Community Meeting Summaries

## Meeting Summaries

Community meetings are hosted by RagingRavage, an administrator and co-owner of TwitchRP. For these meetings, whitelisted members of the community can ask questions or make comments in varying Discord servers and channels, depending on the topic of the meeting. The presenter's Twitch chatroom is also monitored for commentary and suggestions by users that may not have access to these channels, though there is less of a chance of a question being seen there.

On this page, you can read basic summaries of some of the more recent community meetings. For the full meetings, which are archived on Ravage's channel, click here.

<h3style="text-align:left;">4/17/2020: Gang Meeting

TLDR: There's a lack of a push for story-based RP, which should change alongside the tendency to "dogpile" multiple gangs onto one, or an individual. Gun crafting has been limited, to prevent everyone from creating the weapons that could make gang RP generally boring. The limit of people allowed in one side of gang conflict has been lowered from 8 to 5. Weed farms and plots will be replaced by planters in new homes. Workbenches may occasionally move. The Gang Subsidy Program was introduced, which will loan certain gangs the funds necessary to build their RP.
*A primary focus of the meeting was to discuss the lack of a push for story/conflict-based RP:*

* The most obvious problem with this is seen as part of the recent server wipe, which drained all savings accounts and individual money. This means that some players are looking to grind and work to get back to where they were, rather than engage in conflict-based RP, which can be just as beneficial.
	+ Wealth distribution then became a major discussion, with Ravage displaying a table of the most wealth in the server (the highest individual amount capping at over 800K) as proof that the current grind for money wasn't as necessary as it might be made out to be.
* There's also the issue with numbers. Some groups have fewer members to participate with during conflict RP. (This was also referenced to be emphasized by the newer and growing queue, which makes it more difficult to join the server. *(Soon in the future, the queue would be basically eliminated by a player slot increase to 256.)*)
* Finally, it's brought up that there's a general fear of engaging in gang conflict.
	+ The "Dogpiling Mentality" was stressed as being unhealthy for gang RP. Essentially, multiple larger gangs were getting together and forming tight alliances, to the point where it became impractical for any regular or small gang to initiate conflict with another, as it'd lead to a series of other gangs getting into this conflict and leading to the possible destruction of the smaller group's wealth and numbers. This plays heavily into the notion that some people were fearful to engage in this conflict and also led to some people becoming invulnerable to violence, (for fear of attracting the attention of multiple large and threatening groups) which even further discouraged gang/conflict RP. There were concerns that this would lead to a lack of gang RP and an overall more boring experience.
	+ Another prevalent issue concerning this involves outnumbering people. For instance, the "Mr. Bean" and "Whisper" arcs involved the character being hunted down by groups of 8+ people, or entire gangs, which led to Bean and Whisper's story being impossible to work with. There were also large groups of people attending gang meetings, sometimes as a "show of force." While there was an understanding that everyone wants to be involved, it's unhealthy to gang RP and can become a nightmare for PD/EMS to deal with. (At the time, a battle with the maximum amount of people on each side could result in 16 people being downed and having to go to prison.)
		- Finally, there's also a mention that people tend to get too violent too quickly, especially that people tend to get to murder or torture for a considerably small amount of provocation.

*The discussion of balancing RP with action is brought up, as well:*

* Gun crafting was specifically mentioned, and it was heavily emphasized that not everyone should be able to do it. Adding too many weapons and abusing a game mechanic in that sense would almost destroy the chance for story-based RP, and could lead to constant shootouts. Additionally, many characters and gangs focused solely on finding the crate, rather than engaging in RP. (This led to limits being instituted on how the gun crafting benches would work.)
	+ Skepticism of the existence of the crate was also addressed, leading to the interior being shown and then moved.
* There's also a point brought up that some gangs would have incredible amounts of wealth and power before the wipe, and that it was being "held over" other people's heads, or used to boast, rather than push for some new story.

*The Gang Subsidy Program was introduced:*

* A program was set up for smaller and newer gangs, called the "Gang Subsidy Program." To start with, gang leaders could fill in a Google Form with a few questions regarding their group, and depending on the answers and the status/type of the gang, they'd be able to receive enough ingame currency to fuel the roleplay where necessary. This could include buying certain locations, vehicles, or items that are needed to spark conflict-based RP. The loan *must*be paid back, at the risk of losing the gang's assets. (Again, the money can *only*be used on assets to create RP, and can't be used to gain an advantage for an individual.)

*New mechanics were introduced, or current ones were changed:*

* The upcoming (now implemented) housing update plans to play into gang RP. Most notably, this includes removing public weed farms and private plots and instead making affordable planters in which it can be grown and sold for a profit. Another feature includes various properties, including warehouses, where assets can be stored. (Smaller properties have less space.)
* Workbenches can now be moved to various territories by admins, with the goal of creating more turf conflict.
* Given that there were large groups of people being downed at once or getting together in overwhelming numbers, the limit for gang conflict was taken from 8 to 5.