The Perfect GTA World

[CertifiedKiller]

Hello all, I thought I'd make this topic in order to chime in on my thoughts on the server and what I feel is holding it back from greatness. Don't get me wrong, GTA World has come along way and the efforts of Nervous and the Staff Team over the years cannot be understated. I am confident that come time, the server will improve even further and continue to grow in a positive manner, however - there are certain issues of which I believe are holding the server back from being the best experience it can be for all players. This topic will NOT comment or be a discussion about the monetization practices of the server, as I believe they're fine as is, especially with the recent addition of Panda Points. 

 

Some things I'd like to see changed are listed below, and I'd like to gauge people's thoughts on them specifically and how we can all work together to make a better roleplaying environment for everyone.

 

I am speaking from experience from both the Illegal and Legal roleplay scenes.
 

LEGAL ROLEPLAY:

 

Let's begin with the elephant in the room. Legal roleplay. Love it or hate it, it's necessary in order for GTA World to have a believable and realistic city to roleplay in. Without legal roleplay the server would just be glorified cops and robbers. People are mostly drawn to Legal Roleplay for a more relaxed playing style and opportunity to live an average life, without pointless drama, though it still does happen. 

 

As it stands, Legal Factions on GTA:W are hit with certain restrictions in order to maintain realism supposedly, however I believe that L-F-M are particularly harsh on new concepts, especially those which make sense in our realistic depiction of California. We have a State Parks faction, yet no Highway Patrol. Though, the list of legal factions is growing and they argue that they don't need more than 4 LEO agencies because there isn't the player base behind the server to support such factions, yet I find that to be untrue. Players can get multiple faction permissions and it doesn't have to have a lot of people in a faction in order for it to be successful. There's much smaller legal factions out there that have proven that a small number of dedicated high quality role-players can make all the difference in the world, just having the mere presence of a diverse set of legal factions could do WONDERS in making GTA:W feel more alive and realistic, yet LFM continue to restrict legal concepts and primarily focus on sticking with the 4 standard LEO agencies instead of expanding the scope. I am certain there's players interested in roleplaying as SAHP or some other California based agency however they're stuck having to pick between four agencies of which paired together do the same thing essentially.  People will argue that this will take away players from already established legal factions, and that owners of said factions will get upset which I find rather childish and petty. These factions have hundreds of players, and instead of hording them like sheep you should allow them to flourish and explore other avenues of opportunity if they wish to do so. I have literally known of people to leave certain factions because they get some sort of OOC stigma from the members of the faction they left. "Oh, X lateraled to *faction* let's not let him back in here!"  This attitude HAS  to change for the benefit of the server. It shouldn't be about the faction you're in, or what faction is better - you're all working together to help provide a realistic portrayal of the City of Los Santos. Though this mindset may exist IC, it should NOT exist OOC, which was stated by LFM, though it is clearly still present. This is ABRUPTLY clear given the recent addition of restrictions on lateral transfers regarding SASP/SAN FIRE 

from the Los Santos Police Department. That's right, people who are Sworn Law Enforcement Officers are not allowed to lateral transfer into another law enforcement agency even though they're P.O.S.T certified. Let that sink in. Think for a moment how unrealistic that is for an agency to limit their employment opportunities in such a way, especially given the nationwide police shortage that is happening in the U.S at the moment.

 

Now, the LSPD and LSSD will argue the following;

"They were using those factions in order to bypass /our/ recruitment!"

"Our recruitment/training is different to theirs by a long shot!"

 

Well, that's just simply not true and it can't be true for the simple reason of: Why?

Why  would somebody spend the time and effort to go through training, exams and the tests of another faction - dedicate an entire character story to joining specific faction only to have their mind set on lateral transferring to another faction in under two months? Though I am not denying this has happened before, it isn't true for everyone who wishes to roleplay in another faction.  It makes zero sense why we cannot just punish these types of people for faction hopping rather than having a blanket ban on all people of a particular faction, limiting their opportunities to roleplay and explore new character concepts without having to go through the process they've already been through. Multiple people I have spoken to in the past have stated that the level of training they received in the LSPD/LSSD was in ways only marginally different from that they received in the other two factions. Sure there's some new things to learn but they already know the bulk of it. Evidence for this is clear in former members of these factions that joined the LSPD prior to the addition of the lateral ban.   

 

 

Moving away from the topic of Law Enforcement, I have seen recently LFM open up to the idea of more civilian concepts which is a move in the right direction and I feel as though it will make progress overtime and the addition of monetary income to new and creative ideas is just what the server needs. People should not be discouraged from making unique and interesting civilian concepts, if anything the server should have more script support for such things and rely less on admins for such things.

 

ILLEGAL ROLEPLAY:

 

Now, to move on to Illegal Roleplay.. the most competitive environment in GTA World. It's what draws people to these characters and concepts and it's not hard to see why. The world of Illegal Roleplay is rich with amazing character backstories, dedicated portrayal of all different types of people and their road to crime. Yet, despite these incredible role-players displaying that time and time again they have what it takes to portray their characters realistically - they've gradually been hit with overwhelming restrictions over the past few years specifically regarding rules. 

 

There's tons of rules which have clamped down on the things members of Illegal factions can and cannot do, as well as in-game rules of which restrict them in their portrayal of said characters. Let's speak briefly on the rule of chain robbing. Though I think we can ALL agree that chain robbing does not happen in real life. You're not going to get a criminal going from person to person to rob them of their valuables, however - you're going to find criminal gangs that specialize in quick smash and grab robberies, of which are VERY prevalent in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles in California. You'll get groups of people roaming around areas, breaking car windows and taking anything in view, though when someone tried to portray this very thing on GTA World they were met with administrator punishment.  Rules like this and restrictions like not being able to use cars in robberies and you can see why it might be frustrating to be an illegal role-player.  

 

I believe that a full rules revision make be necessary in order to allow things that could happen realistically, but don't restrict members of illegal factions from making income as someone in real life would in their position. No Crime Zones are a good thing though, at the end of the day it really boils down to common sense. There's reasons behind the recent restrictions on illegal role-players, you'd get people going to Vinewood to rob people outside their houses or other such things, now these things do happen in real life though for the purposes of our server it's not great roleplay. I wish that IFM would allow more concepts which have historically existed in L.A for years, though on this server are absent under a blanket reasoning of 'unrealistic'. 

 

That concludes everything, if you want to speak about anything I've written here please feel free to do so. I am looking forward on what the community thinks.

 

Edited January 2 by Nervous

[Storm]

24 minutes ago, CertifiedKiller said:

Now, the LSPD and LSSD will argue the following;

"They were using those factions in order to bypass /our/ recruitment!"

"Our recruitment/training is different to theirs by a long shot!"

The truth is for things like Parks and San Fire they serve a more niche purpose on the server so there is a good faith argument to be made about limiting transfers from these factions in the context of the server as the roleplay you're subjected to is (typically) different.

 

If I'm not mistaken too; many of the Parks transfers into PD were bumped down to Police Officer I on entry to go through field training as a new faction member would.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Storm

[CertifiedKiller]

3 minutes ago, Storm said:

The truth is for things like Parks and San Fire they serve a more niche purpose on the server so there is a good faith argument to be made about limiting transfers from these factions in the context of the server as the roleplay you're subjected to is (typically) different.

If that's the case why not have a new character requirement in case of laterals, then there's no problem. It's not like if you do one type of roleplay you're literally incapable of doing the other. Some people act as though realistically portraying a Law Enforcement Officer of any nature is rocket science when in reality it is not, you just have to know about people in the agencies you're trying to be apart of and how they operate.

Edited December 30, 2023 by CertifiedKiller

[PeopleKind]

31 minutes ago, Storm said:

The truth is for things like Parks and San Fire they serve a more niche purpose on the server so there is a good faith argument to be made about limiting transfers from these factions in the context of the server as the roleplay you're subjected to is (typically) different.

To counter that, whilst it is fair. On an IC standpoint, State Parks and San Fire are both State Police agencies, where-as PD & SD are City & County respectively. So on an IC standpoint their training in relation to policing is just as in depth as both PD & SD. 

 

54 minutes ago, CertifiedKiller said:

Now, the LSPD and LSSD will argue the following;

"They were using those factions in order to bypass /our/ recruitment!"

"Our recruitment/training is different to theirs by a long shot!"

 

 

As someone that used to run recruitment in SASP, it was becoming an issue where people would apply for SASP, go through the recruitment, training, and academy process specifically to immediately transfer out after getting a full LEO position. Essentially wasting everyone's time, in all factions. As far as I'm aware (Correct me if I'm wrong), it was a joint decision to restrict transfers to prevent this. The transfer restrictions as I see it are more OOC than IC. However I do personally agree that people in Supervisory & Command positions in SASP/SFM should at least be considered for transfers if they wish to do so. But as it stands right now I don't see any harmful or negative intentions for the restrictions.

 

Whilst yes, in the past there was definitely problems in terms of working together, I haven't really seen much of that recently. All four agencies have been working closely with each other in recent months with little to no issues. 

Edited December 30, 2023 by PeopleKind

[CertifiedKiller]

3 minutes ago, PeopleKind said:

To counter that, whilst it is fair. On an IC standpoint, State Parks and San Fire are both State Police agencies, where-as PD & SD are City & County respectively. So on an IC standpoint their training in relation to policing is just as in depth as both PD & SD. 

 

 

As someone that used to run recruitment in SASP, it was becoming an issue where people would apply for SASP, go through the recruitment, training, and academy process specifically to immediately transfer out to PD after. Essentially wasting everyone's time, in all factions. As far as I'm aware (Correct me if I'm wrong), it was a joint decision to restrict transfers to prevent this. The transfer restrictions as I see it are more OOC than IC. However I do personally agree that people in Supervisory & Command positions in SASP/SFM should at least be considered for transfers if they wish to do so.

 

Whilst yes, in the past there was definitely an attitude of "Park Rangers aren't real cops". I haven't really seen much of that recently. All four agencies have been working closely with each other in recent months with little to no issues. 

That's exactly what I am trying to say, it absolutely should be on a character to character basis and not just a blanket ban on people from two whole factions, it's just silly.

[Storm]

4 minutes ago, CertifiedKiller said:

If that's the case why not have a new character requirement in case of laterals, then there's no problem. It's not like if you do one type of roleplay you're literally incapable of doing the other. Some people act as though realistically portraying a Law Enforcement Officer of any nature is rocket science when in reality it is not, you just have to know about people in the agencies you're trying to be apart of and how they operate.

I think there's a bit more to it than saying new character clause. With LSPD <-> LSSD transfers you can at least be assured that despite there being policy and portrayal differences a person has likely dealt with situations and been trained to have a mindset to deal with the types of situations thrown at them that they'll be likely to face whereas it's harder to make the same assumption for entities that have a more specific, focused niche. In my edit I clarified that a lot of old Parks transfers to PD ended up in Field Training again which adds the need to consider resource for training. PD for example even limits reinstatements to P1 to a waiting list now.

 

 

Just now, PeopleKind said:

To counter that, whilst it is fair. On an IC standpoint, State Parks and San Fire are both State Police agencies, where-as PD & SD are City & County respectively. So on an IC standpoint their training in relation to policing is just as in depth as both PD & SD.

From an IC standpoint yeah 100% it's hard to argue when it's all for the same certification on that level.

 

 

I'm also out of my element speaking on a lot of this. I've not touched Legal Faction politics since around mid 2022 so a lot could have changed since my knowledge on any of this was relevant. At the time LSSD was the only faction that internally prohibited transfers from anything but LSPD due to many of the same reasons I've stated.

[Jorgensen]

12 minutes ago, Storm said:

The truth is for things like Parks and San Fire they serve a more niche purpose on the server so there is a good faith argument to be made about limiting transfers from these factions in the context of the server as the roleplay you're subjected to is (typically) different.

 

If I'm not mistaken too; many of the Parks transfers into PD were bumped down to Police Officer I on entry to go through field training as a new faction member would.

 

I dunno. But, in San Fire I got taught how to do pursuits, pursuit updates, tickets, arrest reports...Everything you'd be expected to do in any LEO faction. Maybe it's just a preference that they would rather you go through their own recruitment than just go through someone else's and transfer (This is my own opinion, don't shoot me for it).

[Storm]

1 minute ago, Jorgensen said:

 

I dunno. But, in San Fire I got taught how to do pursuits, pursuit updates, tickets, arrest reports...Everything you'd be expected to do in any LEO faction. Maybe it's just a preference that they would rather you go through their own recruitment than just go through someone else's and transfer (This is my own opinion, don't shoot me for it).

 

Clarified on this a bit more here:

 

2 minutes ago, Storm said:

I think there's a bit more to it than saying new character clause. With LSPD <-> LSSD transfers you can at least be assured that despite there being policy and portrayal differences a person has likely dealt with situations and been trained to have a mindset to deal with the types of situations thrown at them that they'll be likely to face whereas it's harder to make the same assumption for entities that have a more specific, focused niche. In my edit I clarified that a lot of old Parks transfers to PD ended up in Field Training again which adds the need to consider resource for training. PD for example even limits reinstatements to P1 to a waiting list now.

 

[Paenymion]

PD and SD kinda don't do things for no reason in my experience.  I know that recruitment into both can be VERY competitive and a lot of people get denied.  People will do anything to get in, even if that means trying a back door by getting into parks or sanfire first and then trying their luck with a lateral.  I imagine it's just a case of a small few ruining it for everyone.  If you really wanna transfer, just gotta suck it up and start at entry level.  You'll at least start above of the restin terms of knowledge and back story 🙂

[Chaishi]

It's not the rules. It's the players. Restrictions and stricter regulations didn't happen overnight.

 

There are some extra rules and restrictions in place because some people thought things they do were okay while rest of the community were disturbed by it. I'd say updating rules with the current standings would always be good, but I also think that a large scale revision could actually damage the development we had within years.