Learnings from SAMP

[Khm]

What stops me from joining is pointlessly driving around, with no one who would wanna join. Trust me, I reached out to multiple people, and most of them said “it’s a shitty server, the management sucks and won’t let you do what you wanna with your creative ideas” that’s just a brief summary, but yes I’d prefer SA:MP over MTA:SA, but it’s like you’re shooting yourself in the foot by saying why don’t you join? What difference does it make by me joining, 4/5 of us make these topics, we go in-game, hopelessly drive around and do nothing. I deleted every single game from my laptop some time ago cause of exams, now that they’re over I downloaded SAMP again but still, I’d rather go out with my friends than drive around in a server that’s got 0 players. Even if it’s 5 of us, no one’s gonna join just becsuse they see 5 players.

What do you think though are they correct? Is the server shitty as they say? Does the management really sucks? If you think they are wrong by your personal opinion from what you see on forum, discord and also (this should be obvious lol) on the server and not an opinion influenced by someone else, haven't you thought of changing their opinions towards the server or the community as all? If no, don't you think that's just being lazy by throwing shit at HQ and blaming them for it?

10 people say what difference would it make by joining by myself, if they actually joined together they'd have made a decent playerbase in a month. It all falls on how genuinly one wants to play and how enthusiastic he is, it's not a bad thing to say that the game itself bores you and you'd rather do other things but what's bad is blaming the hq/management/script over your disinterest or because you have your enthusiasm targeted towards other things. GTA SA lost its appeal long time ago and game modifications have been killed with the new concept of games with them being free and having seasonal passes that's why when a community like Argonath decides to make a challenge and start a server on another game mode we should support it rather than pull it back to old things that dont have a chance to succeed.

You’re a manager, why don’t you join?

I am not a manager. I am 25 years old, I don't play any games because of my software architecture engineering degree.

[Brian]

@Cutter
Hi and thank you for this topic, it makes me happy to see someone actually made a constructive topic with concerns and questions.

Argo SAMP failed due to poor leadership. But I was keen to know what aspect of poor leadership caused it.

Over the years on SAMP we've had numerous people "lead", many filled the role just because they were friends with others or because they filled certain roles in the server while they had no leadership or management qualities, causing positions to be filled by people unqualified, and at times caused the server to turn in to a dictatorship. At other times those that did provide positively to the server and brought stability in their position as leader/ manager were being pushed out by people above them (or at times by people below them that spread lies at a chance to get power out of the hands of others) which in turn caused the positions to just be filled for the sake of having people in the role. It caused a decline in server stability and in turn caused the player base to slowly deplete.

Why were some decisions taken the way they were? What was the need to reset properties for each update? Why are some admin decisions skewed in favor of certain group?

I'll need to know what decisions you have questions about to be able to answers your first question.
As for the second, we have had one economy "reset" which caused a majority of economics to be cleared as a "refresh" of the server. Players were not completely reset and it was done for the health of the server. Due to the way the SAMP server is set up, a lot of features cause a huge influx of money, and in turn make it so some people can easily earn millions a week if they spend enough time in-game. This caused a small fraction of the playerbase to own a majority of the high-end property in the server. While we do have taxes that clear properties on inactivity, it won't punish those rich enough to log in to pay their taxes. As per the poll we did for MTA:SA it seems a majority of the votees would not mind an economic reset and in my personal opinion, doing them semi-regularly is healthy for the server and allows individuals to achieve goals they might not have been able to reach before, and it shuffles power positions in the server as well.
As for your third question, I was always against preferential treatment, so is Kessu. It's been years since certain groups were favored over others and it's not something I personally stand for, so I'd also need more information on this question to be able to give a proper answer.

So make it like real life. Elect the server leaders. The players elect the Division Chief and Managers. The Division Chief and the Manager select administration etc. If the players are not happy with administration, the results show in the next election which may be held annually. One important thing - No more than one Division Chief or Manager can be from the same clan / group, from the announcement of their candidature to their exit from the post.

This is something I personally disagree with, I don't think players choosing staff positions is healthy for the server as it causes people that might not want to fill a role, or just do so to fill the power position (Which has been a huge issue in previous eras of the SAMP server). I'd much rather see those interested to step forward to leadership and present us with why they'd be good to fill those positions. People are free to do so in groups and of course people are free to recommend others for a position (preferably with something more than "I'd like XXX to fill this role") after they have shared interest in filling a position.
I don't think that the comparison to real life is healthy either (If you look at the current IRL political spectrum currently its clear that electing people based on popularity just gets people that have no clue what they're doing in positions of power)
Something I'd also like to recollect is the fact that around 2010-2014 ERA, people were given staff positions based on the groups they were in, group leaders were given administrative or even management roles, and it just caused animosity within the staff team, constant fights as well as bias and abuse within the staff team between groups. These fights between groups lasted until they became so bad they started attacks against each other or the community years down the line.
I also disagree with the fact people from the same group shouldn't be able to fill similar roles. While I do agree diversity is good (When I was DL together with Bengt it was our diversity that caused us to work together as well as we did, which also appealed to a lot of the players) if a  person is good at what they do, their group position shouldn't matter, especially since we're planning to have a proper character system in the future, allowing a player to be part of numerous groups if they'd want to.

Something that could be similar to your idea that I think could work is some sort of "city council" to fill parts of your ideas. It could be a semi-IC, semi-OOC roles that open up the ability for players that want to make a change to actually bring changes and ideas for the heading of the server. This'd be different than the mayor role (as thats a single person role that's also mainly focused ICly on one city) and it could be filled by multiple people at the same level of power from several groups that could together discuss and design and present changes to the SA community.

I'd also like to add that the SA:MP server (and Argonath for that matter over the recent years) has not been ran as an autocracy. Decisions are made together, are discussed with the team and often the wider community. We always try our best to involve those that want to help but the people that want to help need to be willing to accept feedback and work as a team and accept that no one is perfect, which often seems to be a struggle of many. We won't always agree with everything but that's exactly what's healthy for the server, discussions and diversity.

@hammer

I'm curious as to why you prefer the SAMP client over the MTA:SA client, what in your opinion can SAMP provide that MTA:SA can not. Most of us have very fond memories of our past in Argonath SAMP but we also have to accept that is the past and if we don't try to move forward things might stagnate even further. I also don't think a client change is that big of a deal, especially since MTA:SA is a far superior client.

[jwick]

Even if We Start a new server how you guys so sure that we gonna get a player base even if we get some player base but for how long they will stay 1 month or 2 or year same thing gonna happen again some day like samp we start losing player base in my opinion the biggest mistake the samp leadership did was the reset we lost alot of players because of this. if the MTA server get good player base good if not we gonna have other empty server in our hands like samp  in my opinion let both server run fix the bugs which need to fixed in samp like badandy said who ever want to play in samp player and who ever want to play the new server can play there and lets see which server get more player base MTA or Samp or this plan die like the rest once.

[Brian]

Even if We Start a new server how you guys so sure that we gonna get a player base even if we get some player base but for how long they will stay 1 month or 2 or year same thing gonna happen again some day like samp we start losing player base in my opinion the biggest mistake the samp leadership did was the reset we lost alot of players because of this. if the MTA server get good player base good if not we gonna have other empty server in our hands like samp  in my opinion let both server run fix the bugs which need to fixed in samp like badandy said and lets see which server get more player base MTA or Samp or this plan die like the rest once.

We can not predict the future but one thing that is for sure is that the MTA:SA server will be different than the SA:MP server, we don't know if people will stay or leave but that shouldn't mean we shouldn't try. Andy and I also would be more than happy to provide a place for people to play at would they wish so, even if the player base wouldn't be huge.
We actually gained players (new and old) after the economics reset as it gave players new avenues to pursue. It was also needed as previous HQs spawned a lot of money and items in to the server that needed to be reset, and it'd be unfair to only reset certain players or groups.,
I'm personally curious as to why you think a economic reset hurts the server, why do you think they should not be done?

[jwick]

Even if We Start a new server how you guys so sure that we gonna get a player base even if we get some player base but for how long they will stay 1 month or 2 or year same thing gonna happen again some day like samp we start losing player base in my opinion the biggest mistake the samp leadership did was the reset we lost alot of players because of this. if the MTA server get good player base good if not we gonna have other empty server in our hands like samp  in my opinion let both server run fix the bugs which need to fixed in samp like badandy said and lets see which server get more player base MTA or Samp or this plan die like the rest once.

We can not predict the future but one thing that is for sure is that the MTA:SA server will be different than the SA:MP server, we don't know if people will stay or leave but that shouldn't mean we shouldn't try. Andy and I also would be more than happy to provide a place for people to play at would they wish so, even if the player base wouldn't be huge.
We actually gained players (new and old) after the economics reset as it gave players new avenues to pursue. It was also needed as previous HQs spawned a lot of money and items in to the server that needed to be reset, and it'd be unfair to only reset certain players or groups.,
I'm personally curious as to why you think a economic reset hurts the server, why do you think they should not be done?

because if you see or not but Years of players hardwork gone in 2 seconds all the money they made gone all the time they put in gone alot of player didnt care and moved on and made every thing again but some said whats the point in wasting our time again get money again because if other reset happen every thing will be gone again.

[Khm]

Since the rumour has returned again I'll need to re-address it.

Why were some decisions taken the way they were? What was the need to reset properties for each update?

in my opinion the biggest mistake the samp leadership did was the reset we lost alot of players because of this.

SA:MP has only had 2 "known" server resets; the one when we transitioned from RS4 to RS5 amd the one that I was responsible for see these links for reference:
https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129271.msg2003936#msg2003936
https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129275.0
https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129274.msg2003976#msg2003976
https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129279.msg2003987#msg2003987

The reset that I was responsible for along with KJones at that time was done to clean up the server from enormous amounts of spawned money and items that were abused into the server by some of the ex develpers and HQ members, and to give people a a fair chance to start equally from the ground up with people moving in and focusing on Fort Carson it had to happen, it should have been done earlier but there was no one before that wanted or was able to execute it (iirc Brian and Bengt wanted it to happen aswell but there were other big issues at that time like Brian mentioned few posts above). Now statistically speaking, the reset actually resulted in a big increase of activity, numbers rose from 10 tops players to 50 tops in a matter of a month or two and stayed steady for a good while with regular updates being pushed in by 3 developers at that time, mainly KJones however we were hit by a massive ddos that brought the server down to the ground for more than a month. (see this link)

So please refrain from sharing the same rumour that is coming from the opinion of one person. The same person that initially started it was absent that time (unsure was banned or no) and was not a witness of the activity at that time.

[Cutt3r]

Thank you all for your answers. I'm not going to quote (because I reply on the phone always and it's kinda hard), rather, will direct my answer to specific folks.

@Brian
My first question was only generic, which lead to the question on server reset. Sorry if it was misleading. Regarding the admin decisions question, during a discussion or two I had in 2020 (when the number of players was lower than before), I was given to understand that Straccis' rulebreak was further compounded due to (as I recall) Nitr0x being partial during his tenure as an admin. I faintly remember something regarding Devin but I will not speak more on this as my memory is vague. In any case, if this did happen (as I was not around, I could only resort to discussions to understand more on this), it would help to communicate what went wrong so that no one is in the dark which would spark unnecessary rumours fueling distrust.

On your point regarding elections - Sir, I do understand why you feel how you feel. But my counter argument is this - hasn't it happened previously that server leaders are chosen and their governance qualities are inadequate? My sense is that if governance is not well performed by an elected representative (Division Chief or Manager), the CLs could always remove them, communicate the reasons for it and remedy the situation; however, the players would be reasonably expected to make a rational and fair decision while electing the representative(s). Note, I'm not saying that what you say is incorrect - I feel that both approaches have their respective merits, and since we tried one already in the past, can we try this approach now.

Having said that, I do like your idea of the city council as long as the reps have a genuine say in matters which impact players. Big thumbs up for that!

On your point regarding the reset - we aren't an RLRP server, I know. But any economy has the ultra rich and ultra poor, along with middle class. The same holds good here. If large amounts of cash were given, maybe we could have removed that cash through an rp mode for ultra rich players alone (for example, a war with aliens who broke out of Area 51 which requires golden lasers mixed with moondust, hence needing large amount of cash from the ultra rich only OR with the Government raising the tax rates overnight to  75% for anyone having net worth in excess of a specific sum, say 5 million. This was required to fund the Governments efforts to reduce their trade deficit with another country. This would lead to a huge negative balance for the player concerned, which would require them to sell off their props).
I feel differently about a mass reset for this because it results in efforts of those who grinded or spent significant time with making any little amount of cash in vain.
If there is a chance of large amounts of cash being made due to too many businesses, why don't we consider restricting the number of businesses or houses that can be purchased?

@Khm - In case the numbers went up from 10 to 50 players, great. So we had a Ddos and were out of action for a month. But it begets the question- what happened to the 20 or 30 people who disappeared (assuming that the remaining 20 people still stayed after a month). Did they find another server? Did they stay here a while till they could find it? Surely, if the server was as much fun as I understand it to be, we should have never had these topics then isn't it? This is why I feel it could, at least partly, be related to the reset. I do not intend to spread any rumours but I do empathize with them - I'd feel let down if this happened to me.

[Khm]

@Khm - In case the numbers went up from 10 to 50 players, great. So we had a Ddos and were out of action for a month. But it begets the question- what happened to the 20 or 30 people who disappeared (assuming that 20 people still stayed after a month). Did they find another server? Did they stay here a while till they could find it? Surely, if the server was as much fun as I understand it to be, we should have never had these topics then isn't it? This is why I feel it could, at least partly, be related to the reset. I do not intend to spread any rumours but I do empathize with them - I'd feel let down if this happened to me.

The same question that I answered Nathan on discord, I was not present as I left. I cannot speak of the 20 people that talked about out, they can answer themselves why they did not come back.
We didn't have these topics, we had suggestion topics at that time, a lot of them were implemented.

Spoiler for Hiden:

And some other topics of some ban evaders and inactive players crying over nothing.

[jwick]

@khm if your talking about me i was present that whole time 

if this message for cutter then sorry to mention you 

So please refrain from sharing the same rumour that is coming from the opinion of one person. The same person that initially started it was absent that time (unsure was banned or no) and was not a witness of the activity at that time.

[Khm]

@khm if your talking about me i was present that whole time 

if this message for cutter then sorry to mention you 

So please refrain from sharing the same rumour that is coming from the opinion of one person. The same person that initially started it was absent that time (unsure was banned or no) and was not a witness of the activity at that time.

Nah, I totally missed your post.

[Brian]

Thank you all for your answers. I'm not going to quote (because I reply on the phone always and it's kinda hard), rather, will direct my answer to specific folks.

@Brian
My first question was only generic, which lead to the question on server reset. Sorry if it was misleading. Regarding the admin decisions question, during a discussion or two I had in 2020 (when the number of players was lower than before), I was given to understand that Straccis' rulebreak was further compounded due to (as I recall) Nitr0x being partial during his tenure as an admin. I faintly remember something regarding Devin but I will not speak more on this as my memory is vague. In any case, if this did happen (as I was not around, I could only resort to discussions to understand more on this), it would help to communicate what went wrong so that no one is in the dark which would spark unnecessary rumours fueling distrust.

I was not a member of SA HQ or community leadership at the time so I am unable to fully answer the question, but leadership back in the day caused a big divide between players, staff and other community servers. People had a superiority complex and often misused their power of HQ to benefit themselves and to remove people that spoke up against them. Several members of the previous HQ teams are either permanently banned from the server or community banned for attacks against the community. There were significant conflicts between server HQs, often caused by SAMP HQ and staff roles were mainly given to people with status or people with friends in HQ. One thing I can definitely say that it wasn't just Stracci being partial during their tenure as admin, but it was almost all major groups at the time, including staff within the PD.

On your point regarding elections - Sir, I do understand why you feel how you feel. But my counter argument is this - hasn't it happened previously that server leaders are chosen and their governance qualities are inadequate? My sense is that if governance is not well performed by an elected representative (Division Chief or Manager), the CLs could always remove them, communicate the reasons for it and remedy the situation; however, the players would be reasonably expected to make a rational and fair decision while electing the representative(s). Note, I'm not saying that what you say is incorrect - I feel that both approaches have their respective merits, and since we tried one already in the past, can we try this approach now.

People have definitely been given a position and shown their qualities are inadequate, its one of the reasons I always ask people for their plans and vision if they show interest. Another big issue is a persons mindset, back in the day leaders often looked down on to their staff, and its players and saw themselves as superior over others because of a rank they held. Currently our main focus is teamwork, everyone has an equal say no matter their role or rank and while decisions will in the end be made by managers or leaders, peoples opinions and input are never ignored and always considered, and this is something we'd expect from someone filling the role of manager in the current era. When you let the people vote it just ends up being a popularity contest. Someone can make people promises that'd would harm the server (like spawning in millions, or giving certain groups perks that others wont get) and get votes that way, sure they'd please some players but in the long term it could cause issues.
Another concern of mine is that, even if we were to remove someone after they have a bad tenure after being voted in, the clean up job is a lot of thankless work (Big respect to Khm for all he did at the time cleaning up the server from the messes of before) and causes a big latency period before the next-in-charge is actually able to make their own changes and additions.

The reason I am personally more of a fan of the council is that it'd allow people to have input and a certain power but it relies solely on communication and discussions (and RP would we implement it as an IC position too) rather than actually giving someone direct power. It'd also be a lot easier to swap people in and out when necessary (say someone is unable to work as a team or is just inactive) without changing the atmosphere of the server. I think it'd also be a nice position where people would be able to prove themselves and possible move up to a staff/ management role if they'd have interest while already actively assisting the server. A council would also ensure that people from any group or position in the server would be able to provide feedback and their concerns, either publicly or privately and ensures player concerns are processed properly and handled without worries about leader coverup (which isn't the case but I do understand the concerns due to the servers history)

On your point regarding the reset - we aren't an RLRP server, I know. But any economy has the ultra rich and ultra poor, along with middle class. The same holds good here. If large amounts of cash were given, maybe we could have removed that cash through an rp mode for ultra rich players alone (for example, a war with aliens who broke out of Area 51 which requires golden lasers mixed with moondust, hence needing large amount of cash from the ultra rich only OR with the Government raising the tax rates overnight to  75% for anyone having net worth in excess of a specific sum, say 5 million. This was required to fund the Governments efforts to reduce their trade deficit with another country. This would lead to a huge negative balance for the player concerned, which would require them to sell off their props).
I feel differently about a mass reset for this because it results in efforts of those who grinded or spent significant time with making any little amount of cash in vain.
If there is a chance of large amounts of cash being made due to too many businesses, why don't we consider restricting the number of businesses or houses that can be purchased?

I don't think that the fact we aren't a RL-RP server should matter too much, we're a video game and we will have an imperfect economy, there'll always be power balances and economy resets don't only reset the power balance but ensures people might try out different RP routes and positions.
I wasn't too active myself at the time as I was on an extended stay abroad but if I recall correctly there was actually a big role-play event around the economy reset in regards to a lockdown/ pandemic, which is also why players moved to Fort Carson, but Khm would know more about that than me.
The issue with allowing the players to choose themselves is that many prioritize their wealth over role play, people would hoard properties or other tools just for the fact to become wealthier or to ensure others couldn't get it, while not actually providing any roleplay.
Grinding for money is also a players choice, people have to remember that its just a virtual asset. We're a role play server after all and I feel in recent times (And in major part due to the way RS5 was set up) the servers main focus has always been power and money, and not playing a role.
With our change to MTA:SA one of our big focuses is to bring back the focus to role play and individual roles. In recent times, almost all criminals were doing was weed fields or other drugs, together with wars with other groups. Whereas cops would just be responding to weedfields and shootouts, almost every time I tried to do a casual traffic stop I ended up getting shot at. Businesses rarely created positive money flow unless it was an ammunation or pay and spray, and owning property was mainly a way to show status rather than an avenue for roleplay.
People buying businesses and properties is already restricted to certain numbers but people just gave their friends money to buy the properties for them instead, and while that is not necessarily an issue (as they're still limited to certain amounts of properties) it just added to the already heavy hoarding mentality. Another issue with people having insane amounts of money is that there's nothing to work towards, there's no goals, anything new we'd add they'd be instantly able to get if it has a monetary value and it often causes boredom and stagnation for those players that "already have everything".

Our plans for MTA:SA are so that businesses and players actually have several avenues to roleplay. If someone wanted to create a designing business, they should be able to. A criminal mastermind making intricate kidnapping plans with the ability to stay anonymous , no problem. Someone wants to run a burger shot, sure why not. And each of these avenues would be able to earn a fair amount of money, while providing their own unique roleplay. We'd also like to revamp both the criminal as well as legal/ government parts of the server to have it be less focus on being cops and robbers (while still keeping core Argonath values) and offer different avenues of both criminal and legal roleplay.
At the end of the day I do understand peoples attachment to their earned status and properties, money and vehicles but I do think that if we want to progress as a server I think it'd be important to reevaluate the attachment to our virtual assets and whether that is the course we want to follow.

And one more comment from me as a player

I feel differently about a mass reset for this because it results in efforts of those who grinded or spent significant time with making any little amount of cash in vain.

I spent years roleplaying as a police officer with little to no monetary profit, I grinded my ass off to give the players a fun roleplaying experience. I never put much value behind money because its the interactions I had with others that meant something to me.
I believe that if we focus too much on the money people have you start neglecting those that roleplay not for the virtual assets they might earn, but to fill a position in a fantasy world to just have a fun time playing a video game.

I also have a question for you out of personal curiosity. Badandy and I discussed doing a 'minor' economy reset where people would still keep certain assets (like some vehicles, items, etc). If we were to do something like this, what assets do you think would be good for players to keep, and if we were to let them have some money, how much do you think would be a healthy amount. (Please remember that aim of the MTA:SA server would wildly differ from that of RS5)

[Khm]

I wasn't too active myself at the time as I was on an extended stay abroad but if I recall correctly there was actually a big role-play event around the economy reset in regards to a lockdown/ pandemic, which is also why players moved to Fort Carson, but Khm would know more about that than me.

Yeah I mentioned it in one of the previous posts and referenced these 2 links,
https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129271.0
https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129275.0
It was a terror/hacking attack 'rp'. The fun part no one realised it until I mentioned it, someone actually thought Argonath was being hacked again as the usual
https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=129279.msg2004013#msg2004013

[Cutt3r]

Thanks for the detailed reply Brian. One thing I do sincerely appreciate is the amount of time and effort you put into replies though you may be responding to the same question more than once, albeit in a different form. This level of communication is needed.

I understand all points you have shared and as I said before, there can be more than one way of doing things, each with its own merits. With the most important aspect, communication, being taken care of, any logical approach is going to be OK for all

I am now more than ever looking forward to MTA SA, given the possibilities that I discussed with BadAndy (on Discord) and you. This does not mean I will cut and run out of SAMP, rather reinforces what I was doing - try to get a playerbase from SAMP and move it to MTASA.

Lastly, you asked me for my view on the amount of assets that could be transferred in case of a minor economy reset. Well, the aim of the server is important and I would cautiously respond on this, with a caveat that I can confirm my answer once we have the entire vision statement from HQ. My take is there should only be enough to meagerly setup half the number of legal businesses or jobs with just one vehicle (the one with the highest value in the current inventory) transferred.

Here is the thought process behind that suggestion - everyone needs a purpose while they are on server. However, being new to the server, they don't know what really works for them. So they would try different jobs or businesses first (assuming that their interest is not grinding). A reasonable player would take some time with their business before they understand the "market" - hence they will set it up meagerly (not more than 10% inventory holding value for that business. If inventory holding is not scripted or unlimited, consider 10% of business property value as inventory value). If business does well, the money is rolled into expanding the business. Else, it is closed and another business started. In any case, this starting money should not be more than the value of a small house somewhere in LS (I.e. not more than 150-200k). This is so that folks don't buy multiple assets with the money they have and go inactive again.

Why only legal businesses considered above ? cuz it's hard to put a value on illegal businesses (weed for instance) as its more driven by supply and demand along with the risk factor of the illegal business. For liquor shops, 7/11s, electronics, prices are generally in a fixed range.

I hope I have been able to share my thought process well. In case I have skipped something please let me know.

In case there is nothing else, I thank you all for the discussion. I have no further questions and am convinced that the learnings from SAMP are already being considered. Accordingly, this topic may be locked, if it serves no further purpose.

[Mario_Rinna]

Why did Argo SAMP fail?

The answer depends on what you consider to be failure. When did it fail, according to you?

Based on my discussions with players, Argo SAMP failed due to poor leadership. But I was keen to know what aspect of poor leadership caused it. Someone had a view that it was because of autocratic leadership.

At some brief point, maybe. Did the reach of this "autocracy" affect things to a greater extent than other factors?

Another felt that the regular property resets drove some people away.

While the scale of RS4->RS5 reset was significant enough to affect things, I don't think the reset before (RS2->RS3 ?) is even remembered by somebody here other than me. The reset after RS5? I don't think it matters much.

I wouldn't say that they were "regular" either. Once in a blue moon, sure, but I don't see any regularity here.

These are like symptoms of a certain illness but the root cause was not known to me until it became clear that communication was what broke down.

Ehhhh, I am not sure that's the case. You need to provide context. Specify time, events, etc.

Why were some decisions taken the way they were?

For a long time, definitely most of pre-RS5 era, because they felt like it. That's it.

Why are some admin decisions skewed in favor of certain group? There may have been very good reasons for this and maybe it was shared somewhere. But it does not seem to have been shared well enough. This is, for me, the single most important root cause for failure. This has been my experience from RL as well - if communication breaks down, everything fails. After all, players are human beings who are either having fun or escaping RL drudgery to have fun. 

If your own question contains "decisions skewed in favor of certain group," how is it that the cause is not bias, but communication breakdown? The answer's within the question, if the question does not distort reality.

Pre-RS5, the game-mode itself was biased. Law enforcement had a shitton of custom scripts and maps in comparison to the criminal groups; they had undercover scripts, they could spawn guns and armour IIRC, they had vehicles like tanks, hunters, etc. (And still lost, despite all that.) Criminal groups, like everyone else in the server, had the ability to buy heroin on a boat, grow weed, and other than the hit script (and max hit amount was severely limited, $15k?) that was it, so criminals had to make money in non-criminal ways, because you could only make so much from weed/heroin/gun trade.

Of course, it didn't help that some high-ranked admins and HQ members of the time were mostly in law enforcement groups, I do believe that it contributed to dedicated scripts for criminal groups not appearing within RS4 at all. Was it a communication failure between HQ and RP makers or was it a long-lasting conflict that continued outside of RP, outside of the game?

RP makers were actively fought against. The most terrifying losses went unnoticed in the months, if not years, before RS5 even came out, and many of those losses were not noticed intentionally. 

if underlying illness stays, how will anything succeed?
Here it is - if autocratic leadership worked well in the past, it doesn't now.

Why should I, if I am a player, give even a slightest, tiniest little fuck about the server management's power configuration?

Is it my problem or theirs? Do whatever you want. Declare yourself whatever ranks, hold hands or don't, who cares?

You either deliver content and run the community or don't.

And to try and repeat it again in the hope it will work is not a good idea as we will lose players in the process.

So make it like real life. Elect the server leaders. The players elect the Division Chief and Managers. The Division Chief and the Manager select administration etc. If the players are not happy with administration, the results show in the next election which may be held annually. One important thing - No more than one Division Chief or Manager can be from the same clan / group, from the announcement of their candidature to their exit from the post.

For the first time alone, the community leaders will need to select the Division Chief, managers and admins. Thereon, it needs to be player decisions.

And if I want to play a game, and not manage somebody else's admin team? 

A popularity contest? Because politics is what this server needs right now?

Who wants to be PM'ed all the time, "please vote for me for admin <3 thanks =)"?

If you want people to play and RP, then you should enable that and not engage them in doing other, outside things.

Why wouldn't server leadership, instead of running an election among players, look themselves for someone who has the experience of launching and promoting servers?

I am not a manager. I am 25 years old, I don't play any games because of my software architecture engineering degree.

Sounds very serious. Do you drive a Dodge Stratus?

we were hit by a massive ddos that brought the server down to the ground for more than a month.

Which is also what happens, or at least, used to happen, to up and coming RP servers on MTA:SA. Some people really didn't want competition. I don't know whether that's a thing any more, but this is something that should be taken into account. Almost like a rite of passage of sorts. 

[Khm]

I am not a manager. I am 25 years old, I don't play any games because of my software architecture engineering degree.

Sounds very serious. Do you drive a Dodge Stratus?

More like living in a dysfunctional country that I have to do crap that gets me busy all the time.