Radio range

[Mescalero]

Group chats are gonna be used as the same as radios, where people will communicate OOC as well. Change my mind. 

 

Make radios stricter and revamp the overall system. 

[mencurry]

I still think radio are stupid for anybody other than LEO's faction or security guards, I would have never own a radio and use it to chat with my friends cause that's dumb imo. I would rather have a group chat on /phone so you will have to actually open up your phone to check what people are saying, WHILE on radio you could see what everyone is saying 24/7 in an instant. 

 

Have a group chat, and keep radio as is and maybe nerf the range. If people are using radio like it's discord then it's kinda dumb.

[mggy]

36 minutes ago, Ink said:

 

 

But apparently taking a picture of the largest possible radio block and saying "haha no one RPs using this!" is enough argument for people like @effionand @mggyto throw away rational thought and say "yeah, we should limit the range of radios as if we're RPing the same technological level as Soviet Russia during the invasion of Stalingrad."

 

Walkie talkies are seen rarely in real life. Unfortunately for you though, I didn't say those words, and you put them in my mouth. In real life I've only ever seen walkie talkies used between children. Legit crappy $5 ones from a toy shop so they can communicate while still being in the same room. Radios in general are only ever used by LEO's, truckers and anyone working in security. Although technology has advanced, I personally don't have "group calls" on my phone, if someone calls me and I'm in another call, I put them on hold and answer the other. I'm sure a lot of other people do the exact same. Rarely do I use a cellphone for discord calls, skype calls, etc.

This is just my personal opinion, obviously, but your entire argument is being based off of things people haven't said.

Edited February 25, 2021 by mggy

[Mishka]

49 minutes ago, Ink said:

 

Correct. The /radio function can be accessed by any character on the server whether or not they purchase any additional hardware. There is no rule anywhere which dictates that /radio needs to be roleplayed as a walkie talkie out of the 1980's. I personally roleplay it as a radio app on my phone, along the lines of Zello, ProPTT2, Voxer, VoicePing, Breakr, Two Way, Walkie-talkie -- Communication, Walkietooth, or more.

 

Fact: This suggestion makes the ridiculous argument that it's unrealistic people can transmit messages to people more than a mile or two away. That's absolutely retarded on a fundamental level, and objectively false. Even the cheapest $10 portable radio/walkie talkies available on the market today transmit beyond a few miles. And more importantly, radios and walkie talkies are obsolete in 2021 except for specialized use because every single civilian with a smartphone has access to more robust options for civilian use.

  

 

 

First of all, as a HAM radio operator myself, those apps are utter dogshit. All of them. 95% of the time it wont connect you to a server to chat, and if it does, youre in a skype call from 2003 where everyones mic has gone through a washing machine. Twice.

 

Second, those shitty walkie talkies dont even work a quarter mile unless you have clear view of the person. Anywhere urban or residential even? Not a chance. Maybe if you were chilling in a field.

[Symka]

4 minutes ago, Mishka said:

First of all, as a HAM radio operator myself, those apps are utter dogshit. All of them. 95% of the time it wont connect you to a server to chat, and if it does, youre in a skype call from 2003 where everyones mic has gone through a washing machine. Twice.

 

Second, those shitty walkie talkies dont even work a quarter mile unless you have clear view of the person. Anywhere urban or residential even? Not a chance. Maybe if you were chilling in a field.

Nah, if amazon says it's up to 45 miles that means it's up to 45miles... These amazon "tests" are literally done in an empty field or something, you can walk two blocks down and you wouldn't hear shit with a simple walkie-talkie in your hand. There is a reason why truckers use big ass antennas on their roofs to talk to each other. If walkie-talkies could be used up to 40miles no one would buy expensive equipment just to "flex".

Edited February 25, 2021 by Symka

[WatchingEye]

+1, everyone's just in a big teamspeak server rn the way they use it.

[Ink]

3 minutes ago, Mishka said:

First of all, as a HAM radio operator myself, those apps are utter dogshit. All of them. 95% of the time it wont connect you to a server to chat, and if it does, youre in a skype call from 2003 where everyones mic has gone through a washing machine. Twice.

I agree a lot of those apps are not great, but the functionality exists. I personally have had zero problems using Zello, and used it for multiple real life car clubs spanning across a city with zero major issues. That's the functionality we're talking about here, and that's the functionality that works. We're not trying to play concerts over these walkie talkies, we're not doing ASMR mukbangs. These are people communicating the bare essentials.

 

3 minutes ago, Mishka said:

Second, those shitty walkie talkies dont even work a quarter mile unless you have clear view of the person. Anywhere urban or residential even? Not a chance. Maybe if you were chilling in a field.

I'll agree to disagree here. I respect you and your dad's experience in hobbyist HAM radio, and you're definitely more versed in the subject of radio than most people on this server. That being said, I scrolled through the Amazon reviews of all those two-way radios I posted and though reviews are mixed, people use these just fine to communicate in city or in the wilderness. One guy posted a review who is a literal Search and Rescue guy, and he said they use the 35-mile range walkie talkies for operations in the woods. His only complaint was that they buy these in large batches, and about half of them don't work.

 

That mirrors my own real life experience with walkie talkies for group hiking, camping, and cave exploration. When they work, they work fine, but we always have to take some time up front to check which of our walkie talkies are working and which ones need to be binned.

 

But all of this still flies in the face that /radio is an outdated representation made in 2006 for a roleplay server set in 1992. /radio has lived on in GTA RP communities ever since then. Your average person does not need a radio or walkie talkie in their lives because if they need to communicate with all their friends they just sent a text message to a group conversation with zero problems. That would solve almost all of our issues on GTA:W if we just had a way to create text message groups. 

 

And, at the end of the  day, even though some guy in this thread said "I don't use group calls that's silly!" I think most responsible working adults in the US with social lives that go beyond video games, especially in 2021, use group calls on a relatively regular basis.

 

[charles]

settle down ok?

 

1 hour ago, Ink said:

Yeah it's so unrealistic when people in 2021 pass information around from miles away with a simple digital interaction of some sort. It's so ridiculous that people RP being able to communicate instantly with people from across the city, absolutely crazy. We should get a telegraph faction with people riding horses to ICly deliver messages to people for 15 cents.

Sarcasm isn't needed in a suggestion.

 

1 hour ago, Ink said:

That being said, currently our radio system is the ONLY WAY on the ENTIRE SERVER to remotely communicate with a group of people at once. The only other way is using a FB group chat, which is buggy and requires players to have a browser open and preferably a second monitor. For some players, this is more strain than their computer can reasonably handle while running this game, and also further forces engaging in social media on characters who otherwise have no good reason.

The current system which has been in the server for quite sometime now is /ph, /call and /sms. This is fairly reliable. There are some restraints to what developers can code in, AND make stable for a 500+ server. Imagine if every 10 or so players made a group chat at 500 players peak. That's fifty group chats. Just because one feature isn't available now or ever, doesn't mean you stoop down to /r, which makes little to no sense.

1 hour ago, Symka said:

Add an item that you can buy from a store or no matter where like there is with /cameras, it would take inventory space and cut people off from using them without any RP or IC money spent on it.

Please for the love of God, add this. I've thought about this since Day One.

 

 

Here's the pill, as some would say:

 

If you use a radio more than you use a phone, you're not doing it right. If you use a radio like you're a LEO/Security guard. You're still not doing it right and frankly, trying to justify /r through a mobile phone app is just dumb. In my whole life, and many other people's lives, I've never once seen someone use a radio app on their phone.

 

 

+1. 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Charlesvito

[Ink]

17 minutes ago, Charlesvito said:

settle down ok?

Sarcasm isn't needed in a suggestion.

 

Hey, I get your friends are supporting this suggestion and they asked you to pop in and lend your voice, but let's not single me out for using some rhetorical sarcasm in this thread when at least five other people have done the same. I don't see you quoting your friend Y3 and scolding him for making a post which literally added nothing to the thread but to comment "haha this topic has a lot of replies wow!" If you want to pretend to be on some moral crusade about the standards of discourse on the GTA:W forums, at least apply your outlook consistently.

 

Quote

 

The current system which has been in the server for quite sometime now is /ph, /call and /sms. This is fairly reliable.

 

And also /radio, it's convenient that we have such a wide variety of options for how our characters may realistically use technology to communicate in 2021.

 

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There are some restraints to what developers can code in, AND make stable for a 500+ server. Imagine if every 10 or so players made a group chat at 500 players peak. That's fifty group chats. Just because one feature isn't available now or ever, doesn't mean you stoop down to /r, which makes little to no sense.

 

And if server stability was the only reason, I fail to follow the natural logical progression of your argument that "you [shouldn't] stoop down to /r." Your argument just derails right there. If having a more elegantly scripted group call or group text message system is untenable for our server, but we have a command which functionally accomplishes exactly the same thing without causing instabiliy... why... would we avoid using it?

 

Just because it's called /radio because a 2006 SA;MP roleplay server set in 1992 released the command as /radio and every other GTA RP server since then has copy-pasted the same command? Because of a decision from a 15-year-old RP server set 30 years ago, our characters in GTA:W should be unable to communicate because you think we need to obligatorily RP /radio as a Walkie Talkie. Because that somehow makes sense right, I mean the command is obviously called /walkietalkie so we should RP it as -- oh... wait, it's called /radio. Yet everyone thiinks it's okay to RP it as a walkie-talkie... 

 

Your whole argument makes no sense. You're arguing for the status quo out of some strange loyalty to a mixture of RP elitism and because your friends Symka and Y3 think so.

 

EDIT: That's a little unfair of me to say--you are arguing against bad roleplay of /radio. Which is a problem. And it will be a problem even if we just change it slightly. It's unfair for me to say this is entirely because of your friends, so sorry about that.

 

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Here's the pill, as some would say:

 

If you use a radio more than you use a phone, you're not doing it right. If you use a radio like you're a LEO/Security guard. You're still not doing it right and frankly, trying to justify /r through a mobile phone app is just dumb. In my whole life, and many other people's lives, I've never once seen someone use a radio app on their phone.

 

 

In this, however, we agree. Despite me standing as the voice of reason for preserving the functionality of /radio and not introducing ridiculous, nonsensical restrictions on it because of a 15-year-old command made for an RP server set 30 years ago, I 100% agree that people overusing /radio are roleplaying poorly.

 

I've not had anyone take any pot shots at me in this thread, but personally my use of /radio is very sparing, and always with full roleplay of exactly how my character is using technology to achieve the group conversation. I personally cringe deeply when I'm roleplaying with someone and out of nowhere their character suddenly rattles something off into (radio) and continues conversing normally. 

 

This problem would still exist if we made radios a physical item, or forced people to RP them as walkie talkies. People would still use /radio in unrealistic ways, they would just also have some bullshit RP about how they have a walkie talkie somewhere in it. 

 

What we see in this thread is a lot of frustration about people roleplaying poorly around a game function. All the suggestions in this thread to make radios a purchasable item, limit its use, or otherwise cripple its functionality are addressing symptoms and not the causes. 

 

Cause #1: There is no alternative way to have a group conversation in the game server. Whether the reason is because the Development Team has too much stuff on its plate, or because it'd be too difficult to implement in a stable way on this server, /radio is what we have now. If it makes people feel better, rename /radio. Whatever. But don't destroy it because of shit roleplayers.

 

Cause #2: Poor quality roleplayers. The problem is not that people have a /radio command, it's that people are not realistically roleplaying their character's attention span. People are not roleplaying the source of where they are hearing this radio. People are not roleplaying the difficulty of multi-tasking on multiple conversations. People are roleplaying that their characters are in some always-on, hardly invasive group call 24/7. That's poor roleplay first and foremost, poor script implementation a far second. We're a heavy RP server, the onus should be on people to heavily roleplay. 
 

If we address only the symptoms, we will just change the nature of the problem but it'll be exactly the same problem. You make it so they must be RPed as walkie talkies? Okay, fine, your average Davis gangbanger or mallrat will be doing exactly the same thing of walking around with voices in their head, except now they'll have a walkie talkie strapped to their belt, and this server will look even dumber as a result. 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Ink

[Y3]

4 minutes ago, Ink said:

quoting your friend Y3

never met this man in my life