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The Park Rangers Discussion


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53 minutes ago, RSanders said:

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.


Would love to hear your side of this @Pillsbury, coming from an ex-member who has served in the faction. 

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1 hour ago, Vassilios said:

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".

 

 

If you're homeless just buy a house! Duh! The core of the point that's being made is that prior to SAPR the climate in the county was as it is visually represented, desolate and vast as associated with the Sonoran and even Mojave desert. With that accompanied a certain style of law enforcement predominantly held by the LSSD, as is common in those areas. Areas, mind you, that are built and exist in a certain way in the United States because of how law enforcement works in those areas. What you have now is the SAPR serving that area as if it is a simple municipality, ergo significantly effecting the climate and setting. In itself a problem, of course not, because stuff adapts and that's what you're seeing now. People quit playing characters or avenues all together and others change, such is life and that always happens with change. Both good and bad. 

 

That said, before if you just kept a low profile and stayed out of trouble with some planning you could avoid the narrow gaze of the LSSD. Now have park rangers declaring every other blob of land a National Park. Cops don't know where these meth labs are, naturally these labs are now mostly defunct because you're not gonna cook a batch next to a group of Rangers. Otherwise desolate and isolated places are now highly patrolled and regulated police zones. And that is huge. You work your ass off for months, in my case I worked my ass off for nearly a year to get a specific piece of property out in a specific piece of land. You then work hard to build that into a production site only to find out that the land is now suddenly a National Park and subsequently occupied by an unreal number of rangers who will practically sit in your lawn to stop passing cars.

 

Then it's easy for someone like you to say "just move it" but have you tried buying property recently? Now, that said for the sake of roleplay I've accepted it for what it is - another failed venture. Money and time lost, but that's life. Law Enforcement made another win in thwarting a production site even though they probably never knew it existed, and thus executed their purpose and directive. But that's exactly what I meant earlier, just because you can doesn't mean you should. It's literally snuffing things out that would've happen but now will never be. And that hurts law enforcement in the long run too, it hurts the whole scene. Remember; crime is bigger in totality than the front end street thugs you see. There are very complex systems behind it. 

 

1 hour ago, Vassilios said:

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.

 

 

This is entirely situational, the times are fine for most people but I'm one of those special super complainy people that don't have a lot of time to play this game. As a result I can't compete with the people that do, so if I get arrested (as a faction member) that means that a simple sentence turns into something that takes me weeks to complete while the people it targets still get out the very same day. Which is fine, I've just decided I won't be going to jail period or exposing my tweakers to situations they would realistically be getting into for the sake of my own sanity. 

 

1 hour ago, Vassilios said:

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.

No doubt about it, and I welcome it. Like I said before I'm so glad we can have things like the port authority, sheriff's offices and park rangers. And to this day I still hope to see the SAHP appear someday along with a plethora of other agencies that could have services here. Much like how California and Los Angeles County is a boiling soup of agencies. And SAPR is great too, it's just that that whole stern talking and warning usually comes after you've been stopped, searched and ID'ed - which is fine! But certain fields of roleplay, especially in the county, rely on so called black spots in coverage areas. Areas that were once plentiful in the county are now the exact opposite. And meth labs are pretty hard to be obvious the way the game is set up, hypothetically we could've just continued because the police can't see the inside of a trailer but that's where our roleplay integrity stops us. It's just that out of the entirety of the state parks and nature zones (Great Chaparral, Grand Senora, Ratton Canyon) why do they need to elect the very edges of those territories which are residential in nature and naturally habited by shady people? It's a choice they make, instead of tending to Jameek that's currently being mauled by a coyote and Jethro that's shooting illegal boar that ranger is doing a "speed trap" in San Chianski right next to a production site. Is that a problem? For me personally sure, but the ranger isn't doing anything "wrong" in the sense that he's just doing a speed trap in San Chianski. It's just a piece of awareness and courtesy that's missing. LSSD could've done the same but they don't because of that, and because their members understand the intricate criminal climate in the county. Why can't the SAPR do the same?  

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Whats all this talk about meth labs, though? I dont think theres been a single time we've found an active moonshine sill let alone a meth lab, nor do we have the means of investigating nor the training to even know what a meth lab looks like. It seems like a whole bunch of "what ifs" instead of "it happened". There's still plenty of "black areas" in the county. I see a lot of people complaining about "speed traps" yet speed traps are a rare thing to begin with.

 

As for the tactical team nonsense? Where are you guys getting your information? Cause thats the furthest thing from the truth I've ever heard. SAPR will never have a tac team, we do not want one, none of us do.

 

Neon hairs as well, theres not a single person in SAPR with neon hair.

 

It seems people need to understand what we actually are, police. Have been from the start. Will always be that way. Same as they are IRL. As for the "Make it so if park rangers leave the prks, they can get sued", thats just silly. 

Edited by PeopleKind
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1 hour ago, RSanders said:

 

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.

Id like to re-iterate that I have no idea if this is true or not, however, I've heard it a few times being brought up along with new protocols. I sincerely hope it is not the case, but, it could be very real.

 

 

 

Edited by Zach..
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2 minutes ago, PeopleKind said:

It seems people need to understand what we actually are, police. Have been from the start. Will always be that way. Same as they are IRL. As for the "Make it so if park rangers leave the prks, they can get sued", thats just silly. 

I never said if they leave the park, but if they overstep their boundaries, much like PD and anyone else...they can get sued. No need to bring OOC hate over IC action. And then we need to decide what parts of the map are a park, cause it cannot be every nook and cranny.

Edited by Engelbert
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1 minute ago, Zach.. said:

Id like to re-iterate that I have no idea if this is true or not, however, I've heard it a few times being brought up along with new protocols. I sincerely hope it is not the case, but, it could be very real.

Its the furthest thing from the truth. Nobody in SAPR even wants a tactical team to begin with. Even we think it's utter nonsense lol

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1 minute ago, PeopleKind said:

Its the furthest thing from the truth. Nobody in SAPR even wants a tactical team to begin with. Even we think it's utter nonsense lol

One more thing I heard in relation to a tactical team of sorts is new rules/protocols that allow Sheriffs to give Park Rangers jurisdiction over the entire county? Is that something that is real?

 

Im glad to hear that those are just rumors, appreciate the response.

 

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3 minutes ago, Zach.. said:

One more thing I heard in relation to a tactical team of sorts is new rules/protocols that allow Sheriffs to give Park Rangers jurisdiction over the entire county? Is that something that is real?

 

Im glad to hear that those are just rumors, appreciate the response.

 

Yes, it is real, more or less. Not on that great scale of things, But VERY rare and ONLY when the city is extremely swamped with calls that simply dont allow the Sheriffs to be able to respond to the county, then they request us to handle calls in the county temporarily until order in the city is restored (for now, anyways). It's only happened three times since the concept was created and frankly I support the idea. PD & SD love having PR arouind to help out (from what we've seen & heard, at least).

Edited by PeopleKind
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4 minutes ago, PeopleKind said:

Yes, it is real, more or less. Not on that great scale of things, But VERY rare and ONLY when the city is extremely swamped with calls that simply dont allow the Sheriffs to be able to respond to the county, then they request us to handle calls in the county temporarily until order in the city is restored (for now, anyways). It's only happened three times since the concept was created and frankly I support the idea. PD & SD love having PR arouind to help out (from what we've seen & heard, at least).

I wont fault you guys for that, I have my own gripes about how the county is handled in relation to law enforcement. That being said, I think that it does detract from what you guys do.

 

I genuinely like the idea of SAPR and from what I've heard from my friends inside, it's usually full of great passive RP, I've seen some great screenshots as well. My general fear is that park rangers will turn into another law faction, and I think that'd be a shame.

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