Where are the truckers?

[alina2137]

1 hour ago, Mahitto said:

 

Not true. The "job" should be to role-play and to portray a realistic character. We're not playing ETS 2, driving is simply a mean to portray a trucker character. If you can spend 2 minutes pressing some valuable WASD keys or spend those same two minutes chatting over a frequency with other truckers, making yourself known, networking and such, the second is a much better option.

Oh this is a great idea, totally not a way to easily straight up print script money and immediately stuff it into your character's bank account.

 

While we're at it, make sure the developer team writes a new script for bartenders, so that all bartenders can yap about shit with customers and every time a drink is ordered the only thing they have to do is press L and their character will do that twerking animation and a beer will fly out of their ass into the customer's hand. Why bother clicking and writing commands or using menus to interact with the gamemode? It's 2022 after all, we should be all futuristic and convenient.

Actually fuck it, script an entirely new automated AI for all LEO characters so that they can detect a new call coming in and automatically have the jetpacks hidden inside their assholes fly them over to the location. Give them aimbot so that they can immediately stop anyone committing petty theft or grand theft auto for the convenience. Make sure that they can chat to their superior about how great their sex was last night and that they're willing to do it again for a promotion.

 

Script a similar AI for everyone who gets invited to a faction, make sure that the system detects bad words and sentences such as "Where you from cuh?" and reacts appropriately, maybe causing the player to immediately commit murder and reply "Fuck yo dead homies!".

 

I am over-exaggerating slightly but you get the point. You're here to roleplay but you're playing a video game, you can not automate the whole fucking gamemode for the convenience of talking and socializing, you will create social bots who have been a staple problem of this server ever since I started playing.

 

If we go down that route then sure we will all have nicely developed characters with no action, and while I do agree that less action is something that this server could use considering all the mass-murders, shitty driving and cop chases that come from it, I do not agree that full automation of a trucking job, and therefore creating a money printer is the way to go.

Like I said, I'm all about socializing and talking to people while you work, trucking shouldn't be lonely and boring like it is in real life because we're playing a video game. But once again, to prove my point even further, full automation of anything on this server is NOT the way to go. Two minutes is all you need behind the wheel to talk to your boss, coworker, mother or significant other. You will not roleplay other stuff such as unloading cargo for fifteen minutes straight and get paid for it because you will halt other roleplayers from getting to the point and moving on with their roleplay. This server is simply not built for realistic trucking that is somewhat enjoyable and we have to work around it.

You might ask what is halting me from roleplaying unloading for fifteen minutes straight? The answer is simple, Los Santos would realistically have smaller vans delivering cargo to smaller shops located in tighter streets for example. Imagine a situation where you have five Pounders waiting in line, blocking an entire street, all waiting to roleplay unloading their cargo to a small shop located in the middle of the city. And that does happen because people are greedy and want to deliver for money in as little time as possible.

If the trucking job was split between actual long haul trucking and van driving for small deliveries to shops in the city, things like that would make total sense. And I have previously suggested splitting these into two jobs since having a Pounder deliver anything in the middle of the city is so ridiculously stupid that it wouldn't take place in real life, most big trucks are straight up banned from entering city centers for example. Be it in Europe or the USA.

 

There is so much more to consider here than just "boohoo stupid fucking driving i just want to socialize more :(", there are so many more tiny issues with trucking that need to be taken care of first before we even start thinking of partial automation of the job.

I do agree that socializing should be more available, I worked for IMEX for a while and loved it there but you as a Player need to put in at least minimal effort in order to get paid for your job, you can't just expect automation to do everything for you. It beats the purpose of not only roleplaying but playing the game.

 

 

[Mahitto]

1 hour ago, hentai! said:

Oh this is a great idea, totally not a way to easily straight up print script money and immediately stuff it into your character's bank account.

 

While we're at it, make sure the developer team writes a new script for bartenders, so that all bartenders can yap about shit with customers and every time a drink is ordered the only thing they have to do is press L and their character will do that twerking animation and a beer will fly out of their ass into the customer's hand. Why bother clicking and writing commands or using menus to interact with the gamemode? It's 2022 after all, we should be all futuristic and convenient.

Actually fuck it, script an entirely new automated AI for all LEO characters so that they can detect a new call coming in and automatically have the jetpacks hidden inside their assholes fly them over to the location. Give them aimbot so that they can immediately stop anyone committing petty theft or grand theft auto for the convenience. Make sure that they can chat to their superior about how great their sex was last night and that they're willing to do it again for a promotion.

 

Script a similar AI for everyone who gets invited to a faction, make sure that the system detects bad words and sentences such as "Where you from cuh?" and reacts appropriately, maybe causing the player to immediately commit murder and reply "Fuck yo dead homies!".

 

I am over-exaggerating slightly but you get the point. You're here to roleplay but you're playing a video game, you can not automate the whole fucking gamemode for the convenience of talking and socializing, you will create social bots who have been a staple problem of this server ever since I started playing.

 

If we go down that route then sure we will all have nicely developed characters with no action, and while I do agree that less action is something that this server could use considering all the mass-murders, shitty driving and cop chases that come from it, I do not agree that full automation of a trucking job, and therefore creating a money printer is the way to go.

Like I said, I'm all about socializing and talking to people while you work, trucking shouldn't be lonely and boring like it is in real life because we're playing a video game. But once again, to prove my point even further, full automation of anything on this server is NOT the way to go. Two minutes is all you need behind the wheel to talk to your boss, coworker, mother or significant other. You will not roleplay other stuff such as unloading cargo for fifteen minutes straight and get paid for it because you will halt other roleplayers from getting to the point and moving on with their roleplay. This server is simply not built for realistic trucking that is somewhat enjoyable and we have to work around it.

You might ask what is halting me from roleplaying unloading for fifteen minutes straight? The answer is simple, Los Santos would realistically have smaller vans delivering cargo to smaller shops located in tighter streets for example. Imagine a situation where you have five Pounders waiting in line, blocking an entire street, all waiting to roleplay unloading their cargo to a small shop located in the middle of the city. And that does happen because people are greedy and want to deliver for money in as little time as possible.

If the trucking job was split between actual long haul trucking and van driving for small deliveries to shops in the city, things like that would make total sense. And I have previously suggested splitting these into two jobs since having a Pounder deliver anything in the middle of the city is so ridiculously stupid that it wouldn't take place in real life, most big trucks are straight up banned from entering city centers for example. Be it in Europe or the USA.

 

There is so much more to consider here than just "boohoo stupid fucking driving i just want to socialize more :(", there are so many more tiny issues with trucking that need to be taken care of first before we even start thinking of partial automation of the job.

I do agree that socializing should be more available, I worked for IMEX for a while and loved it there but you as a Player need to put in at least minimal effort in order to get paid for your job, you can't just expect automation to do everything for you. It beats the purpose of not only roleplaying but playing the game.

 

As a matter of fact, that is the case for most jobs on the server. They receive $4,000/hour of active role-play. What they sell is a bonus. Your other examples, though, are absolutely ridiculous - there's a big difference between doing absolutely nothing and making money, like you're suggesting, and letting a script drive for you while you do something else to benefit your character. The auto driving script is anything but automation. You still have to be there, hands on the keyboard, as you can, at any moment, literally fly off the road. It's buggy and, in this case, that's a good thing. The only thing it would fix for jobs that involve heavy driving, like trucking or taxis, is allowing them to type for short periods of time without having to stop for 30 seconds, drive for 10, stop for 30 seconds, drive for 10 and so on, and look like a laggy broken 2010 ps2 game. Even if, let's say, it worked perfectly without any bugs whatsoever, you'd still have to load up, pull out, then park the truck and unload and sell the stuff, all while role-playing. Not sure what you think I'm suggesting, but it's not pressing  Y and going to bed while your character makes money.

 

I also don't understand what you mean by 'social bots'. That is quite literally the very base of role-play - socializing, one way or another. It's actually what we should aim to do, in all cases, for all characters. The last thing we need is the opposite, people not socializing but rather doing their own thing to make their money. That servers no purpose, contributes to no one's character in any meaningful way, nor enriches anyone's experience or development.

 

If you want to drive and perfectly sharpen your driving skills, master tight turns and parkings and the such, play ETS 2. It's a great game, large player base, literally nothing else to do. That shouldn't be the case here, though. We get absolutely nothing by focusing on the scripted aspect, but gain so much by not doing it. Same with literally all other jobs - imagine someone spending 30 minutes preparing your most realistic cocktail or covering every single bolt when installing your turbocharger. Amazing work. Does anyone gain anything from that interaction? Literally nothing. Now imagine those same 30 minutes spent sparking up a chat, getting to know the other person and making a connection that you'll then use in one way or another, or simply contributing to the RP in the area. Totally different story.

[alina2137]

18 minutes ago, Mahitto said:

 

As a matter of fact, that is the case for most jobs on the server. They receive $4,000/hour of active role-play. What they sell is a bonus. Your other examples, though, are absolutely ridiculous - there's a big difference between doing absolutely nothing and making money, like you're suggesting, and letting a script drive for you while you do something else to benefit your character. The auto driving script is anything but automation. You still have to be there, hands on the keyboard, as you can, at any moment, literally fly off the road. It's buggy and, in this case, that's a good thing. The only thing it would fix for jobs that involve heavy driving, like trucking or taxis, is allowing them to type for short periods of time without having to stop for 30 seconds, drive for 10, stop for 30 seconds, drive for 10 and so on, and look like a laggy broken 2010 ps2 game. Even if, let's say, it worked perfectly without any bugs whatsoever, you'd still have to load up, pull out, then park the truck and unload and sell the stuff, all while role-playing. Not sure what you think I'm suggesting, but it's not pressing  Y and going to bed while your character makes money.

 

I also don't understand what you mean by 'social bots'. That is quite literally the very base of role-play - socializing, one way or another. It's actually what we should aim to do, in all cases, for all characters. The last thing we need is the opposite, people not socializing but rather doing their own thing to make their money. That servers no purpose, contributes to no one's character in any meaningful way, nor enriches anyone's experience or development.

 

If you want to drive and perfectly sharpen your driving skills, master tight turns and parkings and the such, play ETS 2. It's a great game, large player base, literally nothing else to do. That shouldn't be the case here, though. We get absolutely nothing by focusing on the scripted aspect, but gain so much by not doing it. Same with literally all other jobs - imagine someone spending 30 minutes preparing your most realistic cocktail or covering every single bolt when installing your turbocharger. Amazing work. Does anyone gain anything from that interaction? Literally nothing. Now imagine those same 30 minutes spent sparking up a chat, getting to know the other person and making a connection that you'll then use in one way or another, or simply contributing to the RP in the area. Totally different story.

Valid points but still, we're playing a game. Automation defeats the purpose of interacting with the game. And like I said, unloading/loading and elongating that roleplay to ridiculous amounts of time will cause hiccups in the trucking job for other people who will end up having to wait for you to finish. We have real jobs, real people to meet and real activities to attend to, we can't afford to have to wait for 15-30 minutes for someone to fully end roleplaying a delivery. I do agree that we rely too much on doing our own things on this server and that we should socialize more though since grinding any job is a pain in the ass and nobody likes it, even myself I hate having to grind up to 500 deliveries to drive a truck that both me OOC and my character are perfectly capable of driving without causing massive amounts of damage to the city.

 

Pressing WASD can be argued as nothing worthwhile but it's part of the fun in driving on the server, I'm very passionate about driving as perfectly as I can on this server and I do not want to lose my "job" to automation, so if we can not have the perfect solution then perhaps implement a system that will still reward manual driving with the option to completely not care about being at the wheel, should you become tired or fed up.

I like driving, plain and simple. I do care about how I look to other people in traffic and I do not drive like a dickhead, going over curbs and speeding down every road. I work independently because those are my character's choices and not mine. If this server was not over-saturated with businesses that bring absolutely nothing to the server, businesses which have a maximum of two to four people working at a time, perhaps we as truckers would get the chance to interact with other people as we unload our deliveries and such, but we don't even get the chance to because most businesses are closed down for the majority of the day and the workers are stuck working a register without the ability to interact with us while we're outside, despite the fact that realistically truckers do not unload the cargo, they drive it to the location and the local workforce slides everything out and takes care of it.

Like I said, there are tons of small, even tiny issues with the server's core mechanics and bureaucracy that prevent some of the good things we've talked about from even happening. We need to think of an overall overhaul of the businesses, bureaucracy and other bullshit that comes to play when you're running a business.

Most of the time when you're unloading and loading, you're just roleplaying with yourself because you have to. It's not enjoyable and nobody wants to do it because there's literally nobody else around to see it, other truckers don't care and workers do not have time or also don't care. You also can't expect people to care when you have 30 deliveries coming one after another. The fact that businesses require such ridiculous amounts of components at one time is crazy but it's what keeps truckers in the business though.

 

 

 

[eTaylor]

Most truckers on the server wear a paramilitary uniform with bright colors, and repeatedly drive vans up and down days on end. I imagine it being incredibly boring roleplaying by yourself, but when you try and interact with them they seem more bothered by your distractions than anything. Just seems like a money making meta with an ad hoc roleplay system around it to justify it. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

[alina2137]

Just now, eTaylor said:

Most truckers on the server wear a paramilitary uniform with bright colors, and repeatedly drive vans up and down days on end. I imagine it being incredibly boring roleplaying by yourself, but when you try and interact with them they seem more bothered by your distractions than anything. Just seems like a money making meta with an ad hoc roleplay system around it to justify it. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

With that said I believe that before seeking any script changes we should consider thinking about how this can be changed with just the players mentality. This is absolutely true and is caused by many issues, for example the simple lack of people to interact with during most deliveries. But I also blame the grind, van drivers especially have to work their asses off to drive better and more enjoyable trucks which is absolutely ridiculous. The step above the Van, the Boxville is practically useless and nobody wants to drive it.

[Mahitto]

15 minutes ago, hentai! said:

Valid points but still, we're playing a game. Automation defeats the purpose of interacting with the game. And like I said, unloading/loading and elongating that roleplay to ridiculous amounts of time will cause hiccups in the trucking job for other people who will end up having to wait for you to finish. We have real jobs, real people to meet and real activities to attend to, we can't afford to have to wait for 15-30 minutes for someone to fully end roleplaying a delivery. I do agree that we rely too much on doing our own things on this server and that we should socialize more though since grinding any job is a pain in the ass and nobody likes it, even myself I hate having to grind up to 500 deliveries to drive a truck that both me OOC and my character are perfectly capable of driving without causing massive amounts of damage to the city.

 

Pressing WASD can be argued as nothing worthwhile but it's part of the fun in driving on the server, I'm very passionate about driving as perfectly as I can on this server and I do not want to lose my "job" to automation, so if we can not have the perfect solution then perhaps implement a system that will still reward manual driving with the option to completely not care about being at the wheel, should you become tired or fed up.

I like driving, plain and simple. I do care about how I look to other people in traffic and I do not drive like a dickhead, going over curbs and speeding down every road. I work independently because those are my character's choices and not mine. If this server was not over-saturated with businesses that bring absolutely nothing to the server, businesses which have a maximum of two to four people working at a time, perhaps we as truckers would get the chance to interact with other people as we unload our deliveries and such, but we don't even get the chance to because most businesses are closed down for the majority of the day and the workers are stuck working a register without the ability to interact with us while we're outside, despite the fact that realistically truckers do not unload the cargo, they drive it to the location and the local workforce slides everything out and takes care of it.

Like I said, there are tons of small, even tiny issues with the server's core mechanics and bureaucracy that prevent some of the good things we've talked about from even happening. We need to think of an overall overhaul of the businesses, bureaucracy and other bullshit that comes to play when you're running a business.

Most of the time when you're unloading and loading, you're just roleplaying with yourself because you have to. It's not enjoyable and nobody wants to do it because there's literally nobody else around to see it, other truckers don't care and workers do not have time or also don't care. You also can't expect people to care when you have 30 deliveries coming one after another. The fact that businesses require such ridiculous amounts of components at one time is crazy but it's what keeps truckers in the business though.

 

That can barely be called automation. It's a feature to allow text-based role-play to happen on a text-based role-play server. In real life, you can do more than one thing while driving. That's not the case here, hence why we need script support.

 

If you consider mindlessly pressing the arrow keys as fun, that's great for you. I don't understand why you argue the opposite on behalf of those who don't. I did role-play a trucker, I didn't enjoy mindlessly driving around. I would've much rather spent those dozens of hours chatting with other truckers, discussing various topics, informing each other of police and accidents and stuff, setting up stuff to do after shift or such. Why can't both ground be accomodated? If you don't want to use auto-drive, then... don't. No one is forcing you to, you're not losing anything if someone chooses to use the feature. And again, you can't just abandon your PC and do something else while your truck drives on its own. I don't know if you've ever used the feature but if you did, you'd know that there's a pretty high chance that the route gets completely messed up and, if you're not there in seconds, your vehicle either flips over or completely speeds off the road or into various stuff and crashes. You can't abandon your keyboard regardless.

 

And if you want to role-play with someone? Press I, go to the list of open businesses, then deliver to one of them, even if the route is not the most profitable. Chat with the employees, or role-play loading it in with them. Or talk to other truckers. Go out after work. Do small convoys. Start a trucker bar or stop on the side. Many possibilities.

[alina2137]

56 minutes ago, Mahitto said:

 

That can barely be called automation. It's a feature to allow text-based role-play to happen on a text-based role-play server. In real life, you can do more than one thing while driving. That's not the case here, hence why we need script support.

 

If you consider mindlessly pressing the arrow keys as fun, that's great for you. I don't understand why you argue the opposite on behalf of those who don't. I did role-play a trucker, I didn't enjoy mindlessly driving around. I would've much rather spent those dozens of hours chatting with other truckers, discussing various topics, informing each other of police and accidents and stuff, setting up stuff to do after shift or such. Why can't both ground be accomodated? If you don't want to use auto-drive, then... don't. No one is forcing you to, you're not losing anything if someone chooses to use the feature. And again, you can't just abandon your PC and do something else while your truck drives on its own. I don't know if you've ever used the feature but if you did, you'd know that there's a pretty high chance that the route gets completely messed up and, if you're not there in seconds, your vehicle either flips over or completely speeds off the road or into various stuff and crashes. You can't abandon your keyboard regardless.

 

And if you want to role-play with someone? Press I, go to the list of open businesses, then deliver to one of them, even if the route is not the most profitable. Chat with the employees, or role-play loading it in with them. Or talk to other truckers. Go out after work. Do small convoys. Start a trucker bar or stop on the side. Many possibilities.

Again, as a long haul trucker the last option sucks because of space limitations when you're driving anything bigger than a Mule. Taking up lots and lots of space to enjoy rp with people sucks for everyone involved and is, in my opinion quite a dick move. I do agree with everything else that you've said but I still do think that truckers are discouraged from roleplaying because they do not want to be a hassle and take up space for the purposes of roleplaying. If, like I said, we had van drivers and long haul trucking as two seperate jobs that wouldn't need grinding but instead simple licenses for specific vehicles so that we can filter out the retards, that would benefit the server in a huge way. You could be roleplaying with van drivers as a long haul trucker, separate out the cargo and such. There are endless possibilities but with the current script in place it promotes grinding, minimal roleplay and money making instead of actually valuable roleplay. I think that long haul drivers should be held to a much higher standard and perhaps they could move cargo to depots where it would be separated into smaller vans, Boxvilles and mayhaps Mules. Those aforementioned vehicles are perfect to be driven around the city to deliver, the longer, bigger trucks are a hassle and pain in the ass to even maneuver for most people. With that said and that option being available I do think that certain goods such as Vehicle Parts could still be moved straight for delivery by long haul truckers due to larger amounts of space being available at those garages, which isn't the case when you pull up to a 24/7 in Davis in a Pounder.

[Cypher99]

Some thoughts that come to mind:

 

1) Trucking gets boring. You burnout. You are required to use forced, repetitive action /me's that are disguised as "role play" but in reality just meant to prevent people from rushing the job without typing anything. Spoiler: It doesn't prevent anything. People still rush, copy/paste /me's, type stupidly bad /me's or none at all. It's a completely thankless and unappreciated job. Truckers are the lifeline to businesses, yet they are the ones who get insulted both OOC and IC on a daily basis. Police hate trucking companies and frequently ignore their calls (This is both an IC and OOC issue). Businesses just want their crates. There's a zero interaction factor for a trucker 99% of the time because when a business is open, they are focused on their customers and when the business is closed, truckers just spam their load & unload /me's over and over for nobody's benefit.

 

2) Payment system encourages rushing, which makes most people drive like shit and only deliver to the closest business to the supply points, thus painting truckers and trucking companies in a bad light to the rest of the server. Getting paid per job turns it into a speed over role play job. Businesses that are far away from the main supply points suffer and sometimes barely receive any crates at all. Change the payment to a flat hourly system like other jobs on the server and allow trucking companies to award bonuses through an IC manner, see how quickly things change.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Cypher99

[Mahitto]

5 hours ago, Cypher99 said:

Some thoughts that come to mind:

 

1) Trucking gets boring. You burnout. You are required to use forced, repetitive action /me's that are disguised as "role play" but in reality just meant to prevent people from rushing the job without typing anything. Spoiler: It doesn't prevent anything. People still rush, copy/paste /me's, type stupidly bad /me's or none at all. It's a completely thankless and unappreciated job. Truckers are the lifeline to businesses, yet they are the ones who get insulted both OOC and IC on a daily basis. Police hate trucking companies and frequently ignore their calls (This is both an IC and OOC issue). Businesses just want their crates. There's a zero interaction factor for a trucker 99% of the time because when a business is open, they are focused on their customers and when the business is closed, truckers just spam their load & unload /me's over and over for nobody's benefit.

 

2) Payment system encourages rushing, which makes most people drive like shit and only deliver to the closest business to the supply points, thus painting truckers and trucking companies in a bad light to the rest of the server. Getting paid per job turns it into a speed over role play job. Businesses that are far away from the main supply points suffer and sometimes barely receive any crates at all. Change the payment to a flat hourly system like other jobs on the server and allow trucking companies to award bonuses through an IC manner, see how quickly things change.

You know, this makes me wonder if it's even worth speaking out or making suggestions anymore. All of the stuff you mentioned is true, but more than that, it's well-known and it's common sense. It's been happening from the first moment the system was implemented and despite it being obvious, it's been living proof ever since. And nothing is being done about it.

 

Most, if not all of the issues that plague GTA World are constantly being brought up. For years on end (literally). Some are bigger than others, more urgent. Some take a stupidly short amount of time and effort to fix or look into. All of them are well-known by everyone - players, staff, management alike -, yet everyone seems to skeddadle around them and act as if they don't even exist. Quite literally nothing is being done about them.

 

Not to minimize the effort that was put into the community to bring it to this point, that didn't and won't go unnoticed, but isn't it a shame to see it all get put in jeopardy. It's like building a perfect, amazing, flashy Lamborghini Huracan from scratch and then driving it with your eyes closed.

[Paenymion]

1 hour ago, Mahitto said:

You know, this makes me wonder if it's even worth speaking out or making suggestions anymore.

 

I believe developers just work on what they feel like working on, so if nobody feels like working on the trucking system, nobody does.  But if somebody feels like making a new fishing script or adding a new speed radar, it's done.  Not ideal because it leads to things like this, but it is what it is.  They don't get paid so who is going to force them to work on something they won't enjoy?  Last I heard, they were looking to hire some Russian coders and "direct" them a bit more (new inventory system) but I would imagine the recent sanctions on Russia might have made that a bit more tricky (not a lawyer, just guessing).