State of civilian roleplay and portrayal

[Jain]

There are much better, realistic and appropriate ways to deal with someone shouting for help than outright shooting them. If you shoot someone because they shouted for help that implies you're counting them shouting for help as a threat - which means you're probably doing whatever stupid shit you're doing where you shouldn't be doing it - say, in the middle of the street, by an open business or by an active residential block instead of a secluded alleyway, parking lot or other low traffic, shady area.

 

Some things you can do to escalate the action instead of jumping the gun: first tell them you're going to hurt them. Then actually hurt them. Then hurt them a LOT. Gunshots are always louder than someone shouting and likewise escalate your potential charges if you get caught from armed robbery and brandishing to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder.

 

If you're shooting someone in retaliation of something that doesn't actually actively threaten you in that moment, you're being lazy, you're guilty of poor portrayal, or you're just looking for excuses to DM people. 

 

I only felt the need to comment on this because the last 'robbery' attempt on my character was blatantly telegraphed by a prowling car scouting the Vespucci Canals for people standing outside their homes - I was waiting for a friend and that friend arrived the same time the car looped back around. I had my phone CEF menu open when three guys all come around the corner aiming guns with copy-pasted /me's going "Hands!", and as I'm typing my response to walk to a wall my phone registers my key inputs as me typing and sending a message of 'w' to my open text chat. A second after I send a mistaken text I get deathmatched without a word and everyone runs away, leaving my friend baffled what had just happened. Was sending a text message, even if it had been intentional, something to kill me over? Like, just run away or something, don't fucking kill me.

[Fancy Toothpaste]

24 minutes ago, DLimit said:

I've read the reports. 

The whole "shouting for help" thing would more than likely get a person shot, in the real world, out of sheer impulse. Not comparable to the "group" argument, at all. 

I'm just so surprised that I can stand outside, for hours on end, and only get robbed 3 times in 2021, but a small minority of people seem to have this issue.

 

Dumbing down the issue to a 'minority' doesn't stop making it an issue, dude. Nervous himself has stated that yes, it is an issue. Shit roleplay is shit roleplay no matter how many ways you try to dress it down.

 

And no, shouting to witnesses during a robbery will not get you immediately shot in the face like the case mentiond above. A number of police departments like Baltimore PD actually recommends you shout for help if you think that someone is going to rob you. Shouting for help while a gun is in your face is certainly not a recommended course or action but people in real life generally have a greater hesitation to commit felony murder on a whim compared to people playing this video game. The individuals in that case could've done any number of alternative actions that would have been just as appropriate; pistol whipping, kneecappings, but instead they turned a robbery into a murder because... Reasons. That's not how people in the real world think unless they're the criminally insane.

 

The fact of the matter is, cities have millions of people in them and GTAW has 800 on a good day. All of the mugging and robbery prevention tips published in the US will say something along the lines of: 'Don't walk at night, stay in well lit areas, tell a family member your destination, walk on sidewalks, walk facing traffic, walk confidently, ect'.

 

If you haven't noticed, the majority of these tips make absolutely no difference to the PUBG chain robber who's only goal in life is hitting licks and killing cops. That's because Los Santos isn't a city no matter how hard it tries to pretend to be; it can barely be considered a small town when IC population portrayal is all that matters.

 

I'm of the camp that people should go outside more and engage with their communities but if we're completely honest, there's just not enough people playing this server to fill the map to anywhere near the same density as LA. It's just not going to happen.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Fancy Toothpaste

[pateuvasiliu]

On 1/16/2022 at 9:13 PM, NickyW said:

 

Go to any big city IRL and see what happens when you walk around in the wrong neighborhood alone at night lmao

 

Imagine defending the absolute Night City state that our server is in.

Dude you get robbed anywhere, here. Not just in the ''wrong neighborhood''

 

[DLimit]

28 minutes ago, Fancy Toothpaste said:

 

Dumbing down the issue to a 'minority' doesn't stop making it an issue, dude. Nervous himself has stated that yes, it is an issue. Shit roleplay is shit roleplay no matter how many ways you try to dress it down.

 

And no, shouting to witnesses during a robbery will not get you immediately shot in the face like the case mentiond above. A number of police departments like Baltimore PD actually recommends you shout for help if you think that someone is going to rob you. Shouting for help while a gun is in your face is certainly not a recommended course or action but people in real life generally have a greater hesitation to commit felony murder on a whim compared to people playing this video game. The individuals in that case could've done any number of alternative actions that would have been just as appropriate; pistol whipping, kneecappings, but instead they turned a robbery into a murder because... Reasons. That's not how people in the real world think unless they're the criminally insane.

 

The fact of the matter is, cities have millions of people in them and GTAW has 800 on a good day. All of the mugging and robbery prevention tips published in the US will say something along the lines of: 'Don't walk at night, stay in well lit areas, tell a family member your destination, walk on sidewalks, walk facing traffic, walk confidently, ect'.

 

If you haven't noticed, the majority of these tips make absolutely no difference to the PUBG chain robber who's only goal in life is making licks and killing cops. That's because Los Santos isn't a city no matter how hard it tries to pretend to be; it can barely be considered a small town when IC population portrayal is all that matters.

 

I'm of the camp that people should go outside more and engage with their communities but if we're completely honest, there's just not enough people playing this server to fill the map to anywhere near the same density as LA. It's just not going to happen.

Map really isn't that large.

Look at each region of the city as what they are, regions. We have 400-800 people on the server, on average. That's Davis, Rancho, Chamberlains, Strawberry, El Burro, Vespucci, Korea Town, Mission Row, Del Perro, Vinewood, Mirror Park, Alta, Hawick, Rockford, and Murrieta Heights.

We can lump Davis, Rancho, Chamberlains, and Strawberry into one area, as extremely dangerous areas to reside within. Even the local civilians wouldn't snitch due to their code of silence in these hoods. So, that's off the table. Same would apply to El Burro.

Murrieta is mostly an industrial zone, with very minimal to zero residencies. So, that is also off the table.

County rarely counts, as 99% of county should not be as congested as a rural region of the island.

That leaves us with Vespucci, Korea Town, Mission Row, Del Perro, Vinewood, Mirror Park, Alta, Hawick, and Rockford. That is a total of 9 regions. That is 44-88 people per region, taking note that they would be dispersed, differently, in different areas. You're telling me that it is impossible to develop communities in these regions if people took the initiative to R.P. outside? Whether illegal, legal, or civilian... communities could be formed. K-Town is a GREAT example of that. Paleto Bay is a second example of that, but their population is miniscule compared to the regions in Los Santos.

I'd even claim that places like "Rockford" aren't places where people hang out, at. That's where people do their shopping etc... unless you literally live in those multi-million dollar mansions on the hills. This should ALSO note that each region has hubs... plazas, certain intersections, gas stations etc... that would be more occupied than, per se, a random house on the road.

Even if it were 20 people, per region. Do you think that 4 robbers will get away with robbery if the others contact 911 while the scene is active? Less than likely the case.

It'd decrease. Of course, you'll have the 1-2 cases of mass-shootings and shit-tier RP. It's bound to happen, regardless of what you do. Zero loopholes around that. These "crime free zones" don't mean a THING to these people. This is not who we should be prioritizing on, as that's for the admins to ban.

All it really takes is extra initiative. Robberies happen simply because every one's inside, and a small percentage of people become unlucky because they walk in pairs, alone, in the neighborhood.

Edited January 18, 2022 by DLimit

[NickyW]

45 minutes ago, pateuvasiliu said:

Imagine defending the absolute Night City state that our server is in.

Dude you get robbed anywhere, here. Not just in the ''wrong neighborhood''

 

 

It's interesting you bring up a fictional city to compare against LS when there's real cities with worse raw numbers. Chicago for example has had 171 robberies in the last 7 days. I'm very interested if GTAW's Los Santos has had even a third of that in the last week. Chicago averaged ten shootings a day last year.

 

Yes, the crime rate on GTAW is unrealistically high, but it's not some dystopian wasteland that has nothing in real life that comes close.

[Fancy Toothpaste]

1 hour ago, DLimit said:

Map really isn't that large.

Look at each region of the city as what they are, regions. We have 400-800 people on the server, on average. That's Davis, Rancho, Chamberlains, Strawberry, El Burro, Vespucci, Korea Town, Mission Row, Del Perro, Vinewood, Mirror Park, Alta, Hawick, Rockford, and Murrieta Heights.

We can lump Davis, Rancho, Chamberlains, and Strawberry into one area, as extremely dangerous areas to reside within. Even the local civilians wouldn't snitch due to their code of silence in these hoods. So, that's off the table. Same would apply to El Burro.

Murrieta is mostly an industrial zone, with very minimal to zero residencies. So, that is also off the table.

County rarely counts, as 99% of county should not be as congested as a rural region of the island.

That leaves us with Vespucci, Korea Town, Mission Row, Del Perro, Vinewood, Mirror Park, Alta, Hawick, and Rockford. That is a total of 9 regions. That is 44-88 people per region, taking note that they would be dispersed, differently, in different areas. You're telling me that it is impossible to develop communities in these regions if people took the initiative to R.P. outside? Whether illegal, legal, or civilian... communities could be formed. K-Town is a GREAT example of that.

 

You're trying to fit a very complicated thing into a Google spreadsheet. You're not factoring in time-zone differentiation, availability of housing, local availability of employment, the time your average player spends in game, the fact that many illegal roleplayers are intolerant or dismissive of civilian roleplayers causing divides within potential communities, the sheer lacks of player interest for certain sections of the map, the fact that many districts only appeal to certain socioeconomic bracketing, and a whole host of other variables that I'm sure I'm missing here.

 

There's a whole number of reasons why K-Town has been so successful as a community: they're central to the map; existing at a crossroads of several different districts, they're tolerance for legal roleplayers, they're made up of a relatively homogenous ethnic group, the successful illegal factions that have flourished there, the availability of player housing and employment options, the numerous businesses that open on a regular basis, the potential variety in socioeconomic brackets that can exist there, and an aestetic that a variety of players can appreciate. When it comes to creating a successful and active community it really boils down to location, location, location.

 

You can't just expect players to spread themselves evenly over the entire map; people flourish to the locations that most appeals to them. Mirror Park appeals to a specific demographic while not appealing to others. I personally would rather live in El Burro or Vespucci but that's just the types of characters I play. I don't expect a sizeable subset of the community to follow me to El Burro.

 

Let's just say, hypothetically that for whatever reason everyone in the community joins hands and spreads themselves evenly between the districts just like you've described: 44-88 in each. For a couple hours there's a bunch of active people standing together roleplaying in harmony. After a few more hours, the number starts to dwindle and by the time you hit the off hours you can't even count your 'community' on one hand. Once the players log off they cease to exist. They're not sleeping in the house next door or working at the supermarket close by. They no longer exist. This is also ignoring the fact that a great deal of roleplay on this server centers around traveling to businesses which tend to draw players away from their communities. Everything you've described only really works if all players are consistent and active.

 

Hypotheticals aside, nothing you've said will really fix the problem. People always try to adress the symptoms but never the cause. I've had characters shot at while my entire faction stood next to me. You can have two people or twenty and people will still test their luck. Many people on this server aren't playing characters with motivations, aspirations, and fears, and instead they use their characters as vehicles to fulfill desires they can't in real life. This is a problem that is visible to both the legal and illegal community. Some people don't want to roleplay characters, they just want to log on, get into a gunfight and log out for the night. These problems are rooting in bad roleplayers being allowed to flourish on this server, not the 'inability' of the civilian population to band together and conform to your simplified and utopian conception of how the server ought to function.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Fancy Toothpaste

[Engelbert]

9 minutes ago, NickyW said:

 

It's interesting you bring up a fictional city to compare against LS when there's real cities with worse raw numbers. Chicago for example has had 171 robberies in the last 7 days. I'm very interested if GTAW's Los Santos has had even a third of that in the last week. Chicago averaged ten shootings a day last year.

 

Yes, the crime rate on GTAW is unrealistically high, but it's not some dystopian wasteland that has nothing in real life that comes close.

Umm I am not sure if you noticed the big difference, that kinda makes any comparison with real life cities useless. Ah yes the population number.

Los Santos has higher crime rate than Chicago or Night City. Why? Cause Chicago has 10 shootings a day maybe, but with population beyond million.

GTAW has roughtly 600-800 people and not all of them online at the same time. So if you get even 5 shootings and 2 robberies per day with these numbers, it's way higher than Chicago. Well and Nighty City? That's a capitalistic free for all where cops don't even bother waiting for you to surrender. Problem in GTAW is that, nearly everyone was robbed least twice throughout their character's lives. And if this number is higher, they simply stopped caring. If they are killed, they respawn and forget about it. If they are robbed, they replace lost items and forget about it again. Another large portion of cases is simply dismissed cause admin was called in over some dispute and voided situation.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Engelbert

[Illusory]

11 minutes ago, NickyW said:

 

It's interesting you bring up a fictional city to compare against LS when there's real cities with worse raw numbers. Chicago for example has had 171 robberies in the last 7 days. I'm very interested if GTAW's Los Santos has had even a third of that in the last week. Chicago averaged ten shootings a day last year.

 

Yes, the crime rate on GTAW is unrealistically high, but it's not some dystopian wasteland that has nothing in real life that comes close.

 

It was bad, man. Here's a breakdown from back in August:

Quote

Los Santos has a higher death rate per capita than some World War 2 battles so this might actually be the case

 

EDIT:

 

I'm bored as hell so here's some math for you:

 

The total number of murders per month this spring were approximately:

 

Jan: 1100

Feb: 850

Mar: 1400

Apr: 1250

 

This is a quarterly average of: 1,150 murders per month this spring

 

The player count for the same time was: (On average, based on compounded monthly average of 10 minute intervals)

 

Jan: 326.87

Feb: 315.82

Mar: 364.44

Apr: 449.28

 

This equates to an overall quarterly average player count of 364.1025

 

If we account for a 30 day month, we can then conclude that the average number of murders per day (1,150 / 30) comes out to 38.3334 murders per day in a city with an average population of 364. 

 

This then implies that 10.531% of the entire server is killed every day by another player. This comes out to a murder rate of 3,843,864.47. For perspective, the highest murder rate in the world currently is El Salvador with a rate of 52.02. Therefore, living in San Andreas results in a 72,892 times higher murder rate than El Salvador. In Los Santos, assuming you play every day, you will be killed by another player on average 38.43 times per year.

 

 

Sources:

  

  On 8/20/2021 at 12:03 PM, Sush said:

 

It was posted in GTA:W general by an admin a couple weeks ago. Here's the breakdown:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Here's the discord links:

https://discord.com/channels/312217302961618946/368773863162773504/875113755741126689

 

https://discord.com/channels/312217302961618946/368773863162773504/875113258607050772

 

https://discord.com/channels/312217302961618946/368773863162773504/875114257216311316

 

Honestly these changes have been great. Today I saw people running with their dogs on the beach, people having picnics on the sand, the whole deal. Was nice to see for a change.

[DLimit]

55 minutes ago, Fancy Toothpaste said:

***SNIPPET***

"Hypotheticals aside, nothing you've said will really fix the problem. People always try to address the symptoms but never the cause."

Here's the solution... harsher punishments on extreme poor character portrayal, such as chain-robbing.

But, nothing stops players from forming K-Town-style communities in Vespucci, Hawick, Alta etc... nothing does, but themselves. Less time complaining on the forums and more time organizing communities would, at least, decrease the rate of robberies. The numbers would be smaller, and you'd still have the very small minority that would chain-rob, regardless of the rules OR the environment. These are the ones that should be banned.

Instead, people hide in interiors and then get robbed, as soon as they walk outside, because they are more vulnerable when less people are outside. Listing 1-2 cases of mass-shootings is just that... rare occurrences. If we're talking about AVERAGE robberies? They wouldn't happen in large communities. You aren't "lacking" when there's a dozen witnesses. It actually gives people more reason and witnesses to report these poor RPers, removing them from the community. It reduces the problem, on a larger scale, than hiding inside, all day.

It doesn't destroy the problem. The problem lies in the severity of punishments. But, this method would reduce the problem. Much more productive than complaining about it, for two whole years, on a forum. Haven't seen a single topic stray away from the issue of "Robberies" and "Cat-eared Lesbiens".

EDIT: And when it comes down to me? I can be online, 4-8 hours in a day, standing outside... can be at any location, and I don't get robbed. I've tried this... had an innocent-looking woman, whom was a civilian, standing outside, smoking cigarette in Davis, for an hour (5'4 and 100 pounds... dressed some-what flashy and had an iPhone XS. A gold-digger). Nothing happened. I've tried this with other civilian characters, as-well. Never was robbed when walking or smoking out in the open, in different areas. Literally had a wealthy Financier (money-launderer) sit on a bench, in K-Town, for hours, and was never robbed. Maybe the large amount of witnesses contributed to this reason. I've had this in South-Central, in Paleto, in Sandy, in Vespucci, in Mission Row, and in Vinewood. Only been robbed, 3-4 times, in 2021. Three were well-done (which were in Sandy and Paleto in March and October) and one was dirt-poor (Trucking in Davis in November). Why aren't I having these issues of "getting robbed, twice, in an hour"? It's a small minority that complain about this same problem, over and over. The rest observe robberies as minimal. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by DLimit

[NickyW]

1 hour ago, Sush said:

 

It was bad, man. Here's a breakdown from back in August:

 

Honestly these changes have been great. Today I saw people running with their dogs on the beach, people having picnics on the sand, the whole deal. Was nice to see for a change.

 

Good Lord, that's absolutely insane. I had no idea.

 

As someone who RP's almost exclusively in the illegal scene, how am I so insulated from this? South LS must be a warzone.

 

Do these numbers include accidental deaths, DM's, etc (all scriptwise deaths?) or are they IC homicide statistics?