How the server fails to encourage roleplay over money

[ScarletRose]

21 minutes ago, Henning said:

Another short term change? Maybe a warning message can be added to the different dealership menus and properties. Something along the lines of "Warning: Just because you have the money to purchase something doesn't mean it makes sense for your character, if you want to proceed with the transaction are you sure that this asset fits your character? You may be subject to staff inquire if it doesn't." Just something at least to remind people while they are building their characters assets, hey we're here to RP seriously.

 

I agree with this part. That could really help.

This seems to be a pretty big RP issue across the server, most especially for new players. A lot of new people just don't realize that your character's wealth is completely unrelated to the amount of money you have. The money you have is honestly 100% just for helping you buy assets that help portray your character better. It does not represent your character's actual wealth. Just because you can afford a 200k sports car, doesn't mean your character should realistically be able to afford it.

I've seen too many players under the mentality of, "Oh, I can afford this 200k car and this penthouse, so I'm going to buy it." When they're supposed to be playing a 19 year old character who is in a street gang in Chamberlain Hills. Or buying 5k tickets to an event without thinking if their character can realistically afford such a ticket or even makes sense to go to such event. Or even just players working at 24/7 stores to "get by", but then using all that money they've earned in 2 weeks on a really nice car.

[arandomgamer]

9 hours ago, TinPan said:

Long story short, the server's state of roleplay in it's current state is one that seems to predominantly do nothing to promote people focusing on the quality of their roleplay

This is a nonsense argument. 'Quality of roleplay' is something completely subjective, which YOU don't get to define.

 

I will say that if you expect people to come from their job, log onto GTAW and roleplay their second job you have another thing coming. There's a reason so many people flock to LEO/Illegal roleplay. They want the few hours they spend online after work to be exciting. No one wants to do those trucking jobs because of how fun they are.

The simple solution is to give players way more starting money so they can play whatever they want to play without some OOC barrier/timegating like we're in World of Warcraft.

Edited May 6, 2021 by arandomgamer

[Shekh]

this can just be fixed when the new money update drops by taxing people on their banked money a lot

[shiroq]

3 hours ago, Ink said:

For instance, I've hired personal assistant characters, office workers, janitors, and other such services in the past. GTA:W's fair market value for an hour of labor is approximately $4,000, give or take a little bit. An hour of work in a 24/7 (which requires only running in and hitting /bjoin) yields $4,000 plus 30% of all sales as commission--the sale of a large dufflebag means a bonus of $400 and if they're lucky enough to sell a mask or boombox they makes a cool $1600 bonus. An hour of entry-level trucking easily yields over $5,000 an hour. The problem comes in if someone wants to hire a character for a job which doesn't benefit from the startshift bonus, or which doesn't have any tangible profit behind it. 

I honestly agree with this a lot, personally I see the 4k as a horrible thing. It basically made the Los Santos hourly minimum wage 4k. If you were to look at IMEX for example

 

Quote

Account Manager [HIRING]

Salary: $7,000 weekly.

This is a RP position and not a scripted one, yet they can only pay 7k a week to this person, I can't speak on their behalf but this type of job could probably be anywhere from 2 hours to 10-20 hours a week as an example. Now why would any new player that comes to the server choose to RP an Accountant which definitively takes more effort to be done correctly than a 24/7 Clerk or a Trucker where they can make 4-5k an hour.

 

Money should never be the focus that's true, but you will never have someone do anything for free. You will never find a criminal that would set up a criminal scheme spend tens to hundreds of hours executing it and be ok with not getting any reward. If we are trying to be realistic, everyone wants to make money nobody wants to do something for free.

 

By giving new players access to scripted jobs such as 24/7's, gas stations and other similar jobs and paying them 4k an hour we simply remove any incentives to seek RP jobs because the business economy is designed on 4k an hour and nobody wants to work for less.

 

Everyone likes to throw the phrase "I prefer rp over money" While there always will be a few that fit the description but usually they already have millions in their bank accounts and already "made it" and they have no reason to keep on making money or like mentioned before they will be short term characters with really good roleplay that lasts for a month or two and they move on, to something else.

It's in human nature to seek reward for their work and I don't believe that mentality will ever change, nobody here would work at a job in real life for free so shouldn't expect people to spend their time at RP jobs doing them for free either.

 

Currently the business system is designed on the 4k an hour script payment, most "outside the box" business ideas simply don't have the ability to earn enough money to be able to exist because they do not fit the 4k an hour script criteria.

[arandomgamer]

5 minutes ago, shiroq said:

By giving new players access to scripted jobs such as 24/7's, gas stations and other similar jobs and paying them 4k an hour we simply remove any incentives to seek RP jobs because the business economy is designed on 4k an hour and nobody wants to work for less.

The reason those were added in the first place was that no one was doing them. The 4K is needed to motivate people into actually working them. You don't pay, no one's RPing a gas station worker ( hyperbole ).

The better question is why in the world is everything so expensive? 10,000 $ for a pistol? 300,000$ for some cars that would cost 70,000$ tops in real life.

[knppel]

10 hours ago, TinPan said:

There's no bad times, no risk of absolutely going broke; just brief moments where you either don't earn money or lose some that'll eventually be made back down the line.

Struggle is possible- you just need to spend enough on hookers and blow whatever idea you get, and if you're willing to just let go of the money and not care you'll not even have to deal with consequences ic.

 

This starts with as tiny things as drinks, where people (not excluding myself here, we're all learning) tend to often consume a single drink for the night- for the sole reason that with a bar visit the etiquette is served, consuming booze doesn't offer much unless you take 5+, and it's most economic thus to drink one drink only.

This concerns both new players who lack resources and/or reliable income to cover expenses, as well as veterans who don't wanna be seen flaunting money as that's non-rp (even when it's actually peanuts ic any uneducated nob can make by /me drills in his nose and ignores the customer in a 24/7- see Ink's very good and detailed essay on page 2).

 

10 hours ago, mj2002 said:

So what are the proposed solutions? I'm not seeing many of those yet. Players mentalities are not so easily changed.

I think we can all agree Carry needs a mansion and a Stinger so everyone can feel properly poor.

Open house requests 🥳

 

10 hours ago, K3V said:

 

Explain to me how in a CITY - this is the only remaining houses that are for sale????

Seriously speaking:

Open house requests.

While I have no insight in PM, it's no rocket science to guess with the recent influx of players over the past months estate is more demanded (both by people who want a home to rp in as well as by people who want estate to rp making money of it).

Obviously this means there should some supply be added from server side. Open house requests, maybe add a new complex, whatever.

 

And I was only half kidding above: This should not just include poor, but just as much rich areas, because obviously to display a contrast between rich and poor it also needs the rich, simple as (Coming soon to the Los Santos Convention Center, it's Mike Andrews!).

With most characters being streamlined into (upper) middle class lifestyles unless deliberately picking "poor" ones where estate and fitting (not luxurious, fitting) furniture and crap cars are as expensive as for anybody, and barely any existence of a real public upper class, obviously being "poor" doesn't feel as poor with most others being in the same restrictions, despite being ic wealthier.

[Stiggz]

Why even rp if you’re just gonna be a self insert with a sports car, a 6 pack, and a huge cock, or Vice versa a woman with an anime body and cat ears? If you wanna do that, don’t rp, or at least go to voice rp. I don’t like seeing the argument that people come here from a 9 to 5 and don’t want to work another 9 to 5. If you don’t want to do that then simply don’t role-play or find a realistic way to get said money. You’re acting like these are the only two alternatives, and I’m tired of seeing it 

[Engelbert]

3 hours ago, arandomgamer said:

This is a nonsense argument. 'Quality of roleplay' is something completely subjective, which YOU don't get to define.

 

I will say that if you expect people to come from their job, log onto GTAW and roleplay their second job you have another thing coming. There's a reason so many people flock to LEO/Illegal roleplay. They want the few hours they spend online after work to be exciting. No one wants to do those trucking jobs because of how fun they are.

The simple solution is to give players way more starting money so they can play whatever they want to play without some OOC barrier/timegating like we're in World of Warcraft.

Not to be that guy, but heavy roleplay mean a thing to you? We are not GTA per se. We are GTA World, said server is a heavy roleplay server. Which means logging for an hour is plausible, but expecting to gun down someone just like that and feel good about it? No that isn't plausible. People are given enough money over first 40 hours as sort of headstart. To have solid car and a house maybe. But they are on their own after that. I am not saying the server simulates life, cause god forbid if I see another lesbian on a speedbike I will just shoot myself. But it isn't about cops and robbers either. As for the pistol...suprisingly a glock does not cost more than couple of grands in a shop in-game. It's criminals putting the guns behind heavy paywalls, cause they are greedy. Also the economy standard is set to 1$ = 10 or 100$ I dunno. Which makes a simple beer cost 150$ because you can get 800+ dollars per hour, if you choose a passive job income. Otherwise a solid worker can earn up to 25.000 through roleplay and gov. checks in 3 hours. So 300K car is not even expensive. And yes roleplay servers to live in a fantasy. So surprisingly there are plenty of people roleplaying their character going to work, spend time in said work, get paid and then going to a club or camping.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Engelbert

[Smilesville]

GTAW is a MMO in its current state.

 

Player numbers and grinding net you far more rewards than a story ever will. These rewards also allow you an outsized impact on the stories of others - the stories we pretend to cherish. Fact of the matter is that there's no incentive to roleplay beyond the bare minimum.

14 hours ago, mj2002 said:

So what are the proposed solutions? I'm not seeing many of those yet. Players mentalities are not so easily changed.

This is the question we should all be asking.

 

I can put forth a few concepts that've worked exceptionally well on other servers. Most of them doubtlessly unpopular - but solutions nonetheless.

1. Introduce an RP rating system. For example, every player is assigned a variable 0 to 4.
   0) You're new, and/or have difficulty staying in character. Any admin can give you this.
   1) You stay in character. Any admin can give you this.
   2) You've built a solid, believable character. Any admin can give you this.
   3) Not only is your character believable, but you regularly enhance the play of those around you. Three admins must agree to give/remove this.
   4) The style of play the server idolizes. A majority of admins must agree to give/remove this.
   
   Throw players more cash the higher their rating goes, if that's what you think will motivate them. Lock particular activities to a particular rating - for example, you're not permitted to perform robberies or own a business unless you have a 2 or higher. You can even change the levels required based on whether you want activities to be more or less common, since the RP rating distribution will end up looking like a bell curve.
    
2. Forbid staff members from actively playing characters. We're beyond the need for this, frankly - even if we pretend we can quash all bias (we can't,) the mere appearance of bias combined with a general lack of transparency tends to do you more harm than good. Much harder to make a case for bias when you don't have a dog in the fight.
   
   Recognize that I don't make this suggestion without having done this myself for an extended period, for another server - it sucks at first, but you rapidly get used to it, especially since this is supposed to be considered in conjunction with my next suggestion.
   
   This (and my next suggestion) would also begin to address the issue of reports/requests going unanswered for hours with multiple staff members online. I understand you're volunteers, but I would propose that occupying a volunteer slot without actually doing the job is worse than never having taken the position at all. You're doubtlessly aware of how much I despise the state of burglary RP, but waiting several hours for a request is just not reasonable. My understanding is that most of you are involved in your own roleplay scenarios, and it's perfectly understandable not to put things on hold at the drop of a hat.
   
   Personal investment is kept to a minimum, and that frees you up for my next suggestion.
    
3. Free staff members to host small events and instances while assuming the role of NPCs. There are some things beyond the ken of the player base - I never expect to see a bank robbery, for instance. However, if we'd like to drum up roleplay for the LSPD, who better to take on the role of the robbers than a staff-controlled NPC who can go to prison for life and/or disappear from the city at the drop of a hat? This doesn't have to be a large scale event - could be as condensed or as broad as the creative freedom you're willing to lend to staff members.
   
   At present, we seem to be caught in an overly restrictive loop in which we don't ask what a reasonable person would do when considering whether to permit something or not, but rather what the usual person would do. It's entire reasonable to fight back at gunpoint, for instance - but we don't permit it under the assumption that if it were permitted, everyone would do it.
   
   Incorrect as I think that assumption is, allowing staff members to take on uncommon roles the server doesn't trust the average player with allows others to react to a much more dynamic landscape of roleplay.
    

I've seen these in action, and they achieve results. I don't expect them to come anywhere near implementation, but hey - proposing a solution when you outline a flaw should become a more regular thing.

[Halcyon]

35 minutes ago, Smilesville said:

GTAW is a MMO in its current state.

 

Player numbers and grinding net you far more rewards than a story ever will. These rewards also allow you an outsized impact on the stories of others - the stories we pretend to cherish. Fact of the matter is that there's no incentive to roleplay beyond the bare minimum.

This is the question we should all be asking.

 

I can put forth a few concepts that've worked exceptionally well on other servers. Most of them doubtlessly unpopular - but solutions nonetheless.

1. Introduce an RP rating system. For example, every player is assigned a variable 0 to 4.
   0) You're new, and/or have difficulty staying in character. Any admin can give you this.
   1) You stay in character. Any admin can give you this.
   2) You've built a solid, believable character. Any admin can give you this.
   3) Not only is your character believable, but you regularly enhance the play of those around you. Three admins must agree to give/remove this.
   4) The style of play the server idolizes. A majority of admins must agree to give/remove this.
   
   Throw players more cash the higher their rating goes, if that's what you think will motivate them. Lock particular activities to a particular rating - for example, you're not permitted to perform robberies or own a business unless you have a 2 or higher. You can even change the levels required based on whether you want activities to be more or less common, since the RP rating distribution will end up looking like a bell curve.
    
2. Forbid staff members from actively playing characters. We're beyond the need for this, frankly - even if we pretend we can quash all bias (we can't,) the mere appearance of bias combined with a general lack of transparency tends to do you more harm than good. Much harder to make a case for bias when you don't have a dog in the fight.
   
   Recognize that I don't make this suggestion without having done this myself for an extended period, for another server - it sucks at first, but you rapidly get used to it, especially since this is supposed to be considered in conjunction with my next suggestion.
   
   This (and my next suggestion) would also begin to address the issue of reports/requests going unanswered for hours with multiple staff members online. I understand you're volunteers, but I would propose that occupying a volunteer slot without actually doing the job is worse than never having taken the position at all. You're doubtlessly aware of how much I despise the state of burglary RP, but waiting several hours for a request is just not reasonable. My understanding is that most of you are involved in your own roleplay scenarios, and it's perfectly understandable not to put things on hold at the drop of a hat.
   
   Personal investment is kept to a minimum, and that frees you up for my next suggestion.
    
3. Free staff members to host small events and instances while assuming the role of NPCs. There are some things beyond the ken of the player base - I never expect to see a bank robbery, for instance. However, if we'd like to drum up roleplay for the LSPD, who better to take on the role of the robbers than a staff-controlled NPC who can go to prison for life and/or disappear from the city at the drop of a hat? This doesn't have to be a large scale event - could be as condensed or as broad as the creative freedom you're willing to lend to staff members.
   
   At present, we seem to be caught in an overly restrictive loop in which we don't ask what a reasonable person would do when considering whether to permit something or not, but rather what the usual person would do. It's entire reasonable to fight back at gunpoint, for instance - but we don't permit it under the assumption that if it were permitted, everyone would do it.
   
   Incorrect as I think that assumption is, allowing staff members to take on uncommon roles the server doesn't trust the average player with allows others to react to a much more dynamic landscape of roleplay.
    

I've seen these in action, and they achieve results. I don't expect them to come anywhere near implementation, but hey - proposing a solution when you outline a flaw should become a more regular thing.

All good ideas imo which will never happen, shame.