What killed SA:MP Argonath RPG?

[Stivi]

My point is, show respect to your veterans, people who stayed on Argonath for years - no matter the situation, or else, you won’t pass well.

Yeah, and this is what I was talking about, thanks for proving my points. Selfishness. I don't care if you are a veteran or not, you don't deserve a special treatment, or maybe you do, because you think about yourself to be someone special. I will respect people that are showing respect.

He said to show respect, not give them special treatment. Such as when an admin is oblivious to the written and unwritten rules of the server a veteran learns from experience. Or when a veteran knows certain commands better than the helper team, because the new guys never had to endure the pain and sadness of not having /piss. I had to teach players about /bjhost, but in all honesty meth, weed and blackjack are probably the best scripts we have. ( aesthetically, imo )

[Bruce.]

Lmaom..such tryhards. Argonath is not the only server dying. Stop giving a fuck about SAMP already. Go move to better games. A lot of servers are loosing playerbase, noone gives a fuck about roleplay in SAMP anymore.

[Thom]

Lmaom..such tryhards. Argonath is not the only server dying. Stop giving a fuck about SAMP already. Go move to better games. A lot of servers are loosing playerbase, noone gives a fuck about roleplay in SAMP anymore.

Save us then some breath and start acting like you say we should act.

__

On the topic, what I'd like to confirm is when I did the camping in the woods roleplay last year I've felt the server more alive with 3/200 than I do now with 15/200 I can totally see your point!

[Sheila]

Legal side should be supported by the government/HQ so we can have criminals, citizens, and legal employees, how to implement that? by start funding the legal departments, not to grind cash, BUT TO MOTIVATE THE EMPLOYEES so new comers may actually aim for driving schools, or CMB administrating as a job, same goes for firemen, medics, and police duties.

Just a heads up and it's a bit early to announce anything yet but I will say that there's something in the works for this exact kind of thing already

And HQ are also showing lots of support so far with this and other things currently in the works, looks promising, stay tuned!

[Huntsman]

The server died because people who knew how to keep it alive left. The old playerbase grew up, got lives, cant play. Due to the games age, there is no influx of new players. If you look at other communitirs, they mostly survive on regulars and dont get much new players.

[Acika]

The server died because people who knew how to keep it alive left. The old playerbase grew up, got lives, cant play. Due to the games age, there is no influx of new players. If you look at other communitirs, they mostly survive on regulars and dont get much new players. of

Some of us are still around to laugh at the nonsense people are writing. I do agree with you on this, but this being the third reason. I'm sure most of us play another game in free time. Which basically means if Argonath was worth the time, we would still hop on. Be it daily or for a Sunday night brawl.

I'll work this question backward, so i'll move to the second reason now.
Like it or not, beef is what keeps the server alive. With changes to lag shoot(removal) and with one side being clearly more skilled and better than the other it was a perfect setup for salty players/hackers to rise because noone gave a single fuck. Hackers ruined CS1.6 and the experience for others. Same can be said here with the exception that here it could have been stopped.

All the above would have never had happened that early if it wasnt for the one and only real reason everything went down the drain real quick. It's the famous three words and it's not "I love you". Rock Stars Five.

[Danny_Leo]

You all do realise that game is 15 years old, SAMP and Argonath itself just a few years less.
There aren't enough new kids to keep it all up, current generation grew up with GTA V, and is probably out there playing it online.
Maybe Argonath would last for longer if there wasn't for broken RS5 release and account reset that drove off many veterans, maybe it'd last longer if it wasn't for so many feuds among community members, leaders and groups.
But that's an awful lot of maybes.
Argonath needs to move on and focus on making quality server and content in new games.

[Sawyer]

"Re: What killed SA:MP Argonath RPG?"

Time. Inevitable.

[Nathan]

I wanted to think about this question for several days before emotionally responding. I didn't want a long answer, but here we are. I honestly believe long threads don't amount to any results, being the person who used to put up ultra-long threads of manifestos and ideas that I had. That being said...

I think you can try actual break up the question into two parts:

• - What killed Argonath RPG SA:MP?
• - What is the existential threat that we face as a community now?

First, what killed Argonath RPG SA:MP? Well, let me break it down on the top three reasons I believe that caused the death of SA:MP.

- The terrible method of handling user data (or lack of) during the migration to RS5

- The lack of adequate staff, leadership, and guidance

- Age of the players, age of the game, age of the SA:MP community, the developer support of SA:MP client


Horrible handling of user data during RS5 migration

To give some context here, I believe we should be aware of why the start of RS5 ended up being a shit show. In the "old world" of RS4 and below, user credentials and information were stored in flat files. For those who aren't CS majors, this is very bad. Think of a flat-file, mostly being a large text file. For login, the server would need to process the entire file every single time to get anything done. This would mean as the server would grow, login times, and other things that required interaction with these files would take slower and slower and slower. Eventually, and especially at the scale of Argonath, this would become completely unacceptable. This would mean you would need to wait for 5 to 30 seconds to log in. 5 to 30 seconds to do a transaction. 5 to 30 seconds to enter a property. You get the idea.

The solution to this is to use databases. Databases are great because they have an index, and you can easily query tasks without needing to go through the file every single time. In layman terms, this results in faster login times, faster ways to handle transactions, and, most importantly, easier to manage than a single file.

So great, you're thinking, this should have made RS5 remarkable. Well, not so fast. Unfortunately, due to the way the flat files were set up, there was no easy way to migrate the existing user data from a flat file to a database. Database Administrations get paid six-figure salaries to solve these issues, and this would mean someone would need to figure out a way to do this. Someone would need to spend full-time jobs' worth of work to try to figure out a way to migrate data from a flat file to a database.

And because of this challenge, the decision was made to start fresh. It would only be more straightforward and granted most people were slowly getting tired of the server dynamics, and some wanted to push for a change to give everyone a new fair chance to start fresh.

This decision, though hard, was made without any input from players.

Now imagine from a user's point of view. Facebook decides that they no longer want to use their databases and want to move on to something else. They tell everyone to start over and create a new account. What would the reaction be? Well, probably the same as it was with RS5. Exactly half of the player base left, and the ones who stayed became bitter to having to grind all over again. So in Facebook's case, to not lose users, they would work out the hard problem and make sure that no user gets left behind.

Argonath didn't (and I'd argue still doesn't) have the same technical and financial support like Facebook or any company. So you can tell the decision to have people start fresh was not made because devs were lazy, but because it's a severe problem to solve and Argonath didn't have the resources to handle it.

What went wrong, I feel, was that the decision came last minute, without any proper explanation, and without letting people somehow migrate their data over to the new database/modular world. I feel what would have made sense was to give the player base know on what's happening, and what actions they have available to them. The leadership didn't do that.

As a result, players felt left out and fucked over on their years of work without a proper explanation. Therefore, half left.

Solution: There should have been better communication and community involvement to tackle the database migration issue.

Lack of adequate staff, leadership, and guidance

Argonath went through several eras of staff and leadership. Some staff members were great, hard-working, and showed a great attitude. Other staff members abused their power, weren't helpful, and brought in more damage to the community. If I can summarize, people are people, and people suck in general.

I feel this problem stems from top to bottom. At the top, we have a server owner who we haven't heard from in several years. Below him, we have a community leader for SA:MP who doesn't have time for the community anymore. There have been many documented cases of abuse from his end and him only just steering the ship in any way he likes without the input of others. And then, after doing that, he decides to delegate the rest of the work to the division leaders and remain silent. This isn't an emotional response but just an observation of working closely with him.

That being said, being a division leader is literally the worst job you can have. Imagine being a manager at a national chain restaurant. Yeah, you have staff under you, and you are responsible for them. You are capable of making sure your restaurant is still profitable and that the place looks clean. But at the end of the day, you never truly make decisions. They come down from the top. From the VPs above you. You'll never have the ability to make any meaningful change, and in reality, your job is to make sure business runs as usual. Now imagine having VPs and CEOs who are not there anymore. They're just absent. So you think to yourself, "well, maybe this would be a good time to make some change." So you start adding your flavor to things, start adding new menu items, etc. And the VPs all of sudden call you and tell you to stop changing things, that you need permission to get any changes done, and to stay in your lane. So you decide that you'll be a good boy and return things to usual. But then you notice that your customers aren't happy with the "usual," so you start doing some minor changes. This pisses the VPs off even more, and they tell you that you're fire. So last 10+ years you spent working at a restaurant come to an end just because you decided to try something new.

The same can be said about division leaders. They're glorified restaurant managers. The moment you step on the toes of the community leader, you will be turning in your resignation.

Well then, you think, why not just have a different community leader? Well, good luck. The current person in charge will never resign from his position because he feels he's been doing an impressive job, and if you're trying to aim that way, you will be kicked out of the server, accused of being a crazy person, and that you keep shaking the boat.

But if I'm honest, I honestly think the current division leaders and webmasters are doing an excellent job at trying again. But I feel their pain when it comes to making any groundbreaking changes. They'll never have the ability to do it as long as the current community leader is in charge.

Then, there is also the problem of staff inadequacy. Each staff member interprets rules differently. This results in unfair and biased punishments (or lack of) being thrown down on the players. Staff members don't have the proper support and training needed to get promoted and to become better at their job. You get promoted purely on how active you are within the community, how much punishments you throw, and how active you respond to reports. That's about it. I've seen good people get passed over promotion simply because they didn't respond to reports fast enough. I've also seen folks getting promoted solely because they have a good relationship with the staff above them.

Then, if I'm honest, there was a way to buy your way to become staff. This is what I did. I bought my way to become staff. I literally paid Teddy $100/month to get promoted by Andeey to Admin, and from there, I used my friendship to get promoted to the Senior level, get $100 million in in-game cash. I was full-on corrupt, and the players knew it. I punished people because I wanted to, and I was called out on it. So I bullshitted my way around to make sure I don't get fired. I got cocky and started to aim higher, for the division lead and then community leader. This was when my downfall came. I intended to make the community better. But I also just wanted to get more and more power. The result was roughly $800 spent to become staff and do whatever the hell I wanted with no consequences.

As a result, players were punished unfairly, and without proper reason, division leaders were limited to their power to make sure they don't rock the boat too hard, and players left because they saw the full-on corruption and absence from the staff team.

Solution: Bring in an active owner and community leader to lead the community forward. Someone who goes out of their way to keep the line of communication open with the players. Someone who understands players. Someone who will be dedicated to the community and will do everything in their power to grow and protect it.


Age of the players, age of the game, age of the SA:MP community, the developer support of SA:MP client


This is the last one and hopefully the shortest one.

First, when I started playing on Argonath in May 2009, I was 15 years old, was in high school, had plenty of free time. Now, at 25, I'm working full time, married, and have a kid on the way. I don't have as much free time as I used to. Time is crucial to me, and I will cut out anything that doesn't matter to me anymore.

I feel this story applies to most of the veterans here. We're old. We have lives. Our priorities changed.

On top of this, GTA:SA is old. Yes, there are communities where old games thrive (take a look at OSRS), but they usually don't bring in as much, if any, newer players. On top of this, the SA:MP community by itself is pretty old, too, and because of this, the developer recently said that he considers the project dead too.

It's a sad reality, but it's the truth. We need to embrace the fact that we can't just pull strings of nostalgia to get people to come. I feel our only solution is to attract existing players to come here to remain here as we approach our imminent death.

Solution: We try to bring in existing SA:MP players to our community but also be aware that at some time, we need to move on to other newer games.

So, in short (or tl;dr), communication should have been more stressed during significant changes by the leadership. The community leader needs to be replaced with someone who is active and can adequately guide the staff team to be better versions of themselves. We need to figure out our exit plan on how we grow the Argonath community in general instead of pulling strings on trying to get people to come back to try SA:MP again.

[jNewtonik]

@Nathan I took some time to read your whole post and I must say thank you for making such a constructive criticism, you made me to understand a part
of Argonaths history that was blank for me as I'm a newer blood and had no clue for what was going before...

Spoiler for Hiden:

Then, if I'm honest, there was a way to buy your way to become staff. This is what I did. I bought my way to become staff. I literally paid Teddy $100/month to get promoted by Andeey to Admin, and from there, I used my friendship to get promoted to the Senior level, get $100 million in in-game cash. I was full-on corrupt, and the players knew it. I punished people because I wanted to, and I was called out on it. So I bullshitted my way around to make sure I don't get fired. I got cocky and started to aim higher, for the division lead and then community leader. This was when my downfall came. I intended to make the community better. But I also just wanted to get more and more power. The result was roughly $800 spent to become staff and do whatever the hell I wanted with no consequences.

I just felt ashamed for this part, promotion shouldn't be based on donations or paychecks but only by the user/player effort that he puts into making our playground -
better place for all of us, and I'm ashamed only because in my personal opinion you were one of those guys who deserved to be promoted, but deffintely not by the way you described.

Its okay tho... I do respect that you were honest and that you understand it was something that shouldn't be done like that, I'm not going to ask how and why those things happend
but I just have the hope that all the mistakes you described can teach us something and wont be repeated in the future.
Thank you!
Sincerely Billy.

[Nathan]

@Nathan I took some time to read your whole post and I must say thank you for making such a constructive criticism, you made me to understand a part
of Argonaths history that was blank for me as I'm a newer blood and had no clue for what was going before...

Spoiler for Hiden:

Then, if I'm honest, there was a way to buy your way to become staff. This is what I did. I bought my way to become staff. I literally paid Teddy $100/month to get promoted by Andeey to Admin, and from there, I used my friendship to get promoted to the Senior level, get $100 million in in-game cash. I was full-on corrupt, and the players knew it. I punished people because I wanted to, and I was called out on it. So I bullshitted my way around to make sure I don't get fired. I got cocky and started to aim higher, for the division lead and then community leader. This was when my downfall came. I intended to make the community better. But I also just wanted to get more and more power. The result was roughly $800 spent to become staff and do whatever the hell I wanted with no consequences.

I just felt ashamed for this part, promotion shouldn't be based on donations or paychecks but only by the user/player effort that he puts into making our playground -
better place for all of us, and I'm ashamed only because in my personal opinion you were one of those guys who deserved to be promoted, but deffintely not by the way you described.

Its okay tho... I do respect that you were honest and that you understand it was something that shouldn't be done like that, I'm not going to ask how and why those things happend
but I just have the hope that all the mistakes you described can teach us something and wont be repeated in the future.
Thank you!
Sincerely Billy.

I think honesty is key here. As much as it might hurt me, truth needs to be free. That being said, today I found out that there we other players who managed to do the same stuff that I did so looks like I'm not the only one here.

[Kenji]

@Nathan I took some time to read your whole post and I must say thank you for making such a constructive criticism, you made me to understand a part
of Argonaths history that was blank for me as I'm a newer blood and had no clue for what was going before...

Spoiler for Hiden:

Then, if I'm honest, there was a way to buy your way to become staff. This is what I did. I bought my way to become staff. I literally paid Teddy $100/month to get promoted by Andeey to Admin, and from there, I used my friendship to get promoted to the Senior level, get $100 million in in-game cash. I was full-on corrupt, and the players knew it. I punished people because I wanted to, and I was called out on it. So I bullshitted my way around to make sure I don't get fired. I got cocky and started to aim higher, for the division lead and then community leader. This was when my downfall came. I intended to make the community better. But I also just wanted to get more and more power. The result was roughly $800 spent to become staff and do whatever the hell I wanted with no consequences.

I just felt ashamed for this part, promotion shouldn't be based on donations or paychecks but only by the user/player effort that he puts into making our playground -
better place for all of us, and I'm ashamed only because in my personal opinion you were one of those guys who deserved to be promoted, but deffintely not by the way you described.

Its okay tho... I do respect that you were honest and that you understand it was something that shouldn't be done like that, I'm not going to ask how and why those things happend
but I just have the hope that all the mistakes you described can teach us something and wont be repeated in the future.
Thank you!
Sincerely Billy.

I think honesty is key here. As much as it might hurt me, truth needs to be free. That being said, today I found out that there we other players who managed to do the same stuff that I did so looks like I'm not the only one here.

since the “honestly” is the key here, why you dont tell us who you’re referring 2?

[Khm]

@Nathan I took some time to read your whole post and I must say thank you for making such a constructive criticism, you made me to understand a part
of Argonaths history that was blank for me as I'm a newer blood and had no clue for what was going before...

Spoiler for Hiden:

Then, if I'm honest, there was a way to buy your way to become staff. This is what I did. I bought my way to become staff. I literally paid Teddy $100/month to get promoted by Andeey to Admin, and from there, I used my friendship to get promoted to the Senior level, get $100 million in in-game cash. I was full-on corrupt, and the players knew it. I punished people because I wanted to, and I was called out on it. So I bullshitted my way around to make sure I don't get fired. I got cocky and started to aim higher, for the division lead and then community leader. This was when my downfall came. I intended to make the community better. But I also just wanted to get more and more power. The result was roughly $800 spent to become staff and do whatever the hell I wanted with no consequences.

I just felt ashamed for this part, promotion shouldn't be based on donations or paychecks but only by the user/player effort that he puts into making our playground -
better place for all of us, and I'm ashamed only because in my personal opinion you were one of those guys who deserved to be promoted, but deffintely not by the way you described.

Its okay tho... I do respect that you were honest and that you understand it was something that shouldn't be done like that, I'm not going to ask how and why those things happend
but I just have the hope that all the mistakes you described can teach us something and wont be repeated in the future.
Thank you!
Sincerely Billy.

I think honesty is key here. As much as it might hurt me, truth needs to be free. That being said, today I found out that there we other players who managed to do the same stuff that I did so looks like I'm not the only one here.

since the “honestly” is the key here, why you dont tell us who you’re referring 2?

Yes please, i like transparency as well.

[Haythem]

Mate, just like the others said, there's tons of games out there to grind and enjoy rather than coming to a ghost town and doing nothing.
Fivem is now dominating this genre and there will a new game client for red dead redemption online. There is no point in grinding in this game anymore.
Upgrade.

[Hubbestubbe]

As you may  have noticed, neither me or Goobii have involved ourselves into these "what killed argo" topics. We cant really find anything constructive in them and we are too busy with looking at what we do today, tomorrow and in the future.

I dont know what you do when you play, but I surround myself by roleplayers and several different RP scenarios occur. Having a good OOC relationship with your enemy makes it even better. And sure, some people drive around without a plan (like people always did), but I for sure know people that are elated and passionate about their groups and its roleplay.

I dont know why people always think everything was so great a few years ago, it wasnt much better, and not much worse either. To me it feels like people are just making their problems up, just go IG and enjoy the game and RP with people instead. Its just a game,  there's no reason to sit on the forum and be all negative.

If you still feel that the server is an inactive shithole then there is plenty of other games too! Dont waste your time on it if you feel like it doesnt meet your standards.

With that said, we are open for criticism, but we want it constructive. Speak out clearly what you want changed and how you want it changed, and we might take it up with HQ in a meeting.

Regards
Hubert Stubert