Kowalski

Definitely wouldn't expect it anytime soon, especially since V2 is still a work in progress. Just a reminder that S5 is bae

You're right, forgot about Camp Tempest. Edited.

Here is why I think Stratis needs to make a comeback on Asylum. Feel free to chime in with your own opinions: RolePlay: Some of the best casual roleplay I have ever witnessed took place in Agia Marina. It's like Kavala, but compressed into a town that's a tiny fraction of its size. Sounds like a recipe for AIDS, but hear me out! In the space of approximately one square kilometer, you have all of the civilian shops, BH shop, police HQ, and several activities (farming, mining, fishing, wrecking, gas station, etc.) That means that at any given time, you constantly have dozens of varying players in the same general area. Due to constantly being around others, people actually speak to and get to know eachother, building a tightly knit community. It's very easy to make friends and enemies without even joining a gang. This actually makes robbing/kidnapping/RDM'ing random civvies much more difficult, as there will often be good samaritans running around ready to cap anyone who tries to cheaply nab a 5k bounty or rook-bang random people for no reason. Because it becomes a community, and because there's always someone to talk to, a lot of event-level fun BS occurs on a daily basis. A group of 10+ fresh spawns could be crawling in formation around Agia to the tune of "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees one moment, then rolling around in a flatbed truck raiding rebel next...just for kicks. It's refreshingly fun to have a server where you can pick up a group of randoms and do some crazy shit. You don't see that on Altis much because everyone's spread kilometers apart, and even when they do find someone in the wild, they keep their guns ready since meeting someone in the middle of nowhere typically only leads to "handsuphandsuphandsup" shit RP. Hell, even in Kavala people are weaving between buildings and getting cheap RDM's before sneaking away from the square. Agia was an AIDS hive, but because it wasn't as much of a punishment to die in such a small space, people embraced and had fun with it. Vehicles: On Stratis, there were no MRAP's, nor were there helicopters of any kind. People got around using quadbikes, cars, and trucks. This limitation made things more interesting: You were more likely to encounter people when you were out and about, roadblocks became tactically useful, and regular civs with small-caliber weapons stood a decent chance against groups of rebels. Bank robberies were interesting as the robbers often had to use creative means to plan their escape, be it by boat, or by having a good strategy for escorting their hemtt back to rebel. For example, one of my bank robberies involved sending out a decoy truck to get the cops' attention and move the fight away from the bank, while those carrying the gold bars hid nearby until the coast was clear and snuck back to rebel before a Lt. could order a raid. Money-Making: Getting cash was fairly lucrative for everyone! On Altis servers, IMO the only decent ways to make money are drug runner when you're alone on a low-pop server, or running meth with your gang in heli(s). On Stratis, there was a ton of variety. Sure, the Stratis gangs still ran meth all day, but because they didn't have helis, they had to be somewhat decent at the game, as they ran the risk of being intercepted by a group of independent rookbangers looking for a quick payday. Farming/Fishing/Mining were a decent source of starter-income due to the close proximity of the stores, and were fairly simple for new players since there were many cops and good samaritans around, and those who were looking to do something in a small armed group could do fun little things like weed runs or wreck excavating, as many players looking to rob those activities had similar skills and loadouts. Rebel Life: Stopping by rebel to buy gear on Altis involves long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror when the occasional Ifrit/Orca dropped in. On Stratis, there were two rebel bases. One was located at LZ Connor, which was popular with gangs due to its proximity to cartels/meth, and another was at Camp Tempest, which was closer to the civ spawns and was heavily contested by all sorts of players. Stratis's terrain rewarded the group with the best strategy for capturing/holding them. There have been instances where a gang of mongoloids would try to camp rebel only to get pistolwhipped by a clever fresh-spawn out of Girna because they thought numbers solved everything. At the same time, a skilled, strategic gang could also reliably keep cartels capped and rebel base under control when they were actively on, and because of the island's size, they were often willing to protect others running meth/guns/oil since they were close enough. Some great times were had with DHM and other gangs, whether you were with or against them, and I don't remember encountering enjoyable gang-RP on any other server. I'll add more stuff as a reply as I think of it. I'll also try to dig up some videos and screenshots of my shenanigans to upload here as well. TL;DR Stratis's size and culture was great for new players and bitter veterans alike. There was always shit to do and people to talk to, and the server felt alive because people were always around. I'm tired of spending 10+ minutes driving on an empty highway, I want my Stratis back!

To be fair, there is little RP from rival rebels when there's time/money on the line. Like you said, no RP, literally none. It's "Out of the HEMTT/Tempest/Orca hands up or die." You either die and get your meth/truck sold or you surrender, get ziptied and left for 15 min and get your meth/truck sold. It's a double standard, and the reality is, whether you're a cop, BH, rebel, or (hardened) solo civ, when you're making that money, there's little room for BS and you're gonna do whatever it takes to plunder that sweet bounty/shipment. Yes, there's a lot of great RP when people are just fucking around (especially if their bank is comfortably thicc.) At the end of the day, however, the biggest threat to any Asylum player is getting in the way of another player trying to make money. I still think that DMV camping and insta-jailing insurance fraud and BS charges needs to be addressed, but if you have a massive bounty from going on a killing spree, then it only makes sense for people to bring you down, especially when cops determine it isn't worth their time to take on mega-gangs and go issue traffic tickets to civvies instead. Now THIS is bullshit. I've been absent and I didn't know this was a thing. Why did they take the risk out of BH like that? It's a super fucking lucrative career path that should come with risk of serious repercussions (not even that serious since jail times are reduced now.) Back to the rebel analogy, think about the monetary/time risk of doing a meth run, and how much you lose if SHTF. BH only needs to invest what, the license, a modestly-priced loadout, and a sport hatch for potential massive gains...easily attainable if they're willing to be an asshole to get it. Might as well rename BH to Untouchable Griefer if there's no risk associated with being a shithead now.

@Ghost0fDawn I completely agree with the removal of PO7, (like you said, it's solely a low-cost trolling/DMV-camping tool, and any respectable BH worth their salt will arm themselves with a primary weapon to go after legitimate targets) as well as measures being taken to end griefing. It's one thing to troll someone with sui vest or checkpoint gate; a lot of lighthearted civ BS can be counted as "trolling" but it's acceptable since people often have a laugh over it in the incap screen. Same goes for kidnapping someone, taking them on an adventure (using them as cop bait or w/e) and letting them go if they play along. Bounty abuse in the form of locking people up for little reason (apart from being bullied at school I suppose) needs to go. There is a clear difference between playful trolling and literally making people's experience shitty on purpose. As stated before, I believe higher requirements (playtime, $$$) will help curb this, along with harsher punishments for toxicity. It's not hard to tell the difference between a well-RPd kidnapping and just being a miserable asshole.

We just need another big streamer to restore Kavala's population and then it'll be business as usual. When a server's population is reserved to hardened bitter veterans, it makes sense that new players aren't sticking around. Think back to when you were a new player and what got you into life servers. What made life servers fun for me was chatting with randoms in populated areas, doing a variety of jobs, both legal and illegal, just for the fun of it, and getting into some crazy situations with gangs willing to RP. One time I got downed and kidnapped by a group of rebels, only to end up getting paid by them to help them defend cartels or break their buddies out of prison after chatting with them in their car for a while. Now think about being a new Altis Life player in 2019: You join the server, and even Kavala is mostly devoid of life. You ask about making money on side chat and the answer you get is "meth in orca/hemtt." Well, good luck with that. You have little-to-no money, no gang worth their salt will accept you due to your playtime and skill level, and if you try doing a run in an offroad, not only will it take a LOOONG time, but after 45 minutes or so a group of rebels fully clad in body armor and magnified 7.62 rifles will drop in on you farming ephedra and kill you on sight to boost their bounty, even though they literally own the cartel you'd be paying at the end of your run. You can try to group up with some friendly dudes and try again with some 9mm SMG's to protect yourself, but chances are you'll still get wiped by the guy with thousands of hours played and RainMan-level knowledge of game mechanics. Okay, so you aren't elite enough to play with the gangs and make the big money (or get anywhere near an illegal zone without getting clapped for that matter), so how about trying a legal activity? Tough shit, pal. When the 15-gang members on a 20-pop server get bored of guarding their uncontested cartel, they're gonna find you at peaches. Last thing you'll hear is "handsuphandsuphandsuphandsup." (In fact, that's probably the only thing you'll ever hear in direct because most chatting happens over TS/Discord now) Never mind the fact that you're unarmed and outnumbered; some people get a hard-on from padding their bounty, so instead of getting kidnapped and going on some wild adventure, you're just gonna get killed, revived, and killed again. Because fuck you. TL;DR It's hard for new players to get started on a server dominated by autismos who religiously play it like it's their job. I'm not knocking the rebel lifestyle, but when it gets to the point where you're bullying new players off the server, you need to go outside and sort yourself out. A good way to start rebuilding our population would be to make the server more inviting to newbies. Whether you're a career rebel, full-time cop, Kavala troll, or whatever else...do your part and do some stupid crazy fun shit with a noob today! You'd be surprised at how fun this game can be when you put your gun away.

Not a problem if you camp gun store

^

I chose a tasty dramatic time to poke my head back in here, but I've been playing on/off since '14 so I'll address some of the big quotes in the main post: 1. Hunters/MX's/OP-Gear: This one might be difficult to implement, but what if there were two tiers of bounty hunters? For example, low stakes and high stakes. Low stakes bounty hunters can go after smaller bounties, say, 5k->30k, OR larger bounties that don't belong to a gang (suicide vest trolls, for example). Low-stakes hunters only have access to 9mm weapons and minimal defensive gear. These guys would primarily be AIDS janitors tasked with cleaning up lowlives in towns and cities. Since many wanted Kavala residents are only armed with rooks anyway, I believe this would be fair. High stakes bounty hunters are able to go after serious gang bounties, and would have access to the "OP" equipment, because hunting gangs would be entirely unbalanced otherwise. A dude with a carrier lite, a 7.62mm rifle and at least two brain cells can easily wipe out a group of BH's wielding SMG's. The hunter is a well-balanced counter to ifrits and mobile guns, and the MX is practically a necessity to stand a chance against groups of coordinated 1km-peekers. It should be noted that high stakes BH gear is considered illegal to low stakes hunters, and they will automatically become wanted and/or lose their license for possessing/using high stakes equipment as a low-stakes hunter. 2. "BH is just shitty cop with no RP req" I will further address the lack of RP in #6. In my opinion, robo-hunting (i.e. "hands up" bang bang jail) should be treated like RDM and enforced STRICTLY. Bounty hunting should only be available to players who have spent some time on the servers already, and RDM bans should be more severe for BH abuse. Sure, it sucks to get killed by an RDM'er and have to respawn without your stuff, but getting RDM'd and then blocked from playing the game for an hour REALLY sucks, especially if the server is dead and you can't get out early. 3. Regarding notifying players that a BH is actively tracking them: I like this idea, so long as it doesn't become too game breaking. The name/distance of the bounty hunter should not be in the notification. - Disclosing distance means the target will just plain log out when the hunter is close (further complicating CL reports..."I was just getting off for the day!"). Without disclosing distance, the only surefire way to evade hunters is to rejoin the server often to drop yourself from their list, which is easy to document and report. - Disclosing names will likely lead to metagaming. Lets say Mr BH is going after Mr Rebel. Mr Rebel gets the notification that Mr BH is pursuing him, at which point all he has to do is text the BH "if you come near me I'll kill you" every 5 minutes to hold initiation, and then set himself up in a nice defensive position to snipe the poor bastard, or intentionally lead him into an illegal area for the sole purpose of killing him without initiation. 4. "I want to fight other gangs and not have someone pull out a downing gun and send people to jail" This one's simple: Bounty hunter license should be unobtainable by anyone in a gang that's doing rebel activity. This includes capping cartels/turfs, engaging in a gang war, robbing bank/fed, etc. One may regain their license simply by leaving the gang, but like medics, they would not be allowed to assist known associates in gang related activity, and doing so would be a bannable offense. 5. On the topic of RP-friendly abuse (kidnapping, etc.): I'm 100% okay with this as it can lead to a lot of fun RP, but there needs to be stricter in-game punishments for doing so. BH abuse should lead to a temporarily blacklisting of said bounty hunter for a specific time, be it IRL time or a number of server resets. I want to see people taking risks to have a wild time as a corrupt bounty hunter, but I DON'T want to see griefers downing dozens of randoms, going to jail for a bit, getting out and doing it again. 6. Everyone hates BH because they send you straight to jail, no ticket, BUT WHAT IF...: What if there was a way for bounty hunters to make criminals pay reduced tickets like cops do? For example, have three options: - Regular old send-straight-to-jail for the full bounty if the criminals being a dickhead(verbal abuse, shitlisting, attempting to kill the bounty hunter, buddies are pursuing the hunter in an orca, etc.) - "Plea Deal" option: Gives them the option to pay off their bounty, no jail time, but illegal items still confiscated. This is beneficial to the bounty hunter as well, as (s)he is given the option to be merciful, and thus getting less hate from the general population. - Paying a bounty near a hunter: If the rebel pays off his/her own bounty within 300m of a bounty hunter assigned to them, the hunter gets a small percentage of the fee they paid. The rebel doesn't lose a loudout and the hunter still gets compensated for the target. This also opens up opportunities for interesting roleplay that wasn't utilized much before, like escorting a criminal to pay their bounty off WITHOUT downing/restraining them, which would be incredibly useful for addressing small offenses. 7. Someone gets an auto-bounty for self-defense and then gets downed and sent to jail: Kind of going off #6 again, but a bounty should not be assigned to a bounty hunter until at least 10 minutes after it is acquired. Bounty hunters aren't cops, they shouldn't be able to click "get bounty" and immediately apprehend someone at the scene of the crime. Bounty hunters go after people who are on the run. In 10 minutes, if a cop doesn't arrest the offender or they don't turn themselves in, only THEN do they become fair game for hunters. Just my thoughts on some of the quotes listed in the post. Feel free to add to this, or clarify anything I fucked up.

Just re-watched Predator and holy shit this fucking scene. (Warning: Potentially fatal testosterone overdose below)

Most of them in other gangs, or back to being randoms like me. Way more fun to run around wreaking havoc than sitting at cartels all day. The hours of waiting aren't worth the occasional big fight. (edit: also my gang was very bad )

Just got home and hhmmmmmmmmmm. Reactions to this 5 minute recording are.......mixed. Oh well! Win some, Lose some!

vid lost

Best part of playing a BH is getting that one guy that you know will be super salty and then happily whistling as you take his screaming ass to jail.