Naeno Posted October 24, 2023 Share Posted October 24, 2023 (edited) ILLEGAL FACTION MANAGEMENT UPDATE - OCTOBER 2023 This post will be the first of many that we hope to publish each month as a team to let the community know what's going on from IFM's perspective and what we're working on. We're hoping that posts such as these can act as a bridge between the community and the IFM team. We'll be going over hot topics, player concerns, and in general providing more transparency into the inner workings of the team. We urge everyone reading this to join the Public IFM Discord using this link https://discord.gg/HqsM9AFzyY to actively participate in upcoming discussions. Leadership Changes After two long years of restructuring the team and building it into what it is now, both @honey. and @Igloo are stepping down from Illegal Faction Management. We want to thank them for all the work they've put into this since 2021 and wish them the best of luck in whatever else is ahead of them. Moving forward, @Naeno and @slothy will be heading the team in a similar manner to how it was before with changes here and there. How do we contact you guys? There are actually several ways that you can contact us as a team: If you're an unofficial or official faction leader, you can use your faction's channel in the IFM faction Discord to get in touch with us. If you're anyone else, the absolute best way is to join the Illegal FM - Public Discord (link above) and create a ticket. This will put you in a channel privately with IFM members. Response times are almost always immediate here for any questions. If you have any sensitive issues that may involve a member of the team, you can send a forum message to @Naeno and @slothy. What is IFM working on right now? Frankly, it's no secret that we're still dealing with a backlog of items as a team. Over this week, we're going to be fully focused on clearing out absolutely everything and anything that has been pending for too long. We won't be actively discussing any new changes to the illegal scene for the time being until our entire backlog has been emptied. Looking ahead, we're hoping to be able to provide swifter responses on topics and issues that players raise. We're well aware that one of the biggest complaints is simply our response time on issues and part of that has to do with just how much stuff we have pending at any given moment. By clearing out our backlog, we'll be able to hopefully provide swifter responses. This is our number one goal as a team right now. Transparency & Communication Our other big goal is having more open lines of communication between the team and the community. Actively having discussions with community members that day in and day out interact with the systems and aspects of the server that we don't get to everyday is extremely important. Some of you have thousands of hours invested into niche concentrations of roleplay and fully understand all the intricacies of it. Your input is valuable to not just us but the server as a whole as it can help find solutions to underlying issues and provide quality of life updates. Things you just can't know without actively investing the hours into these areas. HOT TOPICS Guns... where are the guns? The big elephant in the room for the past month or two. Where the hell are the guns?! Well, they're out there. In fact, just a week or two ago we increased many of our suppliers' supply (to the point where some of them doubled their amount). As we've now implemented a new supplier log system with our official factions, we plan on doing these reviews every other month at the latest and providing more consistent increases as players prove they are capable suppliers. In the long term we do want to introduce more guns into the server, but we don't want to instantly flood the market and mass dump weapons overnight. It's always going to be better to start off slow and build up. There are also no current plans to move away from the supplier system we currently have. While there are valid concerns with the way it works and it can definitely be iterated on, it is also the most trustworthy way at the moment of making sure that weapons are not immediately falling into the hands of problematic players. A warehouse-like system is antiquated and will result in more damage done than the bandage solution it'll provide. The current problems with the supplier system can and will be solved. Increasing gun supplies across the board more consistently is the first step in this. Acquiring more suppliers in all avenues of roleplay is another. Do not misunderstand this. We are well aware that just increasing our suppliers' stock and adding more suppliers does not solve the problem of not actually knowing or having a connection to one. This is why iterating on our checks and balances for our gun suppliers is also another important step in making sure that illegal roleplayers have fair chances of acquiring a firearm and that our suppliers are spreading out their stock correctly. We also understand that this is America. Guns are everywhere. In fact, it's commonly known that there are more guns than there are people. To put this into perspective, the US accounts for almost 50% of the worlds gun population. However, this is a game at the end of the day and a hyper-exaggeration of real life where murder is just another common occurrence. Placing a gun into the hands of every player would cause irreversible damage overnight. There needs to be a middle ground that makes weapons accessible to those who know what they're doing while also having basic checks that keep it out of the hands of disruptive players who are likely to use them in damaging ways. This will be worked on and there will be further discussions on this specific topic soon enough. Chopshops Don't think it needs to be said that there are definite improvements that need to be made when it comes to chopshops. They have an assortment of issues and truthfully, the players interacting with them on a daily basis probably understand the core issues with the current system at a deeper level than we do. We'll be opening up a discussion channel on Discord where you're free to provide your experience with chopshops, what your problems are, any stats you might have, and what you think are potential solutions to said problems. We also want to hear out suggestions on improvements that can be made to better the experience and also hopefully combat insane pricing on lockpicks/melee weapons. Rules of Engagement The rules of engagement is a long and detailed topic that has numerous rules in it with some specifics but also some vagueness. This vagueness in some respects has opened up loopholes for players to try and abuse. We're looking to add further clarification and examples for many of the guidelines to the point where it is crystal clear what constitutes as what. Here are already some of the topics that we're aware of that need to be further defined and worded clearer: PKed characters involvements during conflicts (riding around with non-PKed players, etc). Simplifying and easily making digestible what attacks are (brawls, roleplayed drivebys on homes, taggings, etc). Does the mercenary system just suck? Should it be removed? We want to hear anything else you have identified as problematic, confusing, or abusable. Prison & Shanks The opening of SADCR has undoubtedly revitalized and provided a fresh coat of paint to an area of roleplay that many felt was lacking. We'd like to make sure that our prison factions stay active and motivated with support from us as a team to continue this motivation. It's no secret that a single problematic player can completely disrupt the prison environment. We're wanting to hear out what your current problems with roleplaying inside the prison are, what IFM can do to assist, and what improvements can be suggested. And then we finally get to the divisive topic of shanks. There are many many questions to be answered when it comes to this. They include but are not limited to: Should you have to be actively roleplaying with one of the prison factions to be able to request one? Should players fearing for their lives be able to request shanks to defend themselves against an entire car or should they be PC'd up? Should their damage be lowered to not have every stabbing turn into a murder? Should the damage remain the same to be able to swiftly remove j-cats? Would reducing their damage make it so it's difficult to actually two on one someone (due to the friendly fire nature of GTA fighting)? Thanks for taking the time to read through this lengthy announcement and we hope to hear back from you all on many of these points. There have been discussion channels created in the IFM Public Discord (link above) that we encourage you to use to voice your opinions and thoughts on these topics. Please write a complete post and don't use the channel as a back-and-forth conversation area. There will be further announcements coming in the following weeks. Remember to make use of our ticket system if you have any questions for the team. Scheme requests will also remain closed for the time being as our backlog is cleared out. Edited October 24, 2023 by Naeno 55 Link to comment
Mór-Ríoghain Posted October 24, 2023 Share Posted October 24, 2023 yeah thats cool but can u spawn guns into my inventory 3 Link to comment
parkin lot pimpin Posted October 24, 2023 Share Posted October 24, 2023 @Naeno's one of the few people who actively responded to people's concerns and kept it transparent. Nothing's worse than radio silence, so IFM's in good hands here. 12 Link to comment
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