Dear players..
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It has now been 291 days since we released version 2 to the public.
An incredibly long and arduous journey with many memorable moments, and some less favourable moments - such as the place we find ourselves in now. The server was never guaranteed to be successful, and yet it exceeded expectations within the first few months despite the constant fluctuations in consistency and activity. The server was never perfect, but I think it challenged the existing stalemate of roleplay servers by introducing new concepts and features not yet seen before on other servers.
There is a general consensus that the server has fell into a spiralling decay of irreparable damage, or that the full focus of the development capacity has switched to Minecraft. The Minecraft server only released a few days ago prior to this announcement and so ensuring the smooth release of this was the main concern for us, especially given that SA:MP had received its major spring update only about a month ago.
Apparently, the issue seems to now be less with lack of features and variety but how players utilise these features and interact with each other, as well as how well they fit the roleplay environment. I do not have time to play everyday, but when I do open Discord or check in-game, the environment in which this server operates is evident. Unfortunately, that is the nature of SA:MP and from playing the Minecraft SMP for the first time in years, the difference in community friendliness and engagement is night and day.
The usual complaint about this server is the roleplay level of the server. As a preamble, I would like to emphasise a few key things:
- Getting randomly deathmatched does not correlate to roleplay level - not even a light RP server would allow for random DM or revenge kill etc
- Light / medium / heavy RP labels are incessantly overused, and are technically verbose in the way that players use them. They are typically for degrees of character representation, rather than a measurement of how much roleplay there is on the server (although one could argue that these are similar)
Roleplay as a construct on SA:MP has decreased and been a failed construction concept for a lot of servers over the years. A few servers opening up successfully capitalising on nostalgia from players who played the server before some of the current SA:MP generation were born cannot be compared with other servers when comparing longevity. The main issue is with other “light roleplay” servers throwing around this term lightly, so that the small SA:MP playerbase picks up this interpretation, and then assumes that the significant lack of any roleplay or attention to detail is normal for a light roleplay server, when it is not necessarily true.
That being said, I believe that roleplay does add variety to the gameplay. Players advocating for roleplay changes without understanding the above have been ignored deliberately, hence the lack of previous change. But with recent suggestions opening the floor to much anticipated debate, and one which was conducted in an unusually civilised manner for the Sunset community, the time to take a risk and make a change is probably about now. The difference won’t be stark, and it won’t happen overnight as was highlighted numerous times in the suggestion - it is a gradual and incremental process that will take time for players to transition and adapt to.
Ultimately, if players are willing to get on board with this change and support it despite its potential slow and tedious start, we will make sure it works.
But before we discuss the changes, we must first acknowledge the complaints made in general about the server. I have to emphasise that this update is not incredibly heavy on feature changes as the spring update did cover a lot of new things, and a new major script update is planned but not complete at time of writing.
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Firstly, the biggest complaint of them all is regarding abandonment of SA:MP. Quite simply, this is not true and while it may have appeared like this, we cannot stress enough that this server is worked on by people who live very busy lives and don’t always want to add new features every day. We try to add new and innovative features to give you a reason to play, and this takes more time than adding some feature seen in every server. Bugs that are still an issue, especially annoying ones, are simply the result of these updates and really cannot be foreseen due to the nature of these bugs and the size and complexity of these updates. We have patched a great number, if not all, of the recently reported bugs and endeavour to ensure that any bugs reported (with sufficient information) are fixed in a more timely manner.
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Secondly, mobile players and mobile bug abuse. It would be incredible if we could make every mobile bug go away, make it possible for mobile players to roleplay and also maintain a sustainable playerbase. However, this is not the case and I’m sure this is very apparent. The server has had an increasing reliance on mobile players in recent weeks/months, and I don’t think this is necessarily a surprise or a bad thing. We advertised on platforms where incidentally, mobile players are typically viewing this content more and with new mobile clients having millions of downloads, it has ultimately become the new meta. But it is important to note that we did make mistakes when allowing this. We were slow to realise the bugs and issues plaguing players which made playing unbearable, especially for police players trying to jail mobile players who would repeatedly run away (possibly unaware that they were even cuffed due to the clients being shitty once again…). We did not offer enough guidance to these mobile players in the first place, and we did not punish reoffenders harshly enough which created an infinite loop of bug abusing and very tedious gameplay. When it comes to thinking of what is best for the server, there is an important decision to make. I do not think removing a great chunk of the active playerbase is wise, nor do I think it is fair because these players have accumulated significant playtime and have remained loyal in difficult times. Bad players are expected from both demographics, and the PC community has its equal share of retards. The best course of action here is to bridge the gap between these two: stigma around mobile players can be removed by ensuring that they do not cause issues, and that there should in theory be enough players of both PC/mobile to play with others on their corresponding device. Those reasonable enough to understand and empathise with another perspective than their own will know this would be the case, and if you are not one of those, then I cannot help you with this issue.
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Thirdly, the level of roleplay on the server and the lack of variety or competition. This is an integral issue on the server, and I fail to recall how many times we have faced this issue. A few months ago, our two largest factions complained about lack of competition when the obvious solution would be for these two factions to interact. However, management creating these situations just for the sake of competition and engagement is not really engaging for players, and so it gets intrinsically boring and less immersive. Factions should be self-sufficient, and that is why they were limited to capable faction leaders only in hopes of this being achieved. Largely, I think this has been more successful since the spring update as it is noticeable to see more factions online at times. An issue with the police department being inactive is also a long-standing issue and draws into the competition issue, but I believe that the efforts of the new leadership combined with these changes for a roleplay-driven department should help to increase the activity of those willing to play. Roleplay has been touched on throughout this page, and it will be discussed in greater detail below.
So, what next?
If you have made it this far by reading the document in full, then you will now have context behind these changes and hopefully a better understanding of what we’re doing next.Most importantly: Sunset Roleplay will transition, effectively, to MEDIUM ROLEPLAY. There will be no different branding used for this change - the server will change from its current state of light RP and RPG back to its roots of light-medium RP, with a greater emphasis on the “medium” part to avoid conflicting with pre-assumed notions about light roleplay servers as a result of poorly managed light roleplay servers elsewhere creating a false idea about the degree of roleplay expected, as aforementioned.
An overview of the major changes
- Using illegal modifications (aimbot, nametag etc) will carry a minimum ban length of 6 months rather than the current guidelines.
- Knowingly abusing mobile bugs will now incur harsher punishments - progressively longer admin jails, up to less lenient ban
- Players will now be required to roleplay when they are roleplayed with. If someone tries to roleplay with you (whether that be a car accident, a simple message, etc) and you ignore it, you will be subject to a punishment for failure to roleplay
- Local chats and OOC chats are now more stringently enforced. Keep local chats for roleplay, and OOC chats for irrelevant chatter (including emoticons and slang abbreviations used in an OOC context)
- Robberies will no longer be possible randomly and will now scriptwisely have more measures to prevent against sprees / bored players robbing defenceless players
- Bandana will no longer be widely used. For those who complain, you have turfs which essentially does the same thing and has a clear objective. Bandanas will be available for tier 3 factions and higher.
- SAPD will now have a budget, and will need to use this wisely when distributing resources. More information will be provided soon on the specifics
- Admins, players, faction leaders alike will be encouraged to host more IC events - potentially through reward systems and recognition
- Some corruption rules will be re-enforced due to misuse. We saw the old PD command abusing heavy weaponry with no repercussions despite it being promised to be considered an IC issue, and was never handled effectively. HW must now only be used according to reasonable regulations or you will face a server punishment. Robbing on police duty will also no longer be allowed because that is autistic.
- Las Venturas has been closed again due to request of Faction Management - there is not enough players or factions to justify expanding the map and having so many new turfs.
- Rule changes aren’t going to be abundant, because the rules already exist for this degree of roleplay - they just lacked prior enforcement. These will now be enforced more stringently, but guidance will be offered to those willing to learn. Prove that you’re just here to rulebreak incessantly and admins will be given permission to remove you permanently
- Value to life will be more important - greater death penalties and rules for giving up on value of life for the sake of respawning will be introduced. Yes, it is a game and respawning is part of it but it is also a roleplay server and not a freeroam server (or so it is intended) - you must accept some responsibility for your in-character actions
- Military style vehicles will no longer be widely available for gangs or other factions that do not suit it (exchange will be possible, detailed by FM)
- Players that are generally negative or toxic will be banned instantly. If you are one of these players, please know that you are never welcome in this server again. We are not afraid of removing people from this community to benefit other players - we did not create this server to replicate the incredulous tolerance of these types of players. Grow up and stop whinging about everything, or we’ll simply remove you and you can throw a tantrum in your other Discords complaining about bias (we won’t see these messages so we won’t care!!)
- Staff team environment will be changed. We’re in the process of removing underperforming and/or unengaging admins from the team, and so we the remaining admins should be the best of the best. This may not appease those with an anti-admin agenda, but creating an environment where admins are trusted enough to make reasonable judgements will be the case. If admins return to streaks of poor decision making or overly impulsive actions, this will be reverted or admins will be removed. Punishment guidelines will remain in place for clarity, but changes will be made appropriately. As mentioned briefly above, you need a genuinely good reason to complain about admins. Players like to complain about admins even if they know they’re in the wrong (or if they don’t know, they’re usually in the wrong anyways), and this creates false images of the staff team and demotivates them to play. Players that choose to withhold reports and bring them up weeks/months later as a reason for disliking the staff team are just as bad - we can’t guarantee that our staff will be perfect (and in fact this is impossible), but choosing not to report and then complaining about it is on you and not us.
- Economy changes will be made to balance it out. We did balance out a lot of unnecessary inflows before, but we’ll be monitoring this to ensure that there is not significant influxes unbalancing the economy. A greater focus on illegal activities and legal jobs will be attempted, but the success of this push will not be clear for some time
Conclusion
To the players, past and present, who have contributed or played or dedicated their time to playing on this server that has been unstable and consistently fluctuating through inconsistency after inconsistency, thank you - and I hope this change finds you well and that it can appeal to you. Players that choose to play this server in their free-time are what make this server run, because enjoyment comes first and I know that has not always been achieved here. Players have come and gone throughout the past few months, but a great amount have stayed in contact and may be aware of these changes.I know these changes will not appeal to everyone, or people may be sceptical of their efficacy, and this long ramble is not a promise of anything. We are implementing it, but what follows is a mystery. A lot of hard work has been poured into this server, even in V1’s one week tenure which elapsed hundreds of hours developing and testing. This followed through with even more of the same in V2, and then the added community management and administration since V2. Admins, developers and faction leaders - your efforts do not go unnoticed. Thank you for being integral to this community.
Self-proclaimed dark times are what make this server characteristically Sunset. It would not be truly Sunset without the sudden drops and rises or the occasional server crash, but I think fostering a community based on this may not be the best idea. Let’s try rebuilding this server again as intended from the start of V2 - fresh, clean and open for opportunities.
Thank you,
Sunset Management
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