I thought I might take a moment to describe my experiences in Altis. I've been playing now for perhaps a month and a half and I think I'm approaching the point of being burnt out on the game and the community. Perhaps not quite yet, but I can't be certain.
The first time I logged into the server my friends took my aside and gave me some money. Dragging me along to the DMV like a lost puppy they told me which licenses to buy which at the time had virtually no meaning or context for me. When we went towards the gun store to purchase my first weapon I was presented with something that should have been a warning for things to come.
An armed huron swooped in like a raven on wings of death and leveled it's minigun towards Sofia. I received a text message instructing me to surrender before I even knew how to put my hands up. Most of us scattered to find cover while a few brave individuals who did know how to surrender placed their hands behind their head. It didn't save them though as the chainsaw noise of the weapon rang through the air and my friends were shredded by the hailstorm of metal before collapsing to the ground in lifeless heaps.
Undeterred and persuaded by my friends to try the game once more I returned, and this time it was more positive. We ran throughout the land earning money and upgrading our trucks, but there was little to no roleplay involved in grinding away at rocks, diamonds, and salt unless we were robbed. At the time being robbed was a devastating loss that set us back significantly as we scraped the money together to reinsure so as not to lose our investments. That was also one of the first times I met @Zamira and at the time I hated him with the fiery burning passion of a thousand suns for taking what was mine. Once after a robbery I was even left in the middle of a field bereft of any belongings or kidneys while I limped to the road and prayed for a ride back into town, not knowing I could simply have respawned my way there.
That's when I discovered medic, or rather the ability to become a medic. I'd developed a basic understanding of this new world and to my inexperienced eyes this represented an opportunity to interact and roleplay with other people without having the constant fear of death and kidnapping. For a time I was ecstatic in this newfound experience and tore my way around Kavala in a lollipop fueled frenzy to rescue the fallen. Then I was promoted and I found myself flying across the landscape in wild abandon, flying over hills and through the air like a bad action film or the duke brothers.
In time though I grew frustrated with my inability to effect real change. Kavala was frequently turned into a disastrous warzone with indiscriminate murder, blockades, random vehicles, kidnappers, and all means of other misfits and miscreants. The people I helped were always complaining about the police force and what horrible people they were being hellbent on money alone without regard for roleplay or conversation. I decided then that I wanted to make a difference and be a different kind of cop. One that would affect real change, always respond when a medic pressed their panic button, treat the suspects I arrested with respect, and above all roleplay in every scenario that I could.
On occasion I have encountered fantastic roleplay just like what I had imagined would be possible with both of us laughing and enjoying ourselves before parting ways. I've been able to help young bambis in their quest to achieve Atlis greatness, offered advice to the lost, and rescued many a heroic medic in times of distress. What I didn't expect though was what pulling back that curtain revealed, and what lay on the other side of it can not be unseen. A seedy underside of Altis I hadn't expected and which shattered my grand illusion of improving roleplay on the server.
The problems that lay beneath are both numerous and widely varied, but the key points I will lay out here. The first of these are the residents of Altis themselves. While I had envisioned chasing down criminals and heroically capturing them before playing out the role of an officer of the law what I found was perhaps the lowest forms of life on Earth. Each prisoner brought in was a violent, cursing monstrosity whose only interest was in making my life a living hell. The other type were those who were looking for even the slightest misstep in following the rules to be able to receive a pardon, obtain some kind of monetary compensation even in the case of an accident, or outright wish to report you to try and make you lose your rank. Even more infuriating is the fact that you can be held accountable for rules which are not even in the APD handbook or are the forums. You are expected to know and abide by these rules which you may only hear about second hand, and you are frequently given conflicting answers even from two senior APD officers.
Perhaps the worst thing though is that there is nothing to work towards save increasing your bank balance like a meaningless score on an arcade game. You may strive to excel as an officer, but each rank above patrol officer only has a limited number of available positions. Unfortunately these positions are also awarded on an entirely arbitrary basis resulting in a massive show of nepotism. Combined with that you can lose your rank regardless of how long you have served, how dedicated you have been, or how diligent you are in your duties.
The most disgusting example I've heard about was the demotion of snipez where the last member of a wave at the federal reserve was being vdm'd repeatedly by staff to keep him knocked down. The officer in question considered him to be incapacitated as he was unable to act and authorized the next wave. Unfortunately the staff members on the gang were upset that they were unable to continue to exploit this loophole in the rules for their own amusement and he was almost immediately demoted.
Another ready example is what happened to codeyeti where he was removed from staff and his developer position which he's put considerable uncompensated time into the game and the community for.
From now on I suppose I'll just play this game like Just Cause, which is to say log in when you want to cause a little chaos and blow some shit up without any need for actual thinking.