Introduction
Welcome to Red County Roleplay's newsletter of May 2014. The last couple of weeks have been rather chaotic for RC:RP, however we've pulled ourselves through, and we're still standing up high. The community haven't really been kept up to date with the information like you were assured, so I'd like to begin by apologising for that, however here is everything that you need to know! If you have any questions or concerns about any information that has been released in this newsletter then please do not hesitate to contact me, which then I will do my best to put your mind at rest. But, without further ado, here we go.
Recent Downtime Issue
Recently, as you may or may not know, the server has been down for hours on end and has been consistently crashing, this issue is being investigated at the moment and should be resolved shortly, I have personally added several debug methods and gone through lines of code in an attempt to identify the issue however I do not have an extreme amount of knowledge in the language that RC:RP is scripted in so I hit a dead end. With Booth's recent return, he should be able to identify the issue and resolve it. I am also now able to restart the server should an issue occur in order to ensure a minimal amount of downtime. If the server does crash, please contact myself, fr0st or TommyB and we will attempt to get things up and running as soon as possible.
Development
Development has always been rocky for RC:RP, however with Booth's recent return hopefully that should "get the ball rolling" again, you could say. The script plays a massive part in player appeal and an update is quite obviously something that you enjoy logging on and seeing, however that hit a dead end as we began searching for a developer. Booth has notified us that he is able to develop for RC:RP again due to a mass amount of free time that he has and is beginning to work on the script with immediate effect, with this being said, the community will begin to see more bug fixes, script updates and script development as a whole. DonutSeller has been working hard to update the User Control Panel, however you can find out more about that here: http://redcountyrp.com/changelog/server
Mapping
You may have noticed a few new pieces of mapping around the server recently, our mapping team is hard at work coming up with new ideas to bring the server to life, but they're not the only ones that can have their say. We're currently allowing business owners to purchase a custom interior for their business, and faction leaders to get exterior and interior mappings. We're also accepting ideas for maps for public spaces, if you have any, so if you have any ideas, or want to get something mapped for your faction/business, don't hesitate to contact me!
Forum Theme
TommyB has recently locked the forum and it has now been unlocked, during this time TommyB was updating the forum theme to the latest version in order to keep the forum up to date with the new features and for further optimization. The forum theme lag issue that everybody has been having has (hopefully!) been fixed in this update and shall not be an issue further. You will not notice an enormous number of changes to the forum theme because the majority of it is "behind the scenes" in order to ensure it's as efficient as possible and loads as quickly as possible.
The Playerbase
The playerbase has begun to drop drastically, and there has been a recent decrease in the amount of people registering. There are several ways that this could be changed and at the moment, our main aim is to identify the best way and begin to make the server appeal to not only new players, but current players. I would really love the opinion of the community on this topic and would appreciate it if the community gave their input on this. The SA:MP forum advertisement contest has been closed however in the upcoming weeks, there will be a discussion about re-opening that and allowing you, as the community to assist in the improvement of the server in general.
Player Satisfaction
This is a big topic to you as a community member. What makes YOU happy, what would make you log on the server more and how do you feel we could improve the server? At the moment, I'm all ears open for ways of improving the server and constructive criticism. As absurd as this sounds, you probably know what the server want more than me; you play it everyday and you know what's wrong and what issues need to be identified. I need you to come forward and voice your opinion and even assist in suggesting ways of improvement, the point I'm getting at here is, your word matters.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to thank the community, the administration team and the development team for the countless amount of hours that they have spent assisting in the improvement of the community. I'd like to thank the players especially for standing by Red County Roleplay no matter how hard times have been for us recently, you stood by us and continued to roleplay and saw us through our hard times. However, May is going to be a new era for RC:RP, a fresh beginning.
