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The Park Rangers Discussion


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16 minutes ago, eTaylor said:

It’s counterintuitive to attack a straw man but it’s still a game and there’s a stark difference between being a dumb criminal, getting caught. And police literally camping your spawn, lab, compound and home.

Evading murder charges or any charges of sorts is actually quite easy in GTA:W. Taking the simplest precautions and not sticking around does wonders for most crimes. About the camping your meth lab argument that I see getting thrown out, have you been camped by SAPR in your lab? If police knows about your lab why aren't you moving it? If an LEO agency knew where a meth lab was I'd imagine it'd be pretty non-rp to just let it happen for "rp's sake".

 

16 minutes ago, eTaylor said:

And I can personally say that I stopped roleplaying front end crime all together because of the significant growth of county law enforcement, the fact that jail times are now mandatory (meaning that I’d have to spend IRL months in jail), and the manner in which law is being enforced period.

The punishment for crimes is minimal which causes the lawlessness that is central Los Santos. In my humble opinion, you can't have people going in for murder and coming out three days after like they spent years inside jail. I am unsure what you have committed to spend multiple IRL months in jail aside from having over thirty criminal points on your record.

 

16 minutes ago, eTaylor said:

because of the significant growth of county law enforcement

This needs to happen. You can't just have two agencies inside Los Santos and leave the county in its own fate. There's no enough roleplay there as is. SAPR puts teaching first and punishment secondary. If you get pulled over, which is already pretty rare unless you're committing a serious crime, then chances are you'll be let go with a stern talking. If you're running a meth lab as you're implying then I would wager that the problem isn't LEOs being LEOs rather than you running an obvious meth lab.

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My concerns with this faction aren't exactly well hidden, and I criticise what this faction has become frequently. I like to consider myself unbiased, and what you're about to read here is what I'd consider my unbiased mindset of the faction. I, as many others within this community, were one of the first to start the faction. We applied to help out a newly started faction, with our experiences both OOCly and ICly as a term of law enforcement AS WELL as having a pletorha of experience roleplaying in the Sandy Shores\Paleto area.

 

I'm to be perfectly honest here, the faction started of very well. A great many of us in the faction, and those interacting with us in the surrounding area, gave and were given immense praise for acting as not a LEO entity but rather a simple legal faction who's job it was to provide passive roleplay in the sticks\desert and interact with the community at large. It was very fun, and entertaining. Folk routinely came up to me and others I was in with at the time, saying the faction are doing really well in portraying a realistic entity and not just becoming another LEO entity, that patrolled in circles around the map.

 

Yet as time continued, myself and others started to voice concerns about the path SAPR was taking as a faction; emulating that of a municipal police department or Sheriff's department, based in the woods and desert with a 'more strict' area of jurisdiction. I put those words in quotes because it seemingly doesn't exist anymore, as I've spotted SAPR vehicles driving and initating pursuits, or traffic stops, in areas completely desolate and dispersed from their alleged area of jurisdiction. Places like Sandy Shores, Zancudo Road\Tongva Drive, and Grapeseed. As well as the Sheriff's department having an alleged agreement for SAPR officials to hand over any 'issues' that don't coincide with the general duties of the Department of fish and wildlife to PD or SD. They don't, or I haven't seen them do it for the past few months. Maybe this agreement is now null? I'm not sure.

 

I was a big advocate for SAPR when I heard the initial murmers of it, when I was in SD. When recruitment opened up for experienced individuals, I immediately joined to help out where I could. So into it, that I spent dozens upon dozens of hours researching the California equilivent to provide a healthy and entertaining prospect ingame, as well as having wrote pages of training manuals to aid those in the faction. But as time went on, I can't say the faction is even a fraction of what it used to be when it started. I'll echo precisely what a great many of the other 'ex' Rangers in this thread have said. I had high hopes for it to be a Park Ranger faction, now it's a State Trooper faction.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not to say the entire faction is pointless and shouldn't exist. I absolutely loved my time in the faction, roleplaying as a passive entity in the sticks and desert, providing simple social roleplay in an otherwise desolate enviorement. I'd actively search out individuals to roleplay with them, no matter what they were doing. And I know plenty of others did, and maybe still do. To say that SAPR is pointless is very far fetched as they have a good reason to exist in the server, as well as the IC laws surrounding the IC state. I've come across some good SAPR roleplayers, but I have also come across some who are incredibly poor and just use it as an excuse to patrol. This last statement I made is one of my biggest concerns. I could throw a dart at the list of SAPR members and I'd bet I'd hit a name of a character\player who's using SAPR as their last chance for LEO RP because they were kicked, or banned, from PD, SD, SFM or FD. In some cases, kicked and banned from more than one faction.

 

The faction is certainly a good prospect and idea. It's just been executed horribly, and the individuals in the command chain need a reform or to slacken their numbers, as they've taken a bigger bite of a sandwich than they can handle.

 

I don't even want to begin on the prospect of a 'SAPR Tactical Team' that's allegedly being made. What truth there is to that? I'm completely unaware, it could be entirely rumours. But if it's true, then that should be enough for anyone in this discussion to know where SAPR have turned to.

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I do sincerely appreciate all of the feedback brought on by the post, as well as admins getting involved with their own personal opinion on the faction.  A lot of you have brought up pretty good points that argue their existence or cement their position on the server and creative discussions are definitely the way to go when it comes to a particular topic. I never blatantly stated that I dislike their presence or enjoy the atmosphere brought on by SAPR, it's a discussion where players in the community can publicly discuss their opinions on it. 

 

Having said that, based off of former members of the faction, current members of the faction and even staff team members (Whether affiliated with the faction or not) that you all seem to have a strong opinion of either how to change things or justifying their presence. That's perfectly fine, that's exactly what the thread is for. I think a lot of people also misjudged my post, because I specifically highlighted the job climate and how SAPR may or may not get a lot of public relations roleplay with the Hunters up north (On account of the inability to make money up there) and that's okay.

 

Simply, from what I'm trying to convey - if there's some sort of an update on the current job climate to make it more favourable for Hunters that might have to pay upwards of $55,000 to even start making money, there might be an influx of people who are at the Parks and there may be even more roleplay opportunities for the Park Rangers.

I doubly understand that SAPR aren't just stewards at an event where they check licenses and let you go on your way, but if a lot more Hunters got involved with exploring the grounds and hunting game to make money, then roleplay with the SAPR and the rest of the server would drastically increase.

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Hunting as a job really isn't even something that should be considered so I'm going to brush over that as plenty of other people have addressed it and I shouldn't need to.

 

My concerns with SAPR are a fundamental lack of policing knowledge and a lack of understanding of the penal code. This would be absolutely fine if they existed in a capacity that I thought they would be- patrolling the forests and engaging in passive roleplay with hunters, and doing wildlife conservation, search and rescue, et-cetera. However, I've witnessed them turn more into an alternative Sheriff's Department with less training on the nitty-gritty of LEO work which results in strange interactions such as traffic infractions being levied on people's vehicles, people being arrested on hearsay... The other day, a park ranger began questioning a suspect before he was even Mirandized, and a PD Detective Lieutenant had to interrupt and quickly do so. While that could be taken as an IC issue, they teach you these things as a law enforcement officer right off the bat, it's one of the first things you learn- caselaw and how it applies to the job, and practical application of that and the penal code. These examples are not indicative of the whole of Park Rangers, but the fact they are examples at all shows a problem in of itself.

 

Either SAPR needs to focus more on being park rangers and handling wildlife efforts and targeting poachers, OR they need to focus on being state park police. Once they figure that out, training can be pressed further toward whatever is chosen as their specialty. As for an SAPR Tactical Team - If that's true, I don't really know what to say.

 

Not here to faction-bash. I think Park Rangers have their place I just think they've strayed from their original path and it's a bit disheartening to see.

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2 hours ago, mj2002 said:

 

But there is no shortage of opportunities for criminal roleplay at all. There is never a concern that criminal roleplay is being choked out. 

Do you have a criminal character...? There are more cop cars in Davis than civilian cars, Grove Street is essentially a militarised zone now...

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2 minutes ago, imi said:

Do you have a criminal character...? There are more cop cars in Davis than civilian cars, Grove Street is essentially a militarised zone now...

Do you know why is that and why Davis is literally referred to as Davistan IC? Because every day there are at least 3 shootouts if not more. And the increased cop presence there is cause of that.

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