Official Status

[Edward_Ramos]

2 minutes ago, Foo bangin said:

Sorry I'm a boomer, but not enough to name my forum account after my character.

why name it something else if that's what it's for? Foo bangin

[Foo bangin]

2 minutes ago, Edward_Ramos said:

why name it something else if that's what it's for? Foo bangin

So you make a forum account for each character? Damn dog that's tuff wish I could be like you, seems like you got too much of free time to do that for every character y'know?

If that's what your forum account for why are you here in this section dog? Go back to your character thread if that's what your forum account was dedicated for, want a map?

Plus, because foos go wild 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Foo bangin

[shot 2 da vein]

Ngl I am for sure an elitist, I dont accept trash RP at all. 

 

But that aside, and back on topic... this should be a IFM discord vote.

[Sinister]

Please keep this thread as professional as possible on both sides of the fence. Constructive criticism isn’t a bad thing, lets keep it as productive as possible and on the right page.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Sinister

[skink]

I'm seeing a lot of talk in this thread about 'incentives' to roleplay, 'rewards' for reaching a certain level, a 'mark of quality'. Get this: the primary incentive for roleplaying an illegal faction should be having a good time doing cool shit that titillates you, not leveling your faction/guild up to 25 so you can get all the perks. I don't understand why so many people in here feel that something as simple as make-believing that you're a gangster needs to be codified in a ranking system that gives you exclusive access to the drug & weapons trade, or even - on the lighter end of the suggestions - a big shiny gold star from the admins to say 'Good Job, Squirt!'

 

Why people want a progression system like this is beyond me, and I can only assume one of two things:

 

1. They're conditioned by Minecraft tool progression and League of Legends ranked matchmaking to crave a tangible reward at the end of the tunnel, OR...
2. They're frustrated that they don't receive adequate OOC recognition for 'doing roleplay good' and want to be given exclusive special treatment and perks even if that means stomping on any number of potentially good upstart factions

Even if it's just a special mark next to a handful of factions to tag them as 'exceptional' factions that capture the amorphous 'goals of the server' or whatever, I would ask: why is your ability to enjoy roleplaying in an illegal faction contingent on being recognised for how well you're doing it? I'm really tired of roleplay - a fun hobby I've had for years - morphing into some bizarre popularity contest. I saw it on LS-RP and I see it here too; people making screenshot shows out of their wordy (but ultimately irrelevant) expositional emotes to show off and get kudos rather than playing for the fun of it, and as much as you'd like LS-RP to have no bearing on this place, with the amount of people that crossed the Red Sea out of that place to get here it's obviously going to have an impact on server culture.

 

Which brings me to one other thing that's born out of a little bit of spite. The issue's been raised in a number of posts that on LS-RP the official faction selection was exactly as I said: a popularity contest. Players would get an admin to post their faction thread for them even if he was barely involved beyond a token effort, just for the 'status' of having a green name at the top of your thread to add legitimacy. One of those posts got this reply:

On 11/26/2020 at 12:03 AM, DasFroggy said:

It seems your issue is not so much whether the system may work here, but rather how little you trust the admin staff.

 

And I ask: Why the hell would you trust the admin staff anywhere? Even if today, God willing, the server just so happens to have a perfectly selected breed of 100% incorruptible and well-intentioned admins (which I highly doubt it does), that doesn't clear the way for an official faction selection system that's based entirely on playing favourites, by necessity. One month, six months, a year, two years, however long down the road it takes, chances are somebody is going to slip into the position that enables them to prop up their friends and shit on everyone else and use it exactly the way so many are afraid it's going to be used. I mean, think about it, what kind of person generally goes out of their way to get admin on an RP server? Not to speak on this server's admins, but I've got a decade of experience and I can tell you that the ones with verifiably pure motives are a minority. Most want to zip around like a god; squash retards for their fuckups and rulebreaks; spectate ERP and giggle with their friends about it; occasionally make a little event and watch the little people react to it, and so on. And those are the ones you'd prefer on your team, since a sizeable chunk of hopefuls are the video game equivalent of a kid getting a rush from squatting over an anthill with a magnifying glass.

 

So yeah, I don't want official factions.

Edited November 29, 2020 by skink

[Ink]

@skink lays it down well above, the only point I feel like adding on top of all he says is that:

 

It feels like part of what people want out of an "official faction system" -- especially those posting here now, because the people posting here in favor of it tend to be veteran members of this community, and most of them are involved in factions right this moment which have been open for a few months, and which are doing great RP, and would likely be the first contenders for official on this server -- is they want not only to feel special and to get the admin approval, and to get the special OOC benefits associated, but they want other people to have a harder time catching up.

 

Part of the official faction system of old isn't just that you get a shiny gold star for being such a "special little RPer boy, wow" but it's that the new players joining the server, the people starting new characters, the people bringing new ideas into the server and making new factions, all have a much harder time catching up. It's not enough that their characters have to fight ICly for influence, power, and prestige in a market already well-populated by established criminals. They also need to compete on an OOC level to attract people's interest towards themselves in exception of the official factions most people would rather just join. They need to rely on the power of an official faction to even acquire guns and drugs in the first place. They become beholden to the power structure that exists and it becomes much, much harder for them to last, succeed, and become one of the "elite."

 

In this way, it's another way of veteran players wanting to keep as many nice toys for themselves and to keep them out of the hands of newer players. It's pure, plain elitism. The official system is there for an OOC ego boost, for OOC benefits, for OOC advantages to your RP, and to OOCly maintain your IC power. Official factions get to relax and enjoy their success because they're protected OOCly. Not on GTA:W, all factions, new, old, established, up-and-coming, are only as powerful as their RP lets them be.

 

That's part of what "heavy roleplay" is all about.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Ink

[skink]

1 minute ago, Ink said:

It feels like part of what people want out of an "official faction system" -- especially those posting here now, because the people posting here in favor of it tend to be veteran members of this community, and most of them are involved in factions right this moment which have been open for a few months, and which are doing great RP, and would likely be the first contenders for official on this server -- is they want not only to feel special and to get the admin approval, and to get the special OOC benefits associated, but they want other people to have a harder time catching up.

Yeah, exactly this. I forgot to mention it in my post but I had a strong sense of the kind of mentality you see from gamers freaking out when an exclusive on their console of choice comes out on another platform.

[Garras Up]

Official is nothing but a label. The strongest faction ingame should become the strongest through IC means and development, not through a label such as 'official'

[Jari13X]

We can trust admins with a supplier status that literally makes you 100% more powerful than most factions if you don't stick to your role but we can't trust them with making factions official/established.

 

[Bospy]

1 hour ago, skink said:

I'm seeing a lot of talk in this thread about 'incentives' to roleplay, 'rewards' for reaching a certain level, a 'mark of quality'. Get this: the primary incentive for roleplaying an illegal faction should be having a good time doing cool shit that titillates you, not leveling your faction/guild up to 25 so you can get all the perks.

This accurately reflects the mindset IFM holds.

 

Within 3 days of being posted this thread has already drawn in many responses. This is clearly a nuanced problem.

 

 

On 11/25/2020 at 6:01 PM, Sinister said:

It creates a transparent community with the faction management team in which you're communicating with on a regular basis, allowing you to express your questions or concerns that you may have as a faction of the server and in return keeps people engaged in the community.

This is already occurring with factions. Any faction which is accepted has a direct link to our team and communicates with us. We make our expectations clear. Factions communicate with us regularly and ask us questions. We have an entire Discord server for factions to contact us. This process is substantially more transparent than LSRP's. But I understand the point isn't to copy LSRP's system, it's to iterate on it and make something new. This would be exceedingly complicated, what would we offer outside of what we already offer?

 

Every faction IFM accepts is "official." In my opinion, there is no further necessity to delineate "important" factions from "official" factions. This allows us to create a continuity where every faction has an effect on the landscape of the server, not only the ones stickied at the top. The idea that any one faction is more important on an OOC basis is troublesome to me.

 

The problem with a lot of people wanting a system similar to LSRP or other communities is that factions are very capable of being vectors for trolling more so than any other outlet short of having a shitty admin. A shitty faction is incredibly detrimental to the roleplay of the entire server and the community they're in. Hell, even one of the replies in this thread demonstrates that - an official faction member NOTES the abuses by official factions. I can tell you as someone who was previously part of those "selection" processes they were entirely political in nature and had to do with who you had as friends. I have several notable examples from other communities in mind, some of which were malicious. Factions allow people to justify killings, bad roleplay, and beyond.

 

I can tell you personally as someone who used to be a prolific troll on communities like this, the one behavior I would absolutely engage in to disrupt the server would be the creation of a bad faction. All you need to do is "blur the lines" on kills and RP scenes. you post a couple screenshots with context. You kill a gang member for little reason. IFM investigations are cumbersome, it takes time to wrap up. So you spend two weeks wreaking havoc while the investigations go on. What about those idiots who mass-DM? They're banned right away. But you can keep going and fucking the server up, demotivating other players. Therefore, we must keep them moderated.

 

On GTAW, we have a substantially higher bar for acceptance as a faction than any other community. Yes, this can be a headache, but it's a necessary one. Simply existing as a faction on our server requires a rigorous approval process which IFM consistently improves upon. See our information on creating new factions thread.

 

Some arbitrary "bar" for official is unnecessary. Screenshots are fundamentally unnecessary. The only necessary thing is good roleplay. If you fail to promote good roleplay and you desire some sort of OOC status out of your roleplay by solely doing so for the screenshots or E-gangbanger status, it will not work well - your faction will collapse on this server. This promotes factions which solely exist for good roleplay, it promotes factions with the right mindset. It's an automatic filter. There's nobody chasing some stupid OOC meritorious status.

 

I am vehemently against "official" factions as a former member of the committees which selected "official" factions. It quite simply wasn't conducive to good roleplay. Fundamentally, our role in IFM is to promote good and immersive roleplay. I understand this isn't what some people here are proposing, but I don't see how attaching OOC perks to a faction simply because it has existed for a longer time is any good. We have OOC processes for suppliers and drugs, but these are not based on a faction's proximity to the top of the forum boards.

 

This also means factions survive or fall based on their own merits. There's no biased "official" process that promotes certain veins of RP over others. If you suck at RP, your faction won't survive. It's Darwin. Survival of the fittest.

 

To the illegal roleplayers who WANT some sort of new system like that, we can discuss it in the IFM Discord if there's enough public support. It's something we'll definitely discuss internally. For now, I'll be locking this thread so it can be reviewed.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Bospy