Let's get real - part 2 - RS5 or RS4?

[Jaka_Lah]

Age of Empires? Belive or not that was the first game I played and the last game I played today 
It's undead.

Yeah, pretty much the only classic I play to this day.

[James_Hunter]

This server started going down hill ever since the regular player base was catered for less and less at around early 2010. Role-play - I mean actual role-play, not implied through a script role-play, became an afterthought and it was all about how many scripts could be made to please server aesthetics and trigger happy bunny hoppers, you know, the random SA:MP server scrolling kiddies.

The glory days were back when admins catered to role-play events and the ARPD had role-players in command, as soon as the focus turned to chasing orange dots for that cash pay-out, a community similar to that which is seen in Call of Duty was created; it was all about that kill and getting the high score, be it as a family or as a cop. I will refer to these as trigger-kids during this.

So slowly the dedicated regular role-players were churned and forced out of their positions by the trigger-kids, hostage situations were impossible to negotiate, the role-play was slowly watered down until it became all about "give me your money or i'll kill you", but I'm not even talking about a role-played mugging for cash, I'm talking about people getting so wrapped up in it that actual anger and actual intensity behind the attacks fueled the motives.

The ARPD similarly had people looking for the best way to kill suspects coming in and as a result? The SWAT I had founded was molested in to some sort of Nazi-regime kill squad, for those of you who know him Ben Samiir is prime suspect for being the leading trigger-kid in that turn of police generation, similarly this was seen in a lot of the new ARPD commanders and before long I had just lost respect for so many people, especially those that were allowing it to happen, for a time me and a few others tried very hard to fight it but the new admin trigger-kids (even Ben was made an admin can you believe?) were whispering sweet nothings that ensured their security.

We were told "you're old news, old SWAT and old ARPD isn't needed any more, you're out-dated". Can you believe the most organized thing the ARPD does now is drive a column of squad cars around? Lol, in comparison to what they used to be? Man there was some impressive stuff. The role-play was so well catered for that entire riots could be role-played out and the police wouldn't steam in and fire in M4s and uzis getting their $$$ in, it'd be riot formations and tactics, arrests and so on;


Batons at the ready.

SWAT team deployed to a truck that couldn't stop due to a bomb that would of set off on it if it did, SWAT deployed an operative ON TO the truck and successfully defused it;


A typical hostage scene, not like your rammed-out blockades and gun shots everywhere of today;


The team was a legend, the Mafia families created such incredible role-play, even the standard cop force was top notch; 80%+ used Teamspeak, spread out over radio channels to properly communicate the situations and people LOVED it. Though that was all dropped with new scripts and new ideas, the server leaders wanted everything to be open to everybody with-out any effort.

Before long it became TDM. Every time I logged on to the server, every couple of months or so I'd see it getting worse and worse; admins where on their knees to please new players and Gandalf and Aragorn were lapping up the player count so busily that they couldn't of been caring any less as to the effect it was having on the regular founding community.

So it continued, and continued and continues - building more and more scripts, quickly, hurriedly to please the new community monsters you created, until finally it caught up and bit you in the ass. I could of said "I told you so" but some how it doesn't seem like it would cut it.

I'm just glad for the awesome memories I have from the time when it was about role-play and not about the cash trigger-kiddies script and community that's circling around now-a-days. Does it leave me bitter? Yeah it does, it wasn't nice watching the server I loved turned in to an abomination of what it once was.

Maybe this will be a wake up call to the server owners or maybe this will be its death. Either way? Was bound to happen some day.

[Alexander_Rijav]

This server started going down hill ever since the regular player base was catered for less and less at around early 2010. Role-play - I mean actual role-play, not implied through a script role-play, became an afterthought and it was all about how many scripts could be made to please server aesthetics and trigger happy bunny hoppers, you know, the random SA:MP server scrolling kiddies.

The glory days were back when admins catered to role-play events and the ARPD had role-players in command, as soon as the focus turned to chasing orange dots for that cash pay-out, a community similar to that which is seen in Call of Duty was created; it was all about that kill and getting the high score, be it as a family or as a cop. I will refer to these as trigger-kids during this.

So slowly the dedicated regular role-players were churned and forced out of their positions by the trigger-kids, hostage situations were impossible to negotiate, the role-play was slowly watered down until it became all about "give me your money or i'll kill you", but I'm not even talking about a role-played mugging for cash, I'm talking about people getting so wrapped up in it that actual anger and actual intensity behind the attacks fueled the motives.

The ARPD similarly had people looking for the best way to kill suspects coming in and as a result? The SWAT I had founded was molested in to some sort of Nazi-regime kill squad, for those of you who know him Ben Samiir is prime suspect for being the leading trigger-kid in that turn of police generation, similarly this was seen in a lot of the new ARPD commanders and before long I had just lost respect for so many people, especially those that were allowing it to happen, for a time me and a few others tried very hard to fight it but the new admin trigger-kids (even Ben was made an admin can you believe?) were whispering sweet nothings that ensured their security.

We were told "you're old news, old SWAT and old ARPD isn't needed any more, you're out-dated". Can you believe the most organized thing the ARPD does now is drive a column of squad cars around? Lol, in comparison to what they used to be? Man there was some impressive stuff. The role-play was so well catered for that entire riots could be role-played out and the police wouldn't steam in and fire in M4s and uzis getting their $$$ in, it'd be riot formations and tactics, arrests and so on;


Batons at the ready.

SWAT team deployed to a truck that couldn't stop due to a bomb that would of set off on it if it did, SWAT deployed an operative ON TO the truck and successfully defused it;


A typical hostage scene, not like your rammed-out blockades and gun shots everywhere of today;


The team was a legend, the Mafia families created such incredible role-play, even the standard cop force was top notch; 80%+ used Teamspeak, spread out over radio channels to properly communicate the situations and people LOVED it. Though that was all dropped with new scripts and new ideas, the server leaders wanted everything to be open to everybody with-out any effort.

Before long it became TDM. Every time I logged on to the server, every couple of months or so I'd see it getting worse and worse; admins where on their knees to please new players and Gandalf and Aragorn were lapping up the player count so busily that they couldn't of been caring any less as to the effect it was having on the regular founding community.

So it continued, and continued and continues - building more and more scripts, quickly, hurriedly to please the new community monsters you created, until finally it caught up and bit you in the ass. I could of said "I told you so" but some how it doesn't seem like it would cut it.

I'm just glad for the awesome memories I have from the time when it was about role-play and not about the cash trigger-kiddies script and community that's circling around now-a-days. Does it leave me bitter? Yeah it does, it wasn't nice watching the server I loved turned in to an abomination of what it once was.

Maybe this will be a wake up call to the server owners or maybe this will be its death. Either way? Was bound to happen some day.

That was the most interesting thing I saw this year! I joined in 2012 and I never expected something great existed before that. I still have hope that thing will go right...

[Exterminator]

That was the most interesting thing I saw this year! I joined in 2012 and I never expected something great existed before that. I still have hope that thing will go right...

It's possible, but not easy. In order to re-establish such roleplay you need to lower the levels of gamification on the server and setup player wide awareness to roleplay and learn. This is however not possible with scripts or police tests, only with the work of the players themselves.
The problem right now is that the system is only as strong as it's weakest link, and right now the link's pretty weak (Note that i am not referring to new players, if anything, quite the contrary. Nowadays i've found the older members of the community to be more trigger happy). In order to recreate such conditions of roleplay, we need to encourage it among the community and make roleplay-less action a frowned upon act, and take away the damn textbook style answers to things like kidnappings.

This doesn't mean the criminal community is without blame, this part i have witnessed personally being the leader of Ancelotti. Criminals nowadays are also looking for quick flicks with guns blazing, only a few people care about such roleplays. The only solution is the same one as i proposed for the cops. Such action needs to be frowned upon in favor of nice roleplays. This means to train every weak link and leave out nobody, and stage large roleplays like the ones in the past.
While i can't guarantee it's success or failure, i can guarantee you that we will definitely make an effort towards this goal.

[Danny_Leo]

@ James Hunter - Great post and I agree completely. SWAT became DM squad during Samiirs leadership and it was for certain time after, when all they did was chase people with Buffalos causing even more harm than criminals they were after with their Rambo approach.

Although afterwards there were attempts of recreating SWAT or SRU not sure anymore, they RP'ed well and stuff, too bad I lost pictures of a RP in which I surrendered after they breached into my penthouse back in 2011/12 not sure.

Also since I joined Argonath I've seen hundredes families and gangs come and go, most of them were into pure DM and nothing more. But at the end it's all about how well you control your members. Without any doubt offical families were offical for reason. Offical families offered higher level of RP than 95 percent of every family founded and closed over last four years, few exceptions are great RPing groups such as Angels of Death, Los Diablos, Conecta.. and few others.

The 2010 and 2011 were without doubt best years I've spent on Argonath. The quality RP's afterwards were done mostly between offical groups and dozen remaining quality officers. I myself almost left somewhere in 2012 when it all looked like freeroam, TDM but then I realized I must encricle myself with certain groups and players who are interested and good in RP.

[ClazzyJogel]

@James Hunter - The legend has spoken. I've been in the SAPD aswell for a good ammount of my time being a part of Argonath, and I've heard alot about you, even if you werent around that time. Its unfortunate that the server is what it is today, and I miss the times where the ARPD was an active group where we would stick on teamspeak daily and have an enjoyable fun time. But it is what it is, and I hope to see a good change any time soon.

[Que]

(too large to requote)

You nailed it all right there. Exactly what I was talking about like twenty pages back.
This was the time!

[Kostas]

long post

Despite the fact that I wasn't lucky enough to be playing at those times I do understand what you are talking about .
I joined in middle 2011 and I have seen the RP gradually falling .

Now from what i am thinking getting back to RS4 or even RS3 won't change anything at all . Why?
Because first of all I believe most of the players that left coz of RS5 simply won't return and even if they do.
The things are not going to be any better than now .
Unfortunatelly I do not know how things can change , but I do think that someone should lead this movement and that someone should be from the Administration so that people do actually follow him easier .
Also the lone individuals cannot really affect that much the RP in the server.
The SAPD Command and the most active groups are responsible for that . If every single official/active group (considering SAPD and FBI , etc too) gets a higher RP standard then the rest of the server will follow .

The thing is , do those groups want to make a change, or not?

[Joey_Creeks]

Unlike what those with eyes full of shit see, those who are in favor of RS5 already know about the existence and extent of the problems, which is why they work to help the situation in one way or another.

What RS5 is right now is an incomplete (not "under development") gamemode, with many vital scripts and features not loaded, and lots of bugs, which produces discontent from all sectors. Yet a good example of using it positively would be R.I.O.N., where players channel their grievances and discontent about the current situation into a constructive manner.

But once those are fixed and the gamemode is adapted better to the needs of the players, that is where the potential of RS5 will shine, where its superiority to RS4 will show, and where [more] players will come back.

In the meantime, we need to keep playing and / or proposing solutions, so we will reach our end goal. Those who decide to do nothing but bitch are not contributing to that.

You're the one who has shit in his eyes, you keep saying to people that they are not helping the community and you are. The community or at least a larger part of it wants RS4 not RS5. The people who keep asking for RS4 actually want to HELP the community and the server not the opposite. On the other hand you keep on saying that its better and it needs to stay, aren't you the one who isn't helping at all and just is making the situation which is shitty even more shitty? And if i'm wrong and RS5 at the end becomes better than RS4, than obviously thats good and then it should stay, however you are right that it is currently incomplete and maybe its potential will shine. But that is yet to be seen.

[CharlieKasper]

Reverting to RS4 is not going to help the community, it may actually cause a lot of differences within the HQ. Read this carefully to understand what I am trying to say.
 

Reverting back to RS4 is not a solution. You don't know how much of their spare time have the scripters used to create RS5. If you feel that the scripts are complicated, then think how complicated making the scripts would be.

Reverting back to rs4 would basically mean telling the developers to take their two years of hard work and shove it up their ass, that is disrespecting their contribution the community. They have used their spare time to create a game mode for a gaming community. If their work is scraped, think how would they feel. Basically, they will feel that they have wasted a considerable amount of time on a game for nothing..

 
The scripters would be happy if you actually help them making rs5 easier as that would give them a sense of relief that their work has not gone in vain.

[Huntsman]

Reverting to RS4 is not going to help the community, it may actually cause a lot of differences within the HQ. Read this carefully to understand what I am trying to say.

I agree with this. Seriously, you guys who want RS4 back are ungrateful bastards. Scripters worked their asses off for free, wasting their precious two years on making a gamemode for all of us. They dedicated two years in their life for a gaming community, and i'm pretty sure these years could have been spent a lot better than that, yet you guys want to tell them to take RS5, take these two years of work and go f... themselves in the asses with it. If I were a scripter, after such a spit to the face, i'd certainly leave the position and encourage all the other scripters to do the same, so you can be stuck in the same, old, buggy, crashy and boring RS4 that you want so much without any further updates and fixes. Learn to appreciate what you have instead of complaining and whining. Gosh, Argonath IS AFRAID OF CHANGE, but now I realised it is not the server owners who are, it's the players who prevent the change from happening.

*The truth that I wouldnt have the balls to say

James is right, that is a huge problem ,though it can't be blamed on the gamemode. People will remain whinish DMERS regardless what gamemode they're on. It's the peoples mentality we need to change, not the gamemode. RS5 would be better than RS4 roleplay wise, it simply needs few very uneccesary and restricting features removed, such as pickpocket (That's a cops and robbers feature, I've no idea how HQ even approved such script), jurisdriction, or atleast make it unforced (The script assigns you to LV even though it's empty and there is no need to patrol it), the whole non-sense and uneccesary and complicated economy redone - there is no need for wallets and various funds. They're just making players confused, and the group script removal -  this script comes from the serious RP servers, where it's reffered to as faction system. It really doesnt fit Argonath.

[KELVIN0110]

I choose rs4 so far... and I do hope we get our hard earned properties back if possible but i know rs5 can beat rs4 it just needs time.

[JDC]

I choose rs4 so far... and I do hope we get our hard earned properties back if possible but i know rs5 can beat rs4 it just needs time.

A contradictory statement in itself. Developers have made it clear that properties in RS4 will not be returned, and that even on the second "RS4 Server" (supposing somebody actually steps up and takes Gandalf's challenge), people will start from scratch.

You're the one who has shit in his eyes, you keep saying to people that they are not helping the community and you are. The community or at least a larger part of it wants RS4 not RS5. The people who keep asking for RS4 actually want to HELP the community and the server not the opposite. On the other hand you keep on saying that its better and it needs to stay, aren't you the one who isn't helping at all and just is making the situation which is shitty even more shitty? And if i'm wrong and RS5 at the end becomes better than RS4, than obviously thats good and then it should stay, however you are right that it is currently incomplete and maybe its potential will shine. But that is yet to be seen.

Then as early as now, I will state that you are wRONg.

The moaners who keep whining "RS5 sucks, we must return to RS4" are the ones who are not helping the community. Instead of helping developers (and other players) improve the new gamemode, they want the server to regress instead of progress.

Instead of giving a single bit of thanks for all the hard work (with zero pay and compensation; not even Division Leaders get free money for their personal accounts) that they put into making a more advanced gamemode, they shit all over innovation and send developers the message that all their hard work is nothing but a waste, a failure.

I don't make allegations, I state facts. Like others who have actually been contributing, I do the same by playing (and even starting a project to bring back events). Aside from shitting developers' work, how have you been useful to this community? So unless you can back up your statements, don't try turning my own comments on me as that does not work.


As for the group scripts, I have to object. Their purpose is not to create the group itself, but to make existing groups easier to manage. These are not from prison-RLRP servers, but merely an advancement of our own; Argonath had been using scripts designed for groups since the MTA:VC days, in the form of group/clan protection. Unless HQ decrees otherwise, groups are free not to use them if they do not want to.

And as for James Hunter's post, I may not agree with the way of phrasing some things (although I agree on the degeneration of groups such as in Ben_Samiir's case), but I agree on one major point.

The problems in the current situation are not the fault of the HQ alone, but of the players. All sectors had a part in its making, so we cannot point the finger at anyone in particular. This means that to solve the problem, all sides will have to cooperate as well; HQ-implemented solutions will be useless if players do not go along and decide to contribute to the problem instead.

[Joey_Creeks]

A contradictory statement in itself. Developers have made it clear that properties in RS4 will not be returned, and that even on the second "RS4 Server" (supposing somebody actually steps up and takes Gandalf's challenge), people will start from scratch.


Then as early as now, I will state that you are wRONg.

The moaners who keep whining "RS5 sucks, we must return to RS4" are the ones who are not helping the community. Instead of helping developers (and other players) improve the new gamemode, they want the server to regress instead of progress.

Instead of giving a single bit of thanks for all the hard work (with zero pay and compensation; not even Division Leaders get free money for their personal accounts) that they put into making a more advanced gamemode, they shit all over innovation and send developers the message that all their hard work is nothing but a waste, a failure.

I don't make allegations, I state facts. Like others who have actually been contributing, I do the same by playing (and even starting a project to bring back events). Aside from shitting developers' work, how have you been useful to this community? So unless you can back up your statements, don't try turning my own comments on me as that does not work.


As for the group scripts, I have to object. Their purpose is not to create the group itself, but to make existing groups easier to manage. These are not from prison-RLRP servers, but merely an advancement of our own; Argonath had been using scripts designed for groups since the MTA:VC days, in the form of group/clan protection. Unless HQ decrees otherwise, groups are free not to use them if they do not want to.

And as for James Hunter's post, I may not agree with the way of phrasing some things (although I agree on the degeneration of groups such as in Ben_Samiir's case), but I agree on one major point.

The problems in the current situation are not the fault of the HQ alone, but of the players. All sectors had a part in its making, so we cannot point the finger at anyone in particular. This means that to solve the problem, all sides will have to cooperate as well; HQ-implemented solutions will be useless if players do not go along and decide to contribute to the problem instead.

I agree with what you have said but the truth is more players want RS4 rather than keep RS5 and there is no solution to that unless RS5 improves and other players join. As i type this there are 27 players online, that doesn't sound like much but its a improvement. I loved Argonath but unless it improves i won't play on the RS5 server. You asked what did i do to help, i played... a lot. And i had no intention to "turn your comments against you".

[JDC]

I agree with what you have said but the truth is more players want RS4 rather than keep RS5 and there is no solution to that unless RS5 improves and other players join. As i type this there are 27 players online, that doesn't sound like much but its a improvement. I loved Argonath but unless it improves i won't play on the RS5 server. You asked what did i do to help, i played... a lot. And i had no intention to "turn your comments against you".

The "majority" is not always right. In fact, most of the problems created here that cannot be solved by any one person or sector, are a product of the "majority".

If you want a brilliant example, look at how many people managed to cause fuck-ups over the last few years' Oscars.