Adv Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 Community Update - April 2025 Introduction Hello all, and welcome to the April 2025 Update! As with the clock changes, we have really began to spring forward this month, and i'm excited to bring you the BIGGEST communty update yet! Each subteam has worked very hard to provide us an up to date, comprehensive review of the past month, as well as some insights into the new months. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who puts real time and effort into helping me make these updates more alive, and the subteam leaders deserve so much credit for their help in assisting me with that. Thank you, all! This month sees perhaps our biggest support batch EVER, with 11 new supports joining our team! We're really excited to see how this month goes, and to welcome such a great group of people to join the team, as we ramp up towards the ever busy Summer months. In sad news, however, we unfortunately had to say goodbye to @Sharvit and @Fireworks, who have chosen to take a step away from the team. We're forever grateful for the work Sharvit has put in over the years, serving in capacity in management, as Head of Legal Faction Management across both here, and LC. Your hard work was never unnoticed, and we wish you luck with your future endeavours. The same goes to Fireworks who has played a crucial role in our LFM team over the past few years, and we wish him nothing but the best going forward too. Have an amazing April, and we look forward to updating you in May! Subteam Updates Staff Management Property ManagementLegal Faction ManagementIllegal Faction ManagementRP Quality Management Events TeamQuality Assurance Select from the teams above to see updates from each team. Staff Management Staff Management has kicked it into full gear for the month of March! We have dropped down from an approximately 160 active staff reports to a solid ~30 staff reports on a daily basis within the past two weeks. Our team has worked really hard to ensure we take care of the backlog and then prepare to build a system that we can constantly monitor to ensure we remain on top of these reports. We want to assure and promise the community that a staff report will not exceed more than three weeks unless special circumstances are required like working with other subteams or it may require a more thorough investigation but in most cases a staff report should be triaged within the first week then handled within the second week. We want to announce that we have a discord server for Staff Management related topics. We have set up a ticket system where you may create a ticket to ask questions regarding a staff report. We HIGHLY advise you not to use this ticket system to complain about staff reports but instead to ask questions regarding staff reports, staff recruitment process or general inquiries that we could help you with. Discord Invite Link - https://discord.gg/VB2TfQQJaE Lastly, we want to congratulate @Fizzlestat for their promotion to Lead Admin within Staff Management. Fizzlestat has joined the Staff Management in late September then achieved Senior Admin status in November. Fizzlestat has provided nothing but full attention towards Staff Management by remaining on top of staff reports, helping out with the large influx and always remaining available when they can to assist with staff matters. They have shown a strong dedication and devotion to the Staff Management team and we would like to use this time to congratulate and thank them for their hard work and dedication! March has seen... 12,994 In-Game Reports 2,765 Support Tickets 2,678 Applications Property Management Hello everyone, The biggest announcements this month comes from our internal promotions. Hugely deserved, we welcome a new member to the leadership team, as well as the promotion of an existing lead to the assistant head of PM position. @colorlessrainbow has been an integral part of the team since he joined us, and is one of the most active administrators across the entire staff team, not only with PM duties. A well earned position and he'll work closely with @Lomadias to continue the development of the team, alongside @Selena @tayswiz also joins the leadership team in the Head of Mapping position. Tay has done an incredible job over the last few months getting to grips with the mapping team and investigations, and presents themselves in a very approachable and professional manner. A perfect addition to the leads team, welcome Tay! We also (I know, it's the month of promotions), congratulate @Wuhtah who replaces Colorless as the Head of Leasing. You all know and love Wuhtah, a huge asset to the team and we're thankful to have her back. PM continues to chip away at requests following the new scheduling with house requests being moved to bi-monthly, which was supported by the community. This will allow the team more breathing room with requests, but we need more time to assess how much it assists us. We have a few things up our sleeves within the next few months, with @Selena continuing to push the vehicle updates to the in game leasing system so we can bring more and more vehicles to you. She also opened up a vehicle suggestion thread and to give you some insight, only 7 of the suggested vehicles can be added to the server. Some of this is to do with LODs and the mod quality, some were already added and some needed to be bought. You can see more about the vehicles here: We had a fantastic member of the community (@9TriLLo ) create a very cool map for the Rockford Mall which makes it easier to find stores once you're inside. Huge props to them for creating this and if anyone else has ideas to help improve the mall, please do let us know. The mapping team is moving swiftly forward, and @tayswiz has been working hard to provide the team with projects to bring more quality interiors to the rest of the community. This includes several more lobbies, the Paleto Bay DMV, parking garages, bank interiors and an overhaul of YouTool with 5 new leases available during lease cycles. Other than that, the team continues to chip along. We expect some internal shifts within the team in the coming month and our workflow is being overhauled thanks to Selena who has championed the UCP recoding to make the property portion more optimized. This months community update went ahead on the 22nd of March, and the notes taken by the wonderful @Wuhtah give you an idea of what we're looking into/what has been discussed: Legal Faction Management We'd like to start by congratulating Hood, and thanking him for his dedication as he officially steps into the role as Head of Legal Faction Management. Hood's worked very closely with LFM for a long period of time, leading it from the sidelines for a number of years whilst Sharvit was on LOA at times, and he's always played a huge part in what is LFM. Together with the assistance of Management, he looks to continue to progress the work of Legal Factions across the server, and we're excited to see what comes of the next few months. Thank you for your constant hard work and dedication. Unfortunately at the start of last month, we lost Fireworks who decided to step down. We're beyond grateful to the efforts he put into Legal Faction Management, and the community overall during his tenure. We wish him nothing but the best going forward. For the month of March we've established a better way to track and make development requests for factions, which allows development requests not to be lost in someone's DMs, rather it allows development requests to be tracked, with each separate request having it's own topic and by extent being able to track and communicate with developers directly regarding each request. That being said, within the month of April, we'll be focusing on community outreach regarding factions via polls and discussions on the LFM Discord, this will allow us to get insight on certain topics before making decisions on changes and implementations. Looking for New Factions! We're actively looking to establish new legal factions! If you're a business with some time behind your belt and have established yourself, then we encourage you to apply to become an unofficial legal faction, which to extension of being a regular business, also works towards qualifying you as a full official legal faction. Have any questions? We actively encourage people that may be confused or are actively seeking guidance around legal factions, the process of faction creation or any questions / topics regarding legal factions to join our discord and submit a ticket, we'd be more then happy to help you! Illegal Faction Management It's been a busy month for IFM - but when isn't it? We kicked things off with a joint initiative with Staff Management, urging (maybe pleading) illegal roleplayers who believe they'd be a good fit for the staff team to apply. With any luck the results of this effort are evident below in some of the fresh faces joining the team this month. While this recruitment drive has now ended, we still strongly encourage illegal roleplayers to apply - even if you're not accepted, having a balanced staff team with both legal and illegal perspectives is of paramount importance and your presence could make a real impact. We've made some small changes to the Illegal Faction Information thread this month too, temporary blacklisting "Eurasian" concepts (not including China, SEA, etc) due to what we view as an overabundance of them (characters, not individual concepts) on the server. Additionally, we've revised how illegal faction leadership operates and have opted to have OOC leadership stripped from CKed leadership characters. Though this change may evolve based on community feedback, we've leaving it as-is to trial for now. Safehouses have also been adjusted: one safehouse is now available for unofficial factions and suppliers after 3 months and official factions are now permitted three safehouses, up from two. Full changelogs for this can be seen here and here. In April we're going to be focusing on community feedback. We've already launched a thread for new supplier ideas and on April 1st (not a joke) we'll be kicking off the first discussion surrounding the current Rules of Engagement for over a year. We have a few small changes pending but given the RoE remains a major point of contention despite repeated efforts to simplify it over the years, we'll be opening the floor to ideas, issues, and insights to (hopefully) make some meaningful improvements. Almost all of this will be happening in our Discord, so JOIN HERE and get verified if you haven't already. Finally, scheme requests alongside electronic supplier and weapon specialist applications are currently OPEN until the 4th, so you have a few more days to submit applications for those if you're interested. As always, much love. Roleplay Quality Management Hello everyone, The update from RPQM this month covers a business as usual approach as we're still working hard to chip through requests. The backlog contains only 2 reports outstanding, one of those is a personal request, so I'm pleased to say we are very much on top of things. Sadly however, the incredible Goddessoflife has decided to step away from the admin team in order to focus more on IRL. We cannot blame them for this and we thank them for their contributions and efforts as an admin, but also building RPQM up and creating new processes. This leaves a big hole in the team, but we'll work hard to remain on top of things. @Aqua joins us as a member of the Senior RPQM team - a huge congratulations to them, but a bigger thank you to their commitment to the team and the consistent work they have put in. We have seen a significant amount of people buying unrealistic vehicles. These are a fairly simple and low priority report for the team to handle, however we address them as they are raised. Some of these reports include characters with million dollar cars on young or unjustified characters, or people purchasing 10+ of a certain model under the impression they can flip them. This isn't going to end in profit but rather, loss as those vehicles are revoked. Please just be sensible with vehicles. There is a reason many of the new ones have flags or limitations! We need to encourage players to report poor quality roleplay more and more, as it is clear a lot of the focus is on the assets some players have over the portrayal they show. RPQM makes the biggest difference by acting on poor quality roleplay so please, if there are concerns, leverage the team and submit a report with whatever evidence you can provide. Other than that, we have a few things to work on internally to move RPQM forward, and we'll share more about that when we can. Events Team This month saw the events team put together a big event for the community, and for a lot of the factions, in form of a Terrorist Threat. This event had many ups and downs, but helped captivate and keep over 2-300 players engaged in situations for over 6 hours, and we're very grateful for the events team doing the work they did in preparing this event. These moments are special, so I asked Sebz, who hosted and helped coordinate, to write up the event, and how it happened. The Backstory Daniel Hughes, 45, was born into a blue collar family. He was of slightly sub-average intellect and ultimately attempted but failed to complete further education. He found himself falling into family roots in blue collar work and lived the majority of his adult life doing just that. Offshoring of jobs resulted in tentative employment for Daniel going down the drain. His very limited skillset resulted in him being left with little means to keep the lights on, so to speak. In the age of the internet and consistent political division, Daniel found himself consuming one-sided media online, particularly regarding politics. Daniel felt that the Republican party at large was responsible for his plight in the job market and generally for the plight of the working class. The man quickly became more and more deranged and devised a plan that he, in his mind, felt would lead to some sort of change societally. The Plan, Prep and Execution Daniel began researching the process to manufacture explosive devices online toward the end of the 2024 calendar year. He found that of all the available methods, Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil (ANFO) was readily obtainable. The compound is commonly used in agriculture and on its own is not as much of a red flag as say, dynamite or plastic explosives. He began placing orders for the required components in the months of January and February, 2025. In his 5998 Cholla Springs Avenue trailer, he repurposed a bedroom in order to manufacture the device. Daniel took influence from the 1980 Harvey's Casino Bomb, which to this day remains highly publicized and documented. His plan was to manufacture something that would be hard to defuse and would result in isolated, but significant damage. The bomb consisted of a five foot wide, four foot deep and three foot tall container. This container was quarter-inch thick sheet metal, welded together by Daniel. Inside the container was three pipe bombs and a pressure cooker bomb, all of which were wired meticulously. All of the IEDs in the enclosure were wired to two impulse devices. The first device, being the electronic timer and the second being a fail-safe mercury tilt switch. This meant, if the timer was dismantled, the bomb would be no-less effective. Despite time being bought by dismantling the timer, any minimal error would result in catastrophe. While the bomb has potential to be defused, there was no intent on the part of Daniel Hughes to see that happen. Daniel, on the night of March 26th, drove a leased 2002 Declasse Burrito van to the GOP headquarters. He, as he had planned, exited the van and used a knife to slice all four tires. This would render driving/towing the van away significantly harder. He clambered into the rear of the van and began working on the final touches to arm the bomb. All but the top panel of the enclosure were already welded in place. Daniel soldered in the mercury tilt switch and welded on the 'lid' of the enclosure before setting the bomb at approximately 9 PM. Witnesses on scene were immediately suspicious of Daniel and approached him. They expressed concern about him parking the van there. Daniel, not wanting to harm the working class directly was blunt in response to the witnesses, telling them that they should leave the area and in very few words that staying would result in death. No sooner than his interaction with the public, Daniel fled and called a cab, which took him back to his hide-out in Sandy Shores. Once at 5998 Cholla Springs Avenue, Daniel packed a single bag of belongings and prepared his passport. He was going to make his way to the airport, but was interrupted by the LSPD SWAT team who arrived to his property. Daniel, a man with no criminal history had stocked his place with firearms and readily purchasable body armor. The man, knowing he had been cornered opted to don his gear and prepare for a stand-off. Daniel Hughes fired wildly at the police outside, albeit blindly through the walls of his trailer. He bluffed that the trailer was rigged with explosives, perhaps to buy himself time. He knew that his bomb at the GOP HQ had detonated, thanks to many public posts on FaceBrowser. These posts gave him leverage to lead the tactical team to believe he may have more explosives. Whilst Daniel's final bomb did not employ a dead-man's-switch, he had crafted one prior to making a change of plans. This lent him the ability to employ said switch in his stand-off with police. He was bluffing, but nobody could have known that at the time. He suggested the trailer was full of explosives, much more than were seen in the Mission Row bombing. The idea that Sandy Shores could see aa devastation explosion gave essentially as much time to Daniel as he could dream for. Daniel, upset with the GOP demanded that Hank Preston show in person to meet his demands of a plea deal and political changes. The SWAT team on scene claimed to be facilitating this request, but this was not true. Time continued to pass, Daniel became agitated and impatient. He called a cab in an attempt to drive out of the area untouched. As one might expect, the tactical team was not going to allow this. An innocent cab driver attempting to accept the fare found himself surrounded by police and his vehicle's tires deflated, an unfortunate side-effect. Daniel had hoped to have the cab driver take him to the Mayor's mansion, where he'd force contact with Hank Preston, at least in his mind. Given all of his plans and options ran out, Daniel made a last ditch effort to run off. He dropped the dead-man's-switch, which resulted in no explosion. In this instant, it became clear to the tactical team that he had been bluffing. Daniel ran off, a modified assault rifle in hand, a plate carrier on his chest and a ballistic helmet on his head. He didn't know where he was going, he didn't know what he was going to do, but he was sure that he'd likely be fired upon at any moment. Finding himself in the open and being hunted by many tactical operators, he turned his rifle on them, firing wildly. Within seconds he was peppered with rounds, not only by assault rifles, but by a trained marksman. Just like that, the domestic terrorist was dead, leaving more questions than answers. The Aftermath Unfortunately, officer Vincent Glass was killed in the explosion in Mission Row. This will inevitably create a great deal of roleplay in the law enforcement community at large. Many state and private organizations immediately offered their support to those affected by the disaster. These included but are not limited to: The LSPD, the LS Fire Foundation, Sacred Hearts Shelter, San Judas Tadeo Outreach Center, Ajello-Martinez Group, San Andreas Port Authority, Seraphim and many more. This event will have a lasting effect on the state of San Andreas and will result certainly result in tight restrictions on imports of explosive compounds and monitored internet searches. The implications of this event are long-lasting and provide for continued roleplay that has the potential to extend well after March 26th, 2025. Perhaps Daniel Hughes will get the uprising he had hoped for in regards to political reform? Or more likely, he'll be vilified as the deranged lunatic he truly was. Either way, it's certain that this event will have a lasting effect on the state of San Andreas. Timeline of Events 2045 hours: Daniel Hughes parked at Legion Square, across from the Fleeca Bank. He smoked a cigarette and paced, waiting on the clock to move closer to 9PM. 2055 hours: Daniel Hughes drove his van to the GOP Headquarters and parked the van just in front of the entrance to the building, a strategic move to ensure maximum isolated damage. 2056 hours: Daniel Hughes exits the van and slashes all four tires, letting the vehicle sink to a flat position. He enters the back of the van and begins hastily finalizing the bomb. He enables the tilt-switch, welds shut the device and triggers an unstoppable 60 minute countdown. 2100 hours: The countdown is triggered. Daniel Hughes is approached by bystanders who are residents of a nearby complex. Daniel suggests there is a bomb in the van. 2105 hours: Marshals from SanFire showed up to the area with no knowledge of the bomb. Locals alerted the marshals, who inspected the situation and quickly alerted the LSPD. 2113 hours: LSPD bomb squad arrives and begins the process of assessing the situation. 2118 hours: LSPD bomb squad deploys an radio frequency jammer near the van, hoping to disrupt any attempts to remotely detonate the device. 2140 hours: After very close inspection, the van's rear doors were lock-picked and opened. At this time, the manifesto of Daniel Hughes fell to the sidewalk, where it was collected. 2148 hours: LSPD Bomb Squad's robot deployed an XRAY device which was used to determine the bomb's makeup, materials and means of operation. 2159 hours: LSPD Bomb Squad's robot is equipped with a high-pressure water jet cutter, which with literal seconds to spare, is able to destroy the set of batteries operating the primary impulse device, being the timer. 2305 hours: LSPD's Bomb Squad robot employs a drill to carefully mill out a hole near the mercury tilt switch in the enclosure. 2315 hours: 2 hours and 15 minutes from the time the bomb was armed, Vincent Glass attempts to use freon, sprayed into the enclosure to freeze the mercury tilt switch. In the process of doing so, he creates tilt on the device, triggering the switch. An electrical impulse creates a tremendous explosion, killing him instantly and causing significant damage to GOP headquarters. 2317 hours: LSFD assets converge on the area and begin fighting a blaze that spawned as a result of the explosion. 2335 hours: LSFD is able to knock down the flames at GOP HQ and deem the building unsafe. ~0000 hours, March 27th, 2025: LSPD/LSFD schedule a joint press conference in regards to the events that took place. 0034 hours: Whilst the press conference is ramping up, Daniel Hughes is shot to death by joint tactical teams from LSPD/LSSD in Sandy Shores. -- The Events Team cannot do the things they do without the participation of the community as a whole. We are tremendously grateful for the participation of all involved for the March 26th server event. We would like to express our thanks to the LSPD, LSSD, LSFD, SanFire, LSGOV/SAGOV (including Public Works), as well as the countless civilians (both individuals and agencies/companies) who interacted with this event in a meaningful way. We understand that an event of this nature can be disturbing to some and may not be exactly what you wanted to get involved with on the date/time in question, but we do these things to create something lasting and enjoyable for the a large sector of the server. This event was the culmination of months of planning and research by myself and Vinar (now known as Humble.) as well as participation from other members of the Events Team. These events go through layers of planning, review and ultimately approval after a fine-tooth-comb is ran through them. This event was organized with fairness in mind. The device was able to be defused and the steps required to do so were clearly outlined in internal documentation. Ultimately, a misstep clearly outlined in the preparation for this event took place, resulting in the detonation of the device. The target of the bombing was chosen based off of the backstory manufactured by the Events Team and was meticulously set to ensure a logical connection to the lore. We truly hope that our intentions to create a unique and rare event on the server were well received and we are open to any feedback the community may have in regards to this event. If you are interested in sharing feedback, becoming an Events Team volunteer or are simply just wanting to know when the next event might take place, please join our team's Discord server: https://discord.gg/eCM9WaznaJ The Events Team would additionally like to extend a very special thank you to Vincent Glass (@frakkennewguy) for undergoing a self-CK as a result of the explosion to deepen the lore that will result from this event. Thank you, Sebz - GTA World Events Team. Thanks for this amazing write up Sebz! And all you and the team did on the night to make this work. Quality Assurance We have now passed out the first quarter of 2025, and the time continues to fly past us. The Quality Assurance (QA) team continues to work through outstanding appeals and refund requests. Over the last month, we continued to have an increase in punishment appeals which were issued by now-retired administrators, however, we continue to effectively pass these over to the management team for review. Throughout March, we responded to 78 different tickets on our Discord server, and these include general support tickets to more specific appeals or complex forum player reports. Outside of this, the team proactively monitors different sections, whether on UCP or forums and communicates with relevant administrators in charge of said matters to ensure they are being progressed and the backlog is avoided as much as possible. We are aware of an increase in forum player reports altogether and that there is a backlog in administrators taking onto said reports, however, these are due to the high numbers of reports that each administrator carries already. We understand that this may cause some inconvenience, but we continue to progress with existing reports, review the new ones, and assist the administration team wherever possible to ensure that a timely conclusion is provided. dawpi was promoted internally to a Senior Quality Assurance position, his dedication and workload is beyond comparison and he has proven that he is ready to take responsibility to the team. I'm proud to say that @dawpi has earned his new spot and he will be a great addition in leading the QA team with me. We have now, together with a few other administrators, proactively cleared outstanding e-mail change requests for UCP accounts that were lost. When you submit an e-mail change request with the relevant information, you can contact us via a Discord ticket and provide us with a link, as there are some logistical changes that are needed for this section to make it more streamlined. This section is only visible to the administration team, meaning no other player (outside of the administrative team) will not see any of the information you provided. If your punishment appeal, refund request or forum player report has had no activity from the handling administrator for at least seven (7) days, you can raise a ticket on our Discord server seeking an update or assistance from one of our team members. Dev Update We continue to take community feedback seriously, and today's release of the dynamic weather update is a direct result of that. This update brings more realistic weather patterns that better reflect real-life conditions, smoother transitions between different weather states, and the introduction of independent weather zones for added variety, covering areas like Los Santos, Sandy Shores, and Paleto Bay. We've also upgraded several UI, with more improvements on the way. Those design changes were aimed to make UIs more appealing and intuitive, aligning with 2025 standards. While we know not every change lands perfectly on release, we closely monitor feedback post-deployment to fine-tune the experience for both new and longtime players. We think those UIs (namely native menu, barber, and surgery) are in a good place now, but we're always open to more feedback. In addition, we've made a series of QOL updates to the mapping system to make it much smoother, especially at peak times. As we move into April, we aim to refine existing systems and address long-standing bugs. Several major systems are also in development, and we'll share more details as they approach completion and testing. Staff Update We'd like to congratulate the following admins on their promotions within the team: Fizzlestat Promoted to Lead Admin Staff Management 5teezy Promoted to Senior Admin Illegal Faction Management lightx Promoted to Game Admin Lvl. 2 For Ever Promoted to Game Admin Lvl. 2 Caramel Promoted to Game Admin Lvl. 2 Revolter Promoted to Game Admin Lvl. 2 moonlite Promoted to Game Admin Lvl. 2 Loke Promoted to Game Admin Lvl. 1 Gypsy Promoted to Game Admin Lvl. 1 GINO Promoted to Game Admin Lvl. 1 Pengu Promoted to Trial Admin rafasj Promoted to Senior Support Destroyed Promoted to Senior Support Spring Promoted to Senior Support Lvne Promoted to Senior Support .nopicks Promoted to Support moD Promoted to Support mill-r Promoted to Support Khary Promoted to Support Chaos Promoted to Support Damage Promoted to Support fraudulent Promoted to Support Voh Promoted to Support parkin lot pimpin Promoted to Support Fogry Promoted to Support delux Promoted to Support Banner credit: Junk. Want to see your picture at the top of the next community update? Post a picture in #gallery throughout the month in our discord, and we'll feature our favourite each and every month. 34 Link to comment
Gamble Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 @Sharvithappy bday thx for everything chief 1 Link to comment
vans Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 Congratulations guys and thanks for everything Sharvit & Fireworks! 1 Link to comment
torquee Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 congrats @rafasj , @mill-r and to everyone else! 1 Link to comment
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