I will reply to this topic as I was ID 477, The driver of the black car that first pulled up and it was also my idea to not be in Vagos Colours for this incident.
For the benefit of staff who have not been in Teamspeak with both parties over the last week I will try to give as much details as possible to aide the discussions that you will no doubt have surrounding this report. For the benefit of this thread in particular it would be much easier for everyone involved if the replies came from the person opening the report and we will try to keep Vagos replies concise to avoid it becoming a back and forth on the forums. For clarity this report is regarding IDs - 477, 230, 39, 597 as such this is all that will be addressed moving forwards. Anything else should be kept to a separate report/discussion if people feel the need to report those individuals.
Vagos & Grove have been at war now in RP for just over a week if my timeline is correct. The reason for the war is over a strip of road that intersects both turfs and both gangs want to sell on it and tax it. We had a meeting on Grove street that resulted in neither gang backing down and threats being made. This was followed up by a "turf push" by Grove using molotovs and shots were fired. It was clear that this was going to be a war from the get go which is totally fine. What followed since was days of back and forths. Sometimes Grove would push and shoot us on Turf, sometimes we would do the same. Grove would kidnap/torture etc Vagos members and we also picked up their members where we could.
Around the 2nd/3rd day we requested to set war rules to ensure the war didn't turn into a fuck fest. As Vagos we have been in many many wars and have come to appreciate that war rules are a great way to mould the roleplay and situations moving forwards so that it doesn't become weeks and weeks or turf pushes and retaliations like every single war on the server. We were initially told by Tok that we aren't a real gang and he doesn't need to set war rules. fine. We've had a session in Teamspeak previously with Staff present regarding the war at which point we were both heavily encouraged to set war rules between the gang leads as it stops things become a report fest. Although they aren't server rules they do become a gentlemen's agreement between gangs that tbh any decent person out of City would agree to follow.
Examples of War rules that we were discussing are - Colours at all times if involved, KOS on Turfs, No dumping (police do enough confiscating) - These are usually foundation rules that a lot of wars involve. To make the war more unique to the scenario we also discussed as a gang rules such as no vehicles what so ever, due to the close nature of the turfs and the reason for it in the first place we would have like to have had "neighbourhood war" like really gangs would do. Once again this is due to the META that as soon as war starts people pull Supercars and Helions out of their arse in order to help them win a shootout that really hasn't advanced the RP in anyway what so ever. Shootouts are fun, but when they make sense.
Moving on to the incident in question, we had recently had grove circling our turf which resulted in both gangs shooting at each other (without words said). Grove were in full Green cars and we were in positions such as rooftops as with any gang war we anticipated an attack could happen at any point and were always ready. A lot of people were down, a lot of people we arrested and some were dumped. As a gang it took us a while to regroup and get everyone together again to plan how we would retaliate. We called in help from 3 previous Vagos members who were only recently removed and joined Ballas, 1 previous member who is still loyal to us and only recently left and also Darren who tagged along being friends with most of us.
As we were preparing to come down to Grove and attack I had a sudden thought of, Why are we doing this in yellow? The way we see war rules we always stick to them no matter what because we respect them for what they are. but we didn't have any, Tok didn't see us as a gang and had said it multiple times so why should we give them the upper hand of noticing us pulling up. From previous experience Grove have been known to use the surrounding rooftops as firing points as well as patrol the streets nearby. That is the kind of welcome we were expecting when we were approaching. Instead we found Grove making a human pyramid posing for a photo using emojis. It was at this point Bobby (leader of Vagos) was supposed to make reference to an apology Grove had requested and tell them where to stick it. We expected Grove to be expected a retaliation and therefore we did only initially think that we would be met with 1/2/3 people stood at the road side to the initiate a longer shoot out scenario with. This is bearing in mind that no previous turf pushes from either said bar a few exceptions have involved "words said" before shots are fired.
Unfortunately Bobby failed to activate his ingame push to talk button which had been working just prior around the corner when shouting his insults towards the Grove members posing for the picture. Accidents do happen and this was never denied in Teamspeak at all by anyone. That is evident in his clip which i will post below that still did pick up his audio.
https://medal.tv/games/gta-v/clips/72853086/d1337cocchyV?invite=cr-MSxMOWssMjI2OTc1Mjcs
The intention behind it was to send a message that we can hit anywhere at anytime and it is not a requirement or even a request to represent our colours if we don't want to.
Due to police showing up very quickly a lot of people did leave the scene very hastily which prevent much context being given afterwards. I did stay behind as it was my intention to try and take some Grove for some torture RP and more conversation however it kept fucking up and I couldn't even get people in my car. Its a little bit annoying how people lean against rules in RP and make comments such as "some Randoms shooting for no reason" and "mass deportation" or "shooting with no words" - By this point its obvious who it is in RP because random people would not roll up and shoot coincidently during a gang war with a neighbouring turf in retaliation to an initial push.
I don't have my clip of the shooting as It didn't cross my mind and by the time I captured it I was only able to get the aftermath from my POV.
https://medal.tv/games/gta-v/clips/72872125/d1337hoYQXOs?invite=cr-MSxRazEsMjA3OTQ2Mjgs
On the final note regarding war rules, it has been stated by Grove that these are OOC discussions and if they don't want them we don't have to do them. It is our opinion that they are there to enhance the wars and roleplay and create further interesting storylines. With factions such as the firm or even using Father Augustus as a mediator things such as rules can be RPd out such as The Firm could say something along the lines of im sick of seeing people in black shooting each other if you two want to go at it I want to see whos who and you never know I might be impressed etc. This is all creative stuff that can stop war rules from being OOC and something people try to avoid.
I think I have covered as much as I can to cover replies for the IDs involved, It may be easier if like I said Grove can collectively come to an reply jointly to post and make it easier for staff to evaluate.
Thanks, JB.