Current state of whitelisted gangs/groups

[MartinSmith]

Yello, I've had a couple thoughts about the city for a while now, but I'm not really sure which suggestion category to write them under, so I hope here will do! as a "Crim main" for the large duration of my seven months in the city, I've formed a few opinions about the current state of whitelisted gangs and through talking to others I know that I don't stand alone in these beliefs. I feel like the state of whitelisted gangs is an ignored issue and the level of RP provided by them has deteriorated, this is in no way isolated to a single gang/group and applies to many across the city.

It has become WAY too easy for someone to join a whitelisted gang/group withing RPUK. Whitelisted gangs/groups within the city are supposed to hold the highest standard of RP within the city, the criteria for become a whitelisted gang/group is not simply to "Be strong" or to win wars, From my understanding they are meant to prioritise roleplay at all times regardless of the quality of their fighting. I feel like this however has become a phenomenon in city and can only be credited to a few determined gangs/groups instead of the majority. In my opinion, the root cause of this is the decline in roleplay leading up to the initiation of a gang member into the Tablet (F6). Due to the hard process of becoming a recognised gang/group and the high quality of roleplay these gangs/groups surely whitelisted gangs shouldn't just take anyone. Whitelisted gangs should be reserved for the "Best of the Best" within the city regarding roleplay ability, and in order to make sure these standards are upheld there should be a sense of rarity to joining a whitelisted gang. I know from personal observations that within the city certain whitelisted gangs have a hangaround process of less than a week. There are whitelisted gangs/groups in the city who very evidently recruit players on the base of combat skill or purely just to increase their numbers and make them stronger, which I believe is a clear show of some Whitelisted gangs having a "Winning mentality" because it its obvious that these groups are recruiting to win. I think undeniably the hangaround process of a whitelisted gang/groups should be much, MUCH longer than it currently seems to be, in order to "Vet" the people who join. You should not have people in your tablet that barely know how to use vehicle placement, Whitelisted gangs shouldn't be the starting place for new players within the city.

I also think that this issue has been propelled by the amount of wars that have been happening recently. Wars and beefs alike should always have an extremely large amount of roleplay behind them. Similar to the RDM rule, I believe that beefs that end up in full scale gunfights (Unless extremely spontaneous) should be approached with a much higher level of roleplay. I understand that as a gang in city, you need to show a persona of being dangerous and willing to fight but in a realistic scenario you shouldn't be as willing to sacrifice multiple lives over small disagreements such as someone saying "Fuck [...]". I think that in the lead up to a gang beef/war, there needs to be sufficient roleplay provided to the situation. Leaders of whitelisted gangs should be less willing to sacrifice the lives of their members as although it is only a game, they shouldn't take into account their members ability to respawn. I think before a war or a beef, the gang leaders should consider more talks, other possible solutions and if the only possible solution is bloodshed then they go ahead. I think doing this will mean that whitelisted gangs/groups no longer feel a need to fill up their tablet with people who may not be fit for the position in order to become a stronger group. Again I understand that a lot of the time beefs/wars seem some what unavoidable and that they more times then not are very spontaneous, I still firmly believe that if the whitelisted gangs/groups started setting this example of quality roleplay before a beef/war then it will massively improve the quality of roleplay overall in whitelisted gangs.

This has been something I've been thinking of for a while now, and I thought I'd express my opinion here and possibly get some other thoughts/criticism. Its kind of a shell of an idea and I know I have no real plausible solution but I wanted to push the issue to the frontlines. If this suggestion has already been talked about or something similar has been addressed (And if i wasted my time writing this) Please let me know

 

[Stavik]

What would this other factor be? And how do they tie into each other. I think if people understood it more people would be more willing to try it themselves.

Cops are a risk and other people are a risk. Thats all im gonna say xD

But there is a boost when factors come into count, and it helps with the drugs quite well.

 

[Stavik]

I just think that with how everyone considers drugs to be terrible and believe it isn't getting any changes some transparency is going to be needed to change people's minds and encourage them to go and try it out.

Thing is, since 18th or something December we made some huge changes compared to last time there were drug changes.
But we didnt set out to create a new Planet Earth of Drugs - We addressed mainly missing items and features that was just stuck in a black hole of nothingness.

This have been received as quite positive and the work continues.
EDIT; Not " a whole new world" but better.


Edit#2; Our tracking of Drugs Sales confirm this. More people are doing it.

 

[Bmav]

Thing is, since 18th or something December we made some huge changes compared to last time there were drug changes.
But we didnt set out to create a new Planet Earth of Drugs - We addressed mainly missing items and features that was just stuck in a black hole of nothingness.

This have been received as quite positive and the work continues.
EDIT; Not " a whole new world" but better.


Edit#2; Our tracking of Drugs Sales confirm this. More people are doing it.

I think the drug changes were good even though i haven't tried them from what i heard they are actually craftable basically which is a good step but i do reckon something to make gangs appealing is really needed, honestly this is personal opinion but i would love an expansion of the turf system atleast that was what i thought the final part of the criminal update was going to be. But basically a system where you can feel like there is progress and a currency that can be used solely for that purpose and honestly banks could facture into this aswell or any other criminal activities. I could go into more depth about it but i reckon it would be a good change if it is possible to accomplish.

 

[Stavik]

I think the drug changes were good even though i haven't tried them from what i heard they are actually craftable basically which is a good step but i do reckon something to make gangs appealing is really needed, honestly this is personal opinion but i would love an expansion of the turf system atleast that was what i thought the final part of the criminal update was going to be. But basically a system where you can feel like there is progress and a currency that can be used solely for that purpose and honestly banks could facture into this aswell or any other criminal activities. I could go into more depth about it but i reckon it would be a good change if it is possible to accomplish.

Yes we can dive down the suggestion hole on this and all interesting ideas have been noted down. We have had a few discussion and when we got to the point of looking at it properly (turfs) it will get the attention it needs.

The sole purpose of the December drug update and with great help from @Kyle Kamara and @Bobinz was to freshen it up.
Sadly Drugs were somewhat a bit hidden away and many items added back then just plain and simply didn't exist. We addressed this by adding locations, adding ingredients to other updates, readjusting some values to freshen it up and we outlined that this would not be the final cut. We now know all drugs are craft able. All ingredients are obtainable.

How is a big spoiler and i wont go down that path. But we are observing to address the issues we see and we rely HEAVILY on the feedback from the players doing it.
Prices and payout is easy to change (brave of me to say cause of min maxers) but also the experience of doing it is a big point that people seem to overlook. Its usually just the money people think of.

Focus i have is exactly this, experience doing it, payout vs risk and availability. I feed this straight back to the relevant devs that have time to deal with it.


The future will show attention to it unless something comes up, in the meantime the pipeline is full of other changes also in need of changes. Patience.
I hope it makes sense, but please do ask questions here, groups, main discord/ticket or DM's. But i will not spoil stuff.

 

[Kieffer]

Patience

A don’t want to sound like a cunt here but a crim trailer was released about 2 year ago surely the time for ‘patience’ has been and gone, no?

 

[Stavik]

A don’t want to sound like a cunt here but a crim trailer was released about 2 year ago surely the time for ‘patience’ has been and

Yes and no. There is a whole host of reasons as to why. What i can say is that many aspects of the crim update is already on theserver.

 

[Kieffer]

Yes and no. There is a whole host of reasons as to why. What i can say is that many aspects of the crim update is already on theserver.

That’s fair enough I’ve been around the community for 4+ years now and I’d say every month for the last 2 or so years there’s been threads like this and comments similar to that of JB, and it just feels it dies down till another thread is open, with often little communication, little plan and no action.

However to play devils advocate I do think a lot of the complaints that I’ve read over can be fixed or made better without an update. Everyone seems to be bringing a lot of the decline in gang RP back to boredom and from my perspective people that are categorising themselves to that are part of the problem and I say that because it was myself not so long ago. Logging on and hoping something happens, hoping you can get that feeling the server gave all that time ago. Ultimately it doesn’t happen and it leads to these daft decision and poor levels of RP hence I was collecting bans like infinite stones. I know everyone’s wants the best from the server but if your bored don’t log on it really is that simple and I wish I could’ve told myself that a few months back.

I’m not just going to throw out my thoughts, I’m also going to offer some reasoning of why I feel the gang scenes dyeing out with the lack of updates. There’s 3 main things for me killing the gang scene that aren’t due to lack of updates. Weaponising the forums, wake up times and trust between players all of these things are contributing to less players, and all of them for me are being used as part of a winning mentality, Ive not been able to log into the server in months but I could comfortable tell you who's been at war one look of the forums and it becomes quite apparent report after report. Now it might win your gang the war due to banning the majority of the opposing gang but when the wars all said and done its the people making all these reports that also want the gang scene back alive with more active gangs. Now I'm not saying don't report but think about one thing when you are, do you care about the players actions? or you think there's a chance they could get banned? Countless times ive seen messages around discords along the lines of "easy ban". Then wake up times from what Ive seen there's maybe 5/6 active gangs so if 4 of them are at war more often than not they'll have a 9, 10 and 11 o'clock wake ups everyone will log on where the most ticks are then log off when the fighting is done, if any choose to come on during the day there blacked out in a bin truck, absolutely zero RP is achieved from that and its only done so gangs have a better chance of winning they don't want to be logging in at 3 o'clock with 4 members and getting a "loss". Lastly for the trust the amount of times in this thread alone ive read that police carry so heavily because they believe crims are just going to shoot them at small things like traffic stops and vice versa crims are shooting at traffic stops because they believe the police have a full armoury and there going to hands them at any given opportunity, If everyone goes into interactions based of the actions of a minority then that minority becomes a majority and that's what were seeing a constant domino effect that's growing and growing, Yes some police are knobs and yes some crims are knobs but don't rub that of on a majority have some trust. Will these things change probably not but if people came together and tried I do believe it would have a positive impact.

Now if I’m being honest this would be a wet paper towel on a broken leg but it’s a start. For serious change an overhaul is required but for me people have to control the controllables, as I have said these threads have been happening on and of for about 2 years and very little has changed and very little has come from these threads, that trailer was released so long ago and it just made so many people expectant that change was coming, and its now been so long that the expectancy and excitement has just turned to anger. Only the staff team knows how far away that change is but I do believe with some of things I have mentioned and I'm sure many people can add and have different opinions, things can be changed that don't require an update and can still have a positive impact.

 

[qaws]

Yes and no. There is a whole host of reasons as to why. What i can say is that many aspects of the crim update is already on theserver.

It feels lackluster at the moment sadly.

There's so much stuff I can think of that could improve things to do for criminals.
For example:
Home invasions (NPC or even other players?)
Money Laundering
Bitcoin mining and anonymous dark web (and just more on the hacking side in general)
Car boosting
ATM robberies
Different drugs for different turfs (and let the gangs with the respective benches actually make stuff!) - I know you've talked about the updates that were done on the 18th but Triads (and Mara) for example can't make their signature drug due to 1 of the ingredients being inaccessible. Also make it bigger, let me make weed brownies and lace them with speed so people want them more (instead of normal weed brownies) or let me make heroin but add too much fentanyl and locals die.

Make a gang respect system when it comes to drugs, changing the payouts for whitelisted gang turfs.

In general maybe a difference between the type of criminal you want to be.
Want to be a hacker and hack ATM's, NPC bank accounts or hold websites for ransom?
Want to be a hustler that breaks into houses and sells the stuff they find to a fence?
Want to be a chemist that knows how to make high-class drugs like Heisenberg?
Want to be a shady mechanic that likes to rob cars and sell off their parts or the cars itself?

At the moment you're either a gang member, a gang member in disguise or a low level petty criminal.

It's just lackluster for criminals at the moment. The average well-seasoned crim will do the following:
Silent fleecas
Shift weapons
Sell some drugs (?)
War other gangs
Fight police
Bins

And that's not even starting about other stuff to do that's legal. I can name plenty ideas for that too.

I also believe whitelisting for gangs should be changed. There's gangs that are gone for far too long and keep their whitelisting, while a whitelisted gang should be the pinnacle of quality RP. Instead, the main focus is on accumulating wealth and weapons (as well as amassing a full f6 quickly) which leads to low quality RP.

Then the big one; weapons. I believe people should have easier access to low level weapons and WAY harder access to high level weapons. I believe production of small hand guns should be easier (I don't want to go too in depth but let's say.. less limited) and achieving a high level 2 handed weapon should be extremely hard.

A lot of this stuff has to do with the "meta" the server follows and isn't really gonna change in a day or a week, but I think the biggest problem is that there have been extremely little changes/additions for crims (and in general) and that "bores" the average playerbase. This can also been seen with the playercount.

I'd hate to see the community slowly bleed out but I am afraid if nothing is done this will happen (arguably it already is).

I know that the devs are unpaid and we should be grateful for their work, sure. I know I am. But there will be a point that your average John Dick and Harry will just go to a different server.

 

[GeneralVZ]

Now if I’m being honest this would be a wet paper towel on a broken leg but it’s a start. For serious change an overhaul is required but for me people have to control the controllables, as I have said these threads have been happening on and of for about 2 years and very little has changed and very little has come from these threads, that trailer was released so long ago and it just made so many people expectant that change was coming, and its now been so long that the expectancy and excitement has just turned to anger. Only the staff team knows how far away that change is but I do believe with some of things I have mentioned and I'm sure many people can add and have different opinions, things can be changed that don't require an update and can still have a positive impact.

Agreed. it's genuinely falling apart and like any other thread like this one and the one before it, lots try to give ideas and put effort but nothing going to change. some say it's lack of content and some say it's mentality issue on the server itself which causing law quality RP and either way lots are leaving and lots are looking to leave but then some sticking around like myself because I always hoped sth would change.

 

[Stavik]

Different drugs for different turfs (and let the gangs with the respective benches actually make stuff!) - I know you've talked about the updates that were done on the 18th but Triads (and Mara) for example can't make their signature drug due to 1 of the ingredients being inaccessible. Also make it bigger, let me make weed brownies or let me make heroin but add too much fentanyl and locals die.

What ingredient?

 

[qaws]

What ingredient?

Iodine

 

[Stavik]

Iodine

Its obtainable.

Again, this is fed back to us from before and as i've said before - its a work in progress to find a balance.
Changes are being discussed and later done and then approved or not.

 

[qaws]

Its obtainable.

Again, this is fed back to us from before and as i've said before - its a work in progress to find a balance.
Changes are being discussed and later done and then approved or not.

If you mean by robbing the pharmacy, you barely get anything from it. And yes, I understand which is why I find it important to say these things. We've been trying to get it through the pharmacy, the chemist but there's just not a feasible way. Why not make it so a gang can pick up packages of their preferred ingredient on the island instead of coke? Let me call in a case of Iodine, or Methylamine, or whatever other stuff other gangs use to make their "signature" drug.

 

[Stavik]

If you mean by robbing the pharmacy, you barely get anything from it. And yes, I understand which is why I find it important to say these things. We've been trying to get it through the pharmacy, the chemist but there's just not a feasible way. Why not make it so a gang can pick up packages of their preferred ingredient on the island instead of coke? Let me call in a case of Iodine, or Methylamine, or whatever other stuff other gangs use to make their "signature" drug.

Still is obtainable and the values were lower in the past i believe.

These are ideas that have flown past and landed on our cogwheels of thinking to see if it would work and are up for grabs - but yet again.
There are concerns about money making and how much, sometime sit too little, sometimes too much. These are the balances and values WE HAVE to consider before we release it do the different thinking players that will find a way to min max and get the most return on things. This is what takes time as we rely on direct data - aka the actions you do and feedback from the experience.

 

[Stavik]

@qaws Funnily enough we had planned a chat earlier this week for today re what we have seen the past 30 days.

This is'nt live yet and needs approval from others before it goes anywhere. But Feedback from availability and how certain stuff is made is addressed.
Keep putting up feedback, contact gang leads if you are in a WL gang and let them push nit to us. Or feel free to send a DM here on the forum or on Discord.


I wont spoil anything.

 

[Doctor Box]

It will be a rush yes, but still this will increase gang activity and prevent them from dying, as I think we will see more gangs in the city and this will create more rp

This is just wrong if you ask me, reducing the amount of people able to join an F6 would decrease activity, with the current 25 member cap it allows for a gang to have valuable members who can't log in 24/7 like others do, reducing the cap would mean if a gang has good RPers that just can't log in very often they will be perceived as dead and not fun to join.

 

[Ollie Just]

The gang scene died out because the server became unbalanced.
With gangs being illegal and risky they should always offer the highest reward. Is this fair for people who want to play civ? Probably not. In trying to balance the server towards the civ side the gang side has been left by the waste side. Case in point, garbage runs. They should never have been anywhere near as rewarding as they were or still are currently.
The server was at its peak when it was a "UK based gang server" so to speak. Gangs were the main focus and thus created 75% of all the RP on the server. Gangs were 25 strong back in the day and they weren't having constant shootouts then so its important to ask why and what has changed.

The first thing is the economy. Its far too easy to make a few hundred thousand in a day and you're set. You have no more motivation to make money unless you're wanting to buy a new car.

The second thing is the mentality of the gangs and the people they have in them. Leaders are not held to account like they used to be and every man and his dog can start a gang war over some stupid reason that they've either forced because they are bored or just doesn't make sense. Gang leaders always prioritise RP but that seems to be completely lost now. Everyone just wants to show how gangster they are 24/7. Leaders had so many agreements in place back in the day that if anyone stepped out of line they were under threat from all of the other gangs. Unfortunately because people now cannot be trusted to RP like this, a teaming rule exists.
There is no danger or threat to gangs any more.. Storage containers are a massive negative. I don't want to sound like someone who is longing for the glory days but back when all you had was a house with small storage and a gang safe, nothing was ever safe. If the police raided the gang safe, you lost millions in stuff and it was a real kick in the teeth. The storage containers now just add to the lack of danger. Another mechanic that impacted the already limited options gangs had was the ability to craft guns without a 3rd party. We had gang pistols, deagles and standard pistols. This was a form of RP that has now being locked behind a wall and has taken away from the already limited options available to gangs. Small arms deals gave gangs reasons to be in the mines, it gave whitelisted gangs reasons to set up deals with smaller gangs and everyone was having a good time. I understand it may have been removed to reduce the amount of guns in circulation but its certainly worse now than it ever was back then.
Another thing is the drug scene. It was Coke in 2020/2021 and its still coke today. 4 years on and its still gus runs and cutting if you want to make money. Gangs don't have perks, they don't have unique qualities that they can offer to other people and there just isn't enough options for people to create scenarios with.

As an example lets say I am running Vagos and there's 15 of us. We've just started out. Right, we will do gus runs and we will all sell coke all week and get our money up. Done. Now we will all buy some guns. Done. Now what? People don't drive around like they used to looking for gangs, You can stand on your turf and not a single person will come by for over an hour. Gangs have no purpose. Right 15 of us are bored now how can we make some RP? Other gangs don't need drugs, other gangs don't need money or guns so what's left? Let's start a beef fuck it. This is why gang members are off doing other things and not acting like gang members. They're off socialising with civs, doing civ jobs like bin jobs or just not logging on at all.
Next thing you know you've got 2 gangs having shootouts, police getting involved, everyones got a shit bored mentality and everyone starts to hate on each other.

I suggested it over 2 years ago and I will always stand by it, the server needs a relaunch, a re model, a do over, a refresh of the gangs and some new ideas. a 2.0 RPUK. I can log on now at peak times and it feels like a ghost town. I make a point to drive by all the turfs and they are always empty. The server has lost its feel and has very much become a civ VR Chat server. It needs something to re inject the excitement that it once had and give people a reason to roleplay again. I could talk about this all day but ill leave it at that for now.

EDIT - 69 players and its only 1am, that never used to be a normal level so something definitely needs to change.

Personally i agree with most being said, i have not been around for nearly 10 months but it seems the direction things were going in haven't changed for the better hence this post. However one of your arguments "l do gus runs and we will all sell coke all week and get our money up.... Other gangs don't need drugs, other gangs don't need money or guns so what's left" can be solved. By giving certain gangs exclusive access to items others cannot achieve will force meetings with gangs to set up agreements and terms from sharing these items. For example, only Grove and Mara have access to drug/item A whilst Ballas and Vagos have acces to drug/item B - Ballas and vagos will need to create meetings about sharing the gathering, pricing, where and who they can sell too etc. This should create close connections with gangs, however it also creates avenues for altercations. Purhaps one gang increases/lowers their price. This would force more scenarios and meetings between gangs. Additionally Ballas and vagos will need to arrange conversation with mara and grove for their exclusive item.

Edit: Only part of my initiation i could conjure up - https://medal.tv/games/gta-v/clips/1hlECC-xsykdH6?invite=cr-MSxQa3MsODAxNDQwNSw

Where this can go wrong however is easy. There will need to be balance of power between these items. but they will also need to be wanted/needed by the gang without it. If their is a desire for both gangs to exchange items at agreed rates. This would created "drop off/ exchange" rp and would create a lot of police investigative work to reduce the flow of these items. Additionally if war was to occur there will be a deep impact for both parties as during the war their supply of these items will be cut off from eachother which will cause gangs to consider whether war is the right solution. During my time on the server it is evident war SHOULD be a last resort however since there is not true "loss" or value within weighing up warring or not, gangs simply war for the sake of it. This also is due to a lack of content clearly outline in JB responce (I am not entirely up to date).

However, my initiation into grove was one ill never forget. The convincing tone and "test" i was put up to by the team generally gave me such an experience. However this was nearly 1.5 years ago, during times of war i noticed a scramble to 25, therefore i agree to an extent certain events should be capped - Not to 6 as stated by another member - but a reduction to situations would be beneficial imo. However gang caps should remain the same as people would have to be removed and form ones of their own out the blue with no rp. However before my removal, i did see a start to counter these scrambles by stopping recruitment during war, this makes sense as would a gang let someone in with a gun relying on them with their life - probably not.

I just wanted to give my opinion on a few things as i believe it needs more attention and changes need to occur especially since i was around a time where rp was truly prioritised and valued over anything else. Lmk if you agree or disagree with anything i said and ill gladly respond.

 

[Tobes]

Simply put the whitelisted gangs need to take drastic measures sometimes to recruit and to not die. When they die it's basically free real estate for anyone to just take the gang over and setup shop. Maintain the status quo