Today marks LS-RP's ninth birthday. Being half-way the drinking age in Europe, LS-RP has been around for longer than the average marriage. The last year was very eventful to say the least. It's been busy, emotional, and sometimes even chaotic, but also progressing, adventurous and active. We managed to overcome tough times and enjoy the more pleasant, entertaining bits.
You, players, the community, are special to me in a lot of ways. One thing I always admired was that even though things don't always go smoothly and the road is bumpier than we'd want it to be, I was always met with overwhelming support and positivity, whether that's updates that don't go as planned or large changes that come as a surprise and cause mixed feelings. Thank you for the trust you put in me and thank you for all the support throughout the years.
LS-RP wouldn't be what it is without the community that surrounds it. You make me smile, entertain me and give me a purpose. You pat my back when the skies are gray and laugh with me when the clouds dissolve. You teach me something new every day and give me inspiration like nobody else. I am happy I have you all in my life.
Now that I've got that off my chest; before we move on to what's ahead of us, let's take a look at the last 365 days in numbers.
We came very far in those nine years. It's very hard to say what the future holds for all of us. My mission is to keep pushing for LS-RP to be the best it can be, a place for creativity to bloom, for relax and a getaway from the trouble and seriousness of day-to-day life. There's still a lot for all of us to achieve for years to come and I can say that I'm nothing but thrilled to see what that's going to be.84,620 characters connected to the server and played over 266 years worth of time in-game! You've driven over thirty million miles, most of them in a Towtruck. You've killed each other 189,388 times, and spent $3,311,477,159 on charity. You've sent over a million text messages and made 565,894 phone calls.
The cops have arrested 30,301 criminals and one mayor, who were sentenced to 7,598,001 minutes (That's 14 years. Real years) in prison. Top #1 crime in all of San Andreas was Evading, committed 13,303 times. You paid $122,325,683 in fines, and left $12,246,098 unpaid.
You sent in over 76,000 character applications, made 1,110,615 forum posts and changed your name 29,329 times. You were AFK for too long 256,733 times and permanently killed off over 8500 of your characters.
Right now, there's 2842 Johns, 1986 Jameses, 1858 Michaels, 1209 Johnsons, 1043 Smiths and 854 Williamses. So if you're John_Johnson, James_Smith or Michael_Williams, you have mastered the art of name making.
Traditionally, we'll have an event going on this weekend. The Wonderland music festival will finally come to Los Santos after SAN and LSFM made their return. I don't want to talk too much about the events that'll happen this weekend so I'll stop here, but I mean, what could really go wrong with a music festival?!
Alright! This was more challenging to write than I thought. Get your glow sticks, cakes, bottles, bananas or whatever you want to celebrate with ready and prepare for the weekend celebrations.
Here's to you, LS-RP. Happy birthday!