Role-Play Community Leaders,
First off I would like to start off with this Disclaimer: I am aware a majority, if not all mods and web sites related to the GTA Role-Playing world is provided free of charge for its users. It is not and has not been my intent to create the following website to make a profit. I have gone back and forth on whether or not to make this post. The site below that I will talk about will be a great tool for any Police/Fire Role-playing community on any game/platform. It would be a shame to do this work and not allow these communities to enjoy it, however I cannot financially support the cost of hosting if it is opened to the public thus here we are…..
Now…on to the post……
I am writing this post to see how much interest there out there is in a MDC site that is being developed. Currently there is a 100% completely custom MDC being developed by my wife for my community, the Harbor County Department of Public Safety. We are at a point in the development where we can build in the feature to allow multiple communities across multiple games and platforms to use the site. However due to it being a website and not a program you can download there will be cost to us as the developers for hosting. I am asking to see if we do allow other communities to use the site, would your community be willing to pay a small subscription fee to help with the cost of the server? I have no problem and have the means to host it for my community. However, to open it up to the masses will require a hosting account different from what I have and cost extra money. As I said before this is not a ploy to take your money, this fee would be between $5 and $10 a month and could be lower if more communities come on board. It would simply be used to cover the cost of hosting and maintaining the site. Some websites within the GTA Role-playing community use ads to help with the cost of the server. Currently it is not my intention to use ads, however it may be an option later down the road.
Now, with all of that said, this site would not be for all of the pop up communities out there that use free web hosting and such as they would most likely not be willing to pay the subscription. Due to the subscription fee this site would only be feasible to those serious communities out there that have sustainability. Since this is being created for one of those serious communities it will have serious capabilities. The site is being developed by my wife going off my design and input. I am a police dispatcher for a large city and the system is based off of the software used at my place of employment both inside the dispatch center and out in the field inside the cruisers.
I will list out some of the major features below:
· Separate screens/access for Units, Dispatchers and Civilians
· Units notified when a run has been dispatched to them
· Ability for all users to see a list of Pending Run, Dispatched Runs, Available Units, Busy Units and BOLOs
· Auto Refresh on various parts of the screen to remove the need to refresh the whole page
· Ability for Units to Self-Initiate runs
· Ability for Units to clear themselves
· Ability for Units to Self-attach runs
· Remarks area on runs to be used for documentation purposes.
· Ability for units to add remarks to runs
· En-route Button
· Arrive Button
· Clear Button
· Ability for Units to mark themselves in and out of service.
· Ability for users to serve different roles at different times.
· BOLO Creation
· Custom Commands for Dispatchers
· Future Custom Incident Reporting System
· Responsive Design to allow a Mobile version for cell phones and tablets
· And many more
As said before this site is not just for use with GTAIV. It could be used by SAMP players, GTAV players, ARMA players or any other game that may have the need for an MDC. This site in no way will be integrated inside an actual game. Due to the nature of how games are coded it is too hard to develop a mod as powerful as this site to work inside of a game. The site is designed to be used with a second computer like a laptop, tablet or even a phone.
I have attached a PDF file that contains some of the screen designs to allow you to get somewhat of a visual of how it is going to look. The final product may not look exactly like this but it will be similar.
I have created a poll. I ask only community leaders or those who see real chance of using this site to respond to the poll. I am trying to get a feel for the interest in the site to see if it is worth taking the extra step to allow others to use it.
Any community leaders that are serious about this site please send me a message via LCPDFR with your community name, community website and an email so I can add you to a list and keep you updated.
Thank you for your time in reading this.