Jump to content

The current situation with garages


Aquila

Recommended Posts

22 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

If we need more open garages, I would be willing to give it a shot. It always seemed a fun idea to try implementing discounts for repairs and modifications that take several days, and a loaner car program would make the option of leaving a vehicle at the shop for repairs/modifications more accessible.

 

The main obstacles that exist are currently financial limits (a garage is difficult to afford), OOC applications (are garages even for sale? The one in particular that is desired, is also unlikely to be given), knowledge (where can one even begin with applying to open a garage? Is anyone willing to help?), and honesty (even at a discount, who is going to really tolerate a business that takes longer than the competition, even with a price discount?)

 

It is a massive undertaking, and a costly one too. Much help would be needed.

Read my post above. It’s not that we need more garages. The trouble is that shops use too many components too quickly and the bigger issue is that getting components and then keeping components is a freaking hassle.

 

16 minutes ago, Karner said:

As someone who's been owning and running a garage for the past... two months now the reasons why it's hard to open are the following. (This is anecdotal, not statistical).

  1. A lot of players are rude to staff, IC and OOC. They will not wait patiently for cars to be finished once they've been started (but Ironically will happily wait in line prior).
  2. Mechanic RP is held to such a high standard compared to other businesses and avenues of RP that a lot of people just aren't as interested in being mechanics on the daily.
  3. Mechanic RP is super stressful, it often requires 2/3 mechanics + a clerk to keep the whole lot running smoothly and even then we're oftentimes rushed or questioned.

My garage has never had an issue with profit or restocks.

 

They simply get super busy, are held to an insanely high standard and it requires a lot of knowledge to do right. It's 1000x easier to do private work, advertise private work and then any "walk-ins" we get while not open than it is to open the garage and have THIS happen, every day.

 

unknown.png

 

With respect, your garage is really really close to the supply point. I had no issue delivering to you garage. It still remains the larger problem For most other places though that are farther from the supply point. The fact that barely any garages open, when one does open, it gets flooded as you’ve shown. If more shops were opening more often throughout the day, this wouldn’t be so much of an issue. The problem remains that shops aren’t getting enough components to open for any great length of time and when they do, it’s super stressful. There used to be a time where there were almost too many shops open. This issue of being SO flooded wasn’t always such a problem. 

 

I’ve also been a mechanic for a long time.  It can get stressful. Worked in some great shops, worked in some bad ones. RP standard is not always held to a high standard though. I’ve worked at bad garages and reported some SHIT tier role play. 
 

The issue remains in the adjustments to component use, truckers simply not wanting to do the job because it is the very definition of anti-fun and then obviously what you mentioned. Being a mechanic is also hard. It’s a very unappreciative and stressful job. Your shop is a rarity for supplies because it’s so close to the supply point. It’s a very easy run. Everyone else, not so much. 

Edited by The Dude
Link to comment
10 minutes ago, Karner said:

As someone who's been owning and running a garage for the past... two months now the reasons why it's hard to open are the following. (This is anecdotal, not statistical).

  1. A lot of players are rude to staff, IC and OOC. They will not wait patiently for cars to be finished once they've been started (but Ironically will happily wait in line prior).
  2. Mechanic RP is held to such a high standard compared to other businesses and avenues of RP that a lot of people just aren't as interested in being mechanics on the daily.
  3. Mechanic RP is super stressful, it often requires 2/3 mechanics + a clerk to keep the whole lot running smoothly and even then we're oftentimes rushed or questioned.

My garage has never had an issue with profit or restocks.

 

They simply get super busy, are held to an insanely high standard and it requires a lot of knowledge to do right. It's 1000x easier to do private work, advertise private work and then any "walk-ins" we get while not open than it is to open the garage and have THIS happen, every day.

To piggyback on this, as someone who works at Karner's garage:

1. The high-standard garages are held at, means the players who RP there need to keep that high-standard. Not many do, and so finding staff to make a shift run smoothly is hard sometimes.

 

2. People expect having their cars fully tuned (Engine, brakes, suspension, transmission, turbo + cosmetics) in an instant, which only adds onto the stress that's already being had. If you tell people they need to leave their car there because it's not possible to do in a short time period, they'll just leave.

 

It's completely valid point that some players are being negatively affected because of garages not opening constantly due to their timezone, but the rush, rudeness and exigency garage workers get every time they open also affects them negatively. People get burnt out because of that, then they stop opening server-wide, and begin to do private openings or taking a few calls privately through the mechanic hotline.

 

I'm not saying people should leave their cars at mechanic shops for days, but they shouldn't expect a whole rework to be done in 10 minutes. Some people would gladly leave their cars overnight to get them worked on and pick them up the next day, but most won't. We literally had people leaving when we said it'd take about an hour to finish a car after purchasing every single modification possible.

Edited by JackieH
Link to comment
20 minutes ago, The Dude said:

With respect, your garage is really really close to the supply point. I had no issue delivering to you garage. It still remains the larger problem For most other places though that are farther from the supply point. The fact that barely any garages open, when one does open, it gets flooded as you’ve shown. If more shops were opening more often throughout the day, this wouldn’t be so much of an issue.

 

This is very true, I didn't really consider the fact it'd become a logistical drain on other garages.

 

20 minutes ago, The Dude said:

I’ve also been a mechanic for a long time.  It can get stressful. Worked in some great shops, worked in some bad ones. RP standard is not always held to a high standard though. I’ve worked at bad garages and reported some SHIT tier role play. 

 

Aside from the extra standards I put on top of employees because I'm an administrator, PM's standards have also increased and rightly so. I'm not entirely sure what the long-term solution will look like for these problems, but I will reflect and discuss with those appropriate.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
17 minutes ago, Karner said:

 

This is very true, I didn't really consider the fact it'd become a logistical drain on other garages.

 

 

Aside from the extra standards I put on top of employees because I'm an administrator, PM's standards have also increased and rightly so. I'm not entirely sure what the long-term solution will look like for these problems, but I will reflect and discuss with those appropriate.

Long term I'd say the goal strictly for garages is to get them back to a point to where they can open for more than an hour a week because of the supply issue. Trucking is a huge undertaking and that needs to be looked at, but that's a much larger rework I think.

 

1) Decrease the amount of components used back to where they used to be or even lower so garages can stay open for a longer amount of time or be able to open up more than once a week.

2) Adjust how money is received from car modifications. Either reduce the price entirely across the board for all modifications or adjust how much is actually received by the shop and therefore dispersed to the mechanics. This will compensate for the fact that less components are needed and thus keep pay somewhat balanced (not too high, not too low).

 

The short term goal is to get it where shops can actually open more often. The issue that is happening now is from a lack of supply (components being used too fast and in turn not being supplied by truckers fast enough) and the lack of open shops in general, resulting in the one shop who opens getting absolutely bombarded.

Edited by The Dude
Link to comment
7 minutes ago, mencurry said:

Maybe change the prices of upgrade according to their levels as well let's say an engine 1/4 would be $2000 while engine 4/4 upgrade would be $8000. Crazy how we still don't have this, that way not every cars in the server gonna be 4/4.

Honestly this would only be a bandaid.

Link to comment
9 minutes ago, Kaz said:

Honestly this would only be a bandaid.

Either way, it'd be a small step to the right direction since currently, all perf levels are basically the same price. Doing something like that most definitely help curbing the use of too many comps, and to roleplay performance mods much more realistically than to just 4/4 everything - In my opinion anyway.

Edited by Flickin'TheWristo
rewording the 123646th time since i suck at english lol
Link to comment

I’ve said it earlier in the thread but I’ll say it again, reworking the whole trucking script is a must. 
 

The RPGish mechanic of leveling up to use a different truck needs to go, it honestly serves NO benefit. This could easily be fixed by having people either purchase their own trucks and working independently (with the 70% cut), or be hired by a trucking company where they can be given access to vehicles and the trucking companies can determine who gets a small van and who gets a bigger one. Currently, as it has been stated many many times, people do not want to do the trucking job because it’s a chore and quite honestly, in terms of forced RP to roleplay every crate, it’s kinda bad. Let people do one or two lines of RP then unload the whole truck, really no one cares whether truckers do a complex roleplay scenario when it comes to unloading or not. They’re essential to the server, just like RL, the grind is enough. 

 

Second idea is to add a parts system and store where players must own said stores and people or mechanics must go and purchase parts individually, which then they’re required to take back to the garage and install it. It adds new business opportunities, more roleplay opprtunities, more money sink and realism. 
 

thirdly, make modifications harder to acquire in general, not every car needs to be maxed out and for a “heavy roleplay server” I think it’s very non rp how every damn vehicle has performance modifications. 
 

it’s unrealistic, we should strive for more realism. The goal is not to ruin your fun, no. Realism CAN BE fun. I’d argue it’s the whole point of playing on a heavy RP server. 
 

thanks for coming to my TEDx talk. 

  • Upvote 3
  • Applaud 1
Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...