Lets get real.

[Chase]

While making the gamemode deter those who wish to gang up in groups and DM sounds good on paper - It also has shown decrease the player base, and there's some things scripts cannot replace - such as administrators and how they handle punishment.

From what I examined in RS4 -
- Player goes on a copkilling spree
- Admins ajail or tempban the perpetrator
- perpetrator comes back, does it again
- cycle repeats a few times
- after very many tempbans and ajails, the perpetrator gets banned
- perpetrator makes unban request, says sorry and begs for mercy and gets unbanned.

Then it repeats over and over again.

While a lot of people learn their lesson after a ban or two, there are some who keep abusing the leniency of management.

I do agree with the fact that there are some things the script can do to deter people from doing this.. such as heavy fines and such, but it should not serve as a replacement for admins.

Personally in my honest opinion - If a player goes on a DM spree, copbaits, w/e, then admins should check if the player has been on argonath long enough to be considered a 'veteran' .. atleast 1 year. If so, immediate ban.

RS5 scripts are good in deterring this, but there are some things it does that I think should be handled by administration rather than a script.

Furthermore, I do believe activity has potential to pick up... IF bugs continue to be fixed regularly, and more promised features are completed. Once loan system is completed, I do expect more money to be circulating and more people may play because businesses will be in stock and people can make money by owning a business.

That way, more people will look into legal business practices rather than old fashioned cops and robbers.

I don't expect scripters to implement more of the promised features over night, but I do hope it's done in a timely manner or else people will get impatient and move on.

[Danny_Leo]

Are those who aren't playing online anymore because;

A reset happened which resulted in loss of possessions plus you feel mis-treated for the way RS5 came about? (would have been inevitable anyway) Well it is a pain in the ass when you have to regain millions, I'd try earning my stuff back but everyone seems uninterested in playing Argonath, and with current player count and my boys gone I'm really demotivated.
The server currently is still in need of bug fixing and you are waiting till the game-breaking bugs are patched? It isn't that much of an issue, RS5 is a good script though removing PNS and food to reheal made more than few veterans I know facepalm.
You feel RS5 didn't live up to expectations in terms of taking Argonath to a whole new level but keeping simplicity? Well it seems so when we got over 50 regulars gone.
You just all around dislike RS5 without even bothering to give it a shot? I find the script okay, the other things concern me.
None of the above, if so state your reason. I'm personally inactive trying to reach remaining Stracci members to discuss our future, it also demotivates me to see that 90 percent of people I knew, players I rolled with, fought against or just knew by seeing their name on player list everyday is gone. The player count is killing me the most, I've been here when Stracci had two times more members online at once than Argonath has players IG right now. Beside that my RL friends quit, and criminal groups went dead inactive.

SA:MP server may have changed for better for worse, fact is some alot of us here have been playing for year's and all of a sudden a script change come's along and we're up in arms about how it's done more harm than good.  Ranting on the forums about the current state isn't going to change anything, the community needs to bond together and do something to make change happen.

Answered your questions from my personal perspective.

[Mopreme]

(...) but seeing as majority of the community wants RS4 back, why don't you make a public poll for every user to add in his choice?

They already know what the result will turn out to be as it is as obvious as obviously obvious.
Similary, we already know how the votes will come down which is the same as every other topic; with a diversion between "supporters" and players. The only reason RS4 hasn't returned is because they value the voice of their supporters more even though they are a minority compared to players.

Time heals everything. All we can do is to give it time. In time, they will realize and perhaps even admit the true condition of their SAMP server.

[Declan]

When people were in Rs4, they shout and spam in public chat that they want new version, rs5 and now as it is released people say we want rs4 back the pervious version, I advice them to go onwards instead of going Astem.

[Slavik]

When people were in Rs4, they shout and spam in public chat that they want new version, rs5 and now as it is released people say we want rs4 back the pervious version

Indeed

[Jack Rosso]

months and months, probably even a half-year before the RS5 release i myself was shouting around that people shouldn't expect RS5 to be what it was gonna turn out to be, even back then i said that RS5, a script, cannot change the way the players want to play. For years the players have played in a totally different game setting (RS4), and now this advanced totally different script which disables a lot of players to continue what they were coming for in RS4, is reality.

Back in RS4 people just didn't realise / knew what RS5 was gonna be about, and that it was gonna make such a deep inpact on the way of playing the game. Mostly just thought it was gonna be the newest scripts and features without any bugs or errors.

[Pingster]

The funny part is that pretty much everyone would play RS5 if everyone else did. Can't get out of the loop, though

[Lustigkurre]

The funny part is that pretty much everyone would play RS5 if everyone else did. Can't get out of the loop, though

Yes.

We need to add 100 bots so we can lure people to come ingame

[Pingster]

Yes.

We need to add 100 bots so we can lure people to come ingame

Wish it was that easy =(

However, some stimulus should be able to get the activity back up... Double payment weekends, tax rebate fridays...stuff like that. I know, money isn't the impor-... no point arguing about that, just try it. What's the worst case scenario, the 20 people who do actively play earn extra money?

[Frank_Hawk]

Let’s step back for a second.

The developers have worked diligently in putting RS5 together. From what I’ve seen – the technical design is impressive, identifying and actively resolving commons flaws of RS4 including the lag we all came to resent. I would not doubt the heart of the developers since they have invested more selfless effort than many of us put together. In view of this, the owner did the right thing by taking full ownership of the functional design of RS5 including bearing responsibility behind the ideas that have been controversially unpopular among the community.

In my opinion, RS5 was not as successful as our past releases because fundamentally it lost the spirit and flare that its predecessors RS4, RS3 etc had boasted. The landscape was refreshed both spiritually and materialistically. The leadership/owner did not it seems anticipate that this sudden radicalisation of the community would result in the upheaval we witness today.

Added to the loss of spirit and flare of RS5 – there are external factors which have contributed to our spectacular downfall from grace many of which are outside of the leadership/owner control including the deterioration of SA:MP and arm’s length management of the server. All of which formed the perfect storm.

Fundamentally, we could analyse what went wrong for a long time and I would (with the benefit of time) be at the forefront of assisting the leadership/owner with a root cause analysis. However, with time against us and continuing deterioration of our community - corrective action is needed now.

We need to understand the problems first which I’d encourage the community to assist on:

-   Economic stagnation
-   Group and families stagnation
-   Removal of existing/previous functionality from RS4

Proposed solutions to address the issues above:

-   Frequent but proportionate economic stimulus
-   Funding to official and key unofficial groups to spur recruitment activity
-   Assessing the removal and reintroduction of functionality from RS4

Ultimately, we need to put our egos aside and fight together for the survival of this community.

[Mr. Goobii]

Well said Frank. 

[Jack Rosso]

Completely agree with you Frank, however the very first step is to get to a recognition from all parties, including community leadership that this is infact a ongoing issue which has nothing to do with just ''inactivity due to exams'' or any of those excuses. recognizing the problem  opens the gate to a solution.

[JDC]

Do you know what my first comments are after I finished looking at RS5? That it had nice, revolutionary concepts, yet that the execution was flawed.

Yes, FLAWED. And here are the things I didn't (and still don't) like:

- Adding option to disable public chat
- Patrolling can get more expensive because of fuel and lack of subsidized government fuel
- Planes have fuel restrictions, which ends being able to fly around aimlessly when on breaks from roleplay
- Some features were launched despite looking like alpha-level products
- Players spawning at random hospitals (which is why I am always on a job)
- Overall lack of money (in fact, even with admin help I could not get enough money for an event as the admins themselves are poor)
- Some criminal groups moved away, making police duty more boring and us more reliant on "random copbaiters" (except for DM groups, as I am glad their days are over)
- Over-application of dialog boxes instead of some very simple commands being allowed to have a command-form application as well in order to make some things faster, while retaining dialog boxes (i.e. /send)
- Removal of Pay-n-Sprays and Food Shops, especially as I often have a hard time finding a mechanic/medic
- Absurd pricing in some items, such as wallets
- Lack of other lucrative jobs and ways to inject money into the economy aside from fireman duty

Therefore I call bullshit on anyone who says that loyal players, or as you put it, "supporters"/"admins"/"5-10 percent minority", are incapable of seeing that there are flaws with the server. That list were the things I named off the top of my head and in fact, I could spend all day finding more ways to add on to that list of things I dislike.

However, unlike some others here, I have the common sense to recognize that nothing will happen with the server if all we did was bitch on the forums about bringing RS4 back, so my first (and final) course of action was to support this community and pitch in with the others who were working to do the same and get back what they lost, and more.

This community is going through a rough time, I can see that there are things wrong with it, but the difference is that I choose to work and look at the positives instead of bitching that I lost this or that, so I can actually help arrive at a solution.

But you know what is ironic? In retrospect, many of you are also to blame for the current scripts, as MANY of its ideas (spawning at hospitals, mechanics, /togglepchat, jurisdictions, changed fuel, changed car prices, even the god damn reset, and many others) were forwarded and supported by PLAYERS. The developers listened to your ideas and implemented them along with some fixes in the best ways that they can, and you barrage them with endless whining and demand for the time when your ideas were not yet implemented.

To add, one more reason why all the "moan posts" and "moan topics" are allowed to exist is that Gandalf gives you the freedom to express your opinion when he could just very well insta-ban any shitting post and go so far as to hide all shitting posts and topics so that it will look like nothing is wrong, which in fact is a standard practice in many other communities. So yes, they listened to you, and look what you got us into. Voila. As several developers have already stated, make up your f**king minds.

For the person who classified "players" as different from "supporters"/admins, take a reality check and see that the latter are the ones who are actually ingame, tolerating the things we all dislike about this gamemode and doing their best to help this community up, while your "players" are the ones who are away and moaning about all the changes.

Now you can pitch in and do your part to improve this community, or you can stay on the forums and continue to whine about all the candies you did not get. Either way, this community will move on, with or without you.

[Stivi]

Let's not forget the advantages of RS5 as well. There are still bugged and not yet released features.

[Mopreme]

Either way, this community will move on, with or without you.

Very true, just bear in mind how many people "you" actually is