Ill chip in my 2 cents here from a staff and long term arma/fiveM player.
From the staff POV, obviously everyone knows we try to do what we can and be there when people need us and be FAIR. Fair does not always go the way people want it too and yes, pisses people off sometimes. Sometimes we come across as dicks or harsh on unban appeals and such but all the issues you face in game and on forums WE have to deal with. Everyone gets tired of having to say JUST ROLEPLAY. Yes, start of arma things were nice, staff did not have to intervene much and for the most part things did just run. However now, were in a different world. Everyone is a Karen, everyone wants to speak to the manager and nobody wants to be wrong. But in this community, its the staffs way and thats regulated to be fair in all cases. A lot of new people have come from other communities where they have not been running for 7 years and they have no idea how under the thumb we all are as staff to maintain fairness. This also goes for devs, they do what they do the best they can and they play the server a lot too, they want to create fun things for all. Which is why im glad this is called the state of RP.
Roleplay is the thing we all should be here for and try to provide, i know i myself banged on about high quality roleplay in Arma and i was not staff then, far from it. But that wasnt roleplay back then, we just wanted to kill shit and do enough roleplay to be able to do so which i can admit now. I would hate for this to go that way also. The state of roleplay is NOT something that is fixed by any dev/staff intervention. Everyone always says "give us more criminal stuff to do" "we need more content" but roleplay is exactly what you make it. Nobody is playing a character here. There are a few that are worth mentioning:
Buk Ling (Drew) - He streams this character, yes he breaks the law he is a dodgy taxi man and gets into trouble and when he does he owns it and makes the interaction fun for all. Yes, obvisuly he is staff and he can roleplay very well and some people dont want to dedicate so much into there character. BUT we all can take some aspects of character roleplay on board.
Father Augustus - Obviously we all know the father, when he first came into the city i tried to get him selling guns in his church and he was having none of it. He was solely here for the roleplay of the father. This led him to be a leader of people and in the end a leader of the Apostles. Now, im sure he could agree that the weight of that group was almost only on his shoulders. The general players all the people below him looked up to him and if he was on, more of them were on which is normal. What im saying is people need characters and i know to this day the father tries his best to NOT follow this shit meta of 'someone looks at you funny, kill dump' which we can only commend and this is what is needed from a group leader.
Shephard - Im not going to say much here but from my POV from knowing him. Every character was roleplayed well and he tried his best to make each experience a good laugh for all. Regardless.
Im sure there are others but ill stop there.
So that then leads me onto the gangs.. where i could rant about this for days but ill try keep it short. They dont make sense to me. At all.
The gangs started with a clear vision and set enemies and such but now... have become massive groups of friends that interbreed and marry one and other. I think A LOT of the roleplay on the server now falls on the heads of the gang leaders, i think they are the ones that should be looking and reading this critisism about the gangs and trying to do what they can to change the gang in a better way. They have the means to do so and if they dont, they shouldnt be leading the gang.
Street gangs as far as i see should be defending there turf, half of them just knock about doing whatever and you dont see them on that turf. If im a random civ walking down the street of grove i should be questioned who the hell i am and why im on there block. The police should feel intimidated to go to these gang turfs and attempt to stop the people dealing and the gangs should be the ones supplying and protecting there block. Which we only see when its one of there people being arrested. What about the people who pay tax? they paying it just to let police sit in your alley and you watch them get arrested and do nothing.
Im all for gangs beefing and like i said earlier the gangs dont do it, little beefs here and there but it should be good long standing beefs that leave people on edge. You should in theory not like any other gang and as far as im concerned the friendships/marrages that go from one gang to the next are fucking stupid. A blood and a crip aint gonna be friends in no world. Point blank. I do not think that the gang system in my opinion is working as intended and all i see it as right now is a just a stepping stone to go from average civ to "gangster" a gangster who calls the police, snitches and calls to liaison as soon as something does not go there way. I HATE how when one gang and another have a dispute suddenly EVERY other gang needs to come and chip in because the person something happened too is someones distant cousin and its some other gangs mom or sister who is married to jon from the ballas and is the stepson of a vagos member. IMO gangs need to be stricter, gang leaders need to be the ones there to put things into place and come up with ROLEPLAY scenarios that could end good or bad for that gang and just roll with it.
@Qrow(John Pope - Ex lost MC President) used to do this, we used to fucking hate it sometimes because he would go off on his own, fuck something up on purpose (ooc) then we all have to deal with it in game. BUT what he was doing was creating RP scenarios. Ultimately, in doing that we had a lot of trouble BUT it got the Lost MC active and doing things again because there was things to do. Thats what all leaders i think should be doing.
Im not saying these things here to bash gangs or any leaders im just saying you are gang leader and have been chosen because you have been deemed capable of controllling the direction of YOUR gang in all aspects. The only reason that the state of RP is being spoken about as a server wide issue is because everyone and every gang are so interlinked. If triads were providing shit RP consistently it would be very easy to deal with from a staff POV if all the other gangs were acting different and doing there own thing. BUT as it stands, if triads are then ballas are most likely with them acting the same then Mara might be allied and involved again. Thats my point.
I would just love gang leaders to even OOC arrange things with other gang leaders OUT of game to direct a roleplay story in a certain way and see how it plays out. One side will win, one will lose. Im not saying use OOC to come up with storylines to fake it in RP at all here either, just lets try to do something. The people in gangs day to day would probably be almost half the server.
Police are always held accountable and are ALWAYS bashed if they are too harsh or not. This will always be the case but if your breaking the law, your breaking the law. Yes in arma if you were seen doing something you could fabricate some bullshit story and if the cop liked it, yes he would let you go with your MK1 on your back haha. BUT FiveM is a whole different ball game, they are there to RP and if your RP is criminal they will fuck you for it. In arma, people didnt want to spend the 30 mins processing you, RPing and sending you jail because nobody really cared. They just wanted to get to the next panic haha. Here, they are almost forced into it and rightly so. (not all cases, we all know trojan will let you off with anything for a panic
but thats there job ay)
NHS tend to be and always have been the best roleplayers you can expect. People join with that intention and thats why you hardly ever see them. Its not cool enough to be a medic, is it 'fam'
Overall, staff always try to police and point the server in the best quality roleplay but we cant control peoples anger and ego at other players. Its YOU reading this that needs to change. Allow yourself to lose, allow yourself to have fun and most importantly try to make it fun for the other person involved. If you dont like that person in character still make it fun, if you dont like that person OOC then grow up. Avoid them but if you do have to deal with them in RP put it aside.
Everyone is here to try spend some time having a laugh, not every situation will go the way you think it will but just try have a good time anyway.
Been a while since i wrote a big post.
Im out
