A discussion regarding population

[Sunni]

On 9/23/2022 at 8:04 AM, PrinceCane said:

Its not that deep.

 

It really isn't.

 

If only people stopped spending so much time and effort on such minor details. People have probably spent over 24 hours arguing in this thread, time that could've been spent roleplaying.

[kuchera]

The second you start adding Fake NPCs is when the rule gets crazy. 
 

“He shouldn’t have stabbed me up in the bathroom realistically like eight people would be in a bathroom at a club”

[joebidensmokesyesca]

Doesn't work, how are you going to decide which area has X amount of people and which area has X amount of people? How do you decide if a random person walks into the alley and spots you while robbing someone... How to decide if someone calls the cops vs doesn't call the cops. 

 

Too many questions, too many headaches

 

keep population ic 

[Kari]

The obvious answer is that you can reference the population being millions, but not roleplay it. 

This same thing can be used when travelling to paleto. 

'Oh man, that was a long drive.' But you don't pretend it was an hour.

'Man. Traffic was bad today.' because it's a city of millions. But you don't /me every fake car in the road.

People shouldn't exist where people don't, it's frankly unfair. If you find a quiet spot to commit a crime.. you find a quiet spot. But at the same time, we should at least *reference* issues that would come up as a result of a largely populated city. 

It's just an odd case of suspending disbelief and referencing a thing without actively roleplaying it. 

bit weird, but. 

[Narco]

I always treated it as if I was visiting LA in real life, such as if I'm in Rancho / Davis, I'm in the literal ghetto and I'm driving through not hopping out getting by. If I'm in Vespucci? I'm not getting into any gunfights, that's a really main populated / popular area in LA in real life which I believe mimics parts of the Santa Monica Pier etc. To each their own but personally I try to play as realistically as possible. 

 

I always found it funny when people murder in broad daylight in these super popular areas because they aren't OOC safezones although realistically there would be almost no way they'd get away with doing it therefore the risk wouldn't be worth the reward. Everyone is going to portray / roleplay in different ways, some more realistic than others. All boils down to how serious someone takes their character / the server and how play to win they are. 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Narco

[radreaper100]

1 hour ago, Narco said:

I always treated it as if I was visiting LA in real life, such as if I'm in Rancho / Davis, I'm in the literal ghetto and I'm driving through not hopping out getting by. If I'm in Vespucci? I'm not getting into any gunfights, that's a really main populated / popular area in LA in real life which I believe mimics parts of the Santa Monica Pier etc. To each their own but personally I try to play as realistically as possible. 

 

I always found it funny when people murder in broad daylight in these super popular areas because they aren't OOC safezones although realistically there would be almost no way they'd get away with doing it therefore the risk wouldn't be worth the reward. Everyone is going to portray / roleplay in different ways, some more realistic than others. All boils down to how serious someone takes their character / the server and how play to win they are. 

 

the pier is a shithole rife with crime n homelessness

[dionkoffie]

6 minutes ago, radreaper100 said:

 

the pier is a shithole rife with crime n homelessness

 

I disagree and somewhat agree. The pier is really safe and flooded with security and police. I never felt unsafe at the pier or Santa Monica in general. Yes, I've been there at night too.

The homeless people is a problem but that goes for the rest of LA too. They mostly leave you alone and won't bother you. 

[radreaper100]

8 minutes ago, dionkoffie said:

 

I disagree and somewhat agree. The pier is really safe and flooded with security and police. I never felt unsafe at the pier or Santa Monica in general. Yes, I've been there at night too.

The homeless people is a problem but that goes for the rest of LA too. They mostly leave you alone and won't bother you. 

 

i wasnt crazy fond of it on my trip but shit changes

[Jennie]

If there are 200 players online there are only 200 living in LS, it's what IFM stated long time ago.

[KaythPlus]

On 9/18/2022 at 8:10 PM, SearAgenda said:

I'm not 100% sure why the debate has to be either "it's a ghost-town" or "there's an NPC on every street corner," making crime impossible except within the confines of a private dwelling? Can't the non-player population be implicit rather than explicit? It's stupid to say that Los Santos actually just has a population of just 600-2000, period. There's way too much infrastructure for that population size and, quite frankly, you wouldn't have such a concentration of culture, crime, industry, and commerce in what would amount to a small coastal hamlet. However, it is equally illogical and unimplementable to say that NPC "witnesses" can exist in-game. That sounds like a massive headache that would lead to almost every criminal act ending in OOC reports of lack-of-fear roleplay.

 

Some zones of the city would realistically be packed pretty much 24 hours a day (eg. most of the places that are already crime-restricted zones). That doesn't mean that crime would be impossible, it would just mean that someone would definitely call the cops on you if you committed a very overt crime out on the sidewalk. Beyond that, the rest of the population would be implied, but never really shown or interacted with. Given the rate of violent crime in Los Santos, it does make pretty good sense that a large swath of the population would keep to themselves for the most part. In my earlier post on this thread, I speculated that, based on the size and equivalent population density, Los Santos is likely to have a population of around 65,000 persons. This means that, on average, 1% (650 players) of the population is actively out and about. In reality, most people don't spend the majority of their day on the streets. Instead, they are at their place of work, at home making meals for themselves/watching TV/playing games/working out. So, I don't even think that percentage is absurdly low.

 

That should've ended the thread here three months ago. There's no need to care so much about something like this and it certainly shouldn't be one way or the other. If you want to argue that an infrastructure like Los Santos would only house a couple thousand, I don't see the realism in that at all or how your character justifies or makes sense of Los Santos. I wont say much more since the post above should've been the conclusion. We can have a population that makes sense without having to NPC or see them.

 

6 hours ago, Jennie said:

If there are 200 players online there are only 200 living in LS, it's what IFM stated long time ago.

 

Out of all of the arguments this is the most silly. So if there are 50-60 people on the server (which occasionally happens with rage-downtime, issues) the population is suddenly 50 people? The population fluxuates minute by minute and as people log out they're no longer part of it?

 

---

 

It was probably irrelevent to bump this three-month old thread as the arguments are going in the same circle as they were 3 months ago.

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by KaythPlus