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Garages and QR codes, why?


Rhelli

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12 hours ago, Mahitto said:

 

That's quite hard and, well, pretty much impossible to do with this new meta of "/cim DONT ENTER THE GARAGE" and the mechanic driving to the furthest away corner that you can't even see the pointless /me's. It's just coming to me now - mabye they don't even role-play, but just wait X minutes and drive it out? There's literally no way to know, as no one sees it. Might be worth spectating a few and seeing what's up.

I've wondered this myself lately. A lot of the garages bring your car inside and you're just left outside waiting, so you can't always interact with your mechanic. After a few minutes, your car spawns back outside and boom the upgrades are finished. Who knows what even goes on inside lol

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3 hours ago, DarkAndDreary said:

If you wanna mod your cars without RP, just say so.

The problem is the sheer amount of huge issues plaguing our server, which are well-known by literally everyone and have been happening for months, even years, and quite literally nothing is being done about them. They're not even being addressed. This is one of them.

 

I mean really, it took 4-5 years for all of those unrealistic robberies to even be acknowledged and addressed (and granted, the outcome is great).

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7 hours ago, Power said:

Why stop there. It isn't realistic for every mechanic service to be one stop shop. The same place I get my engine swapped I get my rims and get [...]  much quality RP by using a QR code versus a catalog?

The funniest part is that a lot of tuners don't go to "garages" to get their cars customized. They do it themselves, have it done by people they know, have it done at special conventions/venues, ... only a minority of those modifications require a dedicated garage space ^^' 

But weirdly enough, it's not the realism all those mega-purist garages / mechanics want to see 😄 

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it's just bad rp imo when its done super lazily like that. a QR code can be alright if done right since its 2022 and those are becoming a thing more and more, but i largely prefer simple catalogue shit. majority of my time on the server was spent rping mechanic shops in the small obscure car scene groups i'd make with my buddies where the garage was the main part of the ic group culture, working there etc. should always rp a catalogue of parts whether its via magazine or tablet unless you actually fully rp out the QR code stuff with the customer. the whole system is a little wonky to deal with but imo that's the best way to do it. QR codes are fine if they aren't done super lazily but otherwise it just gives that sense of "i dont wanna rp this so heres a line and you can rp the rest while I wait for you to get me paid" energy. but thats what happens when you get garages full of people that are money > garage rp types. been the same kinds of people all over the garages. we used to get people that would specifically come down to Compass Motors after waiting for us to open just so they could rp with us instead since we usually had a whole vibe down there till most of us either quit or (in my case) got banned for 8+ months. since i got back most of the garages ive been to have been pretty lame and subpar unfortunately. a lot of it feels like faction ran garages that dont care about the rp but just have it cause its what they should do for said faction, or just mallratty lesbian players farming money for mostly half-assed rp.

 

the unfortunate reality is that the mechanic shit's never going to be properly realistic, otherwise our customers would be giving us their car for multiple days or multiple hours to get work done, but -no one- will do that. i've literally had people bitch to me OOC and IC because I took too long to sand down their riced out new bumper and re-fit it. (given, i just ended up going into even more detail and taking longer just to piss them off more because i can be petty sometimes) it's a weird back and forth that we usually balance when working. we'll do things a little faster by just writing longer /me's to get more things done within them if people are polite but impatient or if they care more for the RP there's times where we even hold people's cars for multiple days to work on them over time as should be done for realism. a fully realistic shop i think would hurt the playability to begin with honestly, a good balance inbetween that's realistic enough without actually being too realistic to the point that it just kills interest (immersion > realism sort of situation) is bad for the playerbase.

 

It's kinda just something you have to deal with, and hope that the mechanics are at least decent enough roleplayers to do their part in making it feel at least a little immersive by adding character to the monotony of how the system works. we have to RP things that should take weeks in pretty much 10-30 minutes, and if we dont, majority of people stop coming and the business literally dies, thus ruining the point. high quality work, yet dead business for ooc reasons, nobody wants to do that. it doesnt make sense icly and its frustrating oocly, so you have to strike that balance whether you like it or not to keep the RP active and make sure the business actually runs. but that doesn't have to be done so poorly that it's basically just robomech fixes car and kicks you out after handing you an invoice.

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It's 2022. This technology exists and there's no reason it shouldn't be allowed. QR codes are used for everything. All it does is link you to a website from your phone after scanning the code. The code could simply link to a web page acting as a parts database that lets you select your car year, make & model and then proceed from there. There are plenty of websites which allow you to put in your year, model and make and then see car parts that fit exactly your vehicle. Sure, you have to order them and they aren't immediately on-hand like they are in our game world, but such is life. We're not going to ever have a 1:1 comparison of in-game mechanic garages and real life. Some things are accelerated for a purpose. No one wants to wait several days to order parts and wait for them to be installed. You can harp all you want about player experience, effort, willingness to create more opportunity, but you're not going to get a majority of people who will willingly wait several days to get their car back.

 

I'd agree that a little extra effort on the mechanic's part could suffice, explaining what the QR code does and what the customer should do upon scanning the QR code. Mechanics should focus more on interacting with the customer and less on what size socket they are going to use when taking off the bolts from the vehicle to add or remove something. If you are a garage that's focused on being that hyper realistic, good on you and to each their own. You shouldn't force that onto other people though. Player experience is what matters. I think it'd be safe to say that most garages are not interested in keeping people's cars for days on end and RP'ing 100 different /me's to change out an engine. The garage's RP quality should be judged on their ability to interact with the customers and create RP dialogue surrounding their visit, not so much every last detail and 18 /me's on changing out that tire.

Edited by Brofessor
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