hippy259

Been a while, huh?
 
You know, when we first started making LSPDFR, the whole process was pretty much one big roller-coaster that didn't have any brakes:  there were the obvious highs when we'd finally add in something cool, but the low points were pretty hard as well - the amount of work that went into simply researching how things worked really took its toll as well.  And, of course, while this was all going on there just simply wasn't any stopping, we were a couple of (somewhat) real people who essentially lived in Los Santos for just about all of 2015, spending month after month pushing forward and trying to come up with things that everyone here would like to see.
 
So, of course, the grind and the pace of everything simply just wasn't sustainable and after 0.3, it's no secret that while the numbers and everything for our site are still on the up, month after month, things did slow down quite substantially for the actual mod itself.  But, we can tell you, this wasn't all bad news - it's afforded us the opportunity to take a step back and really look at the mod and figure out where we want to go next with it.  While our approach before was all about cramming as much new stuff as we could into a couple of months of development, we've now been able to look back at many of the original ideas and concepts that we had for LSPDFR and build on them.  Of course, with that being said, there's still a lot of new stuff crammed into 0.4!
 

 
With 0.4, we've taken the time to fix a couple of those "how the hell didn't they add this yet" moments :)
 
Aside from the cool little additions like this, though, the major theme of 0.4 is Character.  Ever since seeing the character system for GTA Online, it was always our goal to implement something similar in LSPDFR.  There's just something that much more personal and immersive about playing a game with your own character, and the possibilities that it offers are staggering too.  And yes, while mods like EUP are fantastic (and awesomely compatible with 0.4!), they still feel somewhat separate or distant.  With 0.4, this separation is gone.
 

 

 
No, these shots aren't taken from GTA Online.  This is our own, fully-featured, LSPDFR Character Creator.
 
Of course, we'll talk more about the new Character features in LSPDFR 0.4 later.  The Character Creator menu shown above is obviously only one part of what's new in this regard, although hopefully it emphasizes the effort that we've gone to.  Thanks to some of the new additions like this, much of 0.4 actually looks and feels like an entirely new mod altogether.
 

 
Officer Ronson and his clones obviously couldn't make it to the flashlight party. 
 
Stay tuned!  We'll be sharing more about 0.4 soon.

Despite everyone understanding it's a video game, there will always be those who act like what you do in a video game is what you'll do in real life.  I've killed cops, I've ran someone over, I've thrown molotov cocktails at people, I've killed someone just for the sake of doing it....and that's not even just in GTA.  I've been playing these games since I was a child, and I've never once gone out and reenacted them. (To be fair, I used to be a kleptomaniac, but video games had nothing to do with it)
 
What it will ultimately come down to every single time is that video games are a scape goat. Lets not blame the people for what they do, or properly address their mental health. Lets blame video games for allowing people to do this shit to begin with.  It absolutely blows my mind how we would rather blame games than focus on helping those who, regardless of video games, would still be ill and still do something like this.
 
Folks who have never played video games don't understand that it is a form of stress release.  No, when I say stress release I don't mean "I can't kill someone in real life, so lets kill them here!"  When you come home from a hard day of work, there is just something relaxing about shooting and killing things.  There's something relaxing about hopping into a racing game and just driving.  Video games have never been the problem - human nature and mental illness has.  Video games are a mere form of entertainment.  They aren't like Order 66 where you suddenly have to kill someone because you were told to. 
 
To be fair, I will say someone who is mentally ill may end up being influenced more by the game (or any form of entertainment, not just gaming), but again, he is mentally ill to begin with.   If we're going to try and condemn gaming for being violent, lets also go to TV, movies, music, etc.
 
Edited to clarify: I'm not placing blame on those mentally ill, only those who know exactly what they are doing and don't care.

Holy crap what a joke of a report... The funny thing is I reckon most of the people who play LSPDFR are some of the more pro-police individuals who are probably more sympathetic to the troubles officers face compared to your average person. Yet here's this report demonizing us because we dare to differentiate real world violence from video game violence and shoot video game characters.

one can never have enough crown vics...

one can never have enough crown vics...

BUT ITS A CROWN VIC!!!!!!!!!