How to improve RP in nightclubs

[Tony White]

Give other players a chance to run clubs, and don't keep it to the same group and it'll drastically improve the scene. #

 

All the clubs on the server are the same, and they all play the same music. It's boring. Getting something is impossible too, and no one's selling. It's hard to start something up because these types of businesses are going to the same group of people, and of course it's going to be the same. 

 

How is something going to be different if it's ran the same way, and nobody's got a way in. 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Itay_Waknine

[Vassilios]

One of the only clubs I've seen that stands out from the rest is probably "The Crypt" but sadly I don't think they open often.

[Shvag]

I've always wanted to open a club like Berghain or Tresor (all my g's know what I am talking about!). Strict dress code. Only stylish people. Face control. No random people. No tourists. No mobile cameras. The one that you would never been able to get inside IRL. Always real dancers. Four guys are working around the area. A lot of bouncers, not security guards with kevlar vests and pistols. Visiting DJ's. Opens once in two weeks or once a month. We've managed to build an actual team. We've managed to gather all the necessary people. Unfortunately, we were not good enough to get it. And most of you know the story already. So I was like - fu*k it! Right now I'm just not going to any of those clubs because there is no point to do so.

 

The thing is - we don't need unique concepts in here. We need general cube boxes with Tomorrowland remixes. It does the job. People are earning their entrance bonuses. The owner is getting 50k per evening. What's the problem? There is no problem.

 

The server killed all the real g's in the club scene.

 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Shvag

[Smilesville]

13 minutes ago, Shvag said:

I've always wanted to open a club like Berghain or Tresor (all my g's know what I am talking about!). Strict dress code. Only stylish people. Face control. No random people. No tourists. No mobile cameras. The one that you would never been able to get inside IRL. Always real dancers. Four guys are working around the area. A lot of bouncers, not security guards with kevlar vests and pistols. Visiting DJ's. Opens once in two weeks or once a month. We've managed to build an actual team. We've managed to gather all the necessary people. Unfortunately, we were not good enough to get it. And most of you know the story already. So I was like - fu*k it! Right now I'm just not going to any of those clubs because there is no point to do so.

I love the vibe you're pitching - but I'm not gonna lie when I say I think it'd run right up against the reality of the server. Clubs don't have armed guards because it's fashionable, it's because you've got gang bangers who think it's good RP to ignore the doorman, waltz into a club, then start punching people when someone has something to say about that. Or 14 year old bodybuilders whose players show up specifically to start a fight with your staff. Or extortionists who'll just wait until you're closed to burn you down anyways.

 

The lack of creativity isn't explicitly the server's fault - but the way it's built, and the way it absolutely refuses to curb this unrealistic jackassery does discourage unique concepts.

[Rasta]

Meh peoples intentions for roleplaying are not in the right place, so they produce shitty roleplay that does not benefit anyone. Its the playerbase's fault where one bad person can ruin the experiance for hundres others.

[knppel]

48 minutes ago, Shvag said:

No random people.

The big problem with this in our nutshell setting is that exclusivity of a club setting dampens the atmosphere- a small exclusive crew can't fill a dancefloor here if the majority of characters are told off.

While that might be realistic, in the club simulation it leads to less crowded clubs due to the much smaller number of overall residents in town, and thus, regardless how one defines it ic, any "exclusive elite" also being comparably small (and we're trying to simulate pre-corona clubbing, mind you, not social distancing crowds).

 

That's why the big events that catered to more random people than usual clubbings (Springbreak, New Year, xmas) created such a good atmosphere, even if it consisted of more random people than usually, not less.

[Daquan Kingston]

The Los Santos crowd does not allow you to profitably run a nightclub unless you drop your standards to a minimum.

I think the main problem stands on both ends, be it the people who show up at the door, their intentions and mentality, as well as the club management's end. While the ID checking is one good step that is taken from the owners (regardless if it's there to squeeze some cash or not), but from my character's point of view, the people that I see walking in are dressed worse than your late 2000s 8th grade parties from 6PM to 9PM in real life.

#1. When such thing as the dress code/appearance is tackled at the entrance, you end up having to split away & deny entrance to a good 30% of the people who show up in sandals, tracksuits, sweatpants and what else they come with (people can be truly amazing sometimes). That number of heads & nametags sets off the rest of the players both IC & OOC and leaves the club having a hard time to fill up, and it is not even worth it at this point because the majority of us has made peace with the fact that you will always see some questionable people inside of it. 

#2. The option to deny entrance to males that are not accompanied, as you would do in real life in order to make sure your Chads are too busy handling their own partner instead of looking to measure their testosterone & fight, is simply not available, because there are far too many people who come in packs as if they are going to play a football match & are ready to go at it with any other side who talks shit and cannot go their own ways.

#3 Your ideal prototype of client who would be a young couple, or students, seem to not be that much of a fan of such establishments from what I have noticed, compared to the amount of characters in that age range who would actually hit the club to raise their glasses with their friends, and get it pumping by showering in drinks & enjoying the music finessed by the DJs, your ideal party life. Why does that happen? There are many reasons but the point of interest towards our discussion is that they simply do not find it appealing enough.

For the management side of the nightclubs, to be frankly honest with you I do not think that they are doing much wrong, and I have seen efforts from the majority of the nightclubs to provide a somewhat good service at their bars, hire security, and always try to have a DJ but the only thing which I would appreciate & think they can do to improve their venue, is to filter out their crowd.

#1 As a nightclub owner/manager, you want your establishment to associate with a specific feature that would absorb people who are looking for that. I like to take into consideration that goth bar (who I never attended because I do not have any characters who have interest in that) but those guys are doing it right. You know that if you go there, you will find X-music, and you will find Y-crowd with people between whom the majority fits a certain dress code, outline, and goes in there with the mindset to enjoy what is put on their place, not to show off or fight or go for the sake of it. More clubs should follow. Stick to a specific type of music, specific opening hour/day, and over time try to filter out the bad apples/raise your standard of allowance to go inside.

#2 Plan ahead. Once you have a clear idea of which days/hours/theme you will have your establishment to have, STICK TO IT. Let people know, be it at the end of the party, or by posting a /cim with a poster for the next opening at the door so when people enter this Friday, they know that next Friday the place is open again with X-DJ or Y-theme (matching to the main one preferably) so if they like the experience, they come again and keep the place active for what it is.

There will always be problems, but I think if both sides gradually take these things into considerations, you may HOPEFULLY end up after 2-3 months in a nightclub(s) where you truly feel like you are in the right place, and the proper surroundings from both sides.

[TinPan]

For the incredibly enticing offer of $0 I’ll give you all my 5 step plan to fixing your nightclub and making it something good:

 

(1) - Make your interiors smaller. Way, way smaller. Tighter nightclubs with a smaller dance floors instantly promotes more social interaction among club-goers. Too many nightclubs on the server are the size of aircraft hangars, and it ends up feeling more like the clubs from John Wick than anything seen in real life. Reduce the number of private booths; if you don’t have strangers talking to one another, your club has already failed.

 

(2) - Give your music a coherent theme (your interior should match the music if your playing the same music for every opening). Music is important, because if your playing the same music as everyone else around, you’ll never stand out. Fill a niche, play a strict play set of music like hip hop, metal, indie; the more you narrow down your music, the more of an identity you’ll develop as being known as “the place that plays X music”.

 

(3) - Have your own drinks. Do your research. Nightclubs thrive on typically having a selection of their own cocktails they have made to further promote their own individuality as a club. Make your own, don’t tell the customer what they are until the last minute; and you’ve basically just earned yourself free advertising. Win-win.

 

(4) - For the love of god, don’t hire bouncers who are robotic securitrons. Sure, they’ve got a job to do, but if their roleplay is piss poor to the point where anyone who says “Fuck you” gets treated the way a terrorist in prison would be treated, then you’ve hired the wrong people. Get people that’re a little lenient, but who won’t just whip out a pistol the moment someone starts throwing punches.

 

(5) - If you feel it’s appropriate, implement a dress code. Vet your customers. Maximising profits is understandable, but if it’s at the cost of letting in Miss Raven Nightclaw with pink hair and an outfit you’d find from Mad Max; then you’ve got your priorities wrong. Clubs should always promote quality RP. If your customers can’t read a dress code on your advertisement and don’t arrive wearing what you’ve instructed, then they’re not gonna be good roleplayers; and will only just lower the overall quality of your club.

 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Edited June 17, 2021 by TinPan

[Koko]

1 hour ago, Daquan Kingston said:

For the management side of the nightclubs, to be frankly honest with you I do not think that they are doing much wrong

Current club woes are, as someone who plays a DJ character, almost entirely a consequence of club management culture.

 

@Itay_Waknine said it best before me:

 

6 hours ago, Itay_Waknine said:

Give other players a chance to run clubs, and don't keep it to the same group and it'll drastically improve the scene. #

Currently the vast majority of clubs in the entire city are run by two organizations. Half of these clubs are seeing no effort in being individually developed and give the impression of simply running on autopilot.

 

Club management culture has ultimately driven customers away through its practices, for example (and in no particular order):

 

1) There seems to be a  lack of care for the quality of an opening, as long as an opening happens (not in all cases, but speaking broadly that's the impression the community gets and that's what they tell me as someone who works in the industry).

 

People are asked to fork out $600 for a dead dancefloor on a weeknight and then after feeling cheated out of their money, clubowners are surprised that they don't come for the big Saturday night opening. If you open for 2 hours, you should do what real life clubs do: early birds get a hefty discount/get in free to fill up the place so others don't leave the moment they step inside. It's not rocket surgery.

 

2) Having essentially a duopoly in the Entertainment Business has driven wages down, and many managers show little to no appreciation for most workers at Clubs as they see them as expendable and replaceable:

 

Bartenders are key for Club RP, but many managers seem to think they're unimportant NPCs to place in front of a counter and that can be scraped from the bottom of the barrel and paid pennies. This makes it so that promising bartenders who can engage with the public do one or two shifts and then don't bother anymore. Bartenders will carry a Club night if they're charismatic and can sell drinks and keep a bar engaged if the dancefloor's kinda dead. Instead people now have to shoot /ads for bartenders minutes before an opening because nobody can be bothered.

 

DJs are paid somewhere between $5000 and $7000 an hour. For those who don't know, DJing requires you to essentially pay actual real life money in terms of equipment, server hosts, and if you're mixing live it means that you need to spend upwards of 2 hours in front of your screen actively working on your set while you try to RP. If you're actually DJing and not just slapping a playlist on an XMR, it's tons of work (which pays off because it's an immersive experience).

 

In the current climate clubs are underpaying and overplaying DJs, to the point that the community abhorrs them in 2 weeks. As a DJ, it's a better IC career move to not work. It's really hard to earn yourself a DJ residency because managers will want you to play in any of their 6 different Clubs that should cater to different audiences but really just want to open. Most DJs, like bartenders, do it for two weeks and stop because it's not worth the headache.

 

3) Clubs have no personality of their own. Since they all rotate the same itinerant band of 4-6 DJs that are in the city at any given time, music selection can't be trusted, and bartenders don't remain consistent to become known faces, other than Chip Cooper who has the power of being everywhere at once. Some managers treat all their Clubs as the same entity, instead of giving them to independent people to develop their brand, image and direction. As such, club experiences feel the same because they're ran by the same people with no effort to differentiate them from each other.

 

This could be remedied or at least lessened by trying to spread the current DJs and give them residencies in the different Clubs instead of parading them around so they can give a consistent musical vibe that management and the DJ can agree would suit the venue and feel of the area. Having a DJ be a guest in a different club one night then would be more special and people could make informed decisions about which club they prefer and what the audience for each club is. This would incentivize DJs to work on their sets and try harder, as long as they're paid accordingly.

 

4) Clubs are too big and have have way too many chairs and tables. If you see an empty dancefloor and have a lounge area, you obviously don't want to be the first loser to open up a dancefloor on your own. What does this translate to? Current interiors are so big and have so much seating that you just park up in a corner and won't move for the rest of the night. Take all this stuff away, reserve chairs and tables for the VIP area for mobsters to RP "running this bitch" in. Force people to stand.

 

 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Koko

[shaqr]

The largest improvement in club roleplay I've seen is the Vanilla Unicorn. It's not open a lot, usually only in weekends - but the management team makes sure it gets filled up with plenty of freebies before they start charging entrance fees. It's a small interior, so you're going to have to squeeze your way back and forth through the dance floor, leading to interesting roleplay.

Even though it's a strip club in many aspects, people go there to party and it's a big event IC everytime it's open and people head over. Big props to the people that run it.