We have to get the server back in line.

[Nexus_Riggs]

I see RS5 very much improved than when it was first released. One thing people don't realize is that we have a server, with great system, filled with opportunities, but not flawless to the community's vision yet. There is still lot of room for further improvements, but it will indeed take more time. Best thing to do now is be patience, although share ideas/suggestions through the system we currently have, get active with the community/developers and try to move the community forward.

[Plam_Knight]

I see RS5 very much improved than when it was first released. One thing people don't realize is that we have a server, with great system, filled with opportunities, but not flawless to the community's vision yet. There is still lot of room for further improvements, but it will indeed take more time. Best thing to do now is be patience, although share ideas/suggestions through the system we currently have, get active with the community/developers and try to move the community forward.

WE should try to move the community towards what exactly, asking out of curiousity to see what is the average view point of people about the future of the server ?
Before answering that question, consider few things:

- Remember at what state the server was an year ago and compare it with now.
- Recall what the Argonath Vision was an year ago and compare it with now.
- Recall what the scripts used to be an year ago and compare it with now.

[.Matthew.]

Players were in RS4 because it was simple, dynamic, had features and was easy to understand and play along with it, still there were more roleplay scenarios than there are in RS5 where apperently scripts became hardcore.
There's no reason at all to close PnS, there's no need for Mechanic either, you can make PnS buyable and make entry fees to pay.
There's also no reason for realistic economy in unrealistic game, like I saw Gandalf's post somewhere about "Why would you want realistic game if you have life" something like that.
Lottos too, should be added back. It was a simple game where you either gain or lose the 100$ for the ticket, still simple and fun.
The only improvement would be RS4 with more modern interior (scripting part) and some newer SAMP features as preview textdraws, clickable textdraws and such.

[Axison]

Switching back to RS4 is just dumb. RS4 was worked on by alot of scripters and obviously everyone of them had their own style. When it came to adding/fixing stuff in RS4 it was simply impossible. I have no idea how RS5 is "complicated", You guys asked for the removal of Jurisdiction.. it was removed, You guys asked for the ability to disable public chat(player side ofc)... it was added. Almost everything you people asked for was done, the scripters are working as hard as they possibly can. About PnS, Gandalf already stated that it was not intentional. As a scripter myself, i know how hard it can be to fix certain bugs, I really dont know why people complain about RS5's scripts. You're basically asking for Old rotten food while fresh food is right infront of you.

[Rusty]

WE should try to move the community towards what exactly, asking out of curiousity to see what is the average view point of people about the future of the server ?
Before answering that question, consider few things:

- Remember at what state the server was an year ago and compare it with now.
- Recall what the Argonath Vision was an year ago and compare it with now.
- Recall what the scripts used to be an year ago and compare it with now.

Future of server?  No to bright if things keep going way they are.
It has had it's time in the limelight and has been knocked off it's pedestal, it's no longer a place filled with people who came to play and have a fun but has became a breeding ground for degenerates (no am not dumping on everyone).  I don't want to sound like am against what it's become but it's simply laughable at how far it dropped, it's not the same place I used to spend my free-time on.  Vision?  What vision.

It's not going to take an effort from HQ to move the SA:MP community towards something better but a actual community effort, community been left out of decisions before can't keep making same mistakes over and over.  We should be listening to you.

RS4 coming back won't make a difference it's to late down the line to consider that now.

[Chris_Knight]

Future of server?  No to bright if things keep going way they are.
It has had it's time in the limelight and has been knocked off it's pedestal, it's no longer a place filled with people who came to play and have a fun but has became a breeding ground for degenerates (no am not dumping on everyone).  I don't want to sound like am against what it's become but it's simply laughable at how far it dropped, it's not the same place I used to spend my free-time on.  Vision?  What vision.

It's not going to take an effort from HQ to move the SA:MP community towards something better but a actual community effort, community been left out of decisions before can't keep making same mistakes over and over.  We should be listening to you.

RS4 coming back won't make a difference it's to late down the line to consider that now.

[TheLegitHabibi]

The thing is that the downfall was solely because leaders do what they want. If protested against, topics get locked for "Argonath isn't a democracy".
You guys started it in RS4 by rejecting great ideas. The HQ has a great personality that loved to deny every idea with the concept of RP it.
That slowly led to a place where community has no input to what the server is.

Then RS5 turned out to be disappointing because of high expectations. This was surely gonna happen.

How will the whole community move forward if the community's ideas and suggestion are almost always trashed? When we don't use new scripts because they're "not possible to script" and if given examples of it, "we don't copy other servers".

Theres still no proper legitimate topic defining every single rule and the punishment if the rule be broken. Yeah there's a wannabe topic which sounds like its just hap hazard and just dumped in the rules.
That should be the number 1priority and is the HQs job. Admins improvise punishments and without the topic no doubt biased punishments will occur leading the players to leave such a community.

There are so many flaws everywhere. I still feel the community is based on friendship. Oh,this guy was inactive and came back after 2 years, next day he's Deputy Chief of sapd.
Servers based on friendships fall apart.

If the HQ doesn't fix these flaws then this community ain't going anywhere. I'd like to disagree with Rusty when he said it will take the whole community's effort. How will the community even contribute if this isn't a democracy and the HQ does what it likes?

So many people keep saying call your friends here.and when a bunch of kids from Pakistan started playing, y'all started joking and mocking their lack of roleplay and English skills instead of helping them and eventually driving them away to another server.
Now you're asking us to call our friends again.

What a joke...

[Rusty]

The thing is that the downfall was solely because leaders do what they want. If protested against, topics get locked for "Argonath isn't a democracy".
You guys started it in RS4 by rejecting great ideas. The HQ has a great personality that loved to deny every idea with the concept of RP it.
That slowly led to a place where community has no input to what the server is.

Community involvement in decisions was at zero or was a small fraction, even before I was a Manager or had got re-instated to a Admin I could see it. 

Then RS5 turned out to be disappointing because of high expectations. This was surely gonna happen.

I think the disappointment was of the state it was released in rather than people having high expectation's but they had to release it when they did, it was a downer and hampered the server big time but we sort of pulled through I guess?

How will the whole community move forward if the community's ideas and suggestion are almost always trashed? When we don't use new scripts because they're "not possible to script" and if given examples of it, "we don't copy other servers".

I'll be blunt quite alot of the ideas people post aren't worth adding, developers did quietly listen and added in features you all wanted but it wasn't enough as you simply cannot please everyone.  There are still some great ideas worth adding in, they flow in everyday but right now I think the developers would want to fix what's needed before adding in any more. 

Theres still no proper legitimate topic defining every single rule and the punishment if the rule be broken. Yeah there's a wannabe topic which sounds like its just hap hazard and just dumped in the rules.
That should be the number 1priority and is the HQs job. Admins improvise punishments and without the topic no doubt biased punishments will occur leading the players to leave such a community.

I highly agree on this, there isn't a topic dedicated to every single rule that floats around here and I can feel why players think half are simply made-up by Staff.  Maybe this will be something we can work on soon.

There are so many flaws everywhere. I still feel the community is based on friendship. Oh,this guy was inactive and came back after 2 years, next day he's Deputy Chief of sapd.
Servers based on friendships fall apart.

I wouldn't say it's base on friendship, I've had people and know people who tried to exploit it to get somewhere but it ultimately led them to fall flat on their face.  If it was like this I know I'd say something about it if it happened within group's I am in.

If the HQ doesn't fix these flaws then this community ain't going anywhere. I'd like to disagree with Rusty when he said it will take the whole community's effort. How will the community even contribute if this isn't a democracy and the HQ does what it likes?

This is where it needs to change, needs to stop being a one-three man show and start involving everyone to come to final decisions on what should happen.  HQ trying to do what it can right now without Gandalf but as much as someone might get on at me for saying this we need to just start doing what's best and not wait around for him to be here as he does have other higher priorities to deal with.

So many people keep saying call your friends here.and when a bunch of kids from Pakistan started playing, y'all started joking and mocking their lack of roleplay and English skills instead of helping them and eventually driving them away to another server.
Now you're asking us to call our friends again.

This is how player's are in this community, lack of respect for others is a fucking joke. 

[Zaila]

So many people keep saying call your friends here.and when a bunch of kids from Pakistan started playing, y'all started joking and mocking their lack of roleplay and English skills instead of helping them and eventually driving them away to another server.
Now you're asking us to call our friends again.

When we spoke on TS before, you brought this up to me and i told you that is not acceptable. If it is happening, i ask you, or anyone else, to get evidence for it and come to me directly with it. I do not tolerate it and whoever does it will experience that. No one needs to speak perfect english to play here. And for lack of Roleplay, everyone needs to start somewhere and learn it, and everyone should respect that.

[Kirgiz_Returned]

Removed. User warned.

[Zaila]

I also want to clear something up.

We released RS5 in December 2013 in a buggy state. It was nothing like we wanted it to be, and if we had the option to, we would have delayed the release to further improve the scripts.

However, as those around that time should remember that the server went down in November 2013. It deleted ALL data that was on the server. Gandalf had backups, but the problem was that the recent backups at that time was on the server that was wiped clean. The only backup Gandalf had at that time was 4 months old so me, Conroy and xcasio sat down with Gandalf and discussed what we should do.

We had 2 options which was:

1. Start up RS4 with no data at all which would have ment no properties, no vehicles, no accounts and so on. Players would have to work their way up again, then have their data wiped a second time whenever RS5 would have been released.

2. Put RS5 on the main IP for a couple of weeks as "official beta" and push push push to fix bugs until the set release deadline.

No matter what we would have chosen, it would upset the players as it would mean data wipes for both options. However, we felt that option 2 was the best under the current situation at that time.

When we released RS5, it was in such messy state as we had nowhere enough time to finish it. As i have said several times, if we had the possibility to, we would have wanted more time to work on RS5 before releasing it but sadly we didn't have it.

Since the release, several hundreds of bugs has been fixed, possible thousands. We have spent i dont know how many thousand of hours togheter in fixing all the bugs, yet there is no appreciation for any of our efforts. All we hear is "this is bugged, this is shit, fix this, fix that, change this, change that, RS5 is shit, bring back RS4" and i personally have been so demotivated to actually do any scripting for months now. After all, i'm a human as everyone else with feelings, and i have a limit on how much shit i can take on the project i've dedicated thousands of hours on without getting a single "thank you" back. And i'm sure the other scripts is, or have been feeling the same.

We will be working on fixing things, but it will require patient from the players.

[Tiny]

Well, I don't like being offensive here because people get hurt easily.. but let me be honest. There are shitloads of reasons we can state that have caused this drop to the Argonath servers.
 
However, the problem is not the script, nor the owners, nor bla bla. The problem is me, you, and everyone who has been a part of the community. This community is unfortunately another micrography of the real word, and unfortunately the bullcrap is at very high rates.
Players have forgot the reason they are here. I know, fun is why we all play here, but if you pass the limits in order to "have fun", fun is gone.

And look where we are now! People are indeed having fun on the server, but not RPing. Instead, they are having fun freeroaming, DMing and collecting money/assets.

I find it almsot impossible to see a change here after several tries I've made myself, but if you want my opinion, change and judge yourselves before you want to judge/change something on this server.

Whatever, the server is currently having a bad time, and if you "love" it, then at least the 15 players that are online, must stop causing trouble. So we can finally raise.

[Mikal]

And there's a certain official group which completely shat on the server a few weeks before RS5 saying that they'd leave if all of their stuff got wiped, and now they are 'semi back' pretending nothing ever happend, the ignorance is unbearable.

[Stivi]

@Mikal, if you're talking about Gvardia, I know for a fact the group is not inactive because we lost our properties. Yes, that might have demotivated us, but we got most of them, and some extra back.


If you want to change the server, before changing the players you should change the admin team. I find this to be the most crucial thing.

Changes to the way administration addresses new players, starting from those with numerical numbers.

Don't go right away kicking someone for "no numerical names". He'll most likely just leave because he might not know if he should change it or not. Or he might find it rude to just get kicked as soon as he logs in. Speak to him, and offer him a name change.
 
Or even explaining new players the local chat command. Saying /l might look like an I IG and the new player might not know what to type.


The scripting team should focus on new features being released instead of bugs being fixed to attract new players. Most bugs have been fixed anyway.


New players are the future.

[Devin]

Bugs being fixed is more important than additional features being created at this point in time.