/blip is pay to win and is hurting the business quality

[SCANDALOUZ]

Good morning Los Santos and welcome to my rant.

 

The /blip element of /bad is without a shadow of a doubt a pay to win feature and its also hurting the business quality, especially in the public venues/entertainment sector.

 

I understand and support the need of /blip because of the "playground" size and the fact that it makes it easier for people to connect and role play as opposed to just roam around mindless, unless they have a crew. I also understand that the server does not run on rants and donations are necessary, thus the donation packages need to be attractive. That being said, /blip is overboard and such a pay to win element is counter-productive to the principles of a community that strives to be a quality role playing platform.

 

Before I go any further, I want to address the usual #1 counter-argument of /blip bashing. The "even though /blip probably earns you more money in-game, it's about the role play and not about the money". This is a bull shit argument mostly made by people that have mad bank in-game. Money and how they are earned has always been a double edged blade/topic of controversy in role playing communities, but regardless of all that it is a clear cut fact that people need them in order to portray their characters as originally intended. It is also a fact that you can tell just as good a story as a rich character as you can do with a poor one. A rags-to-riches isn't the only good storyline that ever existed. I won't even bother to argue with someone who claims that /blip doesn't automatically earn your business more money than a counter-part without it. It does. Ok?

 

Now that we understand that donation (irl $) > /blip > (ig $) = pay to win, let's address the potentially even bigger issue. A text wall isn't really needed here. Let's just talk about venue management. Managers aren't really selected on the basis of experience, ability and quality, but on the fact wether they have /bad or not, so you as an owner can get these visitation fees coming in. So, the standards for venue management are lower, and when the quality of the management is lowered, the quality of the whole venue is lowered. I don't even know why do I have to say this. Obviously, there's exceptions in hires, but they only prove the "rule". There's more to add and expand on to here such as the customers becoming "lazy" and not visiting venues because of the quality they provide, but because they are green on the map at the time, but I'll save the extra psychological details for now, cba.

 

/Blip can stay, but it needs to be FFA and not pay for.

 

I understand that removing said /blip from the donation packages leaves a massive hole in their likeability, but I'm confident that if the management of this community is smart enough to get it this far, then it is also smart enough to combat this effectively and for good.

 

I hate to say and mention it, but wether or not you liked LS:RP on its day, it managed to 1. Be a great role playing venue 2. Keep itself alive, up and running and 3. Not have pay to win donation packages. So, we've seen it done.

 

Please. I know there's no easy fix, but please.

 

Thank you for attending.

 

 

Edit: Queue priority donation package benefit comes to mind as part of the solution. (Less wait on UCP requests) and I already mentioned LS:RP's packages and vehicle shenegians.

 

Edit 2: Donator less time between ads can stay, but free /blip.

Edited June 2, 2021 by SCANDALOUZ

[Biscuit]

Say Nervous decides to implement this change.

 

I don't have any official numbers, nor do I have any official research to back the following claim up, however, from talking to people in discords, voice chats and in general, I do think that the server's earnings are heavily reliant on blips being used / bads being used. Take this with a huuuge grain of salt, as I said, no research to back this claim up.

 

I get your point, I do, however;

What's your alternative suggestion for the server earning money?

[SCANDALOUZ]

4 minutes ago, Biscuit said:

Say Nervous decides to implement this change.

 

I don't have any official numbers, nor do I have any official research to back the following claim up, however, from talking to people in discords, voice chats and in general, I do think that the server's earnings are heavily reliant on blips being used / bads being used. Take this with a huuuge grain of salt, as I said, no research to back this claim up.

 

I get your point, I do, however;

What's your alternative suggestion for the server earning money?

The quickest solution that comes to mind is to take a page out ot LS:RP's book and lock certain cool vehicles and the ability to purchase them and have that replace /blip in the donation packages.

 

Anything else, I don't know, but like I said, if management is smart enough to take the server this far, I trust they are smart enough to brainstorm this out.

Edited June 2, 2021 by SCANDALOUZ

[Biscuit]

1 minute ago, SCANDALOUZ said:

The quickest solution that comes to mind is to take a page out ot LS:RP's book and lock certain cool vehicles and the ability to purchase them and have that replace /blip in the donation packages.

Decent idea, however, instead of you being pissed off, it's going to piss off a lot of vehicle enthusiast that have dedication to those vehicles that we'd plan on locking off. Nonetheless, it's a suggestion, I respect that.

3 minutes ago, SCANDALOUZ said:

Anything else, I don't know, but like I said, of management is smart enough to take the server this far, I trust they are smart enough to brainstorm this out.

This has been discussed out by management over and over again, but the issue isn't as easy as it may seem. The server relies on donation packages, Nervous, having to keep upgrading the infrastructure for the server, is increasing the bills that have to be paid out. We aren't only talking about the gameserver, which, by the way, has a daily peak of 700 players, we are also discussing the Forums, UCP, Teamspeak, all the government forums, the domain, MDC, CAD, all the faction systems not mentioned. As well as a testing and staging server.

 

Any and all changes, as stated above using your suggestion, is going to piss people off. There's no other way around it, /bads were released as a paid feature because to my knowledge, it's a golden feature that causes a lot of donations and Nervous to be able to meet the bills for the server.

 

Being reliant on other people giving suggestions to an issue that is far complex then what it seems is not really gonna get management anywhere.

 

The only thing I can really state and say is people should be happy the server doesn't have the ability to buy admin, lootboxes that can give you RPGs and the ability to buy money, which, a lot of servers do this as an easy way to earn donations, I think the solution that we have is respectful enough to some players, but again, it makes some people angry, but that's sadly how any paid features are.

[DigitalSausage]

Agreed! Would love to be able to use /blip once per day.

[SCANDALOUZ]

@Biscuit the only issue with all the great things you said is that you mentioned "can't buy money". You can, that's the problem. /Blip is money. Some people losing the ability to drive a Cheetah isn't, even if it can be sour. Cheerah Classic's IRL counterparts are rare as fuck anyway.

[Yoak]

Hard disagree with this. Same idea as biscuit mentioned. It’s a way of keeping the server up slightly. Fuck adding car groups locked behind donos

[SCANDALOUZ]

@Biscuit Here's another idea that just came to mind. How about queue priority (take over lines, less wait) on UCP requests?

 

You can add that and something else. There has to be a way.

[Oaks.]

2 minutes ago, SCANDALOUZ said:

@Biscuit Here's another idea that just came to mind. How about queue priority (take over lines, less wait) on UCP requests?

 

You can add that and something else. There has to be a way.

I'd actually pay for this & I don't donate often.

[Smilesville]

I'm keenly aware of how much a server costs.

 

Couple that with how much platinum costs - and how many platinum tags I see across the forum alone? Five of them a month can rent you a really nice server.

 

You're out of your goddamn mind if you think GTAW isn't bringing in way more than it costs. I think Nervous has something like a year's worth of operating expenses set aside, even with the whole PayPal fiasco?

 

I can understand the idea that we don't want icon congestion, but claiming that we need /bad locked behind a paywall to run the server is ridiculous.

 

You could scrap 90% of the infrastructure that's being paid for and most players frankly wouldn't notice. Put to a vote, they might even elect to get rid of Facebrowser for more accessible /bad icons.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Smilesville