21.09.2017, 15:31
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Last edited by giorgos; 23/10/2017 at 07:56 AM.
)
I think most players have played LS-RP, few of them since 2007.
The years were pretty nice and fun. It actually was a strict roleplay server. It was led by Krisk, Mow and DamianC at the same time. Around 2013 or so, Krisk was removed for some reason that can not be posted publicly and DamianC took over as his successor by Mow. Colin was also promoted to Server Manager by DamianC. The server would often reach to peak times of 600 players! A very rare thing for a English-roleplay server. It obviously had a stable playerbase, friendly community members, admins were strictly enforced by the management (Colins and DamianC) and what not. What was strange is, Mow, the only founder of FoCo Gaming, was super inactive after Krisk's removal but nevertheless everything was okay.
Keep that in mind, DamianC was a SA-MP Beta tester.
At some point around in 2013, a LS-RP developer called Mmartin was promoted to Full-time Developer and would script stuff with DamianC. DamianC would oversee the development and the community at the same time. There were many fun scripts, including house robbery and what not. Such scripts were removed/disabled for some reason, possibly to let new features to be added smoothly.
The playerbase would skyrocket almost everyday. The server was pretty much alive. FoCo Gaming, owned by Mow, would also have an another server called FoCo Team Deathmatch server. DamianC was pretty much overseeing everything.
However something went wrong around 2016. At some point, Mmartin decided to suggest something ridiculous. The suggestion? Developers and the server managers should be paid. What does it mean? There was only one developer and two server managers at that time. DamianC and Colins had full-time jobs already so it was just extra cash for them. Mmartin had no job at all and he would get money from Mow. The money would be spent to gamble on CS:GO according to DamianC's reports. Mow agreed the suggestion and began paying them normally. Apparently, the server income was so good that Mow was getting rich.
However, the server updates ceased to work since around September 2015. DamianC began warning Mmartin to do his work orthewise he would be punished and possibly terminated from the development team for slacking and making false promises. Mmartin felt threatened to his position and begged Mow to do something.
Then that what happened in March 2016. Mow decided to overstep, after 3 years of "death" (He was never around) and removed DamianC and Colin completely without any discussion or warnings. The reason of removal? "Inactivity". Mmartin and Surreal (A passive aggressive person according to DamianC, reports were later confirmed true when the server began dying) were chosen as server managers.
Consequences?
Before DamianC's removal, there were a LOT features pending for implementation. Features for example, unique area tax system, house burglary, dynamic interior and exterior and so on. All these features were scrapped completely by Mmartin after DamianC's removal.
Before DamianC's removal, the playerbase was skyrocketing to 600 players at same time, everyday which means a tremendous revenue from donations. Now, the server barely reaches 350 players at all and there were many times that it would stuck at 250 players. Donations seem to slow down.
Before DamianC's removal, the administration team were enforced strictly by himself. Any admin giving attitude or doing mistakes would be punished harshly. Now, it's mostly friendships, admins rarely get punished unless they got voted randomly by testers/admins.
Before DamianC's removal, Mallrats issue would be at low at best. Now it's super high. There were high roleplay standards. Now, DM squads formed and punishment is little.
Before DamianC's removal, there was a PROBATION SCHEME FOR BANNED PLAYERS. This was an effective system to prevent the server having hackers, constant server rolebreakers and so on. How did it work? A banned player, usually hacker or constant rulebreaker would be given a simple choice. Wait 1 full year and then re-apply for probation scheme. Once 1 year passes by, he gets a probation scheme of which the banned player MUST contribute a LOT on forum! That includes, helping players in need of help (Player support), questions and answers and so on.
- If they do good work within 6 months, they would get a very limited access to the server, probably 1-2 hour a day. In the event the probation player gets punished (Even verbally warned by admin), they would fail the scheme and restart the 1 year period waiting time.
- If all goes well, the banned player may get additional access to the server with same restrictions.
- If all goes well, the player is successfully unbanned and can access the server fully with no restrictions but admins enforcement would be strict.
Now the probation scheme was removed. Surreal stated that it's because he wanted to give them a fair chance as the probation scheme was wrong. In reality, the removal of the scheme was the wrong one. The server has ton of constant rulebreakers, hackers, dm squads and so on and the admin enforcement is so tiny that you will be confused if it's heavy roleplay server or not.
There are also alleged reports that the removal of probation scheme system is NOT because of Surreal giving second chance to the players but it's because the money income to Mow is getting more threatened therefore he told Surreal to remove the scheme hoping old banned players would come back and donate. I don't think this worked at all.
Before DamianC's removal, implementation of big features or even WEEKLY small features would be common. Now, Mmartin is slacking and the updates are getting rare and rare. The last big update was a new MDC (Which took 4 years to be made while other servers took only 6 months to make it) and a Drug system (A completely broken system) since January 2017. There were promises that LSFD, SADOC would get their own MDC system too but the promise never happened.
There are a lot staff members that get paid now. Surreal, Mmartin, Otter (A new but useless scripter, he made the drug system). 3 Staff members in a server that income is getting low and low and donations become more rare as many many players are quitting the server for good.
Another controversial scandal during Surreal's term was the LSPD and the legal factions in general. LSPD was led by one of the most famous and controversial member LS-RP ever had; Michael Houston. Michael Houston and his Staff members (Not really friends oocly, just trust) would try their best to resemble LSPD from LAPD, a real-life agency.
At that time, there was a SASD (San Andreas Sheriff's Department) which was an unique faction as it was NOT based of LASD but based of any department in the America. LSPD would be based strictly of LAPD and SASD based fictionally. Michael Houston, while most criticized member of LS-RP, he was very well loved by many members of the community because of his motivation in LSPD. SASD was cool too. LSPD and SASD had a lot differences which is what made the 2 departments unique.
However, when Surreal took over, everything changed. While LSPD and SASD were roleplaying strictly after irl Law Enforcement officers, several players in said community would never take their loss against the LEO and would complain personally to Surreal about the agencies. Complains for example, criminals fail to kill officers because of them using assault rifles (Which is an IC issue obviously) and what not.
Surreal implemented a new ridiculous rule: Whoever would use assault rifles against suspects who were armed with handguns or anything sort of misuse of weaponry, they would meet a harsh ajail time or even ban. The same goes to: Whoever uses rubberbullets on fleeing suspects, suspects in beach and what not, they would again get punished by administrators. These rules are listed under LEGAL FACTION RULES.
Surreal then personally attacked LSPD and the High Command and threatened the Staff Officers to resign or begin banning using the M4 rifles and what not. Michael Houston and his Staff team refused to obey his instructions at which point Surreal began pressuring him. Michael Houston then resigned. Almost every staff team resigned few days after. Almost every supervisory and command team resigned as well, leaving LSPD at mercy fate. Surreal then assigned immediately CadenL to lead the LSPD. His name was Caden Lin in LSPD.
Caden Lin was the successor of Michael Houston and did SOME changes. However, Surreal was not satisfied by his changes because none of them apparently obeyed his legal faction rules. At some point, again, Surreal aggressively addressed Caden Lin to fix the issues or resign. Caden Lin refused and was pressured in the end. Caden Lin resigned. Surreal received a long backlash by the LSPD community and LS-RP widely. However, nothing worked. Surreal silenced everyone with ban hammer and removed any threads created by CadenLin regarding his resignation.
He then chose an another member, Adio, to lead the LSPD. Adio proved to be the successful right hand of Surreal. Adio aggressively removed members who would oppose his position. Adio closed the detective bureau stating it was not working, changed the traffic division, removed EVERY Division's director and promoted his buddies to higher positions. Adio then removed the head of recruitment who was in LSPD since 2014 and was leading the division since the same year. As of a result, LSPD was collapsed and has barely activity now. Surreal refused to step in, citing Adio doing the good work.
And now, the mess is still a mess. Whoever played LS-RP, they will understand. Mow is not stepping at all. LS-RP is dying and it's matter of time the Mow have to make 2 decisions: Close FoCo Gaming completely or find new managers.
These words are from someone who have been in LS-RP between 2013-2014 and witnessed ton of stuff. Kalcor himself also dislikes the LS-RP administration team but no further words from himself. I would love an opinion from him please.
UPDATE:
I think it's time to post an update what happened so far. Times are crucial with a lot of controversial debates. Otter, a very active developer (Likely paid by Mow), has made some work such as some small updates and all that. Strangely enough, Mmartin hasn't developed anything new for long time.
On the other side, Otter has generated a lot controversly as well, commonly known as a complete removal of the Government (CITY HALL) which was a very well organized faction at that time with full and motivated members and turned it into a STATE Government which consisted mostly OOC friends picked by the Faction Management. This move obviously caused uproar and anger from the community as widely, later was forced to hush it down with ban threats.
Finally, second most known controversial move is the removal of drug system like we mentioned and replacing it with a "new" drug system which only brought more mess and problems, causing most players leaving. Weed, Heroin, etc, previously commonly roleplayed and commonly found have been removed completely. Now, drugs are still rare.
But now? He recently resigned with unspecified reasons. Mmartin pointed it out as "lack of free time" which many doubt it and it's likely he was forced out like most staff members and players were, especially the fact when he still managed to release small monthly updates and promised a Halloween work. That's an unconfirmed report as of now. With the drug system still barely half-baked through like most major features, it's uncertain what will happen.
Members of the community, still angry that the LS-RP is slowly collapsing to brink of death, decided to "counterattack" to management's most controversial moves. Most complains were directed to the Server management, Faction Management for favoritism and all such stuff. A petition was created to remove the FM team. The petition gathered more than 200 signatures in less than 24 hours, making it a very strong movement but Mmartin, alarmed, opted to close the thread and told to the thread guy not to cause a public unrest again and will look into the issue even though it's clear that nothing will be looked into. Many issues were brought and none of them were addressed and only given excuses to avoid them.
The following are the community threads about the issues. Read before they all get removed:
https://forum.ls-rp.com/viewtopic.ph...42573#p8135296
https://forum.ls-rp.com/viewtopic.ph...44709#p8162960
There is still an ongoing heated debate about why is the server still dying. Most criticism is pointed straight to the server management which have only two goals so far as reported; get money and ruin the server by doing whatever is absolutely necessary to force players out. Retired admins tried to express their dissapointment and their usergroup (Retired admin, a honorable tradition) were being removed for expressing their opinions.
The server managers attempted to defend themselves by throwing false excuses including "SAMP is dying", "GTA SA is an old game" and sort of. However, many new roleplay servers have proved this as patently false. Those new roleplay servers have a steady average playerbase everyday, gaining more players time to time as LS-RP is still losing players time to time.
There will be more reports to come. Watch this step. Many of my friends were recently forced out as well.
UPDATE 2:
A detailed controversial and scandal on behalf of Surreal and Mmartin handling the server according to an ex-admin who got banned from the server for speaking out.
http://archive.is/N7Bgs
The years were pretty nice and fun. It actually was a strict roleplay server. It was led by Krisk, Mow and DamianC at the same time. Around 2013 or so, Krisk was removed for some reason that can not be posted publicly and DamianC took over as his successor by Mow. Colin was also promoted to Server Manager by DamianC. The server would often reach to peak times of 600 players! A very rare thing for a English-roleplay server. It obviously had a stable playerbase, friendly community members, admins were strictly enforced by the management (Colins and DamianC) and what not. What was strange is, Mow, the only founder of FoCo Gaming, was super inactive after Krisk's removal but nevertheless everything was okay.
Keep that in mind, DamianC was a SA-MP Beta tester.
At some point around in 2013, a LS-RP developer called Mmartin was promoted to Full-time Developer and would script stuff with DamianC. DamianC would oversee the development and the community at the same time. There were many fun scripts, including house robbery and what not. Such scripts were removed/disabled for some reason, possibly to let new features to be added smoothly.
The playerbase would skyrocket almost everyday. The server was pretty much alive. FoCo Gaming, owned by Mow, would also have an another server called FoCo Team Deathmatch server. DamianC was pretty much overseeing everything.
However something went wrong around 2016. At some point, Mmartin decided to suggest something ridiculous. The suggestion? Developers and the server managers should be paid. What does it mean? There was only one developer and two server managers at that time. DamianC and Colins had full-time jobs already so it was just extra cash for them. Mmartin had no job at all and he would get money from Mow. The money would be spent to gamble on CS:GO according to DamianC's reports. Mow agreed the suggestion and began paying them normally. Apparently, the server income was so good that Mow was getting rich.
However, the server updates ceased to work since around September 2015. DamianC began warning Mmartin to do his work orthewise he would be punished and possibly terminated from the development team for slacking and making false promises. Mmartin felt threatened to his position and begged Mow to do something.
Then that what happened in March 2016. Mow decided to overstep, after 3 years of "death" (He was never around) and removed DamianC and Colin completely without any discussion or warnings. The reason of removal? "Inactivity". Mmartin and Surreal (A passive aggressive person according to DamianC, reports were later confirmed true when the server began dying) were chosen as server managers.
Consequences?
Before DamianC's removal, there were a LOT features pending for implementation. Features for example, unique area tax system, house burglary, dynamic interior and exterior and so on. All these features were scrapped completely by Mmartin after DamianC's removal.
Before DamianC's removal, the playerbase was skyrocketing to 600 players at same time, everyday which means a tremendous revenue from donations. Now, the server barely reaches 350 players at all and there were many times that it would stuck at 250 players. Donations seem to slow down.
Before DamianC's removal, the administration team were enforced strictly by himself. Any admin giving attitude or doing mistakes would be punished harshly. Now, it's mostly friendships, admins rarely get punished unless they got voted randomly by testers/admins.
Before DamianC's removal, Mallrats issue would be at low at best. Now it's super high. There were high roleplay standards. Now, DM squads formed and punishment is little.
Before DamianC's removal, there was a PROBATION SCHEME FOR BANNED PLAYERS. This was an effective system to prevent the server having hackers, constant server rolebreakers and so on. How did it work? A banned player, usually hacker or constant rulebreaker would be given a simple choice. Wait 1 full year and then re-apply for probation scheme. Once 1 year passes by, he gets a probation scheme of which the banned player MUST contribute a LOT on forum! That includes, helping players in need of help (Player support), questions and answers and so on.
- If they do good work within 6 months, they would get a very limited access to the server, probably 1-2 hour a day. In the event the probation player gets punished (Even verbally warned by admin), they would fail the scheme and restart the 1 year period waiting time.
- If all goes well, the banned player may get additional access to the server with same restrictions.
- If all goes well, the player is successfully unbanned and can access the server fully with no restrictions but admins enforcement would be strict.
Now the probation scheme was removed. Surreal stated that it's because he wanted to give them a fair chance as the probation scheme was wrong. In reality, the removal of the scheme was the wrong one. The server has ton of constant rulebreakers, hackers, dm squads and so on and the admin enforcement is so tiny that you will be confused if it's heavy roleplay server or not.
There are also alleged reports that the removal of probation scheme system is NOT because of Surreal giving second chance to the players but it's because the money income to Mow is getting more threatened therefore he told Surreal to remove the scheme hoping old banned players would come back and donate. I don't think this worked at all.
Before DamianC's removal, implementation of big features or even WEEKLY small features would be common. Now, Mmartin is slacking and the updates are getting rare and rare. The last big update was a new MDC (Which took 4 years to be made while other servers took only 6 months to make it) and a Drug system (A completely broken system) since January 2017. There were promises that LSFD, SADOC would get their own MDC system too but the promise never happened.
There are a lot staff members that get paid now. Surreal, Mmartin, Otter (A new but useless scripter, he made the drug system). 3 Staff members in a server that income is getting low and low and donations become more rare as many many players are quitting the server for good.
Another controversial scandal during Surreal's term was the LSPD and the legal factions in general. LSPD was led by one of the most famous and controversial member LS-RP ever had; Michael Houston. Michael Houston and his Staff members (Not really friends oocly, just trust) would try their best to resemble LSPD from LAPD, a real-life agency.
At that time, there was a SASD (San Andreas Sheriff's Department) which was an unique faction as it was NOT based of LASD but based of any department in the America. LSPD would be based strictly of LAPD and SASD based fictionally. Michael Houston, while most criticized member of LS-RP, he was very well loved by many members of the community because of his motivation in LSPD. SASD was cool too. LSPD and SASD had a lot differences which is what made the 2 departments unique.
However, when Surreal took over, everything changed. While LSPD and SASD were roleplaying strictly after irl Law Enforcement officers, several players in said community would never take their loss against the LEO and would complain personally to Surreal about the agencies. Complains for example, criminals fail to kill officers because of them using assault rifles (Which is an IC issue obviously) and what not.
Surreal implemented a new ridiculous rule: Whoever would use assault rifles against suspects who were armed with handguns or anything sort of misuse of weaponry, they would meet a harsh ajail time or even ban. The same goes to: Whoever uses rubberbullets on fleeing suspects, suspects in beach and what not, they would again get punished by administrators. These rules are listed under LEGAL FACTION RULES.
Surreal then personally attacked LSPD and the High Command and threatened the Staff Officers to resign or begin banning using the M4 rifles and what not. Michael Houston and his Staff team refused to obey his instructions at which point Surreal began pressuring him. Michael Houston then resigned. Almost every staff team resigned few days after. Almost every supervisory and command team resigned as well, leaving LSPD at mercy fate. Surreal then assigned immediately CadenL to lead the LSPD. His name was Caden Lin in LSPD.
Caden Lin was the successor of Michael Houston and did SOME changes. However, Surreal was not satisfied by his changes because none of them apparently obeyed his legal faction rules. At some point, again, Surreal aggressively addressed Caden Lin to fix the issues or resign. Caden Lin refused and was pressured in the end. Caden Lin resigned. Surreal received a long backlash by the LSPD community and LS-RP widely. However, nothing worked. Surreal silenced everyone with ban hammer and removed any threads created by CadenLin regarding his resignation.
He then chose an another member, Adio, to lead the LSPD. Adio proved to be the successful right hand of Surreal. Adio aggressively removed members who would oppose his position. Adio closed the detective bureau stating it was not working, changed the traffic division, removed EVERY Division's director and promoted his buddies to higher positions. Adio then removed the head of recruitment who was in LSPD since 2014 and was leading the division since the same year. As of a result, LSPD was collapsed and has barely activity now. Surreal refused to step in, citing Adio doing the good work.
And now, the mess is still a mess. Whoever played LS-RP, they will understand. Mow is not stepping at all. LS-RP is dying and it's matter of time the Mow have to make 2 decisions: Close FoCo Gaming completely or find new managers.
These words are from someone who have been in LS-RP between 2013-2014 and witnessed ton of stuff. Kalcor himself also dislikes the LS-RP administration team but no further words from himself. I would love an opinion from him please.
UPDATE:
I think it's time to post an update what happened so far. Times are crucial with a lot of controversial debates. Otter, a very active developer (Likely paid by Mow), has made some work such as some small updates and all that. Strangely enough, Mmartin hasn't developed anything new for long time.
On the other side, Otter has generated a lot controversly as well, commonly known as a complete removal of the Government (CITY HALL) which was a very well organized faction at that time with full and motivated members and turned it into a STATE Government which consisted mostly OOC friends picked by the Faction Management. This move obviously caused uproar and anger from the community as widely, later was forced to hush it down with ban threats.
Finally, second most known controversial move is the removal of drug system like we mentioned and replacing it with a "new" drug system which only brought more mess and problems, causing most players leaving. Weed, Heroin, etc, previously commonly roleplayed and commonly found have been removed completely. Now, drugs are still rare.
But now? He recently resigned with unspecified reasons. Mmartin pointed it out as "lack of free time" which many doubt it and it's likely he was forced out like most staff members and players were, especially the fact when he still managed to release small monthly updates and promised a Halloween work. That's an unconfirmed report as of now. With the drug system still barely half-baked through like most major features, it's uncertain what will happen.
Members of the community, still angry that the LS-RP is slowly collapsing to brink of death, decided to "counterattack" to management's most controversial moves. Most complains were directed to the Server management, Faction Management for favoritism and all such stuff. A petition was created to remove the FM team. The petition gathered more than 200 signatures in less than 24 hours, making it a very strong movement but Mmartin, alarmed, opted to close the thread and told to the thread guy not to cause a public unrest again and will look into the issue even though it's clear that nothing will be looked into. Many issues were brought and none of them were addressed and only given excuses to avoid them.
The following are the community threads about the issues. Read before they all get removed:
https://forum.ls-rp.com/viewtopic.ph...42573#p8135296
https://forum.ls-rp.com/viewtopic.ph...44709#p8162960
There is still an ongoing heated debate about why is the server still dying. Most criticism is pointed straight to the server management which have only two goals so far as reported; get money and ruin the server by doing whatever is absolutely necessary to force players out. Retired admins tried to express their dissapointment and their usergroup (Retired admin, a honorable tradition) were being removed for expressing their opinions.
The server managers attempted to defend themselves by throwing false excuses including "SAMP is dying", "GTA SA is an old game" and sort of. However, many new roleplay servers have proved this as patently false. Those new roleplay servers have a steady average playerbase everyday, gaining more players time to time as LS-RP is still losing players time to time.
There will be more reports to come. Watch this step. Many of my friends were recently forced out as well.
UPDATE 2:
A detailed controversial and scandal on behalf of Surreal and Mmartin handling the server according to an ex-admin who got banned from the server for speaking out.
http://archive.is/N7Bgs
