This is the problem.

[Gandalf]

It's easy to run a server when others do your job for you during unanswered months and months of negligence due to inactivity and real life commitments.
Enough said.

If that is how you do it you need to quit.

[Andeey]

Enough bs... this topic just turned toxic.  how about the Veterans of the server step up and teach players like they used to?  people wouldn't do such stupid things and call it roleplay.. but if everyone just trucks and sits at pershing square/afking things wont change.

[Marcel]

Enough bs... this topic just turned toxic.  how about the Veterans of the server step up and teach players like they used to?  people wouldn't do such stupid things and call it roleplay.. but if everyone just trucks and sits at pershing square/afking things wont change.

You are aware of how some veterans are treated, right?

[Andeey]

You are aware of how some veterans are treated, right?

I'm not treated bad or anything, i still continue to roleplay daily...

[Marcel]

I'm not treated bad or anything, i still continue to roleplay daily...

It may not apply to you, or to me, but there are numerous examples where roleplay is destroyed before it can actually happen.

There should be no (or minimal) admin involvement in roleplay, nor should explicit trolling and non-rp behavior be allowed. Veterans should indeed be teaching newcomers, but we have to accept that some newcomers cannot or will not learn, those can be dealt with by admins.

[Manoni]

If that is how you do it you need to quit.

Right, tell the active leadership to quit, great move.

[Gandalf]

Let's talk a little bit about "the vision". What is a vision? A vision is obviously something you have when you start something up, where you want to be later on in your progress and it's something you use to stay in between the lines and not falling out. With that said, it was nearly ten years since Argonath once opened up and was created.

What does that vision to with anything these days except a previous goal of what Argonath once wanted to be? We are talking about "the vision" as something that can't be changed, that does not change by years and that is written in stone that we cannot touch. From my own experience, a vision changes by time and from what I've experienced with Argonath, that vision is still remaining the same old, grudgy, dark toned one that has prevent us from changing anything with the previous development team.

So what is our vision now, approximately ten years after the brand new release of this community?
Is it to develop further? Get on to the hosted list and get more players onto the server? Serve our member base with updates that is actually aimed towards a better future?
Where do we start? What is the actual plan that is TODAY'S VISION of tomorrow and forward? Do we even have one?

The player amount has gone from less to less, where the players has gone to other communities or quit playing. We never took care of the roleplay quality who has gone to LS:RP or other communities just because they felt Argonath never developed or did any changes to make types of progress when it comes to roleplay. Don't use "but this game is from the stone age", because if you open your eyes, there are still multiple roleplay servers that has a 500 of 500 players every damn day". I get what your saying about keeping the soul of Argonath. But in my world, I rather have a community that is more into developing and making progress even today, than being one that is so deeply into its past so they can't even see the future. It has even been tabu in the previous years to talk about LS:RP, like I do now. You'd even be censored if you did. Instead of taking what they've done by re-keeping their player base, growing widely and contributed radically to SA:MP in general, we have forbidden to talk about that. And yes, if remaining within an old gooey vision of what has been the past is what the future will look like, then I wish you the best of luck and I'm saying good bye for the last time.

Excuse my french but it was needed since it was from the deepest into my heart.

Keep ranting as you want, but the thing that has become very obvious with the change to RS5 is that the one reason other communities are visited has nothing to do with the roleplay. They use a commercial model where people have to pay to get what they desire, and as a result people will hang on because they have invested not just time but also money in their account, which makes it a shame to give it up.
The reason player countr dropped with RS5 was, apart from the script being nowhere how it was supposed to be, people lost what they felt they worked for even if there was never real money involved. This is why a community that uses a commercial model thrives, and why there are still communities that people continue to play.
Without a commercial model, we have never been able to grow to this level and while we did discuss between owners such a change, we decided not to go for it. Reasoning is that we provide this as a hobby for the community and do not want to turn it in to a business while depending on others for most things.

[Gandalf]

Right, tell the active leadership to quit, great move.

You did not get it.

[Gandalf]

It may not apply to you, or to me, but there are numerous examples where roleplay is destroyed before it can actually happen.

There should be no (or minimal) admin involvement in roleplay, nor should explicit trolling and non-rp behavior be allowed. Veterans should indeed be teaching newcomers, but we have to accept that some newcomers cannot or will not learn, those can be dealt with by admins.

Exactly how it should be. Unfortunately people make it way too complicated.

[Johan_S]

Hello Gandalf, obviously the reset (as you said above) affected on player loss. However i think when RS 5 released wasn't even in Alpha or Beta format. For my self i never gave up i'm still continuing every day with my faction but some other veterans need standards. Standards which your old scripting team (with all the respect that we may have for their contribution in RS4) never thought of. Now the current scripters are trying to do what was needed to be done a year or two years ago, we are hoping for the new features which i guess it's matter of days or weeks. With upcoming of the new features we can continue work for the player count, and even donations in that old paypal account.

Trust me is very difficult to keep new players in our server with current status that we are. We need more and more interesting things to give joy and motivation to new players and old veterans. You know Skype has /me and there's no difference between skype and our server. It's been chatroom for a long time now.

[Tiny]

That is usual. When people make a big fuss about changes and 'level' of roleplay always first check if they are actually playing.
Most are just trolling and recruiting.

Those who are trolling in-game don't even bother posting a long sentence here, sadly it's the 'veterans' who do it.

[Gandalf]

Hello Gandalf, obviously the reset (as you said above) affected on player loss. However i think when RS 5 released wasn't even in Alpha or Beta format. For my self i never gave up i'm still continuing every day with my faction but some other veterans need standards. Standards which your old scripting team (with all the respect that we may have for their contribution in RS4) never thought of. Now the current scripters are trying to do what was needed to be done a year or two years ago, we are hoping for the new features which i guess it's matter of days or weeks. With upcoming of the new features we can continue work for the player count, and even donations in that old paypal account.

Trust me is very difficult to keep new players in our server with current status that we are. We need more and more interesting things to give joy and motivation to new players and old veterans. You know Skype has /me and there's no difference between skype and our server. It's been chatroom for a long time now.

The problem is that I am a dinosaur who know the time when you roleplayed without any scripts.
Indeed you can roleplay over Skype if needed, and this is what people fail to understand.
Scripts are just an added feature but even the best script will not create a full server instantly. The atmosphere and how administration handles things are much more important.
As for RS5, it was released because there was not a viable alternative at the time, but the script team deviated far from the original plans.
Reason was simply the lack of ability to solve things. Continuing script on the base of RS3/4 was much easier as creating something new, and this is why a lot of mistakes that seemed to belong in the time of first release of RS3 were made.
On top of that the scripting team did not understand the direction of the plans, which was to tackle the main points of conflict between players and administration as well as to supply a more even distribution of opportunities. There for a lot of features were watered down or written only partially. I hope the current team can dig up the original layout and see how the current RS5 can be turned more in to that.

But still the main point is how people are in game, and how people are allowed to be in game.

[.Matthew.]

Hello Gandalf, obviously the reset (as you said above) affected on player loss. However i think when RS 5 released wasn't even in Alpha or Beta format. For my self i never gave up i'm still continuing every day with my faction but some other veterans need standards. Standards which your old scripting team (with all the respect that we may have for their contribution in RS4) never thought of. Now the current scripters are trying to do what was needed to be done a year or two years ago, we are hoping for the new features which i guess it's matter of days or weeks. With upcoming of the new features we can continue work for the player count, and even donations in that old paypal account.

Trust me is very difficult to keep new players in our server with current status that we are. We need more and more interesting things to give joy and motivation to new players and old veterans. You know Skype has /me and there's no difference between skype and our server. It's been chatroom for a long time now.

Agree.
Since SAPD was restricted, server doesn't go over 60 players. New players have nothing to do, being a mechanic - boring, Being a trucker - lonely driving across the long map, Fireman is the only proper choice, yet takes ages for a mission to appear. Being police officer was the only thing that kept these new players interested as it contained constant action.
We need new jobs scripted and current ones improved so there's something to do.

For example - firemen, missions should be made more often. And other players can be involved. Let's say somebody crashes their vehicle, the black smoke starts - engine can't be turned on and the doors are stuck. Since nobody in Argonath roleplays traffic accident, it can be a nice fire mission. Cut the doors open, secure the vehicle to prevent fire and so on...

Then medics - that job is dead since the very beginning of RS5. There's absolutely nothing to do with that job. It'd be nice if SAFD has a division of EMS as well, and SAFD being more active by managing their members and enforcing the rules, making sure their members are performing their duties properly. That way, it can be made so if you die, you are not actually dead yet, but are on the ground injured, so people can call EMS if they see you laying down. At least it'd be some work for those on EMS duty.

Mechanics - when somebody's vehicle is severely damaged to the point where grey-black smoke appears, the engine should stall and be unable to turn back on. Or just constantly turn off at random times.
Players would need to require mechanics to tow it or fix it at the spot. Again, it's something to do instead of freeroaming around pointlessly.

With all that said, all we need are improved jobs with more to do. They should be interesting and addicting, giving you continuous action. And with continuous action, they should also give you pay for the things you do on the job. That's one way to keep new players in the server. Because obviously, there's nothing else interesting to do beside either joining a mafia/gang or applying for SAPD/FBI (which you can't as you need license, passport... 7 days playtime)

EDIT:
At Gandalf's post:
I know you usually like to say that only /me is needed for roleplay, however:
That's something that won't simply work anymore in SA-MP. Maybe it worked back in 2006-2010 or something, but times change, people change and technology advances.
Sometime back then many things weren't possible like they are now, we need to keep going to the future instead of sticking back to old times.
Why would you roleplay for example smoking when you can have an actual object of cigarette in your hand with proper animation for it? no reason to.
Same goes for rest of situations that can be scripted... there's no point to imagine something if it's possible to have it visually made.
So yes, if server is properly scripted so it doesn't get you bored within 3 minutes of joining it, it can be successful.

You also mentioned "The atmosphere and how administration handles things are much more important."
That's also another thing, some of admins and managers like to punish people with reasons such as "screw off from here, DM elsewhere", or "get lost you shitty DMer" which is potentially a reason for all the haters Argonath gets, attacking it with all possible ways. Reason should be simple and professional, not to disrespect or piss people off, even if they're the biggest deeckheads on Earth. It's just gonna give them a reason to take it personally and start attacking.

[Primus]

But still the main point is how people are in game, and how people are allowed to be in game.

You know, you should come in game sometimes.

[Tiny]

Since SAPD was restricted, server doesn't go over 60 players.

Newbies who join to roleplay, will stay and roleplay with no issue regarding the SAPD system. Now if you think that the playerbase is so important that you'd rather give the newbies who want to DM an easy way to do it without rulebreaking, by being on cop duty, then suggest the orange dot hunting to be returned.

The playerbase has been indeed decreased, but it's fortunate that the people who're not willing to roleplay are missing. Go back to RS4, 150 players, DM fest in every corner because there was a tiny amount of people roleplaying.

I don't find a reason to complain about RS5, the script, the scripters or so. You're on a roleplay server and the main tool you got to succeed is creativity and basic English. Extra scripts and features are of course appreciated and bring some more interesting ways to have fun, but don't rely on them so much. Interaction between players is more important.

Stop finding reasons to complain and be glad you're given the basic things you need to be able to roleplay in this wonderful community.