursuits, and other unfair aspects that impact illegal role play). Of course, this was not the case. We were simply attempting to revolve the faction around PROVIDING fun aspects for illegal role players as well, instead of claiming a 'monopoly' on the fun on the server. The truth is; the community responded positively to the changes, and the only individuals that were against these changes were those that feared for losing their unrealistic privileges within the Department.
Frankly, throughout our tenure, we received very little support from Legal Faction Management. Our attempts at improving the faction were met with disapproval due to the unrest it was creating. When changing the mindset of a faction, unrest is inevitable. It did not help that any removals or changes that we attempted to do were immediately met with an overwhelming number of reports from faction members that are stuck in the past.
While aiming to transform the faction into something able to provide realistic and unique police role play, we simultaneously wanted to ensure both administrative and operational excellence. This was something severely lacking in past administrations of the faction, where the aim was only to please existing faction members in achieving whatever they personally wanted, with zero acknowledgment for the wants of the larger (illegal) community.
Know that this removal, while it may seem insignificant to many of you that are not in PD, will achieve nothing but going back in time, causing only instability and chaos to a Department that badly required a clear direction and stable leadership. We had a large, stable team that backed a faction leader in achieving a faction direction that would ultimately lead to good role play for the community and a fair experience for illegal role players, which was severely lacking in the past.
Be that as it may, it has become clear to myself — and dozens others, both in low and high ranking positions in the Department — that all of our time and efforts to genuinely improve the faction have been wasted. Legal faction management, server management and many faction members have no interest in improving the faction, or backing any leadership that is willing to take the necessary steps to achieve a realistic police agency that is capable of providing good and realistic role play. Instead, we opt for continuous instability, and allow external individuals with no faction leadership experience and clear bias to determine the future of one of the largest factions on the server.
I regret that this community, despite having good initial intentions, has turned out to be the exact same as LS:RP in terms of management.