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

[Exodus]

6 minutes ago, Xaleya said:

I could reach you via discord for further inquiry?

Sure, I PMed you my Discord.

[DasFroggy]

1 hour ago, Barbary said:

Well it would be nice if there were other options for newcomers or newly minted characters to get their foot in the door with more white collar jobs.

 

I'll throw this in as my opinion as a still very new member of this community; the onboarding for new community members is not good. Especially if you want to play a character with a formal higher education that's below the level of a Doctorate or PhD. There's very little for someone to do if they want to RP as someone who's an educated in Social Science, Economy, STEM (Yes I know Aurum exists, I'll get to that and this isn't their fault) and really anything that isn't Medicine or Law. And even in the case of Medicine your best bet is Pillbox, LSFD or the Coroner's office.

This in my opinion is what leads to your average rando on the street having a PhD and making nothing of it, as it was mentioned before when describing 'Mallrats'. Still don't know what that is, but I genuinely think that's why. There's no value on server for being educated, there's no real way to implement or or craft a character or story that uses an already achieved education as a springboard. The most prevalent, available jobs are all high school level and blue collar. Driving trucks, fixing cars, being a bartender, working at a club or running your own start up business. We're willing to provide room for there to be a working class, but not a working class that spends most of their days partaking in things that still have strong social RP aspects but aren't places where the public will regularly filter in and out.

 

Someone mentioned Aurum, though from a different topic. Aurum and the City Government feel like the only two options you really have to run to if you want to RP a proper Engineer. And in both cases you have to be specific kinds of Engineer, because the RP they do is focused on construction and energy. So if you want to be, say, a Chemist. Congrats, you're screwed. There's no biotech firms on the server. No chemical plants unless you want to cook up drugs illegally. No powerplant to speak of, which I actually find very strange because I'd argue RPing an overworked electrical engineer having to make sure the whole island doesn't end up like North Korea would be pretty entertaining, even if it wouldn't provide constant action.

 

Hell there isn't really even a way for businesses to compete or ally with one another. Now I'm going off on a lark here, and someone who actually runs a business can correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've seen there's little conflict RP between corporations here beyond occasionally butting heads with the LSPD over something or other.

 

Personal example, I've got two characters. One's a guy who's fresh out of College with a BS in Psychology, the other's a former Marine with a BS in Chemical Engineering. I can't really use either of their backgrounds. Character #1 hasn't gone to Grad school yet, there's no way in hell he could open up a private practice and Pillbox wouldn't hire him unless he had a PhD or a Masters degree. Character #2's only option... is Aurum. Which isn't a bad option because of how it's run, I've never been part of the faction so I can't comment, but the fact that it's the only real option leads me to believe that it's a fragile stance.

 

If we really want to improve RP interactions between players, we need to provide more avenues for people to RP as well. Everyone is a bartender with a PhD because bartenders are in high demand, they pay great and they've got a framework to run on. But if we had more paths for people to go down to play educated characters. Low tier executives, deputy chief engineers, the upper-middle class, then maybe we'd see less people defaulting to mallrat RP. Or Gangbanger RP. Or cop RP.

 

LFM needs more factions. That's my biggest suggestion. Because I might be in the minority, but RPing a boardroom of bickering TV execs sounds fun to me. Or, I'm a fuckin' weirdo and everyone else would rather do what they're doing.

 

A big problem I've been hitting with this is that white collar jobs simply can't exist in the currently LFM preferred environment. We come to play this game to ESCAPE, and have fun. 

 

That doesn't work with white collar work requiring an education.

 

If you take five times surfing competition national champion Surfbro McCoolwave and pit him against Mike the average guy from Idaho in a surfing competition, who's going to win? Odds lean almost hilariously in favor of the surfing champion. Same applies for a market. You pit a real world accountant with business manager experience against eight guys pretending to be office workers, the real world business manager is probably going to win out against the others.

 

...and LFM has made it abundantly clear, a player created job/business/profession will NOT receive support if it can't be profitable. It MUST sell SOMETHING, and be profitable in doing so. No aid or assistance will be rendered if the business foregoes profit in pursuit of roleplay.

 

Now, before someone steps in to say "That's not what we said..." I'll point out that I've had this conversation with LFM twice now, and both times the turnaround was when I pointed out that sustainable white collar roleplay I was interested in, couldn't survive on profit from players alone. At that point they shrugged and said "Yeah" without seeing the problem.

 

The problem is that u less LFM is willing to prop it up, the only white collar jobs we're going to have are going to be actual jobs requiring an actual education. Unsurprisingly, those tend to dry up quick, because not many people have that education, and the businesses that don't require it run the risk of being dismantled when better equipped competitors start winning over the profits.

 

It's a weird situation.

[Barbary]

3 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

 

A big problem I've been hitting with this is that white collar jobs simply can't exist in the currently LFM preferred environment. We come to play this game to ESCAPE, and have fun. 

 

That doesn't work with white collar work requiring an education.

 

I'm going to challenge this, because I don't think that's true. I think that white-collar RP can be fun if you dramatize it, similar to shows you see on TV. Things won't be one-to-one realistic, but they shouldn't exactly for the reason you listed. But if you give people the ability to RP their own version of Suits, or Royal Pains, or Monk, or Mad Men or The Newsroom I do think that can and is fun.

 

That being said...

 

5 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

...and LFM has made it abundantly clear, a player created job/business/profession will NOT receive support if it can't be profitable. It MUST sell SOMETHING, and be profitable in doing so. No aid or assistance will be rendered if the business foregoes profit in pursuit of roleplay.

 

This is a major problem. We're a roleplay server. We're here to roleplay, not make virtual dollars. I thought that was the whole point of the free $200K stimulus you get over the first 40 hours, to make sure no one had to be paranoid about money. If what your saying is true, then LFM has a major goal problem in my blunt opinion. A legal faction should be built up based on the RP it provides, not the revenue it brings in. Because last I checked Los Santos Public Services fixing roads or the SAPA Longshoremen operating the docks didn't really make any profit at all.

[Orpheus49]

No offense to the people who help run this server, but I'd they are so busy with real life responsibilities, why do they take other responsibilities or even "handle" reports and never do for long periods of time?

 

It makes no sense to me, if there's people who have more time to take it, why not deligate it to them instead?

[pendeja]

Not you guys hiding @goonbagAPPEAL's comment before taking responsibility..... 🍵

[PrinceCane]

5 hours ago, Orpheus49 said:

No offense to the people who help run this server, but I'd they are so busy with real life responsibilities, why do they take other responsibilities or even "handle" reports and never do for long periods of time?

 

It makes no sense to me, if there's people who have more time to take it, why not deligate it to them instead?

I kinda feel that forum reports are left in the dust sometimes.

[Farrell]

42 minutes ago, PrinceCane said:

I kinda feel that forum reports are left in the dust sometimes.

Just check the report a player section. There's stuff there from the beginning of May. It really makes you question the process of handling reports and why so many go ignored.

[Jeroen]

For those interested in some interesting white collar work.

If you become an administrative clerk in the LSPD, you can apply to become a Licensing Assistants in the Firearms Licensing Division.

 

Your work will be pretty easy OOCly, you'll help speed up the application process for applicants, and you'll earn the wage of an administrative clerk as you work.

As someone who hates paperwork, it's actually pretty fun to get to know FLD from behind the scenes. The FLD site gets rid of most of the annoying forum work.

 

Here's a link to the internal job opening, it's a secondary assignment. https://lspd.gta.world/viewtopic.php?f=1942&t=66461

[Vermouth]

banning ERP 

[pendeja]

7 minutes ago, Vermouth said:

banning ERP 

??????? Let's not get too crazy COME ON