Hey everyone,
The San Andreas "Lore" thread — thanks everyone for your responses to this thread. As I have mentioned before, the topic of San Andreas' location/lore was never truly opened up for discussion to the community, but was something that people loosely talked about all of the time. This thread was created so we could see what we are dealing with once and for all. After reviewing the thread as promised, the whole thread is a very mixed bag of opinions. We discussed the thread's responses last night at a in-game lead+ meeting, and decided that it would be too disruptive and controversial to firmly decide on one set of location/lore given that we can now confirm there isn't a majority consensus. Everyone wants something else, so the healthiest option would simply be to leave it "suitably vague" and as is. I will also mention that things broadcast by previous server leadership are still in effect — Los Santos is not Los Angeles, and everyone is free to role-play the existence of other states and cities without considering this one as a direct replacement to others.
The Business Update: Part II — as promised, a second portion of updates to businesses on the server will be coming out soon. This mainly tackles the non-script/feature issues that were discussed with the community in this thread to help tackle problems with business role-play on the server. We will be implementing some new rules, and also new guidelines that players must follow when interacting with businesses. Not everything will be a dead-set server rule, so we will bring attention to some of the "lesser" issues and ensure the community is aware what administration expects from you.
Lease re-vamp — after having talks with our Head of Properties/Head of Lease, this is well under-way and should come to fruition in the short-term. Again, the idea is having an even larger pool of dynamic businesses that can be changed to meet players' needs, and we will allow any player (with role-play ideas and good intentions) to get the opportunity to lease one of these businesses. If you use it actively and sensibly, you can keep it indefinitely. This is our way of trying to increase the role-play scene around businesses, and provide more role-play environments to players. With the business script/non-script updates, this will be as effective as ever to implement and should have a decent impact.
Illegal weapon availability — I have mentioned this before, and will mention it again. Given community feedback and what people have been saying in numerous General Discussions threads, it is apparent that people are requesting more access to illegal weaponry. This is something being actively worked on, and I encourage you to provide constructive feedback to any of the threads that are floating around if you are interested in helping out. I will make sure I pay close attention to those threads from here-on-out and look at working on reasonable solutions in the short-term.
“We have decided to try something new when it comes to adding brand new staff members (testers) to the team, and we will be moving away from long-winded waiting times in the "reserved pool" for the most part. Applications will be accepted when recruitment to the staff team opens, and we will discuss each candidate as usual. Any candidates who pass the discussion stage and are considered "reserved" will be eligible to join the team on a monthly basis when we decide that we need new testers or have some exceptional candidates. This will move us away from the "huge batches" that we do a few times a year and mean people will get the opportunity to join the team at any time. And with that, we will be adding a batch of new testers from the reserved pool today with this notice. You can read that below. If your name is listed below as a brand new tester or a reinstating tester, please contact Jakey to be welcomed into the team.”
Congratulations to the following people who will be welcomed into our tester team for the very first time:
BillyM
Daniel™
Evans
meisterkebab
Source
And welcome back to the following testers who will be reinstating into the tester team:
Jay732
Kota
MackemRyan
Principessa
Shin Dandy
Congratulations again, and I look forward to seeing you around the server and the forums! Please contact Jakey to take the next step and be welcomed into the team.
Admin Level 2 -> 3
Heix
Admin Level 1 -> 2
Apophis
Justus
Nicola
Congratulations to the above on their promotions. Well deserved.
I'd like to welcome back the following administrators to the team:
Drumj — Level 1
Congratulations and I look forward to seeing you around again.
It's that time again, and some of the testers inducted into the previous drive have been selected for graduation. Given that it's going to be a more free-flow system where we can pull candidates into the scheme at any time to meet the demand for admins, we may bring people in or graduate people at differing times based on their ability.
Brad
Dee
Gallardo
Inked
Killbilly
Congratulations to the above and I look forward to seeing you around.
Thanks for reading,
Surreal