State of County RP - Public Barometer

[Soraya]

PLEASE no faction bashing, no player bashing, no admin bashing, none of that mess. I'd like to open up a civil discussion about the state of RP in Sandy/Paleto Bay.

 

With that out of the way, what's your take on the current state of RP in the county encompassing Sandy Shores and Paleto Bay?

 

My personal take?

 

• There's too harsh of a divide drawn between the city/county environments whereas IRL its more of a mixed bag. I feel like there's a deliberate attempt to separate city characters and county characters and there are no doubt way more city characters, which leaves the county feeling underpopulated. Maybe a lot of players want it this way? That's partly the reason for this thread. Is this a good or bad thing?
• Property management generally deems it poor portrayal for a city character to live in the county but work in the city, as stated in their Property Rules & Regulations thread. I don't understand this. I drive an hour and a half to work every day because I live outside the city on purpose, just so I don't have to deal with the higher costs of living in the city. This is a very common occurrence. I understand there's an OOC issue of people buying up county properties but it seems to me that many of the country properties are under the requests section in UCP, so that shouldn't be such a huge worry. If someone can provide a valid backstory and reason their character doesn't want to live in the city, that shouldn't be grounds for poor portrayal. This intentionally contributes to the divide between city and county RP that only serves to hurt county population.
• More low cost housing options are needed, in terms of apartment buildings. Not everyone wants to own a trailer but would rather have something like the multi-interior apartment system. Just load the county with apartments and yes, I realize it may not be super realistic, but its needed.
• Business RP in the county is lacking compared to the city. Some businesses in the county are punished by the current logistics/crate delivery system. Certain business types that require specific supplies are subject to what truckers are willing to deliver in the county. The problem is that supply points are not central to both county and city. I understand the intent behind this was to create a robust system where truckers would have to drive places to resupply, but it unintentionally ends up hurting businesses that are located too far away from a supply point. The current trucking system promotes speed over anything and thus any businesses that don't have a supply point relatively near them don't usually end up getting resupplied very often. A good example is tools and firearms. The only tools supplier is in the city and the only firearms supplier is in the county. So any tool business in the county suffers and any firearms business in the city suffers. These supply points should be readily available in multiple central locations for all businesses to decrease the chance they get left out.
• Transportation to the county needs more support. There is a lack of transportation options from the city to the county unless you have your own car or get a taxi. I saw a suggestion to include trains to get people out to Sandy/Paleto and back. I'm fully in support of that so people can get out to the county easier. Sure, most everyone has their own cars yet the traffic to the county is considerably lower than in the city. Why is that? Sure, it only takes 5-8 minutes to get to Paleto, but obviously its an issue with a majority of players.

 

What's your take? What can be improved? What is being done right? Does it need to be fixed or do people like the way it currently is? Discuss.

 

AGAIN PLEASE no faction bashing, no player bashing, no admin bashing, none of that stuff. Let's keep it civil and respectful.

Edited June 24 by LatencyLord

[Red Reika]

This is a multi-faceted phenomena that need to be looked at in a layered manner, but from my time RP'ing almost exclusively in the county for the past two years, I identified a few symptoms that add up to this problem, and in order of consequence and result, it goes basically:

People RP where there is RP to be had. This is basic and should be logical. What generates the most RP for people without as much effort to go create it? Open business. Cafés, restaurants, nightclubs, anything. Opening a business with a blip on the map is the easiest way for people to go there to roleplay, it's an anchor point. Currently, there are virtually no open businesses in the county while the city has at least two open at any given time. This in response, drags the entire player base to gravitate towards the city, because then, they can just go to the businesses that are open and roleplay at those. It's very simple.

Now, why aren't there as many open businesses in the county? This is the most controversial topic that goes around in almost every single thread about this. I, personally, have identified that one of the biggest if not the biggest reason to this is how the crime scene in the county currently is. In the city, Davis, South Central, wherever, you have a good balance of legal characters and organized crime, and those managed to, to some extent, coexist in a manner that one doesn't prevent the existence of the other without absorbing it into a single thing. In the county this doesn't exist.

The crime scene in the county is a vast majority of the player base there, which in some sense, is also very insular. A new business in the county is usually "visited" by criminal factions on a daily basis and somewhat coerced to be "in the fold of their game", or otherwise generally harassed out of the business if they don't "fall in line" and become associated to some extent. Sure by no means is this to say every single illegal character does that, but over the course of the past two years, it has happened often enough to be a noticeable factor. This in turn turns a lot of people wanting to open businesses in the county away, because not everybody wants to run a "barely legal" diner bar or have a police situation every single time they open. This leaves the county as a majorly criminal-populated area by the factions that roleplay there while turning the legal business away to the city.

On top of that, the three cities in the county are considerably small. They are basically "two streets big", so that ends up making properties in the county extremely sought after and generally hard to get, even more so for business over there. Besides being an IC strange situation where business owners aren't encouraged to stay, it is also OOCly hard to start there as well, which contributes to the lack of activity in the county.

So the TLDR, the situation is the result of multiple things going on in the county: It's an insular area with a closed, almost entirely illegal community, it's very hard to open a completely unassociated legal business in the county and keep it that way, it's hard to get a business the county as well, and people, in general, gravitate towards where there are business open; so no open business, no people to RP,  no reason to stay over there.

It didn't help that the county-only legal faction that provided RP to legal and civilians over there got shut down either.

[Soraya]

6 minutes ago, Red Reika said:

So the TLDR, the situation is the result of multiple things going on in the county: It's an insular area with a closed, almost entirely illegal community, it's very hard to open a completely unassociated legal business in the county and keep it that way, it's hard to get a business the county as well, and people, in general, gravitate towards where there are business open; so no open business, no people to RP,  no reason to stay over there.

 

Makes total sense. Do you have any suggestions on where to start trying to fix this or is this something that county RP'ers want? To remain isolated and separate?

[Red Reika]

1 minute ago, LatencyLord said:

 

Makes total sense. Do you have any suggestions on where to start trying to fix this or is this something that county RP'ers want? To remain isolated and separate?

A good start to try and solve this issue would be to have a very big mobilization from IFM, LFM and PM to generally facilitate the existence of business in the county. Some form of incentive for people to open there, facilitate the acquisition of those maybe, as well as provide deeper and more hands-on support for that.

While LFM's side could have some incentive to also facilitate the creation (and ongoing existence) of niche, county-focused legal factions that exist exclusively to provide and maintain roleplay for people who go there looking for it. The Senora Logistics and the State Parks are some of those.
 

And from IFM side,  some more talks and advice to try to keep the crime scene in the county somewhat more tame and acceptant towards legal business over the north side of the map, to not turn them away as strongly and generally let them bloom and prosper with some more breathing air.

As for specifics, I have no idea from the top of of my head of what kind of program could be done, past having these themes and concepts as the focal point of said incentives, if they were to come.

[CertifiedKiller]

There's a lack of apartments, businesses and scripted job support in the county. Maybe another garbage depot being added somewhere up there would be nice and more separation from the city.

[Fae]

As I have been someone who has run an active business for a few years. The main issue with getting one is that you need to set up the RP ahead of time. Which means your character, if young, needs to do that under someone else to work for it. What ends up happening is that you can't really work under anyone if you want to run a niche business. It's a lot harder to grow into a role than it would be just to RP in the city. If we use an example like renting jet skis, over the years I have noticed a lot of these businesses are set up in the city. But if you RP working in the city, you lose your housing in the county. Which makes walking a very thin line to keep your housing. But it also makes it hard to justify building out any niche business. 
 

When it comes to telling stories, I will admit I am a little nerd. But let's say I want to write a coming-of-age story about some locals in Paleto raising money over the summer to go to university. Let's say I want to focus this RP around a coffee shop, as it would create a unique place for people over the course of three months. If I don't have anyone willing to play the 27-year-old owner, which is the minimum age for owning a business, this RP cannot happen. I would then be forced to work RP at a 24/7, which is good for getting people started on their new RP journey. I have RP long enough on GTAW to be bored of it. 
 

My main issue with housing is that people will buy housing then RP; the sole reason for moving to Paleto is that it's 'safer'. I have been RPing in Paleto through a faction and hardly ever bump into one outside of the said faction. I do enjoy walking around and just passing time. I have RP going to church and setting up there passively, even if the church isn't owned by anyone. When my character needs to reflect, this is a place for her to go. Sometimes I would just RP going for a jog in the state parks. The reason the rules are so strict is because so many people just don't RP in or around the community. This is different for places like Sandy, where there are a lot more types of RP going on. So, this doesn't speak for all of the county. But there is still a good amount of housing up in the county if you are willing to maybe RP not living in a white picket fence house.
 

With the attempts to get legal factions in the county, a lot of them do not last. I never was able to RP at the sawmill like I had planned to with one of my characters. There is only a limited number of people willing to RP these concepts, which in itself isn't bad. But it makes setting up a full-on faction almost impossible. Players wanting to try out new RPs often look for factions to join before rolling up their characters. 
 

As for tips for running a business in the county, the incentive is to make RP. If your goal is not to make RP first for other people, then I would not personally recommend RP in the county. Most people want to make money. Then they see how much money the business turns around, which is not as much as the city. I have run and managed both a bar in the city and a bar in the county. My county bar turned half the profit as the city bar, but OOC was way more enjoyable to run. But it was way harder to find someone to work at the county bar because we couldn't pay city prices for the same hours' worth of work. 
 

What I have noticed is that it is very hard to get players to actively open businesses due to the amount of work and the little payoff for the trouble they are given. Both IC and OOC running a business can be a lot of work, with the lower reward for the county being niche. The sole reason I was only able to open my county bar three times was because people enjoyed the RP with my character. If they didn't want to help her open the bar, I would have blip to opening once a week if there was nothing open on the sever.

[mj2002]

9 hours ago, LatencyLord said:

• There's too harsh of a divide drawn between the city/county environments whereas IRL its more of a mixed bag. I feel like there's a deliberate attempt to separate city characters and county characters and there are no doubt way more city characters, which leaves the county feeling underpopulated. Maybe a lot of players want it this way? That's partly the reason for this thread. Is this a good or bad thing?

I dont really see this as a big problem. This perceived divide gives players an opportunity to roleplay in an environment that is a bit different from the city. Its challenging, but it turns out well in ways that it has in the past, it is also rewarding.

 

9 hours ago, LatencyLord said:

• Property management generally deems it poor portrayal for a city character to live in the county but work in the city, as stated in their Property Rules & Regulations thread. I don't understand this. I drive an hour and a half to work every day because I live outside the city on purpose, just so I don't have to deal with the higher costs of living in the city. This is a very common occurrence. I understand there's an OOC issue of people buying up county properties but it seems to me that many of the country properties are under the requests section in UCP, so that shouldn't be such a huge worry. If someone can provide a valid backstory and reason their character doesn't want to live in the city, that shouldn't be grounds for poor portrayal. This intentionally contributes to the divide between city and county RP that only serves to hurt county population.

As far as I am aware, this purely done because of the limited supply of residential properties in the county. If there were enough nice places to let city characters live a little further away, then this would most likely be possible. However, as it stands, communities in Paleto Bay, Grapeseed, Harmony, and Sandy Shores have always been challenged by the lack of available residential properties for their factions, business or (friend) groups. They should have priority, its that simple. The current policy is designed to ensure those that wish to roleplay in the county also have a chance at having their characters live nearby. There's nothing more to it. More low-cost housing? Sure. Everyone's been wanting this for years, but there's probably a reason why this hasn't materialized yet.

3 hours ago, Red Reika said:

The crime scene in the county is a vast majority of the player base there, which in some sense, is also very insular. A new business in the county is usually "visited" by criminal factions on a daily basis and somewhat coerced to be "in the fold of their game", or otherwise generally harassed out of the business if they don't "fall in line" and become associated to some extent. Sure by no means is this to say every single illegal character does that, but over the course of the past two years, it has happened often enough to be a noticeable factor. This in turn turns a lot of people wanting to open businesses in the county away, because not everybody wants to run a "barely legal" diner bar or have a police situation every single time they open. This leaves the county as a majorly criminal-populated area by the factions that roleplay there while turning the legal business away to the city.

 

From my experience, this is one of the more important issues. As a faction in the county, you have some more sway over how the environment around you behaves itself, as compared to the city. In the past, most factions that I have encountered interacted with civilians in a way that made it interesting for both sides. I don't know as much about the current situation, but if civilian county initiatives (mostly businesses) are put under a lot of pressure, they just fold and leave. Running a business in the county is not as easy as in the city, but it provides a lot of value for the entire county community around it.

[Martyn]

Perhaps increase the amount of money your business makes from people entering if the business is located in a less active spot like Paleto and the county in general. These businesses generally see less traffic, I don't think they reach the maximum amount of bonus money you get from entrances due to the fact they just don't have that many people show up. Maybe make it so these businesses receive 2k per entrance, maybe increase the cap of what they can earn every 2days.

 

Would also be nice if PM if an LFM would start putting up OOC "job applications" to for example, roleplay the priest of an abandoned church and run it actively for a nice reward, be that IG money, panda points, anything really to reward these people doing tasks that normally wouldn't be done but certainly enhances the general vibe of the server. 

[Kraethas]

14 hours ago, LatencyLord said:

Property management generally deems it poor portrayal for a city character to live in the county but work in the city, as stated in their Property Rules & Regulations thread. I don't understand this. I drive an hour and a half to work every day because I live outside the city on purpose, just so I don't have to deal with the higher costs of living in the city. This is a very common occurrence. I understand there's an OOC issue of people buying up county properties but it seems to me that many of the country properties are under the requests section in UCP, so that shouldn't be such a huge worry. If someone can provide a valid backstory and reason their character doesn't want to live in the city, that shouldn't be grounds for poor portrayal. This intentionally contributes to the divide between city and county RP that only serves to hurt county population.

 

The opposite is also true and that's also an issue. 

 

Let's say my city dwelling character, who after numerous years has managed to reach the "pinnacle" of City living (high paying jobs, house in the Hills) decides it's all too much one day, wants to drop everything and move in the County or start a business in the county. 

 

I can't live in the city and work out there, and at the same time I can't possibly apply for a house and a county business as one needs the other to be accepted as a general basis. 

 

So, basically, if a city character wants to leave the city behind, they need to move out (but it's hard to get a place to live when you're not already a County character), get established and then apply for a business since you can't do it while living in the city as an intermediate step to moving out".

 

Bit of a vicious cycle there, with the best of intentions (keeping county resources for county roleplayers) but it really puts up a wall on things. 

[mj2002]

8 hours ago, Red Reika said:

A good start to try and solve this issue would be to have a very big mobilization from IFM, LFM and PM to generally facilitate the existence of business in the county. Some form of incentive for people to open there, facilitate the acquisition of those maybe, as well as provide deeper and more hands-on support for that.

While LFM's side could have some incentive to also facilitate the creation (and ongoing existence) of niche, county-focused legal factions that exist exclusively to provide and maintain roleplay for people who go there looking for it. The Senora Logistics and the State Parks are some of those.

 

They have something place though: