I open this thread because Benny has been talking in several threads about removing races from the server and focusing only on dm.
I disagree in making servers about only one thing (i.e. servers only about racing, servers only about dm, servers only about flying etc.).
What makes San Andreas one of the best games of the History, is indeed its uncomparable amount of vehicles, weapons and missions, and
in general the freedom and variety that it gives to the players, so the logical way of playing Samp should be that: an extension of the single player mode with all its features so you can enjoy them all with other human players (and that's exactly what I expected from Samp when I started playing it),
and not making servers (not only LW, but in general)
a crippled and downgraded version of the single player mode whose most awesome features have been ripped out, because that means trashing most virtues of the game.
If one of the best things of GTA SA is the ability to play it in so many different ways, why play it in only one?Benny says that if he only wanted to race, he would go to a race server... but with his very same logic I can tell him that if he only wants to shoot on foot, go playing any shooter like Call of Duty and you are done (and btw there won't be that db which he complains so much about). And the same for the rest: if you only want to race, go playing Burnout, and if I wanted ONLY to fly, I would play Tom Clancy's Hawx. However, if one wants to fly, drive, shoot, swim, use tanks, boats, ride bycicles etc, in the same game, San Andreas is the only (or almost the only) one that allows you to do all of that, which is what makes it be above the rest of games, so
Samp servers should take advantage of this to compete with the specialized games.
Also, related with what Benny says about racing in a race server, in one of those you cannot shoot the racers, nor chase them with Rustlers, nor block their way, nor carry some friends with weapons to defend your car, nor spend the money you earn on weapons, bounties, properties etc, so
races in LW are one of the most awesome and unique features of this server, something that probably no other server nor game has. Even enkei, despite of all his complaints about Rustlers in races, said that LW has the best racing system. It's true that right now they are hardly used, but
if the server combines autohosted races by script and bank limits drastically reduced (or even their saving feature removed), that will probably be the awesomeness in its highest degree (specially because if banks don't save your money, more ways of earning it from the system are needed). So Benny,
how do you expect to get this server crowded again if you are claiming for removing one of its best and most unique features?Benny also says that if the server tryies to offer a bit of everything instead of focusing only on dm, it will have a half cooked dm script, a half cooked race script, etc. Well, if scripts are half cooked it's because to be honest, and no offence, the LW development is too slow, specially taking into account that is one of Samp's oldest servers. Also,
even if the server were fully and strictly focused on one thing and only that (dm in this case),
it would still be probably unable to compete against the dedicated games (like Call of Duty) that besides of being newer, more modern and technically more advanced, are also designed for that purpose from the start.
Therefore, the only way a server can compite against others (and even Samp as a whole against other games),
is by offering unique things that you cannot find anywhere else, and that's exactly what San Andreas excels in.
Another wrong argument used by some people, not only against variety in servers but also against parallel worlds, is that if we have people doing other things, there will be fewer dmers playing in the main places... well, in first place if those players are doing those other things, it's because they prefer it, so don't OBLIGE them to do what they don't want, and in second place
if we offer more things we will attract more players. There are people like enkei or like some members of the Rgang that never fight, are here only to drive/fly around, so if you remove races and Rustlers, they won't fight anyway, what they will do is just not join the server anymore.
Also, if we take their argument so strictly, duel arena and events should be removed too, because they take players from the main dm gamemode (duel arena even uses parallel worlds), but don't events increase the total number of players in the server when they are hosted? So
focusing on only one thing and removing all additional features doesn't increase the number of dmers, but decreases the number of total players. And the proof is that there are many servers that offer alternative activities, some of them in parallel worlds, and have more players than LW.
Ok ok,
I understand that it's difficult to combine all the available vehicles and weapons in the same server: for example you cannot put Hydras, Hunters and miniguns in the same places where others are fighting on foot or racing, because it would be totally destructive,
but you can make parallel worlds, minigames, events... for example LVP has a minigame of Hydra fighting in a parallel world, another with bazookas, and many others; in other servers I have seen minigames or duels with miniguns, sticky C4's, tank fights, etc. In some cases, they aren't only made in parallel worlds, but also in 1 vs 1 format, much like our duel arena, so it shouldn't be that difficult to implement something similar to our current da.
Many times the limit is the imagination: in one server, there's a Super Mario style minigame with moving platforms that you have to climb, being careful not to fall off; you may think it's stupid but is really challenging and original, and something that even single player mode doesn't have.
And now that I mention the events, they are another of the features of this server that can be got better: I have been playing here since January or February several hours a day and
I have seen very few events, and those few were very similar to each other, in which you ended up doing almost the same as in the main gamemode: shooting on foot while running from one side to another, so those events had nothing special. I'm not saying that those events shouldn't be made, but it would be good to have also some ones about different things that you don't normally do in the main gamemode, to have more variety, because
events, as their name suggests, are suppossed to be different, special and unique. I have seen other servers in which the events are totally different from the main gamemode, and some of them are quite original. For example, one day I was browsing the Samp list, looking for other servers, and I spent a short time playing in a roleplaying one. Well, in that short time, they made several events that had nothing to do with roleplaying,
like a last man standing with chainsaws. Also, I'm regularly playing in a server about planes, and the events aren't about fights with them, but about different things, like
boat fighting (with Predators, those police boats that have two guns), cops and robbers,
destruction derbies, plane surfing, etc. And not only that, they also listen to suggestions:
do you remember the dm races that I suggested here? well, I suggested it in that other server too and everyone liked it, and although they haven't implemented it by script,
they made some events based on my idea, which were a total success!!! and there are also some other players posting their ideas on the forum, which are also used for events.
And not only about events, they accept suggestions about other things too: for example
I made a suggestion to avoid spawnkilling, and they accepted and implemented it, even though I was totally new in that server.
And that server doesn't have 100 players, but usually has more than LW.
So as you can see,
servers in general should try to have all or most of the San Andreas' best features, and even some new ones that cannot be found in single player mode. It should be totally possible after more than 5 years of development.
