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Hey everyone!
I just want to do a quick survey. All of us pretty much left, and I'm curious to know why. Don't overthink the questions, just answer it for what it is.
1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
Here are mine:
1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Not much to do. When I try to take initiative, it swiftly gets shut down, or put to a vote like we're running an actual country here, not a SAMP server. And it takes months before they "vote" on it or a decision is made, and by that time, I've moved on to bigger better things.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
Loosen up, give ACTIVE players what they want to make it more entertaining for everyone.
Thanks for ur time.
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The people I have played with do know that I am not one of those who give up easily. But now, I feel like I am just fed up of this.
I have basically tried a lot and failed to such an extent, that I feel being pushed away from the server at this point. Hell all of the roleplays I have been doing are heavily player dependant. With LITERALLY nobody in-game, how do you expect me to stick around?
I can't sit inside an ATC Tower with zero players, let alone pilots. I can't drive around in a News Van or fly a News Maverick around the state when there's nothing to cover. I can't keep on with /ad' ing my "Private Detective" advertisements, or keep on doing /loadwear whenever I get ingame because it is getting ridiculous at this moment when I don't even have any person I can call a client.
And after all these failed attempts, I'm just tired and can't even deny KJones' suggestion on SanTV Closure. I haven't run out of ideas, but probably, I have just run out of motivation to play anymore.
I spent part of my life on this community that could have been utilised for something else in my life, I've spend sleepless nights just for the sake of fun and with the aim to see my ideas succeed, but everything has failed. I blamed myself for it, but eventually, I stopped blaming myself for everything.
I am still waiting for the ATC suggestions by me and Gruia and other numerous suggestions by other players to get approved, which "Aren't a priority for now", according to the HQ. I believe having a good player base isn't even a priority for the HQ anymore. And I'm not entirely blaming it on the HQ, I am not going to blame it on anyone, but I just hope everyone realised their own fault.
With this hopelessness, I eventually gave up and stopped logging in like a regular freak I was.
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The people I have played with do know that I am not one of those who give up easily. But now, I feel like I am just fed up of this.
I have basically tried a lot and failed to such an extent, that I feel being pushed away from the server at this point. Hell all of the roleplays I have been doing are heavily player dependant. With LITERALLY nobody in-game, how do you expect me to stick around?
I can't sit inside an ATC Tower with zero players, let alone pilots. I can't drive around in a News Van or fly a News Maverick around the state when there's nothing to cover. I can't keep on with /ad' ing my "Private Detective" advertisements, or keep on doing /loadwear whenever I get ingame because it is getting ridiculous at this moment when I don't even have any person I can call a client.
And after all these failed attempts, I'm just tired and can't even deny KJones' suggestion on SanTV Closure. I haven't run out of ideas, but probably, I have just run out of motivation to play anymore.
I spent part of my life on this community that could have been utilised for something else in my life, I've spend sleepless nights just for the sake of fun and with the aim to see my ideas succeed, but everything has failed. I blamed myself for it, but eventually, I stopped blaming myself for everything.
I am still waiting for the ATC suggestions by me and Gruia and other numerous suggestions by other players to get approved, which "Aren't a priority for now", according to the HQ. I believe having a good player base isn't even a priority for the HQ anymore. And I'm not entirely blaming it on the HQ, I am not going to blame it on anyone, but I just hope everyone realised their own fault.
With this hopelessness, I eventually gave up and stopped logging in like a regular freak I was.
Fair, unique situation that prob could've been fixed easily. Thanks for sharing
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Work. Simple as that. The holiday season is happening at work, so I'm having to do 12-hour nights. Combine that with an hour-long commute, and by the time I get home, I'm too tired to play.
That and other games and their disappointments (looking at you Battlefield and Halo) had me playing them and whatnot.
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Work. Simple as that. The holiday season is happening at work, so I'm having to do 12-hour nights. Combine that with an hour-long commute, and by the time I get home, I'm too tired to play.
That and other games and their disappointments (looking at you Battlefield and Halo) had me playing them and whatnot.
Understandable - thanks for sharing and hope work eases up on you soon!
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
University.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
Do my homeworks and exams and I will come.
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Log into what? The server is dead... every time the playerbase tries, it dies off again sooner or later, and when its on a good situation and alive, there is so much frustration in game. Sure there are good times, but most is ... meh. I mainly still hang around for the good old times and the friends I made, and enjoy playing with.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
I don't know... I think the game itself is the problem, its outdated, I think we should move on. Most people who tend to play this, its because they cant afford to run anything better on their PC.
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Simple - I grew up and adult life does not allow me to be as active as before. Work's been very heavy considering the pandemic.
Work aside, I honestly do not find any incentive to head In Game. It has become redundant to go around in the same circle of trial and error for the past couple of years. Whenever I was IG I found a serious lack of things to do. There was no incentive or appeal to both civilian and criminal roleplay. Last few months of my activity, aside from the elections, was doomed by the same cycle of repetitive scenarios and mediocre roleplay. This unfortunately is not something that can be changed by rules or incentives from HQ or Development. We had the 5-10 regulars, who honestly did not provide enough diversity in the interactions and the multiple attempts to either revive something different or bring up something new were either shut down due to the players "being toxic" and removed from the community, or simply the lack of interest and support from the rest of the active playerbase. I understand and respect HQ's priorities IRL and would like to thank them for the effort of the elections, however being elected as Mayor did not lead to a single development of what was initially discussed. I am not sure if any of my proposed changes were applied post-election(e.g. Casino which was rushed prior to the results coming out). Andy was more focused on fixing bugs and QOL improvements and I did not receive any feedback or updates from SAMP HQ, thus unfortunately my promises and ideas were left only as such.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
A time machine :lol: In all seriousness, I may tune in for a few hours every now and then, but I do not plan or see any potential fulltime returns. I'm just too burned out. Perhaps get rid of the insanity that has been going on for the past years? I believe the majority can agree, that per Vaas Montenegro's definition of insanity - we've been insane for quite a while now.
https://youtu.be/uDoSy1WiYfU
PS: Unlike previous periods of inactivity that may have been caused by HQ's approach and methods, I would like to say that I am 100% behind JDC and all of his ideas and will continue supporting to my capabilities. Unfortunately, this is much like the Titanic changing their Captain after it hit the iceberg. You may struggle to keep it afloat, hell, you might even succeed to delay the inevitable. But the ship is already sinking and all we're left with are the lifeboats, which by themselves are not sufficient to keep the ship from sinking.
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Not much to do. When I try to take initiative, it swiftly gets shut down, or put to a vote like we're running an actual country here, not a SAMP server. And it takes months before they "vote" on it or a decision is made, and by that time, I've moved on to bigger better things.
The people I have played with do know that I am not one of those who give up easily. But now, I feel like I am just fed up of this.
I have basically tried a lot and failed to such an extent, that I feel being pushed away from the server at this point. Hell all of the roleplays I have been doing are heavily player dependant. With LITERALLY nobody in-game, how do you expect me to stick around?
I can't sit inside an ATC Tower with zero players, let alone pilots. I can't drive around in a News Van or fly a News Maverick around the state when there's nothing to cover. I can't keep on with /ad' ing my "Private Detective" advertisements, or keep on doing /loadwear whenever I get ingame because it is getting ridiculous at this moment when I don't even have any person I can call a client.
And after all these failed attempts, I'm just tired and can't even deny KJones' suggestion on SanTV Closure. I haven't run out of ideas, but probably, I have just run out of motivation to play anymore.
I spent part of my life on this community that could have been utilised for something else in my life, I've spend sleepless nights just for the sake of fun and with the aim to see my ideas succeed, but everything has failed. I blamed myself for it, but eventually, I stopped blaming myself for everything.
I am still waiting for the ATC suggestions by me and Gruia and other numerous suggestions by other players to get approved, which "Aren't a priority for now", according to the HQ. I believe having a good player base isn't even a priority for the HQ anymore. And I'm not entirely blaming it on the HQ, I am not going to blame it on anyone, but I just hope everyone realised their own fault.
With this hopelessness, I eventually gave up and stopped logging in like a regular freak I was.
These quotes sum it up for me too. Progression is honestly too slow, especially from HQ. However, that's not my sole reason, of course. The primary reason is that there are just no inciting factors for me to get in-game anymore. Honestly, I've lost interest in Argonath SA:MP for the most part, and even SA:MP to some extent. Will I pop in on occasion? Perhaps.
I'll only play something if I enjoy it, and unfortunately SA:MP Argonath isn't that enjoyable for me anymore. Still, if as a player, you are motivated to play or something will motivate you enough to bring you back, sure, enjoy.
I enjoy playing other games nowadays.
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Does anyone see we can write more reasons why for the first question, but not the second one? My reply would probably look the same.
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Does anyone see we can write more reasons why for the first question, but not the second one? My reply would probably look the same.
Based on the sample provided here - it's issues that are kind of out of the control of the server leaders/developers.
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Thanks to everyone that responded!
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1) Life, and inactivity of other players.
At one point I became an adult with adult things to do and had to choose with one server to stick with, so I stuck with VC:MP, since I always felt there at home the most. However, SA:MP was a big part of my time here in Argonath and I was hoping I could get back to it once I had more time. Now that I do, the server is dead, but to be frank, VC:MP isn't doing that well either anymore.
2) Can there be something done to be frank? Argonath has had its day. We've been here.. a while. And I think we have been too slow to adapt new things. GTA V was released for ages and Argonath was at least like a few years late to jump on the wagon. Remember Nokia - too little too late. I think this can be applied to Argonath as well.
I think a lot of players left because they were upset how they were treated in the pre-Teddy era. When the server became a little more open and democratic, it was already too late. Given the age of the game, I do not believe that it is possible to gather a new server base anymore. I believe that Argonath only has a future if people move onto the upcoming FiveM and let go of the old servers. SA:MP itself is abandoned as a client. Kalcor left, and quite openly said that "Opening a new server in SAMP is no longer worth it". I think whoever's left should invest their time into the GTA V iterations of the server (current legacy RageMP, and upcoming FiveM), and the Argonath HQ should look for new horizons.
However, even with FiveM, everyone and their grandma has a roleplay server these days. Maybe Argonath should consider stepping out of the RP/RPG scene and create something new and unique, as it once used to be when it started?
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
There is a list of reasons, which are all a result of an escalation of results caused by the SA:MP HQ(s). Result? Lose of conviction and desire to play, knowing that everything can be turned around 180 degrees with the twist of a finger. Why would I spend time on a server, when I am not certain my participation to it will even be usefull?
People have been idling in circles and are inconsistent in their decisions.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
You cannot.
I have no desire to return to SA:MP or Argonath as a whole, knowing I have found a better community elsewhere. While I do miss some people, the injustice done to some people of the community is astonishing and is against what this very community was build against.
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Lack of players
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
Get players
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Jokes aside... SAMP is an old game, I guess that's the main reason. Plus most of our veteran players are adults now, some have wives, kids etc. (not me thankfully lol). My job is quite stress-free and I could manage to play games during free time, but right now there's better stuff to do in my spare time. Especially considering the current activty (0/85 most of the time). I do miss the old shootouts and I'm still waiting for my revenge on LS groups, but it doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. Too bad. I'll keep my fingers crossed and my shotgun clean though
Cheers
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Lack of activity.
I did spend a fair amount of time explaining and proposing a couple of additional features for the SA:MP server a couple of months back, when I was top 5 in activity at the time.
Nobody actually took the time to read between the lines and get to know the point, sadly this very outcome is what I truly feared.
The server was getting closer and closer to becoming dead again; and here we are.
Active players always seek for something to keep them interested, even subconsciously.
Sadly the ego of some and the emphasis on the title of the topic I guess pushed it down to the archives.
Perhaps this time then..
A few proposals (https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129812.msg2008778#msg2008778).
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I feel like I haven't left because I'm still constantly checking the ARPD Forums every once in a while. :lol:
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Here are mine:
1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Not much to do. When I try to take initiative, it swiftly gets shut down, or put to a vote like we're running an actual country here, not a SAMP server. And it takes months before they "vote" on it or a decision is made, and by that time, I've moved on to bigger better things.
Too relatable unfortunately.. Maybe not the immidiate reason I no longer login, but surely the reason it got over time drowned as a lower priority more and more.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?[/b][/u][/size]
Solve that ^^ 1. and come up with a well-thought plan, recognise entertainment as the NO.1 reason you're choosing to spend your free time somewhere and strive towards making a healthy enviroment and an active, fast and open minded leadership. I mean how is it possible to not already have recognized that we don't have the luxury to have "bureaucracy" and by-the-book no-reason time wasting methods.. at least before shit hits the fan for good, try that.
I can't really tell if it's too late anymore, almost all if not all HQs have found their way to discourage the most motivated players, blow shit up and then disappear once their master plan failed. I know for sure that it's too late for me time-wise, since I wanted to support JDC and I can't. So much ego and pride that lead us here for what? are we so rotten that there is greediness even in a small-scale community/server?
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I don't see this topic that useful or productive, at least for me. All I can say is that development will continue and I'll continue adding and fixing things. If you want to chat about the server, you can hit me up on Discord.
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I don't see this topic that useful or productive, at least for me. All I can say is that development will continue and I'll continue adding and fixing things. If you want to chat about the server, you can hit me up on Discord.
The reason I created this topic was for the people responsible for leading to see their players concerns and hopefully address them.
Like I said on Discord, you and JDC are currently the only 2 people trying to improve things, and that is greatly appreciated. Nothing said in this topic is directed at you or blamed on you.
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For fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9zaZik3n2E
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Hola,
After a lengthy discussion on discord, we've made a full circle to where we were yesterday, yay!
So, I'll put here what I put in discord:
Every single player that responded to this topic, or got involved in the discord conversation expressed concern and puts the blame on HQ.
Every HQ member that responded has said "We hear your concern and are doing our best" or "Nah, all is well things are working as they should it's the players that aren't interested".
I see two possible explanations for the radically different views:
1. HQ is out of touch and does not care about the players
2. Players are not providing enough information/feedback or expressing concern to HQ.
Seeing as topics like this have been created before, I don't think it's #2.
At this point, I am asking for HQ to be transparent with players and answer this:
- Will you do anything to help, like right now? Not two years down the road.
Note: If you don't know where to start, take a look at the responses on this thread and pick one.
I am asking that @JDC and @Badandy stay out of this and allow someone else to answer.
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:gand:
I thought about this further and wanted to share my thoughts in a more expanded fashion.
I believe the underline problem is the lack of activity. The problem of lack of activity can be expanded into the following three reasons:
- Age of server and abilities
- Lack of inbound traffic and discoverability
- Lack of community ownership and direction
Age of server and abilities
GTA:SA was released on October 26, 2004. That's over 17 years ago. SA:MP was released several years after that. We're talking about a piece of software that is not only old but also abandoned by the owner. The original iPhone was released around the same time SA:MP was. On the flip side, the reality is that there is though still demand for old games. One successful revival is Old School Runescape. Games like these live in a special place in our hearts because of how much time we spent playing them when growing up.
Argonath's SA:MP server in general has not changed drastically since RS4. Sure, there has been some additional UI changes, new jobs, and group system but in general it's the same product for the last almost ten years. This is not to discount the amount of work done by the developers. But to be honest, the main core system has been exactly the same for the last ten years.
If you are a new player coming into the server you'll realize that there is no end goal. There is no incentive. You just grind to make money. Buy properties. Buy vehicles. Buy weapons. There is no endgame. You work and then buy. No satisfaction.
My suggestion: we need to figure out the identity of the server and the main core objective. This could be through missions. This could be through interactive interactions. But at the end, there needs to be a reason for why someone will want to come on. That something cannot be that they can get more virtual stuff.
Lack of inbound traffic and discoverability
The thing that is holding Argonath together right now is community. It's the reason we all come back and check forums on a daily basis. It's the reason we sit in Discord and engage in chats. But one of the pitfalls with Argonath in general is that our inbound/outbound has been lack luster.
We have not spent an adequate amount of time on growing our audience and getting our name out there. We're stuck in think that if we build, people will come. In reality, this method rarely works. The way you get new people to find your product and service is through advertisement - whether directly or indirectly. Originally, I think this was the goal with the original advertisement team.
My suggestion: we should create more content to get people excited to try out our servers. We should expand to other games. We should sponsor events with famous streamers to get others to check us out.
Lack of community ownership and direction
This one is the elephant in our room. Our owners are absent. Based on some conversations with HQ - they are alive but they are busy with other work and only respond when there is downtime. It's hard to be in a ship with no captain. Yes, we have community leaders but even those seem to only check in every once in a while just make sure that the place isn't on fire. The reality of our situation is that we lack direction. We have several servers being pulled in various directions without any clear indication on where they should be heading.
What made Argonath work original was engaged owners + an active, healthy community. When owners are involved - they know exactly where they want to lead the next iteration and know exactly the pulse of where things are happening. If the owners are absent, the community is left scrambling over visions and past glory days. I proposed potentially acquiring Argonath a couple years ago as a way to try to lead it. Looking back at it now, it feels more like a savior complex than anything else.
We have a community. We have people constantly coming back to the server and forums. But we're not harnessing them and utilizing them properly. Take a look at TheGreasyChopper suggestions as an example. Take a look at Thom's suggestions. We have people who want to help and be involved.
My suggestion: we need the owners and leadership to be actively involved in discussions with the community and not just leading in directions they think are right. I would also suggest going from Argonath RPG to plainly Argonath and expand to other games and game modes.
Those are just my thoughts on this and I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes. I welcome everyone to challenge them.
10/10 - Quoting in case we go to next page and I want this visible.
Another suggestion: Enlist Greasy, Thom, and others in the HQ, give them the rights and authority to make changes, there is literally no downhill from where we're at right now.
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:gand:
10/10 - Quoting in case we go to next page and I want this visible.
Another suggestion: Enlist Greasy, Thom, and others in the HQ, give them the rights and authority to make changes, there is literally no downhill from where we're at right now.
All I can see is a cliff and a fall now.
Let's just say "Sauron save us all" like they do in the movies.
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Another suggestion: Enlist Greasy, Thom, and others in the HQ, give them the rights and authority to make changes, there is literally no downhill from where we're at right now.
(https://i.ibb.co/tssJjSz/np0hy38vfxm61.jpg) (https://ibb.co/swwVxhC)
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My suggestion: we need to figure out the identity of the server and the main core objective. This could be through missions. This could be through interactive interactions. But at the end, there needs to be a reason for why someone will want to come on. That something cannot be that they can get more virtual stuff.
I agree with this 100%. I also agree with the other points Nathan stated but this resonated with me the most. From a development perspective, this hits a problem on it's head. Over the years we have had different visions and developers taking the server us in different directions. I also agree that the server isn't that fun to play. Getting virual stuff that barely does anything isn't an incentive. I believe the current RageMP server has that issue as well as I played on it, you grind to get money to buy things that don't really matter. The first steps I took to address is this to fix old features and also introduce the interaction system to unify how to play on the server. This progress is no where close to what is needed. I know I'm slow at getting updates out. This is mostly my issue though, development and planning takes most of my time. The good news is, I'm not waiting around to get anything approved. Typically, I can get an idea approved and moving into development / more planning in a few days. Though as addressed by others, this isn't a 100% development issue and some say it's not at all. I do think the server has many issues that are scripted related that leads to players not enjoying the server and not playing.
I thought about quitting development and moving onto other projects but I have decided to continue so I can finish ambitious goals of mine along with what players want. From my perspective and powers, I'm hoping to create a better server over time but I am running against a clock since SAMP itself is dying. I don't consider that I'm wasting my time, I still want to develop things on this platform since it's a challenge and fun. I understand everyone's frustration, I have been there in the past. I can't promise to fix this community or server, I don't think anyone can. I'm just going to try my best now in this moment to give a better experience to who remain in the matter I can. That's life, I guess.
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I would probably play here and there if there was unlimited inventory space. I can't do much in the game since my inventory is way over above full capacity, so I don't have any desire to do anything in the game except talk to people. :lol:
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(https://c.tenor.com/cJRcMyUAiMcAAAAC/ah-shit-here-we-go-again-ah-shit.gif)
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Another suggestion: Enlist Greasy, Thom, and others in the HQ, give them the rights and authority to make changes, there is literally no downhill from where we're at right now.
Don't throw me under the bus like that :uhm: :lol: I'm afraid I do not have neither the time or the qualities for that position. I'm always open to give suggestions and discuss with HQ, helping them in any way needed. But being part of it is just not my thing, I'd rather not have to become the scapegoat for the server's issues.
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Again, I don't think the underlining issue is HQ necessary. I will say that JDC with the power of Badandy is a good combination. One of the best in my recent memory.
The bigger issue is the overall objective of the server and lack of server owners to lead in a direction. Community building is hard and there is a reason why most of us still login on a weekly basis to the forums.
10/10 - you're on point with what you are saying. Community building requires constant support and interaction.
Helping people figure things out, making things possible for players, incentivizing, etc. JDC and Badandy so far are taking on development, punishments, events, group management, community building, and probably a lot more we don't know about, and I think they are stretched thin.
I proposed something a while back, and maybe they will reconsider soon.
Assign a manager for community building
Assign a manager for Group Relations & Status
Assign a manager for punishments
Pros:
-Each of those is intertwined with the others, having 3 different people leading disables 1 person to have absolute control over all players, on all fronts.
-If one for whatever reason goes inactive, things keep moving by either assigning someone else, or have the other two fill in temporarily
-Three different perspectives is in all cases better than having only one.
Cons:
I really don't see any.
Another thing: Why are we afraid of quick turnovers? We're not married to each other. If some dude from 2018 owns a premium CB or a phone number, and hasn't logged in a while, give it out to someone active?
If some guy just logs in to pay taxes, give their shit out to someone active.
We can do better, I just don't know if we want to.
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Quote instead of modify - my bad
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I would just like to add and respond to the points by Nathan, if I may.
And before I get the good old "you don't even play" tune, let me clarify something, and hopefully this is to be the last time I have to. I have started Argonath in VC:MP, that is true, and always felt biased towards that server, mostly due to the fact that I felt that the community there is much more integral and accepting. However, there has been a significant period of time of several years where I no-lifed the shit out of Argonath SA:MP, somewhere from 2010 to 2015. I used to be a very active part of the server, sometimes not missing a day a week. So I got to see a little bit of RS3, then RS4, and the disastrous launch of RS5. I only completely stopped playing in 2016 due to going to the army, and then joining a university, at which point I went back to VC:MP full-time.
The first thing that caught my eye is that you think the owners should be more involved. My belief is: no fucking way.
I firmly believe that what has happened to Argonath is the responsibility, to an extent, of the RS4 era HQ, but most notably, the fault of the owners themselves.
I am sorry if I offend anyone, but RS4 era administration and server management were notorious for being fucking twats. They were rude, they were unprofessional, they were arrogant with their heads so far up their arses they forgot what sunshine looks like. Because Argonath had the numbers back then, they felt like they could treat players like yesterdays garbage. The notorious origins of "You don't like it - leave it" began in RS4, and the cancerous phrase was being thrown around to shut down anyone rooting for change, or trying to bring up any social issues of the server. Unfortunately, people seem to have learnt to take that advice.
However, they had a good role model to be like that - the server owners. They are some of the most arrogant, ignorant, and powertrippy people I have ever seen in the history of gaming. So many ideas that could have made Argonath "more modern", more appealing to current and new players alike, were shut down just because the owners said no, despite most people wanting to see these things implemented. Servers and communities were progressing, moving forward, taking advantage of the new functions new SAMP clients offered, but not Argonath. Argonath was stagnating, because "MUH VISION, MUH SERVER". RS5 came out, and it was a disaster. Every single one of those arrogant shits left with their tails between their legs and Teddy took over for damage control. He did all he could, and server saw so much positive change under his leadership, and it felt like players were being listened to at last. But even then, the owners were actively stopping Teddy from implementing features that the server community wanted implemented. I mean, if someone with as much patience and integrity as Teddy, just said fuck it and left , what do you expect? People get tired of being treated like irrelevant turds.
They are despots, always have been, and still are, and probably will remain to be. As someone has pointed out - Argonath, or rather what's left of it, has a serious Stockholm Syndrome issue. I find it hard to put into words how ridiculously funny it is to read Gandalf's and Aragorn's bullshit in their five hundreth "we are back" announcement. Even now, when community is pretty much breathing out its last breaths, they still find the audacity to be fucking smug, to be rude, and to insult the few players who are still left and keeping the community alive. They still have the audacity, after always conveniently disappearing during difficult times, to come back and start pointing fingers, and questioning the only few people left who give two shits in keeping Argonath together. And there are still sheep who stand by them. It's ridiculous, it's funny, and painful to watch. Like an agony of a dead spider. And how did that work out - after promising bunch of shit they just disappeared again, after probably making good two-three more people leave with their shitty attitude.
Please note how VC:MP, which had little to no involvement from the server owners, and in a way became independent of them, held out the longest.
Any involvement from the server owners has been nothing but disaster for the server ever since 2012. You want to keep this community alive and have atleast the slightest chance of reviving it, you better make damn sure they go back to hybernation and stay hybernating.
Peace.
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Hey Huntsman, long time no see old friend. I hope life's treating you well. While I partial agree with some of your sentences, I still cannot hold back to express my own opinion regarding certain statements of yours, again. :D
and Teddy took over for damage control. He did all he could, and server saw so much positive change under his leadership, and it felt like players were being listened to at last. But even then, the owners were actively stopping Teddy from implementing features that the server community wanted implemented. I mean, if someone with as much patience and integrity as Teddy, just said fuck it and left , what do you expect? People get tired of being treated like irrelevant turds.
While I did respect Teddy as an individual to a certain extent and also believed, just like you, that he was the most ideal person to lead the SAMP community as a whole, he was not really the person you think he was. Gandalf has publicly stated (when they were on good terms) that Teddy had snuck his way into the management strictly for his scripting and developing capacity and not his leadership qualities or vision, as well as the absence of solid candidates for the role at the time. It is in Gandalf's honor that he actually stepped forth and admitted that fact when he really never had to.
People like you, and I am sorry to put it this way, that never really had the slightest clue of what was really going on beneath the table, and they had only met the surface, I guess considered Teddy SAMP's savior.
Teddy had formed a certain group of individuals around him during his reign, most notably MadBoi aka Devin, and gave them a pass in doing whatever they fuck they wanted to do in-game. Whether it was rulebreaking with undercover accounts or anything spineless of the kind really. This certain HQ was in a very close relationship with the biggest crime families and always favoured them in ban cases, as well as other in-game matters whether it was corrupted funding, and a wider manipulation of in-game gameplay, completely ruining the fun of others and even making them walk away by twisting facts. In short, they gave their veterans, as most of you like to call yourselves, a "do whatever the fuck you want as long as it's not too obvious" freedom pass kind of thing. That is why certain """" veterans """" here keep barking that all of the recent HQs are crap and always blame it on them. They've grown to like the privileges they used to have and started bitching since day one when they realized that the corruption is finally done. I can go further and further into this but I do not wish to name the said groups, I'm assuming most of us here have an idea, they will probably come out of their holes to bitch and mock at any remaining life here on this server anyway.
In their defense, they were very active and knew every aspect of the SAMP community at the time, so in order to balance things out they kind of shared a piece of the cake with other regulars so everyone had a fair share all around by simply making THE WEIRDEST moderator waves every three months to players that were completely random at the time. Again, I do not wish to share any sort of names, I'm sure you'd know if you were this active as you claim.
To sum this up, yes, Gandalf and Aragorn are not present and failed to keep their promises to this community on multiple cases but one thing is definitely certain; they never lied about the identity and direction this community's at, unlike MANY others surrounding the SAMP management as a whole. Let that sink in, and for once, stop taking it to the server owners, it really is overdone.
I will finally agree with Nathan once more about pretty much all he has proposed so far and my general vote about a potential leader in the future for a certain entity (SAMP or whatever) goes to him, that's if he doesn't lose his temper here and there. :D
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(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/SpecificSelfassuredHermitcrab-max-1mb.gif)
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Hey Huntsman, long time no see old friend. I hope life's treating you well. While I partial agree with some of your sentences, I still cannot hold back to express my own opinion regarding certain statements of yours, again. :D
and Teddy took over for damage control. He did all he could, and server saw so much positive change under his leadership, and it felt like players were being listened to at last. But even then, the owners were actively stopping Teddy from implementing features that the server community wanted implemented. I mean, if someone with as much patience and integrity as Teddy, just said fuck it and left , what do you expect? People get tired of being treated like irrelevant turds.
While I did respect Teddy as an individual to a certain extent and also believed, just like you, that he was the most ideal person to lead the SAMP community as a whole, he was not really the person you think he was. Gandalf has publicly stated (when they were on good terms) that Teddy had snuck his way into the management strictly for his scripting and developing capacity and not his leadership qualities or vision, as well as the absence of solid candidates for the role at the time. It is in Gandalf's honor that he actually stepped forth and admitted that fact when he really never had to.
People like you, and I am sorry to put it this way, that never really had the slightest clue of what was really going on beneath the table, and they had only met the surface, I guess considered Teddy SAMP's savior.
Teddy had formed a certain group of individuals around him during his reign, most notably MadBoi aka Devin, and gave them a pass in doing whatever they fuck they wanted to do in-game. Whether it was rulebreaking with undercover accounts or anything spineless of the kind really. This certain HQ was in a very close relationship with the biggest crime families and always favoured them in ban cases, as well as other in-game matters whether it was corrupted funding, and a wider manipulation of in-game gameplay, completely ruining the fun of others and even making them walk away by twisting facts. In short, they gave their veterans, as most of you like to call yourselves, a "do whatever the fuck you want as long as it's not too obvious" freedom pass kind of thing. That is why certain """" veterans """" here keep barking that all of the recent HQs are crap and always blame it on them. They've grown to like the privileges they used to have and started bitching since day one when they realized that the corruption is finally done. I can go further and further into this but I do not wish to name the said groups, I'm assuming most of us here have an idea, they will probably come out of their holes to bitch and mock at any remaining life here on this server anyway.
In their defense, they were very active and knew every aspect of the SAMP community at the time, so in order to balance things out they kind of shared a piece of the cake with other regulars so everyone had a fair share all around by simply making THE WEIRDEST moderator waves every three months to players that were completely random at the time. Again, I do not wish to share any sort of names, I'm sure you'd know if you were this active as you claim.
To sum this up, yes, Gandalf and Aragorn are not present and failed to keep their promises to this community on multiple cases but one thing is definitely certain; they never lied about the identity and direction this community's at, unlike MANY others surrounding the SAMP management as a whole. Let that sink in, and for once, stop taking it to the server owners, it really is overdone.
I will finally agree with Nathan once more about pretty much all he has proposed so far and my general vote about a potential leader in the future for a certain entity (SAMP or whatever) goes to him, that's if he doesn't lose his temper here and there. :D
Thanks for your reply.
Certainly, I never knew what was going on behind the curtain, that is true. I have no basis to reject your arguments at all.
Whatever went on inside though, Teddy felt like a fresh breeze of air. After a rather dictatorial leadership of the RS4 era people, it felt like people were actually being listened to at once. Can that make the other things you mentioned.. forgivable? I don't know, guess that's up for the peeps to decide. For me, I guess yes.
I wouldn't like to be grouped under the "veterans like you" label. I never really criticised the recent HQs, for one because I can't, as I haven't seen them in action directly due to having abandoned SAMP at around 2017, but from what I see, I think they actually did the best they could to control the damage inflicted by previous HQs. Unfortunately, too little too late, I guess.
Let's not forget that a large chunk of what happened can be blamed on a bunch of "veterans" who have ended up creating their own copycat community out of spite, seeing how one of them got banned and the few others have lost their power positions.
I still think that the point itself does stand though - owners are nothing but bad news and their involvement must kept to a minimum, if any, at all. They might have not lied about the direction, but I believe that this insistance on the particular direction is what killed the community. The direction was outdated, too conservative, and too change resistant. Too bad there were no people around deviant enough to deviate from it completely.
I guess in order for Argonath to have any chance in revival, it desperately needs a new direction. The "old" one has nothing new or appealing in current day that would attract new players, and is no longer unique as it used to be. I still think that Argonath's best bet is focusing on the newer games, and FiveM to begin with .I know this hurts to hear, as we all have respective sentiments attached to SAMP, or VCMP. But these are done for. I don't think that it's possible to revive a server for games that old.
Nice for the both of us to have a civilised discussion, at last, though. :hah:
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Let's not forget that a large chunk of what happened can be blamed on a bunch of "veterans" who have ended up creating their own copycat community out of spite, seeing how one of them got banned and the few others have lost their power positions.
Argonath was founded because the founders could no longer find themselves agreeing with the happenings on another community, so they decided to create their own community which thrived to success because of the open natured, strong admin team.
And there is no point in lying to ourselves, the "open natured, strong admin team" has not been a thing for a while. JDC and Andy have the correct attitude and approach, but those before them left a mess that's very hard to clean up and fix.
You cannot blame "veterans" for doing the exact same thing that Argo was built on.
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Let's not forget that a large chunk of what happened can be blamed on a bunch of "veterans" who have ended up creating their own copycat community out of spite, seeing how one of them got banned and the few others have lost their power positions.
Argonath was founded because the founders could no longer find themselves agreeing with the happenings on another community, so they decided to create their own community which thrived to success because of the open natured, strong admin team.
And there is no point in lying to ourselves, the "open natured, strong admin team" has not been a thing for a while. JDC and Andy have the correct attitude and approach, but those before them left a mess that's very hard to clean up and fix.
You cannot blame "veterans" for doing the exact same thing that Argo was built on.
It's not really the same thing. They did it for all the wrong reasons. Argonath was relatively fine when it happened. The people who did it simply could not cope with the fact they lost positions of power, and the loss was well deserved. They did it out of spite, and power hunger.
Would not be mad if the copycat was any good. However, it does not, not even remotely, match the quality of what Argonath was, and is just a cheap powergrab copycat attempt by people that are in no position to lead something like this.
The copycat is kept afloat by giving out positions and power to people that didn't deserve it in Argonath. Go figure.
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Let's not forget that a large chunk of what happened can be blamed on a bunch of "veterans" who have ended up creating their own copycat community out of spite, seeing how one of them got banned and the few others have lost their power positions.
Argonath was founded because the founders could no longer find themselves agreeing with the happenings on another community, so they decided to create their own community which thrived to success because of the open natured, strong admin team.
And there is no point in lying to ourselves, the "open natured, strong admin team" has not been a thing for a while. JDC and Andy have the correct attitude and approach, but those before them left a mess that's very hard to clean up and fix.
You cannot blame "veterans" for doing the exact same thing that Argo was built on.
It's not really the same thing. They did it for all the wrong reasons. Argonath was relatively fine when it happened. The people who did it simply could not cope with the fact they lost positions of power, and the loss was well deserved. They did it out of spite, and power hunger.
Would not be mad if the copycat was any good. However, it does not, not even remotely, match the quality of what Argonath was, and is just a cheap powergrab copycat attempt by people that are in no position to lead something like this.
The copycat is kept afloat by giving out positions and power to people that didn't deserve it in Argonath. Go figure.
Sounds like issues of a different community. The moment they leave and start doing their own thing - it is not our community's problem. Leaving to do your own thing should be a right to anyone and you shouldn't bash people for doing it. There are no right or wrong reasons - everyone is free to leave whenever he or she pleases. Many people were doing their own thing, it's not just the one you're discussing. (This was not something new. (https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=80502.msg1254988#msg1254988))
If the copycat is not as good, why be mad about it? If you want them to change and improve - talk to them, not to us. We're trying to figure out how to get the SAMP server back on it's feet at least, these people are not a concern for us, nor a resource we should consider.
Bringing up other communities in threads like this is counter-productive and derailing. So let us focus on SAMP at the time being and help Andy and JDC figure out a way to get things back on track.
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Well, I disagree with that Huntsman. It was simply an incentive, and it worked.
If people felt like they were being treated unfairly and the need to leave - they're probably right.
Passing the blame doesn't do much, but it seems like we also don't know how to take accountability or figure out a correct approach for the issue.
By the looks of it, this will be another topic that gets locked or simply dies down because of time, because since it's creation, which was a week ago, @Badandy has been the only one that communicated anything with players. I can't be the only one getting a bad impression here?
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Lots of real life obligations, I'm no longer a teenager who can play day 'n night. I think most of us can agree on that one. I log in once to twice a week though, I haven't really left.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
Copy the copycat. :lol: It seems like the new generations like things scripted way more than roleplaying in third person.
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Why did I 'leave' SAMP
Some catch up for people that weren't around or just were unaware.
A few years ago I left Argonath because I was tired of the bias, corruption and overall shit behavior of the general community, people only cared for power, being the best, most powerful, richest, make your pick everything was a challenge.
Servers within the community were fighting amongst each other, those supposedly in charge of leading the servers or community cared little for the people that played on it, the staff or the general community.
I worked my way up to lead stunt and team speak at this point, both had to shut down because support was just too minimal, I had no access to either of the servers to actually manage them, update them, fix critical issues.
I stayed as a webmaster as it's been a passion and I wanted to guide someone in to the system once someone capable was ready.
16 months later I returned to SAMP as a regular player, there was a new community leader at this point, Carbon.
I reinstated as admin, quickly became senior, then manager. Then a few months after that, I became division leader together with Bengt.
Server did good, we didn't have many developers but we slowly started recruiting more people, I did some minor coding work myself, and we slowly got back towards 50-100 players on a daily basis.
I went on a small vacation with my family, a few days in I got a message saying that "access was revoked" from division leaders, we weren't sure at this point what access it was but we quickly found out that all our access to the database, virtual machine it was hosted on, and even some in-game commands and panel features were removed from us. Apparently, we didn't need them, the developers could handle it (To note, this was instigated by a developer I recruited and managed myself, who went over our heads to get access and then lock us out). Division leaders could not do much on SAMP anymore, it took several weeks before we were given access to basic logs. To add to this, no development work was being done other than a windows update on the VM, which ended up crashing and required Gandalf. In turn causing 3 days of server downtime, which I could've told them would happen had they decided to work as a team and talk about things.
Bengt left the team, and I followed shortly after.
I'm telling you this for several reasons.
Working as a team, especially in a HQ position requires you to actually work as a team. This is something that only changed after Kessu, Senate, Warren and myself became community leaders. I was working with Kessu for years at that point, Senate was someone I was in regular contact too, and Warren was someone new to me, new to many but has been an excellent addition to the team providing us with unparalleled tech skills and a wonderful future to look for in GTA V. In turn we made the community HQ teams closer, providing close channels with the other servers and keeping in regular contact with everyone. Fighting with each other was one of the biggest issues with past HQs, people felt like because they were HQ or staff in a certain server they were better than others, refused to use the skills and experience of others and preferred going at things solo.
With that, I want to say that if you want to help the community it is good to remember that none of us is perfect, neither are we all cut from the same cloth. We all have a unique skillset and view of the world and how to do things. I'd also like to remind people that if you want a position that this is earned. Work with the team and show them what you're worth and what you can offer. You don't need to be in the server for hundreds of hours. I'd much rather you have a good personality and a focus on wanting to help the players and the community. Being in a position just so you can have power is not only a selfish move but it's also something you can see doesn't work if you look at the history of the community. Something that is also important is willing to accept feedback, if you work as a team people won't always see things the same way, people have different experiences so its good to remember that the whole point of a discussion is the variety in opinions. Badandy speaks a lot with the players but he also talks to HQ a lot, we give him feedback and together we shape how things get in to the server, to ensure its fair to everyone. No decision is made by just one person and you often realize things you didn't know before by just listening to others.
Like Kessu said on Discord, my DMs are open for anyone. On the forums and on Discord and am more than happy to get to know you and learn about how you can help us, and if you present something properly it'll always be shared with the team.
I'm also down to have lengthy discussions so long they're fair and respectful.
I think its also good to remember that we're all here to enjoy this community, which is provided to us for free. None of the staff have been or are expecting to be paid.
I'd like to think that most of us that do come back do so because they care about the community and enjoy seeing old and new friends and interact with them.
No one is or should be obligated to do anything, it's us who make the community, together. Everyone is responsible for what direction the community heads in to, if we want change we have to be the change together.
I'll now reply to a few of the comments on the thread to hopefully provide more context.
Add more HQ
If someone competent wants to step forward for a HQ position and is able to commit time the server they're free to contact myself or Kessu. But they have to make that decision themselves. We're also not going to just add HQ to have more HQ members, people have to be trained, they've to be familiar with the team, willing to work as a team. Plus they'd need the leadership skills required.
My suggestion: we need to figure out the identity of the server and the main core objective. This could be through missions. This could be through interactive interactions. But at the end, there needs to be a reason for why someone will want to come on. That something cannot be that they can get more virtual stuff.
This is already the plan but we're only one developer on a platform that has been crumbling apart, who also works for free while having significant real life obligations. I'd love to see the server expand but that all relies on the manpower behind the push.
I think part of the reason we haven't completely died off yet is that each server seems to be decentralized from each other. Kessu leads his world. JDC leads his. If we, as a community, decide that we like this model, I'd purpose that we continue evolving as a community and expand past RPG and to other game modes.
Two responses on this one. While the servers all have their own vision, the leaders and HQ do have regular communication and give eachother advice. The specific servers HQ is in control of their own server but we're definitely not as far apart as we were years ago.
As for the expanding from RPG, I feel we've already done that. I've recommended several servers and have even tried getting some set up in the past but a lot of that is reliant on having a good server to host on. At times the owners have been able to provide that but we haven't really had much control or ability over the VMs as we'd like/ need.
The new machine we use for SAMP is good enough for SAMP but we'd need a decent upgrade would we want to host different servers, but we'd definitely be down.
To note on to that, a reminder that more servers also require people to administrate and manage the server, which depending on the kind of game could be hard to find. Depending on the game servers could also remain empty for quite long while waiting for major updates/ seasonal times.
By the looks of it, this will be another topic that gets locked or simply dies down because of time, because since it's creation, which was a week ago, @Badandy has been the only one that communicated anything with players.
Why on earth would we advise people to communicate with us, and then lock their topic. Not to forget the topic has only seen lengthy responses in the past few days, and I'd like to take my time for my replies.
You also said don't overthink the question and you wanted to do a quick survey, which tend to take a few days to get answers.
I can't be the only one getting a bad impression here?
So am I by comments like that and seeing yet again a topic like this that was aimed to provide animosity and the them vs us mentality. If you want to help you have to give us something that tells us you are who we are looking for.
Just read through the comments of the thread you created and you'll see that adding HQ just because is not going to solve any of the problems, it'll just bring you the ones we've already had.
We welcome your opinion, your experiences and the knowledge you've build up over the years but you seem to not be willing to accept the same of others, just because someone has a different opinion or point of view than you doesn't mean you have to become hostile with them. If you can do better then put in the work and prove to use what you're worth. JDC put in a hell of an effort with a presentation and was clear he was more than happy to work as a team. I'm sure he and I both agree he isn't perfect just like I'm not perfect, nor are any of us, but working as a team and communication is a major step forward.
I'd also recommend to read Kessus message in the #samp channel of the global Argonath discord he made some good points.
Talking is good but blaming one another isn't going to get you anywhere. Also remember to use common sense, having an idea is great but remember that not every idea is executable, do we have the resources, the manpower or even the need for the idea and how many people will it positively affect.
I'd happily answer any questions but please try to stay somewhat on-topic.
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Why did I leave?
Decisions made by people that I didn't agree with.
What would I want to have changed?
A general idea of where the server wants to go would be nice. I wouldn't mind if decisions made didn't live up to my expectations, but at least stand by those decisions instead of changing them a couple months later.
Kowalski was given SAFD and tried to make it work, he brought me in and we did the job like we intended: Roleplaying and making reports for everyone to see.
All good and well, it lasted a month and then someone from higher up decided, without any real explanation, to relieve Kowalski from his position because they wanted to follow a different path. I do not like to be played with like a pawn in a big chess play so I swiftly departed.
Credit's supposed to be given where credit's due.
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Something that keeps coming up is the direction of the server. I'm going to put in some serious effort into getting a topic made so I can outline the development vision along with the overall server vision and future. All of which will be discussed with HQ and agreed upon. I'll aim to have a statement about our vision for the server in January so we can start the new year off strong. Right now I'm focusing on wrapping up things before the end of the year.
What I can say right now is that my personal vision that I have discussed with players and HQ is that we need a server that is more rewarding to play along with allowing for more creative gameplay, rather than just grinding. Some ideas like vehicle objects will be looked at very soon (within this week) to see how fast we can create this feature to our standards. We also have to consider making the server easier to play which is why I created the Interaction System and that will be updated soon to include more support for actions. A new tutorial is also on the table to be done. Player freedom to be more creative, players interacting with each other in meaningful ways offline and online, and making the server more enjoyable than a total grind are my goals. I think SAMP has a lot to offer, it may be old but as an outsider to SAMP development, I think I can bring a new perspective of what is possible.
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why did i leave? because i had a feeling that the playerbase will sink like a titanic and never come back,now whatever you do however you try,you cant get back that fun we had few years ago.
the reason for playerbase dying is HQ and nobody else, bad managment,lack of interest and more....
Players now are cooled of with ArgonathRPG SAMP, and i dont think they will ever come back.
Finally this time players banned the HQ, i love to see this server growing back but i don't think it will happen.
I am always in the shadows and monitoring the situation with the community,but let's be real...
RIP........
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why did i leave? because i had a feeling that the playerbase will sink like a titanic and never come back,now whatever you do however you try,you cant get back that fun we had few years ago.
the reason for playerbase dying is HQ and nobody else, bad managment,lack of interest and more....
Players now are cooled of with ArgonathRPG SAMP, and i dont think they will ever come back.
I am always in the shadows and monitoring the situation with the community,but let's be real...
RIP........
HQ isn't the only reason the server's player base has shrunk. The server may not be what it used to be but we can still have fun and create new fun with it with the people who remain or show up.
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I think those who left aren't here to answer why they left.
I wouldn't blame the HQs of past & present, because they can only do so much -- they do not take over all of the authority and responsibilities of the owners in their absence, and so whenever there's an issue that escalates to their level, it remains unresolved until they're around, and that complicates things tenfold. With limited authority and ability there is a limit to what you can accomplish. Teamwork is not always possible when a part of the team is simply missing. Walking in circles and acknowledging the issues (even agreeing on what should be done) without doing anything about them is also not everyone's cup of tea.
As for Argo's SA-MP server, it was always (I played from ~2007 until RS5) unique enough to stand out on its own. RS5, however, seemed to be a vinaigrette of various ideas borrowed from various other servers. That script didn't feel like a spiritual successor to RS4, and that's what many wanted, myself included. It was also way too overhyped before its release, nearly as bad as cyberpunk 2077. Didn't live up to the hype, obviously.
I lost count of how many times was the script written, rewritten, tossed away, and replaced with something else. Why? Big mystery still, nobody knows. What I'd want to see is a well-rounded game-mode that would last and be built upon and improved. You're not supposed to copy-paste other servers; you're supposed to make things other servers don't have. But creativity seems to be frowned upon in the GTA community: just look at the GTA V community where everybody's making their own clone of a certain server—the one the twitch-streaming baboons prefer—hoping to succeed. If you limit yourself to somebody else's ideas, then you do not have an identity of your own.
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I'm just old as fuck
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I'm just old as fuck
I Agree with that :lol:
1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Lack of time due to the work and other IRL reasons.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
In my spare free time I prefer to play something else with irl friends but I'd love to return if some of my oldies would come back.
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Pasta :eek:
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Cause they reset our accounts, deleted the best gamemode and brought RS5 which honestly wasn't an improvement like they said it was
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Argonath have been big part of my young life and when RS5 came out, it really ruined everything in this community. All our accounts got reset and things slowly became worse and worse.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
I'm really not sure anymore. I believe its too late to fix things back to normal again.
Things were so much better before RS5.
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Pasta :eek:
Yooo, who are you? :rofl:
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I'm just old as fuck
man i miss sharin poop snaps with u
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Mental illness.
I love this community to death tho.
Fun Fact: It's the reason I'm a designer.
I'll be back soon.
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Mental illness.
I love this community to death tho.
Fun Fact: It's the reason I'm a designer.
I'll be back soon.
hope u are good mate
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I'll be back soon.
Miss you like hell :cry:
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
I was no longer getting the enjoyment out of it that I once had. Most of the people I used to play with moved onto other communities or games entirely. This made argonath no longer really feel like home, but more like a place where you'd just end up in arguments for hours(from a staff perspective at least, I'm sure I had a part in that myself as well :) ).
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
Unrealistic perhaps, but since the people I used to log in for are pretty much all long gone by now.. I'd only log in if there's a significant playerbase around of at least 50+(Which I don't see happening anytime soon for now). Or if someone approached me to swing by with a good reason. But to be honest, since we always approached argonath with the motto: "You don't need scripts to roleplay something". It was the players that made argonath, and with most of the (for me) relevant people gone, there's no fun to be had for me.
None the less, nice to see Badandy's efforts to bring the server back on track, I sincerely hope you succeed!
P.S. this is pretty much solely based for the roleplay servers, if argonath set up a server for let's say.. assetto corsa competitione or something I'd hop on in a heartbeat.
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You can create million topics and debate about why people left and also why they are not willing to return anytime soon, but nothing will change and nothing will be done.
I haven’t read all the posts but I will drop my few cents as a veteran player of Argonath since late 2010 aswell.
The past is the reason the SAMP community died years ago, it died when all big groups started leaving/going inactive one by one. Accept it or not fellas, the main criminal groups kept the server alive during years, people wanted improvement, they kept suggesting unique and creative ideas and 90% of the suggestions were revoked with no discussion, with the reason of “itS doESNt fit ARgonath vIsioN” bullshit, sorry but I think most of you are all grown up, if you keep treating your own players like garbage, what the fuck do you expect to happen?
Some poeple already know this, for those who don’t know I will sum it up very easy to comprehend. The HQ instead of improving on basic script and giving a shot for at least HALF of the suggestions which were made based on constructive support, they started recruiting biased admins and creating rules over night and forcing poeple to play by the rules but with 0 information given before. So yeah, we all woke up one day when Argonath was a “very serious roleplay server” out of sudden and spitting thousands of messages “we are encouraging roleplay, its just that” on people’s face with no prior discussing with its own players. Dude, fuck off. Argonath was cool because it was unique in its own way, it was fun to play because you could roleplay as anything and many years ago you could hop in game, free roam and roleplay whenever you wish because no one was forcing you to. I just logged in, I RP as police officer then switch to taxi driver and then as a farmer. Its my decison, not yours. Years ago and a lot of people can confirm this, If some gangsters, mafia, whatever, were about to blast the shit out of eachother, there was no one to interfere in middle fight, turning his retarded red name on and asking retarded questions like “for what reason you are fighting?” ; “you should roleplay it first, did you RP it?” WITHOUT anyone even reporting. No dude, I just want to kill my enemies, why do you care? Both sides agreed to have a shootout, why do they need a fucking rp reason if from beginning their roleplay character is a criminal or having affilations within.
Argonath died becuase some certain cancerous people destroyed it, easy easy, with stupid decisions.
I would ever return? Definitely yes, with my brothers from Gvardia rolling the streets and being the best mafia from San Andreas ever.
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So from what I can gather, the root cause of the issue is what @nathan said, which is the lack of sense of community, and all of that ties into shit leadership.
I am glad we could all get on the same page about the issue. Now, let's see if anything is done about the concerns literally every single player has expressed without leadership getting all defensive about the current state of things.
Thank you to everyone that responded. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, by me at least. :lol:
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I am glad we could all get on the same page about the issue. Now, let's see if anything is done about the concerns literally every single player has expressed without leadership getting all defensive about the current state of things.
Why would we be defensive? We weren't leading back then :hah:
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The past is the reason the SAMP community died years ago, it died when all big groups started leaving/going inactive one by one. Accept it or not fellas, the main criminal groups kept the server alive during years, people wanted improvement, they kept suggesting unique and creative ideas and 90% of the suggestions were revoked with no discussion, with the reason of “itS doESNt fit ARgonath vIsioN” bullshit, sorry but I think most of you are all grown up, if you keep treating your own players like garbage, what the fuck do you expect to happen?
Finally someone who gets my point. If you keep shutting down your players with "Leave if you don't like it", they'll end up learning to take that advice sooner or later.
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I am glad we could all get on the same page about the issue. Now, let's see if anything is done about the concerns literally every single player has expressed without leadership getting all defensive about the current state of things.
Why would we be defensive? We weren't leading back then :hah:
How the hell are you still here I don't get it.
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The real question is. How the hell are you all still here? And how is this still a thing.
From what I can see this is now a chatting community.
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This topic discussion went well for a while but now it seems like it's turning into shit from people who aren't even around anymore. Anyone who says we are following "Argonath's Vision" hasn't been around in a while since I don't care about any kind of vision or what the owners' wanted the server to be. The server will decided by the players, myself and HQ. No "vision", no other bullshit.
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This topic discussion went well for a while but now it seems like it's turning into shit from people who aren't even around anymore. Anyone who says we are following "Argonath's Vision" hasn't been around in a while since I don't care about any kind of vision or what the owners' wanted the server to be. The server will decided by the players, myself and HQ. No "vision", no other bullshit.
Good luck but you’re too late my friend. For me while I was active during 2010-2017 you’re like a ghost, I’m not sure you know what really happened during these years. I really wish you good luck, no joking. Argonath needs more players like you.
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Is it my idea or all these years up until now all HQs replies are like they're implying/under the illusion that the situation isn't desperate and that we're not going through the first christmas ever with less than 5/200?
The situation is desperate and has been for a few solid years, as soon as you abide by admitting to it then maybe you can lessen the gap between HQ and players. It's not like you're not good people or good minds, but it's only talking - inactivity - talking -inactivity from both ends and you got to be the example. You got to be the bigger man, minimize any ego and be present in action and in change. Even if you're carving the masterplan as I write now, you leave the players so in the dark it continues to feel like a ghostown out here.. and seeming idle when not, would be fine if only if the clock wasn't ticking, but it does and situation has gotten worse and now people won't even come for christmas.
Staff itself is nowhere hitting the activity check, staff has been half-empty for god knows how long. It's been so long and isn't like the subtitute choices are going to get bigger as time moves, so you hardwire the situation to have less choices for the near and far future.
And I mean it when I say desperate. You talk improvement and i'm going to be optimistic when I say that there's a foundation left to improve.
I think the keyword is adapting.
Don't have enough time to deal with server? Use time more wisely. Also use it more wisely to bring people closer to your ranks who seem worth it. Maybe you don't have luxury anymore to drag them through hell to test their character, but surveillance with such little playerbase could be easy in certain fields. Use it more wisely, show your face IG - it moves people more than you now.
Have time? Let us know of how you're thinking of attending this too serious problem. How many dimensions come at play? Why something is taking a while? It's not top-secret information to have dialog on the future of the server which we all care at some level. Come ingame not only as UC, as I said it moves people. See how you can make the server fun again without mechanical moves. Scripting is the salt not the food, sure it makes the food tastier but you won't eat salt as a meal!
You can never have too much healthy dialog, if it's too much then it's not healthy. If you over do it, it still stops being healthy. Any way you look at it!
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-jeremys post-
Finally someone who gets my point. If you keep shutting down your players with "Leave if you don't like it", they'll end up learning to take that advice sooner or later.
I think most of us agree, including staff/ HQ that the way the community was limited and people were treated in the past was an awful way to run a place called a "community".
I also think a majority of the players underestimate how toxic the players/ staff were back in the day, players reported each other for everything and staff bias was prominent (remember that some players were recruited as staff purely because they were a high rank in a gang, which just caused a lot of inner conflict and misuse of staff rights).
You are free to RP as you want for the most part, sadly a lot of people use that as an excuse to be as toxic as they can or use it as a way to have a "play to win" mentality rather than enjoying the RP, and if they didn't win they tried to use staff to get their way anyways.
lack of sense of community, and all of that ties into shit leadership.
I am glad we could all get on the same page about the issue. Now, let's see if anything is done about the concerns literally every single player has expressed without leadership getting all defensive about the current state of things.
How the hell are you still here I don't get it.
The real question is. How the hell are you all still here? And how is this still a thing.
From what I can see this is now a chatting community.
Like Andy said, this topic went well for a while but people took the opportunity to use it for negativity and toxicity.
I think its important that if you want to talk about being part of a community and if you feel like this doesn't feel like a community then you should take that first positive step yourself. Yelling out abuse or presenting nothing but negative behavior adds absolutely nothing positive to this place and it just pushes away more people that do bring positive behavior to this place or that put in time and effort like development work for you all to enjoy.
It really isn't that hard to think twice about your posts or actions, just like it isn't hard to be a decent, kind individual.
I think its also good to remember that SAMP does not equal Argonath as a community.
-thoms post-
I think we all agree that the player base of SAMP hasn't been the greatest in the recent past but I think you and I both have a different definition of desperate.
I also think you highly underestimate the changes and effort that have gone in to giving people a greater voice, people no longer get punished just for speaking their mind (be it that they do it in a respectful way, which many still seem to be unable to do), server staff and the players have a much bigger voice in what happens on the server and players can reach out to numerous people to discuss things they have issues with, or ideas that they have. But with that also comes the understanding that if you want to give feedback, that you are willing to accept feedback given to you. I've learned an incredible amount from just listening to people giving feedback to ideas or suggestions myself or others have had because of things I did not think of myself.
I highly disagree that we've been leaving players in the dark, the SAMP HQ has been more open than it has been in previous years and information has been shared (mind you even in this topic!) that wouldn't have left the dark room of private channels years ago. We tend to try to give our feedback and opinion on things that come across our plate and similarly take in feedback by members of the community. And while we'd love to implement everything the players want, some things are just not viable or take extended amounts of time and effort to get set up in a stable and structured way.
Like I said earlier on this topic, putting people in positions just to fill positions is one of the main part of the issue of why we are where we are now. People ended up doing things they thought were right, without discussions or considerations of how that may affect things at that point or in the future, this was done by both HQ and developers and while some had good intentions it caused us with a lot of things that had to be fixed, polished or removed entirely because they didn't actually work in practice.
I've also made several posts about what our plans are about the future of the server and how we'd like to do that. But in the end of the day that all depends on the feedback we get from people but more importantly depends on the people actually able to work on those changes to become a real thing. And that's both developers, staff and players on Argonath but also developers for a new multiplayer platform for San Andreas. Andy has already provided us with some incredible behind the scene changes in our server structure and to me it looks like an exciting future could be written in the stars but that's something we'd all have to work to together.
I've also not used any UC accounts other than to ban recurring hackers for years, and JDC has used his UC account for just over 2 hours since he was given access to one.
And if you ever want to know more, learn more or just have a chat my PMs on the forums or on Discord are always open, just contact Afterpwn#5252 . I read all my messages, usually instantly, how ever respones can be delayed depending on the day (as well as ADHD making me just forget anything happening >5 seconds ago).
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I left cuz
1. I miss old players. Nothing can be done about this.
2. People stopped acting with common sense and began basing things solely on written rules. This, I felt, was a problem - things got too complicated. I preferred an Argonath which used common sense to solve problems rather than going through a myriad of rules or laws for something. Maybe something can be done about this.
How would I possibly come back?
1. Make things simpler. Have been vocal about bringing back simplicity in the form of RS4 before. That was in form. In substance, it's about simplicity. This would probably help new joiners understand the game better, rather than commands to type and in what order.
Make no mistake, I truly value the work put in by all the devs. But if we need new people to join in, try to keep things simple. Just a passport and license system with few focused jobs rather than a lot of them, along with simple 1 or max 2 page rules in game.
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I left cuz
1. I miss old players. Nothing can be done about this.
2. People stopped acting with common sense and began basing things solely on written rules. This, I felt, was a problem - things got too complicated. I preferred an Argonath which used common sense to solve problems rather than going through a myriad of rules or laws for something. Maybe something can be done about this.
How would I possibly come back?
1. Make things simpler. Have been vocal about bringing back simplicity in the form of RS4 before. That was in form. In substance, it's about simplicity. This would probably help new joiners understand the game better, rather than commands to type and in what order.
Make no mistake, I truly value the work put in by all the devs. But if we need new people to join in, try to keep things simple. Just a passport and license system with few focused jobs rather than a lot of them, along with simple 1 or max 2 page rules in game.
I think at this point in time it's no longer really about attracting new players as SAMP has reached the stage where you can most likely say it's veterans of the platform that are still around. I wouldn't be surprised if about 99 out of a 100 players head over to GTA V nowadays. So simplicity for the sake of attracting new players is probably not going to do a whole lot at this stage.
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Ok, in that case, keep it simpler for the older guys who could return. I know I would, even if it was for a little while every week or so.
Somehow, I still have hope that new players could join given that there are still 25-40,000 players on samp in 2021 (numbers from a Google search alone).
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Somehow, I still have hope that new players could join given that there are still 25-40,000 players on samp in 2021 (numbers from a Google search alone).
minus 39,998-39,999 russians
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I was 12 years old when I first played Argonath RPG. I'm now 27. Crazy to think how much of my life Argonath has been apart of. :)
I was known mainly under the aliases Squid, Scarab, iMunna, [i9]Earl_Montgomery, TeaM_iMunna.
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Somehow, I still have hope that new players could join given that there are still 25-40,000 players on samp in 2021 (numbers from a Google search alone).
minus 39,998-39,999 russians
You know, back in MTA:SA, those of us from Brazil, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Uruguay etc. far outnumbered those from US and Europe.
One of the best cops in the server was a guy from Uruguay who didn't speak a word of English. Being a fellow South American myself, I taught him in Spanish how the cop scripts worked. He had it all figured out. He only went after players in the wanted list. He wrote down an English-language surrender message that I gave him and always used it. We had a script that would automatically punish — and eventually "cop ban" — those who abused deadly force. This guy never got a single misconduct warning during his stay in the server.
I'm pretty sure this could've happened in SA-MP. Probably happened in VC-MP. The playerbase is similar across all three. If any of you think that's a problem, you're missing out on a lot of fun.
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Time goes on. Gotten other priorities in life now than I use to have back in the days. I'm god damn 30 years old now haha, married and got a kid and just don't feel like committing to something that I truely can't fulfill 100%. Still gaming from time to time when I have the time for it, but it's mainly Escape From Tarkov and SA:MP is just too old and outdated IMO. Would love to see Argonath getting some more activity but I just don't see how it could be done, you really need to do a completely make-over.
I don't know much about the MTASA community but I do remember the server had quite the potential to bring in lots of new people to the community and I don't even re-call the details of why it got shut down but yea. Best guess is probably some intern shit going on between the developers / owners at that time.
We had our time, I was here at Argonath prime and god damn man it was fun back in the days and I will always remember those days.
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(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/647402163399688192/925425876894617651/unknown.png)
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I stopped playing on Argonath when RS5 came out. I have a lot of fond memories of this server and its players, and while I do not know what happened the last couple of years with the management, playerbase and etc. I think most people left because they simply have gotten older.
I saw some SAMP video on youtube a few minutes ago and I remembered this server so I hopped on this forum for a nostalgia trip and saw this post. I think a bulk of the playerbase left because of RS5, in my opinion, the server lost its unique feel and as someone stated above, it just felt like a server that used ideas from lots of other generic RP servers.
As for the whole "mission direction" thing i'm reading above, RS4 didn't have any missions either if I recall. The few jobs that were there gave you basically no money. The only real way to earn money was from either RP or selling drugs, which also required a player to buy and it encouraged player interactions for said money.
As for what can be done to return players, I don't know. The beauty of Argonath in its hay day was its simplicity and encouragement to interact with others for money, RP, and pretty much everything else.
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just go to uni and work
hopely good days come back
now am there and no server is. :rolleyes: :neutral2:
Friends! where are youuuuuu come back to me
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i left becos of Kessu
and also i Have exam's and Shits
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and also i Have exam's and Shits
:war:
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i left becos of Kessu
and also i Have exam's and Shits
:hah:
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Wow,
Can't believe I found my account, let alone logging into this website ever again.
Recognise some familiar faces, Cutter, JayL, some fellow old TeaM members and some old Sforza MTA:VC players, I don't think I've logged on to this forum for the best part of 6-7 years.
I was looking up a share price of a company called Argo Blockchain in the UK, then the phrase Argo came to my mind, spotted this thread and thought why not post?
As for why I left, I grew older, life developed, education, work, relationships, gym, suddenly roleplaying on decades old GTA games wasn't a priority, wasn't really interested in any of it anymore, the only games I play now is on PS5, and to be honest, once life kicked in, I completely forgot this place existed, apart from the odd moments you get once every 2-3 years when it comes to your mind.
But the time I had between 2007-2012, I was only 13 at the time but they were some of the best gaming years I've ever had, will cherish that because it sort of the first real introduction that a lot of us had into having internet friends, nowadays meeting people online and on apps is normal, but back then it wasn't as common.
Life is a weird thing, with current world events it really puts everything into perspective.
Just incase anyone does remember me.... >>> ponk.
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Recognise some familiar faces, Cutter, JayL, some fellow old TeaM members and some old Sforza MTA:VC players, I don't think I've logged on to this forum for the best part of 6-7 years.
Hello there, buddy :D
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I am one of the many who got busy. And he who gets busy will get nostalgic and return, sooner or later. The thread is a testament to this. That's question 1. As for question 2, when people get nostalgic and return, it's up to owners, staff, and servers to harness this nostalgia and make people stay (until they get busy again). If these three elements are present and functional, then it becomes a matter of time.
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Still here ;)
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1. What's the reason you no longer log in?
Simple - I grew up and adult life does not allow me to be as active as before. Work's been very heavy considering the pandemic.
Work aside, I honestly do not find any incentive to head In Game. It has become redundant to go around in the same circle of trial and error for the past couple of years. Whenever I was IG I found a serious lack of things to do. There was no incentive or appeal to both civilian and criminal roleplay. Last few months of my activity, aside from the elections, was doomed by the same cycle of repetitive scenarios and mediocre roleplay. This unfortunately is not something that can be changed by rules or incentives from HQ or Development. We had the 5-10 regulars, who honestly did not provide enough diversity in the interactions and the multiple attempts to either revive something different or bring up something new were either shut down due to the players "being toxic" and removed from the community, or simply the lack of interest and support from the rest of the active playerbase. I understand and respect HQ's priorities IRL and would like to thank them for the effort of the elections, however being elected as Mayor did not lead to a single development of what was initially discussed. I am not sure if any of my proposed changes were applied post-election(e.g. Casino which was rushed prior to the results coming out). Andy was more focused on fixing bugs and QOL improvements and I did not receive any feedback or updates from SAMP HQ, thus unfortunately my promises and ideas were left only as such.
2. What can be done to get you to log in again?
A time machine :lol: In all seriousness, I may tune in for a few hours every now and then, but I do not plan or see any potential fulltime returns. I'm just too burned out. Perhaps get rid of the insanity that has been going on for the past years? I believe the majority can agree, that per Vaas Montenegro's definition of insanity - we've been insane for quite a while now.
https://youtu.be/uDoSy1WiYfU
PS: Unlike previous periods of inactivity that may have been caused by HQ's approach and methods, I would like to say that I am 100% behind JDC and all of his ideas and will continue supporting to my capabilities. Unfortunately, this is much like the Titanic changing their Captain after it hit the iceberg. You may struggle to keep it afloat, hell, you might even succeed to delay the inevitable. But the ship is already sinking and all we're left with are the lifeboats, which by themselves are not sufficient to keep the ship from sinking.
:gand:
And after 8 years my forum account is still banned! ;(((
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Tbh there's many reasons why I don't log in anymore. The biggest one, though, is that I feel the server went into a direction I didn't agree with. I loved RS4 and I had so much fun during the days where we had 200 people online and I had to actually wait in queue before I could join the server. Many different people, always stuff to do. Then RS5 hit, population was killed, most of my friends quit and that was that. I still came back to RS5 for a short while to try it out, and I enjoyed the notoriety and drug scripts, but there were so many other new scripts and shit like tasers etc that were now in the game, which would have made you be the server clown if you suggested it in RS4. It became so unnatural. I also hated how much advantages the cops got and how many rulebreaks they got away with due to nepotism and staff bias. And I hated how every single cop had an HDR 4K camera in their eyeball that would "record" an entire RP encounter so they could rob you on the forum courts after an RP scenario. It just became dumb.
I don't think anything will make me return at this point, unless we're reverting to RS4 scripts with a full server reset. If that would happen, I'd come just for the pure nostalgia. Probably with a different name, maybe completely undercover. Or maybe I'd try to reboot Ancelotti. I don't know. Like Grease said earlier, a time machine is what's needed here lol. Some things are just never going to be the same.
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Not in proper format but this is the state of server you get when active players are made sick by people like that delusional "just rp it" guy and a management team that followed the political correct ":3" players, were never active themselves and slapped veterans on the fingers that made the server what it was.
Obviously like mentioned before people grow up but the state of the community today is because the main community was neglected.
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that delusional "just rp it"
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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Hello
Ive got GTA SA and SAMP back, due to work I will not be very active but I d like to tell you something I have not read in like 3 pages of replies (have not read any single reply though).
I ve been here for years, what Argonath made me stay is not RP, not friends, but stats.
We all love stats, we all love having millions, hitting /invent, seeing 2000 g weed and waiting for someone to deal them with.
Therefore, the reset I think made many people leave, I am pretty sure most of the people said " Im not gonna have these again, screw it."
On the other half, we grew up, naturally, quit playing games, not having time etc.
Also, good point on cops ruling the game. Indeed, I rage quit after being caught growing stuff, alright, do you have to call your buddies on discord to log in for 5 mins in the night to ruin that ? Do I have, as a criminal, to steal your weed ? We not doing a job, skip it for the sake of that person, it is not rp, it is not " I had to do it", it is about purely living with the flow of the game.
In the end, I d like to say that I came back, not very active, but for the stats, I am playing this game on this server because I am getting the feeling a game should get you when I am achieving things. You all know what kind of man, player I am, hopefully you got my point.
Everyone has his opinion, I am not expecting you to judge me or to correct me, I am 28 years old, that s what I feel about whole thing, say your word if you have to, this is my whole view over this game, server now.
Hope to see some of you in the game, maybe we share some memoriea cause I get nostalgic often when I drive by some place I remember like "isn t this place where I did that with that guy and that happened, gosh, long ago".
Kind regards.
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this is the state of server you get when active players are made sick by people like that delusional "just rp it" guy
(https://argonathrpg.eu/Smileys//classic/icon_lol.gif)
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Right now ... Argonath has 0 players online, while the Mud People are like 57 at the moment. Maybe its time instead of saying why we left, we should focus on finding a way and most importantly a reason to return... If not, I believe a topic saying "Why you stayed" would be more fun to read.
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One failing HQ after another and the whole adaptation around them, along with constant disappointment, made the experience more like forcing fun than actually having it. I used to login to have fun/let loose, not desperately chase fun/action. This plain obvious thing has been lost and it hasn't been officially recognized and tried to be taken care of, as an important factor / point of view.
There's nothing to make you feel loose, nothing to get you hooked. The fundamentals of a san andreas server have crumbled the moment people can't pair up with each other to create at least 2 solid groups.
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My opinion is that it's over and it will never be what it was in RS4 or even what it was in 2018, 2019 with like 50 players. Everything dies eventually
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.
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Just gotta finish my last exam, then I'll be back
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I don't think anything will make me return at this point, unless we're reverting to RS4 scripts with a full server reset. If that would happen, I'd come just for the pure nostalgia. Probably with a different name, maybe completely undercover. Or maybe I'd try to reboot Ancelotti. I don't know. Like Grease said earlier, a time machine is what's needed here lol. Some things are just never going to be the same.
So we tried this for one of the anniversaries a couple years back when I was in HQ for a brief period, nobody came unfortunately. It was one the saddest anniversary parties with literally 3 people logging in.
Damn, sucks to hear. Likely an advertising issue though. Can't blame it on HQ, but if I had like received an email or something I'd have checked it out and I'm sure others would as well.
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Right now ... Argonath has 0 players online, while the Mud People are like 57 at the moment. Maybe its time instead of saying why we left, we should focus on finding a way and most importantly a reason to return... If not, I believe a topic saying "Why you stayed" would be more fun to read.
True..
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I thought about this further and wanted to share my thoughts in a more expanded fashion.
I believe the underline problem is the lack of activity. The problem of lack of activity can be expanded into the following three reasons:
- Age of server and abilities
- Lack of inbound traffic and discoverability
- Lack of community ownership and direction
Age of server and abilities
GTA:SA was released on October 26, 2004. That's over 17 years ago. SA:MP was released several years after that. We're talking about a piece of software that is not only old but also abandoned by the owner. The original iPhone was released around the same time SA:MP was. On the flip side, the reality is that there is though still demand for old games. One successful revival is Old School Runescape. Games like these live in a special place in our hearts because of how much time we spent playing them when growing up.
Argonath's SA:MP server in general has not changed drastically since RS4. Sure, there has been some additional UI changes, new jobs, and group system but in general it's the same product for the last almost ten years. This is not to discount the amount of work done by the developers. But to be honest, the main core system has been exactly the same for the last ten years.
If you are a new player coming into the server you'll realize that there is no end goal. There is no incentive. You just grind to make money. Buy properties. Buy vehicles. Buy weapons. There is no endgame. You work and then buy. No satisfaction.
My suggestion: we need to figure out the identity of the server and the main core objective. This could be through missions. This could be through interactive interactions. But at the end, there needs to be a reason for why someone will want to come on. That something cannot be that they can get more virtual stuff.
Lack of inbound traffic and discoverability
The thing that is holding Argonath together right now is community. It's the reason we all come back and check forums on a daily basis. It's the reason we sit in Discord and engage in chats. But one of the pitfalls with Argonath in general is that our inbound/outbound has been lack luster.
We have not spent an adequate amount of time on growing our audience and getting our name out there. We're stuck in think that if we build, people will come. In reality, this method rarely works. The way you get new people to find your product and service is through advertisement - whether directly or indirectly. Originally, I think this was the goal with the original advertisement team.
My suggestion: we should create more content to get people excited to try out our servers. We should expand to other games. We should sponsor events with famous streamers to get others to check us out.
Lack of community ownership and direction
This one is the elephant in our room. Our owners are absent. Based on some conversations with HQ - they are alive but they are busy with other work and only respond when there is downtime. It's hard to be in a ship with no captain. Yes, we have community leaders but even those seem to only check in every once in a while just make sure that the place isn't on fire. The reality of our situation is that we lack direction. We have several servers being pulled in various directions without any clear indication on where they should be heading.
What made Argonath work original was engaged owners + an active, healthy community. When owners are involved - they know exactly where they want to lead the next iteration and know exactly the pulse of where things are happening. If the owners are absent, the community is left scrambling over visions and past glory days. I proposed potentially acquiring Argonath a couple years ago as a way to try to lead it. Looking back at it now, it feels more like a savior complex than anything else.
We have a community. We have people constantly coming back to the server and forums. But we're not harnessing them and utilizing them properly. Take a look at TheGreasyChopper suggestions as an example. Take a look at Thom's suggestions. We have people who want to help and be involved.
My suggestion: we need the owners and leadership to be actively involved in discussions with the community and not just leading in directions they think are right. I would also suggest going from Argonath RPG to plainly Argonath and expand to other games and game modes.
Those are just my thoughts on this and I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes. I welcome everyone to challenge them.
The last part is something true asf. We can see another community that has active leaders, multiple community managers, server leaders, etc. They have a direction, meanwhile in Argonath, I don't even have the server on my list. I found it pointless to even have a look at it, the atmosphere when entered in Argonath feels so different, the game-play to some extent feels odd as well. When the issues were addressed by the active players, it'd have been easier to fix it, but better late than never. Playerbase attracts, moving to FC, or such shit wouldn't help. A few groups interacting with one another, enjoying their time, attracting other newbies and guiding them would help. That's what's needed. It's something the helper job was introduced for, with less players, the available veterans should be the ones helping this server. I'm not that, neither do I play SA:MP a lot. Found myself happier elsewhere, but you could always give what I suggested a go.
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I tried to get involved over the last week as Brian said that anyone who wants to step up - can. I wrote out [a vision](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b3WkrO6kXcHMSDeIA9GiGSCfof7bqhO6fH0IzviyguI/edit?usp=sharing) which was more for application of the community in whole.
I started to work with Badandy on a plan of action. I shared the vision with the existing SA:MP team and some key players. All except one agreed with the all of it. Hell, even Badandy was thinking of quitting SA efforts and chatting/convincing him further, we started to think out about the potential move to MTA and must have core features.
I had a discussion with Brian, Badandy, and laid out my vision to them. In response, I got the following statement,
You have ideas, we don't agree with all those ideas / want to bring up our views on things. That's not always bad thing, that's teamwork. That's the whole thing we've been trying to talk about. And it's the same reason most members of HQ wouldn't want the role of owner being filled by someone else. Because we'd much rather have a team of people where, if needed, roles can be replaced. Rather than have a Gandalf/Aragorn situation all over again.
I agree we need to change things and have to work on things but we also need to work with the experience we have learned from the history of the community. You also have to respect the existence of the other Argonath servers and their leaders. You don't have to like them or agree with them but we're still a team nonetheless and if you want to take on a role like being HQ member of SA, you'll have to put your focus there before you look on how your ideas should change the entire community.
I felt really discouraged by what was said. It was my understanding that the HQ team wanted something new and wanted someone to lead it. I spent hours thinking through ways of how to improve our situation and instead, I find out that Brian hasn't even shared anything with the broader team. That’s messed up because I feel like I’m just not being valued and I feel like I’m wasting my time since nobody cares what I am trying to help with.
If the HQ team continue to do things as they have always done - you will have a dead community. Your team’s actions brought the server and the broader community to this point. I’m here not because I have a savior complex but because I truly want to help the community and want it to grow. So far, I haven’t seen ANY action from HQ this year to suggest they are even trying to turn the situation around. Instead, all I hear is excuses and even worse, blaming players, scripts, and whatever else EXCEPT to apologize for being ineffective leaders, for not making great decisions, and for taking actions slow.
In sales, time kills most deals. Time is the most important factor right now. Taking another six months to make one decision is no longer appropriate. Doing things as they have always been done is no longer appropriate. HQ needs to step up and making decisions quickly and start making progress. It's been too damn long and everyone is sick and tired of it.
Why did I leave? Because we don't have a culture of embracing change and experiment with different ideas. Because we have a flawed leadership structure with inactive owners, half active HQ members who are benchwarmers and who make decisions on behalf of other servers they are not in charge of, and don't want to see progress.
Having all this context now, I decided this morning to no longer be involved with attempting to resurrect the SA community. I wish luck to anyone who tries but realize that you will have an uphill battle.
I have no idea what happened but this is not how to have a discussion over matters like this, it's not my way or the highway. Just as much as you want them to hear your ideas and opinion on things you should also hear theirs out, you don't have to agree to them but you shouldn't expect them to agree with yours aswell which should lead to a middle ground. From the looks of this comment, I understood that you wanted to claim ownership of the community which would mean all the keys will be held by one person and we should have learned by now that this has always been our main issue the past years; all powers held by one person. The times we're in are hard, instead of butting heads over powers the community should be a community and help eachother find solutions to sort things out with the activity.
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From the looks of this comment, I understood that you wanted to claim ownership of the community which would mean all the keys will be held by one person and we should have learned by now that this has always been our main issue the past years; all powers held by one person. The times we're in are hard, instead of butting heads over powers the community should be a community and help eachother find solutions to sort things out with the activity.
I literally said I wanted to step up and help the SA community not that I wanted to own the community. But yes, continue to spread lies and bullshit on anyone who tries to help.
You yourself spoke about toxicity on your vision on google doc yet you're now spreading it, take a chill pill and drop your hate. I literally commented over what you said and spread, re-read it yourself from a different POV. How were you willing to help SA community though? You didn't share that here, you just spoke about sharing ideas and a vision.
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MTA:SA doesn't have English-speaking RP servers because there is no demand for them, and not because there's a magical niche waiting to be filled. It's not a niche, it's a grave.
There were English-speaking MTA:SA RP servers and they all shut down one after another, because they were unsustainable. Some of them didn't shut down, but rather left for FiveM with their players. Last one exited MTA:SA around spring 2020, if I am not wrong. Same reason. Everybody (server-hosting communities, players) who speaks English left for FiveM/RageMP NoPixel clones, where you can easily use voice to communicate, and thus there is longer a need for this outdated "/me does this and that" type of heavily text-based RP where people sit around in a circle and describe their actions like it's an AA meeting.
Even if you plug in some voice server into MTA, even if you make a completely custom map from scratch, replace all skins and cars and make own shaders, 3d models, etc. Saw that also fail so many times, you will just be stepping on the same old rake. There are already complete, finished RP(G) game-modes out there, free to download, just take and configure, whatever, nobody's going to play. The whole genre in your target language is dead, there are way less English-speaking role-players than on SA-MP.
Are the devs willing to work for a year and then have an empty server, because it will still look inferior in comparison to some half-assed GTA:V NoPixel clone? IDK. I'm not saying that you shouldn't migrate, I'm just saying that the grass on the other side isn't that much greener any more, and you should have realistic expectations.
You could try using AMX (https://github.com/multitheftauto/amx) to run Argo's SA-MP on MTA, not sure if it's going to work though. Then there's UG:MP (https://gtaundergroundmod.com/index), which could be used to merge VC:MP and SA-MP (and also add some other maps), but I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen. New MTA:SA server? Sure, but you're gonna have to really commit, nolife and tryhard... and will probably just end up beating a dead horse like everybody else.
I'd shove everything into FiveM, give people their $$$ from other servers, some extra $$$ on top, build playerbase the easiest way, but, for some reason, Argonath never chooses the easiest way. The smart thing would be (if you can code and are interested in this) to read some books on gamedev, download Unreal Engine 5, and make some fucking money. But we're not here to be smart; we're here to enjoy our suffering, and the only thing more enjoyable than that is writing thicc paragraphs about it on forums. :rage:
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In sales, time kills most deals. Time is the most important factor right now. Taking another six months to make one decision is no longer appropriate. Doing things as they have always been done is no longer appropriate. HQ needs to step up and making decisions quickly and start making progress. It's been too damn long and everyone is sick and tired of it.
That we don't have the luxury to go by the book is true, has been true for a couple of years now, and is getting more real the more time no active movement is executed. Taking time to do something meaningful is fine, but it seems these 4 years of inactivity are definitely not put into good use, neither the last year or last 6 months or last month.
We're into a cul-de-sac for the simple reason that: the majority of veterans and leadership left may be well-meaning. But the leadership doesn't have the time to professionally evaluate the kind of well-meaning someone in a staff-HQ position should have and at the same time, are wise enough not wanting to take any rushed decisions either. In the other hand, players with motivation tendencies or potential are on standby or not, throwing efforts into the void cause the remaining players aren't going to be coordinated on their own without active leadership, possibly trying to understand the reasoning behind not rushing another failing HQ but inevitably feeling discouraged and drawn out by the long wait, caused by a natural event that the decision makers are adults with lifes, like many of us, and and don't have the time needed to properly address the matter. And by properly I mean time-wise and presence-wise. It's not a step back to admit and try somehow to adapt to the reality of not having the time needed, quite the contrary it's a step forward.
If I'm off about something about the time assumption it's only because as players we know so much, the message remains some kind of elasticity and adaption requires more time and presence, not just background brainstorming and discussion. Many of the practices that applied 10 years ago are relics of the past.
It's all in good faith, understanding between players and HQ is vital but only the start of the solution.
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I just want to do a quick survey. All of us pretty much left, and I'm curious to know why. Don't overthink the questions, just answer it for what it is.
Stay on topic. Not the place for discussions, pick it up elsewhere.
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(https://i.imgur.com/m5lq4nA.jpeg)
Something new does not equal just running with what ever idea someone comes up with, this is the third time you were given a chance to step up, something you said you've been keen on doing. Yet you are unable to handle feedback, simple comments on ideas were ignored by you and you chose the stance of "If I don't get my way I'll be out" like you usually do.
You're correct in saying we are looking for something new, wanting someone to lead it is what you envisioned. You claim you spent hours working on your proposal, yet it was just a bunch of ideas you had that could potentially work out, they weren't thought out and you refused to discuss them any further. When you were given feedback by us you completely ignored what we said to you and posted your document publicly in the SAMP channel.
(https://i.imgur.com/LNwJOsr.png)
In your vision you claim you want to focus on working together yet you are unable to take in the smallest pieces of feedback, you take it as a personal attack and you fail to respond to others when it comes to discussing ideas. You were also unable to provide us with any information on how you actually wanted to reach these goals, how much time it'd take. Most of your vision was focused on adding new people to upper leadership rather than actually working on fixing the SA server.
Your claim of me not sharing things with staff is also incorrect, even if we were to forget the fact you shared the document publicly for everyone to be able to review. Several points of your vision that we did find interesting were discussed with staff to gather feedback, and some were then brought up again in the MTA:SA survey that was publicly posted on the forums and on Discord. I'm not going to bring up an unfinished idea with staff when there's active attempts in to discussions to refine them to an actually presentable state.
Late 2021 you were given a chance to work on things yourself. We not only took you in to the MTA:SA discussion and let you bring your ideas up then, you were also given the ability to develop the SAMP panel, you had a lot of ideas, yet you have done 0 work on the panel since you were given access to the code and a testing environment. I have also not gotten a single message from you in private since the 29th of December. You also only messaged us in our group chat at 29th of the last month!
Instead of actually working with us like you claim you wanted to, you yet again took your (misguided) anger out on people in the samp discord channel, adding to the toxicity you claim to be against in literally the first line of your vision
(https://i.imgur.com/nhP6Sy6.png)
I gave feedback on the fact your vision shows "plans" for the entire community, and when I said that it'd probably be smarter to focus on SA and work on that first before you try to change the entire community, you got annoyed and started your blame game again.
Heck, it even sounded like you agreed with me when you said
Start with SA, try the experiment out, if it fails, great you proved me wrong.
You then said I can’t do my ideas if you literally tell me that I have no power to execute them.
I also never said you wouldn't have power to execute them, that's something you made up yourself. All we did was provide feedback on your vision, something you requested yourself!
(https://i.imgur.com/RXesbyT.png)
And that's the last I had heard from you until you send us your ultimatum.
You gave me 48 hours to respond (even though I told you a day before that one of my close family members is dying of terminal cancer and that I was taking a few days to myself) you left the group chat 2 hours after you sent your ultimatum, not even giving me the chance to respond, and you created this post 8 hours after. And the ultimatum was basically "Do it my way or I'm out".
I was intending to respond to you in private after you left the group discord to try and get you to understand our side of things but before I was able to you left most of the Discord servers and posted this topic on the forums.
You need to take a step back and look at the big picture sometimes. We put the ball in your ballpark and you kicked it on a roof on purpose and there is no one to blame for this but yourself.
We took a leap of faith and gave you an opportunity but that wasn't enough for you. You were unwilling to work with us and it seems to me you've not changed at all like you yourself claimed previously. You were the one that didn't want to work with us, not the other way around, we gave you chances, opportunities, we informed you how we'd like to see it, we asked for your input, just like we'd do with anyone that would show us interest. Stepping up isn't just coming with a list of ideas you come up with and then throwing a hiss fit when someone else gives their input or alternative ideas.
In your ultimatum statement you shared you felt discouraged. How do you expect we feel when we have players like you that are overly negative about everything that happens(borderline toxic if I might add), and when you give them a chance they still play the victim and keep doing the exact thing they claim they're against. Imagine if we did give you the chance become a member of management on the server and something happened you didn't like and you'd just drop everything and leave all Discords. In the end it just seems like you repeat the same cycle over and over again.
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I can back up what is Brian is saying. I was there in the group chat we had to discuss. I admit, we butt heads on issues but I wanted to work through them. When Nathan posted his 48 hour notice, at that point I don't like being put into a corner so I felt like that the arrangement was no longer healthy. I'm all for talking with people and working with new people to see what is possible and who can step up. It doesn't always work though.
In other news, the MTA SA server will be proceeding as planned. We thank everyone for taking the time to respond to it and encourage more people to respond. These results, at least the multiple choice answers will be released eventually but the survey is still up so let your voices heard on the topic. We hope to do more surveys in the future. I personally like them since I believe everyone gets a chance to be heard in a civil and organized way.
Some people like Mario have stated that it may not be worth to do MTA SA due to issues like lack of English servers and possibly beating a dead horse. I take that feedback very seriously and thank you, Mario for bringing it to our attention. We still want to continue on with MTA SA since there is still interest in San Andreas from what the current survey results show and I personally believe it's worth to at least try. This is not a business decision, this isn't probably the best decision but I have a spot in my heart for San Andreas. Brian and I both love the idea of MTA SA with the possibilities even though they are more limiting than what you can find in FiveM. I believe we still can build a good and fun server. If it only lasts a month, well at least we tried and had fun along the way. We hope to share more soon.
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Brian and I both love the idea of MTA SA with the possibilities even though they are more limiting than what you can find in FiveM.
I was going to sit this one out, but you caught my attention here. What makes you think that?
(I understand we're staying on-topic as long as we are discussing causes and solutions for the limbo in Argonath)
Brian edit cause I didn't want to make another post: I prefer this topic to be used (https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129922.0) but I can always split off comments from this post if there'll be a lot of them about MTA:SA
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Brian and I both love the idea of MTA SA with the possibilities even though they are more limiting than what you can find in FiveM.
I was going to sit this one out, but you caught my attention here. What makes you think that?
(I understand we're staying on-topic as long as we are discussing causes and solutions for the limbo in Argonath)
Brian edit cause I didn't want to make another post: I prefer this topic to be used (https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129922.0) but I can always split off comments from this post if there'll be a lot of them about MTA:SA
There are multiple factors. The Lua version is not up.to date, which itself isn't limiting but leads to some issues when you try to use newer features of the language. MTA SA and FiveM both support custom files which also includes CEF. I personally prefer FiveMs implementation of their CEF, browser system compared to MTA SA. Character customization is limited in MTA SA but custom skins could help with that. I think both mods are fantastic in their own rights and my statement might of not been 100% accurate. These are mostly critiques about what's possible but compared to SAMP, MTA SA is light-years ahead.
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As we are discussing (in part) of how to get the server back on its feet, I wanted to share a suggestion.
What do you think about a monthly meet. Fixed day, fixed time, scheduled for one or two hours only. All those who commit should be there, just like an important thing irl.
Over time, I see few things happening. First, we all catch up, remember good times and come back for it. Second, seeing server activity there will be new players. Just keep the rules simple and I am confident that this will be a fun monthly event which turns out to something more regular. It will take time though.
Inspiration for this was what i did irl, with a motorcycle group - 80% folks joined and did nothing. Monthly events brought some more activity to the point where some (about 30% more) became more active.
What do you think?
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that this will be a fun monthly event which turns out to something more regular.
Ι too have proposed something similar months ago but I have been hit with the "NoT EnoUGH RPinG iNVoLvED".
But yes, that's a decent proposal.
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I left because of work and school. Haven't gamed much in the last 5-7 year. Currently in my final week and I hope to return after graduation, might even be able to lend a hand in the development side of things if the opportunity comes. Worked my ass off to get that degree, might as well put it to good use lol.
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Late 2021 you were given a chance to work on things yourself.
How does a guy unbanned in November 2021 get to participate in any HQ-related activities?
you were given access to the code and a testing environment.
(https://i.imgur.com/hdQWW1L.jpg)
You gave me 48 hours to respond (even though I told you a day before that one of my close family members is dying of terminal cancer and that I was taking a few days to myself)
I'm sorry to hear you're going through that, Brian.
Don't bother replying to this post if you don't feel like it, or don't have the time – it's ok.
In your ultimatum statement
Given how Nathan doesn't bring anything to the table, that's a 0 IQ move on his behalf. He doesn't have the game-mode, doesn't have the people, doesn't have the skills or experience. What are you offering of value, Nathan? I don't see it.
In the good old days, this probably would have been enough for a community ban. Have we gone too soft?
And the ultimatum was basically "Do it my way or I'm out".
What a lucrative offer – let's put Argonath's reverse King Midas in charge of a MTA:SA server, a platform in which he, btw, has 0 experience in. You haven't done your homework on MTA, Nathan, and it shows.
Brian edit cause I didn't want to make another post: I prefer this topic to be used (https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129922.0) but I can always split off comments from this post if there'll be a lot of them about MTA:SA
I'd suggest this board (https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?board=358.0), at least because it doesn't seem to have moderator post approval enabled, which slows things down.
Some people like Mario have stated that it may not be worth to do MTA SA due to issues like lack of English servers and possibly beating a dead horse.
Yes, well, I just wanted to say that creating a game-mode is only a part of the challenge, and maybe not even the biggest one.
The Lua version is not up.to date, which itself isn't limiting but leads to some issues when you try to use newer features of the language.
If they update Lua, so many things will break that there won't be enough people to fix them. If I understand it correctly, scripts will break. MTA:SA itself will need some new code. Then there's that whole basket of bytecode/compiler/anti-cheat issues, so I don't think there will be any updates. Don't know, somehow the whole MTA:SA community manages to do fine without those things. FiveM also isn't using the latest version, 5.4 is already out.
CEF.
This showed up (in MTA) when we were already in the middle of making RP 2.0 back in the day, and (IIRC) we couldn't find a use for it. Not only did we already have a really good idea on paper of what we were making, using CEF only for the sake of using it seemed like a dumb idea.
PCs weren't as powerful and the potato PCs of that time were even less powerful. CEF caused incompatibility issues with PCs running win XP, win Vista. It also caused some problems on Win 7, where, for example, some Nvidia Optimus laptops had to have a specific version of Nvidia drivers; without them, some laptops would BSOD, and that was, of course, not desirable.
If your PC is capable of running V on high, the browser on top of your screen might not be eating (m)any FPS. But since SA has low system requirements, adding tons of custom content meant noticeable performance decrease for potato PC users, and we didn't want to do that. It may not be an issue today, but it was a concern back in the day. I've seen some great UIs that looked like they were CEF-powered, but actually weren't, and I've seen some bad UIs that were made using CEF also. If you have the skills, you can avoid using CEF for the UI. Also, JavaScript is some cringe shit, tbh, so this was a no-brainer.
Character customization is limited in MTA SA but custom skins could help with that.
It's not included by default, but not limited per se; you can create (and there are examples of that, you can google them fairly easily) GTA Online-like char. customization systems yourself, together with the body and facial feature morphing sliders. There's also CJ and all of his models from SP, which you can use, replace or edit. It's possible to implement, but will take a lot of time.
In a perfect world, I would have wanted to run an Argonath MTA:SA server, but, as we all know, Gandalf & Aragorn aren't here, and it's not really fun when the host is kil and nobody around can access it; moreover, I feel it's unethical (at least in my book) to use somebody else's host when they're not even around to participate in anything. Also, I'd like to see what 1.6.0 has to offer – we might see it arrive before the year ends, maybe.
Didn't expect to have so many SA-MP and MTA:SA servers still around. A decade ago we thought that we'd be playing GTA 8 right now. Even V feels dated right now despite being "rEmAsTeReD". 10 years since V came out next year? bruh.
Think twice before using Discord for anything serious, btw, it's spyware. None of "your" data is yours, random neckbeards Discord Staff can see everything, everywhere. They don't delete anything when people invoke GDPR, they just don't give a shit at all, lol.
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The owners don't really matter anymore in my opinion. Currently most servers are being hosted off of their hosting. SAMP was moved onto new hosting last year and the MTA SA will also be on the same host. I'm currently working on a plan for the MTA SA server so I'm hoping it goes well and if it doesn't, at least we tried. So Mario, what are you doing around again? Are you looking to stick around?
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The owners don't really matter anymore in my opinion. Currently most servers are being hosted off of their hosting. SAMP was moved onto new hosting last year and the MTA SA will also be on the same host. I'm currently working on a plan for the MTA SA server so I'm hoping it goes well and if it doesn't, at least we tried. So Mario, what are you doing around again? Are you looking to stick around?
If you wanna bring the SA:MP server back alive, there is a loophole. Doing the exact same thing our opposition community did back in 2018, lure players in by offering multiple ranks, etc. certain things that individuals care about so much, in order for the playerbase to grow in the SA:MP client, you need players to attract players. It's like this saying "The rich gets richer", perhaps some shortcuts and such low tricks would work. The main thing that kicked away most players was the decreased drug prices in that year, and upon rebellious response from the community, our lead developer didn't give a fuck about it, and still went through with it. This is a game, as much as one cares about RP, people hold certain ranks close to them. If you bribe someone by making them the chief of the ARPD, or whatsoever, players are bound to come and give this a shot. It's not the scripts we care about, we wanna have fun, and enjoy the game for what it's supposed to be.
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Another idea that popped into my head was to have NPCs in Fort Carson. A max of 20.
How does this help? Well, when I login to the server, I am alone. With NPCs, I can watch them, run them over, stab em, etc. In roleplay ofc. Get wanted, go to jail or run or die. But I'm engaged.
But can this then become a freeroam/dm server? Perhaps, if and when there are enough people. But that's why we have administrators.
Happy to hear your constructive criticisms.
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Another idea that popped into my head was to have NPCs in Fort Carson. A max of 20.
How does this help? Well, when I login to the server, I am alone. With NPCs, I can watch them, run them over, stab em, etc. In roleplay ofc. Get wanted, go to jail or run or die. But I'm engaged.
But can this then become a freeroam/dm server? Perhaps, if and when there are enough people. But that's why we have administrators.
Happy to hear your constructive criticisms.
I'm not totally on board with this, Argonath was always a role-play server. The light role-play allowed us to have the freeroaming, and DM so it's all basically that. It's good the way it is, but perhaps it needs to be a city based rather than county based. There isn't creativity in the server being just FC based, mafias work in the cities, gangs work in the suburbs, the counties. I'd prefer moving Argonath back to the way it was, the total map being covered. Bringing in a few factions that could meddle with each other, and occupy one city, there's just so much to it. Maybe I'm wrong, but feel free to correct me.
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The owners don't really matter anymore in my opinion. Currently most servers are being hosted off of their hosting. SAMP was moved onto new hosting last year and the MTA SA will also be on the same host. I'm currently working on a plan for the MTA SA server so I'm hoping it goes well and if it doesn't, at least we tried. So Mario, what are you doing around again? Are you looking to stick around?
If you wanna bring the SA:MP server back alive, there is a loophole. Doing the exact same thing our opposition community did back in 2018, lure players in by offering multiple ranks, etc. certain things that individuals care about so much, in order for the playerbase to grow in the SA:MP client, you need players to attract players. It's like this saying "The rich gets richer", perhaps some shortcuts and such low tricks would work. The main thing that kicked away most players was the decreased drug prices in that year, and upon rebellious response from the community, our lead developer didn't give a fuck about it, and still went through with it. This is a game, as much as one cares about RP, people hold certain ranks close to them. If you bribe someone by making them the chief of the ARPD, or whatsoever, players are bound to come and give this a shot. It's not the scripts we care about, we wanna have fun, and enjoy the game for what it's supposed to be.
I'm not here to make SAMP server alive. I believe it is no longer worth it to work on the SAMP server and that's why we are pursuing a MTA SA server since SAMP is dead. I rather burn this place to the ground than bribe people with ranks. I rather have less players than a bunch of asshats who want ranks and want to show them off.
Even though my rank on the forums is SAMP developer, there is currently no developer for SAMP and by the survey results, there may not be a SAMP server eventually when the MTA SA server is created. A fresh start, we all know we need it.
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The owners don't really matter anymore in my opinion. Currently most servers are being hosted off of their hosting. SAMP was moved onto new hosting last year and the MTA SA will also be on the same host. I'm currently working on a plan for the MTA SA server so I'm hoping it goes well and if it doesn't, at least we tried. So Mario, what are you doing around again? Are you looking to stick around?
If you wanna bring the SA:MP server back alive, there is a loophole. Doing the exact same thing our opposition community did back in 2018, lure players in by offering multiple ranks, etc. certain things that individuals care about so much, in order for the playerbase to grow in the SA:MP client, you need players to attract players. It's like this saying "The rich gets richer", perhaps some shortcuts and such low tricks would work. The main thing that kicked away most players was the decreased drug prices in that year, and upon rebellious response from the community, our lead developer didn't give a fuck about it, and still went through with it. This is a game, as much as one cares about RP, people hold certain ranks close to them. If you bribe someone by making them the chief of the ARPD, or whatsoever, players are bound to come and give this a shot. It's not the scripts we care about, we wanna have fun, and enjoy the game for what it's supposed to be.
I'm not here to make SAMP server alive. I believe it is no longer worth it to work on the SAMP server and that's why we are pursuing a MTA SA server since SAMP is dead. I rather burn this place to the ground than bribe people with ranks. I rather have less players than a bunch of asshats who want ranks and want to show them off.
Even though my rank on the forums is SAMP developer, there is currently no developer for SAMP and by the survey results, there may not be a SAMP server eventually when the MTA SA server is created. A fresh start, we all know we need it.
I feel as though multiple SAMP servers are active, being a ranked individual doesn't necessarily mean someone who'd want to blag all about it. I see no future with MTA, but perhaps you know better. For me, SA:MP will be superior to MTA. Atleast for the next couple of years until people completely move on with it, and focus on GTA V. That's why the FiveM server has to be a priority as well, you need to be well prepared for the future to get a head-start ahead of others. When SA:MP goes down, I believe people including myself would wanna shift to V:MP. Although, atleast for now, having a bunch of factions which are supported by the HQ with resources they require would be a great start altogether in SA:MP. Specially if it was city-wide again. Again, feel free to correct me. No hard feelings.
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How does a guy unbanned in November 2021 get to participate in any HQ-related activities?
He wasn't part of HQ related activities, we had a discussion channel made a year or so ago in which he showed interest and presented his idea, we have such channels with several people that have showed interest in helping out.
As for the testing environment and code. This was the SAMP panel connected to a dev DB, there's no real fancy or private code in it. Most of Argo SA:MPs code was leaked by an angry developer years ago. (Funnily enough they also threw a hiss fit when things didn't go their way)
I'm sorry to hear you're going through that, Brian.
Don't bother replying to this post if you don't feel like it, or don't have the time – it's ok.
Thank you I appreciate that
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"As for the testing environment and code. This was the SAMP panel connected to a dev DB, there's no real fancy or private code in it. Most of Argo SA:MPs code was leaked by an angry developer years ago. (Funnily enough they also threw a hiss fit when things didn't go their way) "
Marcel?
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Most of Argo SA:MPs code was leaked by an angry developer years ago. (Funnily enough they also threw a hiss fit when things didn't go their way)
The eternal sunshine of the bipolar mind that referred to itself as Kalcor/Kyeman/whatever—the so-called "creator" of SA-MP—made its creation using stolen code of an alpha MTA:SA version, so the irony of SA-MP servers following the footsteps of the platform's "maker" isn't lost on me.
From what I understand, this fruitcake (Kalcor) later managed to lose his own source code (his source code was also leaked, btw, but that was when some 0.2-ish version was the latest – so that code would be too old to be of any use); any "new" SA-MP versions after that loss were made through him reverse engineering his own code, pretty much hacking it. Guess he finally got tired of it, or perhaps the mental issues made it difficult to continue.
I heard this same story from people in completely different circles, both from SA-MP and MTA, talked to a MTA:SA dev about it also, so there's no reason to doubt it. I didn't find any holes in it either. My retelling of this may be somewhat inaccurate as well, I can't remember some of the details, but yeah, it was quite amusing.
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I see no future with MTA [...] For me, SA:MP will be superior to MTA. Atleast for the next couple of years until people completely move on with it, and focus on GTA V.
SA-MP is—without a doubt–superior to MTA as a choice in the context of English-language RP. It will remain so not only for the next couple of years, but for as long as it exists. The very way in which MTA was developed significantly lowers the odds.
This is easy to understand: for roleplay, you can get things going the moment you enable skins, vehicles, text chat and some maps. This is why it took off early. SA-MP also took off early, as a full-fledged release (even if not officially so). SA-MP and roleplay thus went hand in hand, naturally. Meanwhile, MTA spent years in "developer preview" cycles. MTA came later, but it pushed the boundaries much farther than SA-MP did. In other words, MTA was a stunt/race/zombie/freeroam-friendly mod from the get-go (as a matter of fact, it was originally made of MTA:DM and MTA:Race, just like in the GTAVC/GTAIII days). Roleplay was a much less obvious choice for developers in MTA, and it still is.
Along with the technical and historical factors, there is the cultural one: North America and Europe make for a far smaller share of the community than the other regions. Therefore, people who speak English and can afford high-end rigs are a niche, at best. Nowadays, roleplay does have a solid foot in MTA, but look at the countries/audiences the top-ranking servers cater to — hardly any "please speak English, we are an international server" stuff in these parts.
To sum up, the idea of a SA-MP exclave in MTA can be roughly compared to an American or European mission operating in Central Asia or Latin America. Is it impossible? No. Is it hard? Max-Payne-in-São-Paulo hard, or worse.
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To sum up, the idea of a SA-MP exclave in MTA can be roughly compared to an American or European mission operating in Central Asia or Latin America. Is it impossible? No. Is it hard? Max-Payne-in-São-Paulo hard, or worse.
Thank you for your input since you seem to know alot about MTA SA. Creating and having a server on MTA SA will be a challenge in many ways. Though I feel like it's still worth it and others seem to think so too. I hope we can create a fun server and I will be releasing plans soon. If it fails, at least we tried. If it succeeds, even only for a month or two, then I'll be happy that we did it. Nothing is ever certain and I just want to do this for the fun of it and hopefully make something that players can enjoy too.