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[Discussion] What can improve RP interactions between players and general RP standards?


Mistery14

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2 minutes ago, Zoinks said:

More people are joining, even if they're not very good/willing to become good and continue improving, leading to more people breaking the rules and needing admin supervision. Now admins have lost a trust in the playerbase to conduct good RP without their presence, so every unique/out of the box RP scenario is locked behind paperwork and the need for admins. Since you can't RP anything without ooc intervention, players get bored. Players seek fun, even if the RP doesn't add up for it, and become more susceptible to DM and rule breaks. These people either get banned or eventually give up and stop playing. Then a dip in the peak number of players happens, and there's a desire to get it back up, therefore letting in more people despite their quality of RP. Cycle repeats, and we have the server we have today.

Sadly this, a lot of people join and sees it more as a PvP game and due to the lack of RP some of these players do leads to more useless reports that the administrators need to deal with, leading to the more important reports being pushed aside just because some players can't be bothered to provide quality roleplay.
It also leads to the bad picture and reputation illegal/legal roleplayers have in general and thus ends up with the serious roleplayers getting the short end of the stick and their schemes are put behind a admin-wall to approve.

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35 minutes ago, bncal said:

I invite civilian (those who have never roleplayed illegal) roleplayers to play at least once in illegal factions such gangs, where those so called "(M) characters" are really important to the game. As we speak minor characters are considered bad and harmful from the civilians because most of them know little to nothing about character development or culture of gangs in general. Having experience in both sides will help you understand why THIS THING is happening to your character,  and WHY is needed to happen for the young criminal, it will open a world on why some zones are DANGER for your legal character and so on. If you want the best interaction and experience between illegal and legal,  then legal has to try illegal and see how lame is their behavior when they are """losing""" (you don't, in roleplay) being robbed or whatever is happening bad to them,  or just when they spot a minor character and tneyr heart begins to race. Because some legal's behavior on this server is toxic as fuck. 

 

If you genuinely think there are no other more unique and fun ways to experience roleplay on your young criminal character and the only thing you can think of is fucking with other people to prove yourself then I wholeheartedly believe you are part of the problem this thread is addressing. There are a ton of other ways to develop your underage gun toting serial-killer character without the need to bully and victimize other HARMLESS people. I roleplay both legal and illegal and my illegal characters would be way more impressed if your killer-chucky character messed with other criminals instead of innocent civilians. Right now it's basically like beating up someone in a wheelchair, the playing field isn't balanced at all so I don't even know why any of you think it's hard or cool to mess with people who have no means of retaliation. The ancient old saying "Pick on someone your own size" comes to mind, but we wouldn't want to risk our characters possibly having to take an L right? I'll get clowned by my homies on discord all day and screenshots could possibly be posted on the forums making me look weak!😂

 

OT: You're not really going to be able to improve the roleplay standards on this server anymore due to it having grown too large and a constant influx of new players from many different other games and communities who need time to adjust. Roleplay standard is extremely subjective too and hard to define. I think a good place to start is to start being harsher with admin punishment for repeat offenders and punishing faction leaders for not appropriately dealing internally with people who receive admin punishments. Factions are the core of this server and as long as they maintain a certain level of roleplay anyone else who wants to go places will have to follow up suit. Factions is where the most meaningful roleplay happens anyway and has the most impact on the server. 

Edited by Martyn
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kind of a harsh opinion incoming, don't ban me for it lol (it's just an opinion)

nothing can be done. this is simply the way of things. i'm not shitting on anybody when i say this but the golden age of gtaw is gone. that was 2020-early 2021 when the server was on the rise and then hit its peak of 1000 players like mid 2021 imo. it's happened to every community ive been in. wow, ESO,gw2, etc. the best of the best, the roleplayers who make you wanna play become jaded by the influx of terrible people with no consideration for the enjoyment of others and begin to leave one at a time. we're at that point i think now. more and more of the people who can actually write a compelling character and not a 2d shoota man with zero personality or a vapid, soulless erping mallrat are leaving every week for differing but related reasons, like being tired of DMers or poor robberies, or neglect for basic rp principle.
 

a community spawns, and the interested few delve into it and shape it into something good. then the trolls, bad rpers, power-hungry people and people with generally terrible attitudes towards rp all flock to it after hearing word of a rp heaven once it has established itself. a lot of good people join, but you start to get the slow trickle of bads come in. they taint it with their touch - perhaps not even intentionally, but soon enough the people that had a labour of love for their server no longer recognise it anymore and leave their project for the wolves when they realize it can't be salvaged. most vividly i witnessed this happen to the ESO community i was in and i was aware it was happening. it was tragic to watch the people i enjoyed playing with all leaving because the only new faces were usually always just terrible rpers who couldn't even bother using a capital letter and full stop and just powergamed constantly, inserting themselves into guilds and communities and ruining them with their mediocrity. there was even a mini exodus when i left, due to how few decent rpers remained at that point. nowadays? you'd be lucky to find even 1 rper on EU in that game. what you are seeing is a gradual decline, and it's natural. it won't be the end of gtaw, hell no, but we're past that point where the server is on the rise and those that had a clear vision are still around imo. we have an admin team of people from all different communities, with all different definitions of whats right and what's wrong and what they want for the server, who often disagree with each other, instead of unanimous unity forged by a newly formed community. in an effort to "fix" the mess, they add more bureaucracy which is just the death of creativity 

standards will drop over time unless you rule with an iron fist, it's natural. but we're not ruled with an iron fist, i mean just check ban appeals lol. people who mass DMed bc they got bored and said fuck gtaw and thought lsrp was gonna drop begging to be unbanned and they're actually getting unbanned some of them lmao. people don't learn from punishments, they just don't. you can tell when someone gets ajailed for some bullshit because the admin was tripping or there was a grey zone in the rules that they're not the same as someone who is a complete and utter waste of time and effort who will never change nor grasp the most crucial thing about rp - storytelling. they will just ban evade and come back and do it all over again, not grasping that they are the poison that pollutes the standards

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1 hour ago, Martyn said:

If you genuinely think there are no other more unique and fun ways to experience roleplay on your young criminal character and the only thing you can think of is fucking with other people to prove yourself then I wholeheartedly believe you are part of the problem this thread is addressing.

I didnt say this, rest of your reply is nonsense.  

 

 

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I've read each response and a lot of you, actually most of you make great points.

 

It's a combination of a little of everything - And I think the fact that we cannot currently trust players to have a semblance of self-reliance for a lot of RP scenarios and have to rely on admins to perform them reflect this apparent lack of trust. Look at the robbery rules that had to be enforced for example. They're necessary right now, but why weren't they as necessary when the server was still somewhat new? What shifted the priorities between money/assets, and RP?

 

Now, I've only been here for about 2 years but I still did witness a shift in behavior, it seems like with each passing year, RP is seen as more of an obstacle to assets and money. House flipping, car flipping, scummy OOC scams, botched robberies, and much more. Yes, these things existed for probably as long as the server was a thing in a way or another - But I think it's become standard and normalized for people to appreciate RP less and to favor assets because it's the most gratifying of the two.

 

I mean, it makes a bit of sense if you see it this way: People are seeing other's characters succeed and want to be just like them, but don't have the patience/time to do so without ultimately setting the bar low for RP, because, while you can have great RP and make money, it's much easier to disregard the RP side of things or lower your standards to become more efficient at collecting said money and assets. It's a matter of pushing as many buttons as you can and playing with as many technicalities in the rules as possible in order to achieve your goals. Add onto this the "Learning server" factor, and you've got a recipe for people taking advantage of it and keeping a "grind" and P2W mentality. The spiteful and somewhat hypocritical player reports I've seen somewhat confirms this. - A lot of players who set their RP standards low will wait for the opportunity to report an opposing party breaking the same rules they are often guilty of breaking themselves and grab the opportunity to turn the tables to make it seem like they are the better players when they in fact, are not, and merely wants to grab every chance they can get to get both an IC, and OOC advantage over players. It's not true for every report, so take it with a grain of salt but I still think it's a thing.

 

A lot of people are playing on the server in a way that was never intended to be played, yet that way is the easiest path to take, and the rewards to make your character successful heavily outweighs the consequences of taking the easiest and consequently, the most damaging path for both the server and its players. The quote "It's easier to say sorry than to ask for permission" applies differently but very well to GTA W.

 

The quality of RP is therefore no longer a standard set by the server but is instead set by the players, and good roleplayers can be tempted to either leave or fall into that path because they feel they are increasingly being let down and that their efforts to RP properly don't seem to be recognized or matter all that much anymore. People praise decent RP when it should be a norm. In addition to that, new players who are more exposed to that low quality RP are going to be left thinking that it's normal and are going to follow through with the bad examples and only add to the problem.

Edited by Mistery14
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10 minutes ago, Mistery14 said:

A lot of people are playing on the server in a way that was never intended to be played, yet that way is the easiest path to take, and the rewards to make your character successful heavily outweighs the consequences of taking the easiest and consequently, the most damaging path for both the server and its players.

 

 

@Mistery14The current playerbase is more focused on collect as much assets as they can instead of just log in and roleplay. This server has more self inserts than actual characters because they were given somehow the idea of "social hub" or something like that. 

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19 minutes ago, bncal said:

 

@Mistery14The current playerbase is more focused on collect as much assets as they can instead of just log in and roleplay. This server has more self inserts than actual characters because they were given somehow the idea of "social hub" or something like that. 

 

I don't particularly mind self inserts if they are RPing their character (And, I guess, themselves?) properly, each to their own. But when it starts to be more about money and assets and notoriety, and less about actual RP then yeah, definitely is a problem. You can build your own notoriety and wealth without taking the easy path of disregarding RP. If people damage other people's RP experience just to feel like being more important than them, then they're missing the point of roleplay. No one matters, no one is the main character, we're all supposed to be a tiny cog in the machine of a fictional society and nothing more, lots of people tend to forget that a lot.

Edited by Mistery14
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2 hours ago, Martyn said:

without the need to bully and victimize other HARMLESS people

 

This is unironically, the literal definition of being a criminal.

 

You can't be a criminal and not do this, unless you exclusively rob/kill other criminals, which is incredibly ballsy/dangerous.

 

Most criminals are criminals because it's an easy way to make money/gain respect. 

 

2 hours ago, Martyn said:

so I don't even know why any of you think it's hard or cool to mess with people who have no means of retaliation.

 

Because it's easy. Because, just as in real life, "marks" are the best target for crimes. 

 

Why on earth wouldn't you victimize random civilians? 

 

I don't understand this criticism because it seems to lack a fundamental understanding of why people turn to illegal activities both in-real-life and ingame. Crime is the /easy/ way out. That's the entire point of it.

 

Things that criminal roleplayers need to focus on in order to have strong characters: Emotional development, facing the consequences of their actions, moral regression/or progression, vices/addictions, normal relationships, life outside of their hustle.

 

Things that criminal roleplayers absolutely do not need to focus on: Finding victims who aren't "harmless" or only victimizing people their own size who can defend themselves. 

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24 minutes ago, Mistery14 said:

They're necessary right now, but why weren't they as necessary when the server was still somewhat new?

 

They never were necessary, they aren't now and they never will be.

 

There's rules all over the place, most of which are suggested by the players themselves, and yet the same topics keep showing up in this section over and over and over again. It doesn't need much more evidence to prove that a good 75% of the regulations currently in place are completely pointless and only serve to frustrate players who genuinely want to RP and overstretch staff resources who'd be better focused on catching and punishing actual rulebreakers instead of people who failed to articulate why the want to open an LCN crew in Los Santos.

 

24 minutes ago, Mistery14 said:

What shifted the priorities between money/assets, and RP?

 

The server did by purposefully making players aim towards the lowest common denominator. Anything that is even remotely creative requires miles of red tape and staff supervision and/or support (neither of which are easy to achieve for a multitude of factors). On top of that, if you were to take the chance, you always run the risk of the powers that be barging in and force disbanding you because your concept doesn't fit with the server (despite the server continuity being extremely unclear on what fits) , or get dragged to the RP court because someone reported you for "poor portrayal".

 

So people take the path of least resistance and do whatever is least likely to get them in trouble: in the case of cops is run-and-gun "RP", in the case of criminal roleplayers is low-level crimes with no impulse control and for everyone else is the hoarding of money and assets. 

 

Not allowing people to be creative shifted the priorities.

 

24 minutes ago, Mistery14 said:

A lot of people are playing on the server in a way that was never intended to be played, yet that way is the easiest path to take, and the rewards to make your character successful heavily outweighs the consequences of taking the easiest and consequently, the most damaging path for both the server and its players.

 

In yet another example of self-created issues, if you drive away all those that roleplay for the sake of roleplaying because their views don't align perfectly with your own, then all that'll be left are those who roleplay for other ends. 

 

We all sleep in the bed we make.

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