How the server fails to encourage roleplay over money

[Smilesville]

2 hours ago, knppel said:

They're struggling to handle a bunch of house requests- and you seriously suggest they should put a system on top that requires them to actively supervise every active player's developement, character plausibility etc. etc. to define "how good" the respective player's roleplay is? [...]

My rp can be both shit and excellent at the same time, as it depends on the playmate's reception, not my own.

For the 1000th time - my system would streamline the otherwise meandering and disjointed application processes. They don't need to wonder "gee, is their RP good enough for this house" if a rating is already in place. If you're at a Rank 3, we can safely assume that you're capable of properly roleplaying the house you want, the gun you're applying for, the supplier status you'd like, all in one.

 

You talk like these determinations aren't already happening. No, they don't have a hive mind, but do you really think there aren't admin subforums and discord groups where individual players become topics of conversation regularly? There's a reason the number of staff members required to approve a rank increases with the highest ranks to address disparity in opinion - the argument that two administrators would disagree about "is this person speaking IC or not" is asinine.

 

You're arguing points that the suggestion already addresses.

 

This is a system that codifies the subjective measurements that are already happening.

 

The additional work is nothing compared to the bureaucratic bloat that this would eliminate.

 

2 hours ago, knppel said:

Even if this was a good idea (which it isn't) it could never be executed in a community of this size.

That works when I play at my home table with 4-7 players, or on a small server where I have 5 admins for 50 active people.

Here? Forget it, just forget it.

This idea springs from a server of thousands with as many as 500 people online at a time. Yours is sounding more and more like a very emotional argument - grasping onto whatever string you can find in an attempt to trash the entire concept.

 

And I get it. Like I said, I have every reason to believe the staff we have now aren't up to the task. Those who are will definitely stay, and those who aren't can be replaced to fit the new standard. If you can't even muster that small amount of faith in the people running the server, why are you still playing?

Edited May 6, 2021 by Smilesville

[TinPan]

3 hours ago, ScarletRose said:

Honestly, this exactly. 

I was hoping the hunting was going to be extremely in-depth. Like, you'd shoot an animal and you'd actually have an option when you approach the corpse to skin it or field dress it and harvest the meat. I was hoping there'd be a whole system of not only being able to sell caracasses, but also harvest meat, collect trophies, or allowing us pack meat into crates and resupply a restaurant business.

Of course, my expectations were far too high. As it is right now, the ONLY thing somewhat encouraging hunting RP is the bright red warnings telling you to RP or you will be punished. Hunting is obviously designed to just be another barebone RP grinding activity. There is nothing encouraging people to RP. RIght now, hunting is literally just a grinding activity with rules in place solely to prevent people from grinding too fast. I'm hoping that when the park rangers move in and they start actually interacting with hunters, RP quality standards would be improved.

Absolutely.

As I mentioned earlier in a different post, the number of jobs that let you earn money without having to talk to a single soul is staggering. They're literally like grinding enemy's in an MMO for XP; just that you replace XP with cash.

For RP to return, these kind of jobs where no player on player interaction takes place must either be removed completely or modified in a manner that means these kind of jobs involves someone at least talking to another player on the server.

But I know that it'll never realistically happen. GTA:W has gotten itself too deeply embedded in it's MMO structure, and subsequently; their modification or removal from developers after time has been put into them is nothing short of an unobtainable goal that we'll never get to experience.

[DasFroggy]

53 minutes ago, TinPan said:

For RP to return, these kind of jobs where no player on player interaction takes place must either be removed completely or modified in a manner that means these kind of jobs involves someone at least talking to another player on the server.

It may be possible to offer a bonus for each additional person that works at an establishment, and scale it based on that -and- active establishment count.

 

So, for each additional person working at the one place, they receive an additional 1k with each paycheck. With each establishment that has two or more employees, an additional 2k is added to the paycheck of every active and working employee.

 

Make roleplay rewarding.

 

I do need to poi t out however that these dollar numbers need to be lowered. The values were hastily chosen because they scaled well to demonstrate how it works.

Edited May 7, 2021 by DasFroggy

[TinPan]

6 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

It may be possible to offer a bonus for each additional person that works at an establishment, and scale it based on that -and- active establishment count.

 

So, for each additional person working at the one place, they receive an additional 1k with each paycheck. With each establishment that has two or more employees, an additional 2k is added to the paycheck of every active and working employee.

Absolutely, something that I brought up in an earlier post. Strimming down the number of non-essential jobs that're server owned and only leaving the ones standing that're needed to keep businesses running. Make working at a business that's owned by a player the more attractive offer that provides benefits for both employee and business owners alike for having multiple employees working during opening times.

If that was done in tandem with scrapping or modifying a bunch of the non-roleplay jobs to reduce grinding like trash collection, gas pumping (do gas pump attendants even exist anymore?) and hunting to borderline force people into jobs that'll make them talk with another person, then we'd be at least set on the right path for gearing new players towards the appropriate mentailty of focusing on roleplay over money.

But like I said before, we won't. I know it simply won't be done. The last thing that the higher-ups want to do is overhaul everything they'd worked so hard on, and I understand them. As far as they're probably concerned, it's not broke, why fix it? May as well say "Done" and move onto the next feature.

[Sixty]

20 minutes ago, TinPan said:

Absolutely, something that I brought up in an earlier post. Strimming down the number of non-essential jobs that're server owned and only leaving the ones standing that're needed to keep businesses running. Make working at a business that's owned by a player the more attractive offer that provides benefits for both employee and business owners alike for having multiple employees working during opening times.

I think your idea goes along with mine to make working at a player-owned business more attractive. As it stands it’s more discouraging to work with the current 60 second timer that exists for checking activity. I agree money shouldn’t be the priority, but that’s one of the benefits. That’s just necessary. If they were to adjust the timer for activity checks on player-owner business /startshift jobs, people wouldn’t be so reluctant to work them. 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Sixty

[Westen]

9 hours ago, Smilesville said:

They frankly don't have a lot of experience in determining what makes a good event. This will change with time - and what I'd proposed was just an example. Beyond the situation itself, it's up to the players how it impacts (or doesn't impact) their characters. I'd imagine having to kill someone would shake an individual and start an interesting development arc for any realistic person, but my problems with the server's flippant attitude towards the intent to kill is a topic for another thread.

I think you're underestimating how many people LEOs shoot a day for it to be good character development.

 

 

[Smilesville]

45 minutes ago, Westen said:

I think you're underestimating how many people LEOs shoot a day for it to be good character development.

But you understand my broader point: the idea that RP concerning the GM-led event has to stop the moment the event itself stops isn't entirely accurate. I fully recognize it'll be a long time before we reach the point at which we have realistic shooting rates, if ever.

Again, 'bank robbery' was just a stand-in example. Starting with events unlikely to end in violence (or as unlikely to end in violence as an event can be on the server) is probably the best way to go at first.

[Alyssa McCarthy]

The server makes everyone millionaires by giving them 200k starting disposable income.
 

No-one has a huge mortgage, no-one has crippling debt, everyone who wants can play a 20 year old owning their house and car outright. 
 

Housing prices are ridiculously low and salaries, script or otherwise entirely too high.

 

Every economic issue stems from the above.

 

Basically, everyone is set up to be the top 1% of residents and when you set the server like this, the wealth pyramid is inverted and you’ve created for yourself a world where everyone is a millionaire and barely anyone is a waitress struggling to make ends meat.

 

This argument is shut down by the cries of people who want to be handed everything on a silver platter instead of working for it but this decision means the character wealth demographic is what it is and that it’s impossible to portray what it’s like to live in modern day USA.

 

As a result, almost all criminals are hobby criminals, no-one actually needs to work a job to pay rent and the economy is completely ruined with no-one willing to step up and make the big decisions to fix it.

 

Until a desire or decision is made to change the above by management, nothing can change.

 

This isn’t a dig at them btw, I genuinely understand their reluctance to do so because what is in place now means the server continues to grow and making the economy more real is both a huge task and one that is unknown in how it will be received by players.

 

The sacrifice paid for this, as always will be realism and quality.

[knppel]

1 hour ago, Alyssa McCarthy said:

Basically, everyone is set up to be the top 1% of residents and when you set the server like this, the wealth pyramid is inverted and you’ve created for yourself a world where everyone is a millionaire and barely anyone is a waitress struggling to make ends meat.

I've said it before- players have a hard time immersing "poor" characters as poor characters are exactly as limited as the super-rich, mostly in terms of aquiring estate.

1 hour ago, Alyssa McCarthy said:

Housing prices are ridiculously low and salaries, script or otherwise entirely too high.

Amen. I can buy 5-15 gram of coke for 1 hour's salary. Speaking of base salary, nothing I'd have to put effort in.

Realistically, with 5 gram on coke in my body even a motel room is actually acceptable.

 

The house price being kept articially low and sales being discouraged is a direct heritage of lsrp's messed up economy (where the inflation was mostly caused by money being fueled in the server through the savings system, but hey what do I know about economy).

 

This setup only discourages people from public selling, as they know they can't do that for a sum that'd be reasonable.

So sales, if at all, happen non publicly, with the buyer too happy to have aquired rare estate to report the rule break.

 

I've observed it for six months now and I just don't think it's healthy at all. I cannot even blame people for their roleplay-wise ridiculous attempts to trade a house for another- from an in character point of view it's reasonable as they cannot expect to find a new home for money, so the only currency they accept is also estate.

Edited May 8, 2021 by knppel

[SCANDALOUZ]

The issue you touched on is one of the double edged blades and banes of role playing communities such as this.

 

On one hand, ideally you'd give players the ability to RP whatever they want (from a hobo to a rich person; you can tell a great story as both, it doesn't have to always be a from a hobo to a rich person story), but on the other you can't trust them not to go full retard and have everyone just fly helicopters, race pariahs, chill in mansions, pop pills and erp, but then when you can't they focus on money making so they can rp what they really want which is often something inbetween the two hobo-millionaire extremes and are stuck with the issue we have now.

 

What can we do? I don't know, there isn't an easy fix and role playing servers have flirted with the issue forever.

Edited June 1, 2021 by SCANDALOUZ