Community Update - #002 - Current Development Status & Delay

**Biography** · December 1, 2022

CURRENT DEVELOPMENT STATUS AND DELAY

"The battle for Liberty"

The 2023 Liberty City Mayoral Election

The first story-based launch roleplay community

In a city with growing poverty and corruption at the highest levels, 2 candidates will enter the political arena: former LCPD Chief of Department Brian Turner and sitting Mayor Charles Lockhart.

Inspired by true American political scenarios, the story-based launch will focus on the horror of political corruption, oppression and media manipulation to reflect the the reality of American politics.

Our stance on freedom of roleplay and corruption, molds an environment in which you, the player, have the opportunity to shape the future of Liberty City - taxation, economic development, fight on crime policies and even humanitarian crises. This allows organized crime to flourish and potentially get involved in government affairs.

Brian Turner (R)

From bribery to human trafficking, LCRP offers you an experience like no other. The outcome of this election will shape Liberty City's path for months to come. The future is in your hands.

The leadership of this community strongly believes that in order to create a realistic server, there must be an emphasis on accurate American culture and politics, as opposed to solely focusing on recreating real life agencies, as seen on other communities.

Charles Lockhart (D)

As you experience this unique launch campaign, you will personally witness the evil game of politics. FBI investigations, political scandals, backroom deals with shadow figures and much more!

Apart from the Mayoral election, we plan to utilize the Events Team in order to conduct frequent activities for both legal and illegal roleplayers, as well as to promote an east coast mentality.

The 2 officials LCRP trailers showcase the 'alleged' mentality of both political opponents, offering you insight into what Liberty City will look under the governance of each candidate. Don't forget politicians lie!

The last trailer will showcase both candidates in various setting so you can further get an idea of the vibe we are going for.

All of the trailers are actually tied to the news articles below in an effort to build server lore.

TLDR: No, those weren't just flashy trailers! 😠

News articles related to the launch campaign:

Development Status Update - Delay

Before we jump into the details, I would like to state that I take full responsibility for my actions as community manager.

As most of you are already aware, I made the decision not to launch LCRP this summer. Whist we were at a stage where the economy and businesses were the only remaining major features, I consulted with our development team and made the decision not to launch. That decision was based on information that suggested the script would experience long-term issues. At that point, a decision was made to create V2 of LCRP.

"How are you going to take responsibility for the delay?"

When I first joined this project, I made it clear that I am not here for the e-power, nor the money. I took the manager position because I believe there are many unexplored RP opportunities and I wanted LCRP to be a unique roleplay server.

As I made the decision to delay myself back in the summer and was unable to predict a delay as a result, I will create a staff voting to see if the staff team has trust in me as a manager. If the answer is no, I will ensure a swift transition of my position to another person.

I sincerely apologize for the delay and I feel disappointed that I let all of you down, including the staff team. I will accept whatever the outcome of the voting is.

This will not affect the server ownership as I am only here as a community manager and not a founder!

"What's V2?" 🧐

V2 is a completely new script. With the sunsetting of V1, new coding languages were selected by our main developers to allow for better adaptability and growth over time. We started over from the beginning. Just like we did in the beginning, we started fresh. This time, prior to even starting the develop code, our developers spent weeks discussing important infrastructure and how to smartly connect scripts, reduce client lag, how to better structure the backend and overall quality control measures, as well as the cyber security of the server. With these key values established, the developers got to work. Some scripts from V1 were salvaged and adapted for V2 to reduce workload.

Release Period 🥳

We will be aiming for Q1 of 2023 and do our best to deliver the server as soon as possible. As we have very few features left, we expect to finish them rather quick. We do expect some delay in terms of development workflow in the middle - end of December due to the holidays.

We promise there won't be a V3, so you guys won't have to wait another year for it!

"Why should I care about LCRP?" 😠

Some of you might feel impatient, but please remember that some of us have been working essentially for free, over a period of 2 years. This includes daily work, meetings, balancing the relations of staff members, supervising the development and progress of all staff teams, etc. Bottom line is; we are just as impatient as you are, considering I have spent 2 years on this project!!

"Why not launch and improve over time?" 😉

As people who have provided continuous financial support, you deserve to understand the details behind our decision:

the Liberty City map we had was not ready for launch, with numerous bugs that would have hindered your experience
the script, whilst almost complete, would have most likely experienced long-term issues due to the frequent change of developers and their working style
additional features such as mapping and modding were not fully complete

We value your financial support and community participation and will never release a mediocre product just for the sake of being the "first LC roleplay server". We have all seen how disastrous a server can become if there is little effort into the following non-development aspects:

map bugs and lag
lack of good lore
lack of effort to implement east cost roleplay mentality and vibe
imbalance between legal and illegal roleplayers (surrounding defense)
focus on "sopranos" as opposed to focus on a realistic portrayal of NYC and modern-day OCGs.
and much more

We sincerely hope that those of you who value quality see that one of our main lines of work is surrounding the server lore and ensuring balance between the players.

"Ha bozo L delay"

V2-ROADMAP-GIT

As you can see, through trial and error, we've managed to improve the speed and quality of development tremendously. We've been very open about the mistakes allowed to happen in the past and we have all worked to fix them.

This hard work pays off. It includes daily work, constant meetings and total devotion to this project.

**DEVELOPMENT TEAM ROADMAP**
IMPLEMENTED (41)	IN DEVELOPMENT (11)	TO DO (8)	READY TO TEST (0)
BANK/ATM	Vehicle theft	Legal factions (PD, FD, FBI)
Clothing store	Selling vehicles	Businesses
Barber	Vehicle insurance	Spectating system
General store	Inventory	Garbage job
Description Markers	Dead body inventory	Phone system
Character creator	Vehicle inventory	Economy and taxing
Command processor	Body Armor	Body damage physics
Reports	Liberty City customs	Furniture shop + system
Carry	Chat system
Weapon components	Faction interface
ID system	MDT
Weapon on body
Private vehicles
Drugs
Vehicle damage
Nametags
Taxi job
Crouch
Recoil system
Realistic weapon damage
Job framework
Custom chat
Permission system
Animation Menu
Fuel
Item drops
HUD
Login
Character/Player model
Character select
Restriction system
Console handler and debugger
Game logs
Queue system
Dealership
Gun store
Admin System
Parking
House System
Property
Property Menu
Gas Station

**MAPPING/MODDING TEAM ROADMAP**
COMPLETED (18)	IN DEVELOPMENT (2)	TO DO (6)	READY TO TEST (0)
Warehouses x5	LCPD/FDLC Uniforms	Trinacria Social Club
Al's Pizzeria	Port of Liberty City	Steinway Beer Garden
Colosseum Fresh Meat Deli		Traingle Gentlemen's Club
Pizza This		Vespucci University Halls
Drusilla's Restaurant		Supermarkets
Pillows Gentlemen's Club		Civilian Clothing
Three Aces Social Club
Prison
FBI HQ
LCCP HQ
Lennie's Doors
Electronic Shop
Old Meat Factory
Abandoned Shed
Liberty Tree HQ
Country Club
Modern NYC-style Apartment
Apartment Shells
LCPD/FDLC vehicles

LIBERTY CITY MAP UPDATE

CHANGELOG

### CHANGED

- Majority of the stairs on the entire map should be fixed

- Improvements made regarding FPS performance;

- Patched up various spots that had missing collisions;

- Patched up various spots where there was missing water;

- Positioning of floating props has been adjusted;

- File sizes have been optimized to enhance user experience and allow for a faster server asset download;

- Overall performance of the map should be improved due to various fixes;

- Multiple fixes regarding holes in the map, including some locations underneath the water;

- Fixes regarding holes in the upper layer of water (more fixes to follow underneath the map);

- Fixes regarding lighting in certain areas, including the statue of Liberty;

- Texture fixes implemented;

- Multiple LOD fixes implemented.

Keep in mind this is not a final version of the map and work is being done almost on a daily basis.

UCP APPLICATIONS OPENING

Our Development Team is actively working on a new version of the UCP and a significant part of it is the whitelist application that all of you will have to go through.

The UCP applications will be opening on the 18th of December, however, we will do our best to open them prior to that date.

We are publicly releasing a portion of the questions so that you have enough time to prepare and submit an application as soon as they open. Keep in mind that we will be very strict as we want our potential players to have an understanding of the LC setting, history, etc. This is the only way to ensure that players sink into the "east coast" environment.

As you can see there will be no word limit, nor will we request a character story from you. We want to see logical writings and not essays.

TEST SESSIONS AND SCRIPT CHANGES

As we mentioned, most of the V1 features which can be found here, are simply being re-written to ensure a more stable code long term. Here is a list of the features that have currently undergone some changes (more detailed info will be presented in the final development blog of LCRP).

UCP design - major overhaul and started from complete scratch (Still WIP)
Banking - new UI design
Property System - major overhaul, including new commands and quality improvements
Taxi job - UI changes
MDT - this is the 3rd and hopefully final version of the MDT... A brand new design and functionality.

As development has progressed, we've been actively testing the new features as they've been arriving. Here's a few screen shots of our testing sessions. Note, most of these screen shots were taken for testing reasons to report bugs, so what you see (bugs and all) is being worked on.

UPCOMING FORUM AND DISCORD CHANGES

1.1 ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENT

1.2 COMMUNITY DEPARTMENT

1.3 COMMUNITY DEPARTMENT

1.4 COMMUNITY DEPARTMENT

2. BEHIND THE DESIGN

In this section, I will be detailing the base design and how each component is positioned, colored, and chosen.

2.1 RADIUS

In order to achieve our goal of establishing design consistency in our forums, there is a radius on the rectangle similar to the one that will be on the profile picture

2.2 MAIN COLOR

The main color which is basically the background color is exactly the color ID of the forum rank.

2.3 SECONDARY COLOR

The main color which is basically the color on the left is a darker variant of the main color.

2.4 BACKGROUND IMAGE

The background image is set to a specific opacity in order to make the main text visible and pleasing to the eyes. It is a photo of liberty city since we are Liberty City Roleplay.

2.5 ICON

The icon is something that describes what the main text is but with an image instead.

2.6 MAIN TEXT

The main text has a specific number of pixel spaces between each new line. Also, the main text has a specific number of pixels for the font size which makes it easier to read and more pleasing to the eyes.

The discord update will be very simple and include restructuring some channels. The main updates will be in the staff related section for ease of work, etc.