Everon, 1989 · life/RP for Arma Reforger
Life Framework

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Life/RP benchmark

docs/research/life-rp-benchmark.mdEdit on GitHub

What the life and roleplay genre built over fifteen years, what kept its players, what drove them away, and what that means for Life Framework after M1. Researched 2026-11-08. Read it with direction, decisions, and M1.

Nothing here was imported. This is a design benchmark. No code, config, or text from any project below is in this repo, and none should be.

Project Licence What we may do
Altis Life (AsYetUntitled/Framework, Tonic's original) CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (README and LICENSE.md); the original was CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 [1][2] Read for ideas. No derivatives, no commercial use
Takistan Life (Armitxes) Custom: use, modify, and redistribute with credit [3] Ideas only (Arma 2 SQF, nothing to port anyway)
ESX, QBCore, Qbox, ox_inventory, NPWD, qb-phone GPL-3.0 [G] Ideas only. GPL code must never enter an MIT repo
ox_core, ox_lib LGPL-3.0 in LICENSE, but ox_core's NOTICE.md says GPL-3.0-or-later [G] Ideas only
Team ELAN – Arma Life (Reforger) APL-ND [E1] Functionality reference only. No derivatives
Everon Life (Reforger) MIT [E3] Our upstream (EL_ classes); see docs/everonlife-forks.md

Confidence. Facts with a source number were read on that page. Lines marked (recollection) are widely repeated genre knowledge that no primary page confirmed during this research; treat them as hypotheses. Reddit was not reachable from the research tools, and the Team ELAN wiki was read only through search-engine excerpts.

1. Feature matrix

Life Framework column: built = in the tree today (see features); M1 = an M1 scope; planned = a recorded decision or an after-release scope; absent = no plan.

Feature Altis Life (A3) GTA RP (ESX / QB / NoPixel) Elan Life (Reforger) Life Framework
Jobs Gather → process → sell chains (apples, copper, salt, oil, diamonds); delivery missions, fishing, hunting [1][8] Job grades with pay per grade; bus, trucker, tow, garbage, vineyard, reporter, judge, lawyer [G]; hidden job "rep" on big servers (recollection) Professions (miner, blacksmith, tailor, crafter, drug dealer) gated by 11 visible skills to level 20; $50k to switch, 24 h cooldown [E4] built: courier, fuel delivery, taxi, gather/process, mining. M1: pay at the drop. planned: hidden experience (decision)
Economy Bank is safe, cash is stealable; ATMs; fixed or server-tuned prices [1][8] Cash plus bank accounts, job/gang "society" accounts, bank cards [G] Global dynamic market: selling a good drops its price, random market events [E5]; auction house [E9] built: cash items, ATM, shops, traders, unemployment benefit. planned: supply/demand prices (decision)
Housing Buy house, garage, placeable containers; raidable, police can break doors [1] Houses with keys, stash, garage, outfits; apartments [G] Housing listed; town lockers (200 items, 2 weapons) [E9] built: org hideout (door, machine). M1: hideout stash. planned: buy and furnish (decision)
Vehicles Garages, keys, impound, chop shop, colour shop [1] Vehicle shop, keys, garages, impound, customs, mechanic; car boosting contracts with VIN scratching (recollection; sold as paid scripts [7c]) Starter vehicle from a garage [E10]; fuel trucks for goods [E5] built: lot, keys, plates, lock, garage store/retrieve, vehicle robbery. M1: impound for ungaraged cars
Crime types Rob players, illegal processing (weed, cocaine, heroin), rebel licence; servers add meth, organ theft, uranium [1][11] Store and house robbery, drugs, trap houses, street racing [G] Drugs grown/processed, gas station robbery [E9] built: till, player, weapon, and vehicle robbery; breach; contraband run; hospital cabinet
Heists Federal Reserve: blasting charge, bolt cutters, ≥5 cops, 20 min bomb, police in waves, 35-50 min cooldown [14]; Blackwater, jail, evidence lockup [9] Fleeca, Paleto, Pacific, jewellery, power station; tool items (thermite, drills, USB, electronic kit) and hacking minigames [G] Evidence locker raid, prison break [E9] built: bank vault with carried bags. M1: louder alarm with no police. planned: jailbreak scope
Police loop Restrain, escort, search, seize, tickets, wanted list, bounties, spike strips, radar, jail and bail [1] Job grades, MDT, evidence (casings, blood, fingerprints, DNA), ANPR, cameras, prison [G] Citations, arrest, jail, evidence locker, divisions, academy, air unit; fixed fine schedule [E2][E6] built: duty, arrest, escort, jail, ranks, wanted, confiscate, spike strip. M1: duty desk, wanted board, paper ticket, jail slip, dispatch, dual inventory
EMS / medical Medic faction, revive (servers: R&R) [1][9] qbx_medical, ambulance job, hospital [G] None found M1: wake in hospital, bill from the bank. planned: revive. absent: medic job
Courts / lawyers Olympus courthouse [9] Judge and lawyer jobs, DOJ on big servers [G] (DOJ depth: recollection) Fines and sentences fixed by "the government"; officers cannot change them [E6] absent
Gangs / orgs Create, invite, upgrade; servers add cartels (10% tax on a drug's sales, passive income), turfs, gang bases, gang wars, weekly Conquest [10][15] Gang accounts, multi-gang membership [G]; turf and graffiti (recollection) Gangs with bank accounts; capturable "Group Spots" [E9] built: organizations, fund, processing upgrade, hideout. M1: registry desk, invite by facing
Phone / comms Cellphone texts, news broadcast [1] Full phone UI: banking, garages, crypto, races, police app, camera [G] None found M1: vanilla radio dispatch. planned: payphones and pagers (decision). No phone UI by design
Identity Names over heads; licences in a menu [1] Multicharacter, ID card item, city hall licences [G] Licences barely visible; reputation score [E7] M1: registration form, ID card, introductions with close-range names
Progression Licences as the gate; servers add prestige and stats (recollection) Job grades; hidden rep (recollection) 11 visible skills, levels, reputation that changes shop prices [E3][E7] built: levels, police ranks, licence catalog. M1: persists. planned: hidden experience, titles
Events Airdrops, conquest, HQ takeover, invasion [9][15] Seasonal scripted content (Prodigy) [G] An events-only server [E11] planned: world events after release
Admin tools Admin menus; staff-run rules [16] txAdmin-era tooling (recollection) Ticket-based support; players call it slow [E12] built: admin chat !wadd, dev gate. absent: moderation toolkit
Anti-cheat / dupe SpyGlass, BattlEye filters [1] Server authority varies by resource (recollection) Not documented built: server authority, dupe fixes (#79), range checks (#73); BattlEye from the engine
Whitelist Cop slots for vetted veterans [5][8] Whole-server whitelist with applications, sometimes paid to apply [7] Police: Discord-verified, 50+ hours, 75-word in-character application [E2]; one whitelisted server [E11] M1: police whitelist checked at the duty desk

2. What made each succeed, and what hurt

Altis Life (Arma 3, 2013–today)

What worked

  • Loss creates stakes. John VanderZwet (Asylum): "If there's one thing that can make PvP exciting, it's consequence… the fear of loss will get your adrenaline pumping." Players start with roleplay and drift into crime [5].
  • Boundaries enable freedom. Tonic: "People look for freedom but they still need the boundaries" [5].
  • A tentpole crime that everyone knows. The Federal Reserve was "getting robbed more or less all the time" in 2014 [7]. Olympus still runs it as one of four "federal events" with item gates and police waves [14].
  • Gang economics last. Cartels pay passive income and tax drug sales. In 2026 Olympus is still tuning "Cartel Prime Time", run-proficiency bonuses that cut grind, and police wave rules [10][13]. Olympus has posted 313 monthly updates [12]. A decade of tuning a few loops beats adding new ones.

What hurt

  • Cop culture turned adversarial. A 2014 cop diary describes "how easily our police could descend into an antagonistic us-against-them culture" [21].
  • Civilian life thinned out. One estimate: about 70% of players picked cop or criminal [22]. Anecdotal, but every later server added civilian content to fix it.
  • Admin abuse and donor perks. Players left servers over arbitrary bans [22]. Bohemia's monetisation rules (29 Jan 2015) ban perks that give money, weapons, vehicles, discounts, or housing [23][25]. Olympus+ still sells monthly gear and vehicle airdrops [18].
  • Exploits and grind (recollection): dupes, injected scripts, and hauling raw materials for hours.

GTA RP (FiveM, 2017–today)

What worked

  • Characters, not loops, make the stories. Kotaku credits streamers who "creat[ed] their own dramas" and characters crossing paths by accident, such as a burger-shop owner who refused to commit crime [K]. NoPixel 3.0 (Feb 2021) pushed GTA V to a 438K Twitch viewer peak [S].
  • Depth in every role. 3.0 added driving instructors, mechanics, and judges on top of crime and police [K]. Police have evidence (casings, blood, fingerprints, DNA), cameras, and ANPR [G]. A cop can investigate, not only chase.
  • Tiered heists with physical tools. Fleeca to Pacific needs thermite, drills, and electronics kits [G]. Every tier is a supply chain for the tier below.

What hurt

  • Admin favouritism and ban drama. xQc was banned four or five times in 2021. Shroud and summit1g questioned bias [X]. In 2023 Penta quit, accusing admins of enabling abuse, and management changed hands [P].
  • Pay-to-apply. Paid "review boosts" moved donors to the front of the queue [7].
  • Grind after a reset. NoPixel 4.0 reset the economy and drew "too much grind, not enough fun" reviews (low-confidence source) [N].
  • Platform risk. Rockstar banned the FiveM developers in 2015, bought Cfx.re in 2023, and now restricts monetisation [R].

Elan Life (Reforger, 2022–today)

Elan Life is our closest neighbour: Team ELAN, ex-Altis Life operators, about 7 servers of up to 128 players, version 0.10.5 updated 7 Nov 2026, 26k downloads, 78% rating [E1][E11]. The maintainer judges its taste weak; this section only records what exists and what players say.

  • Its functionality echoes Altis Life: processing chains, a global dynamic market, visible skills, gangs with capture spots, gas station robbery, evidence locker raids, and prison breaks [E3][E5][E9].
  • What players report: players report console RDM, slow admin tickets, "nobody roleplays", and "basically Wasteland". They advise joining the whitelisted server [E12]. Solo play "leads nowhere" [E12].
  • What's missing: no medic, phone, courts, or visible licences [E1–E12].
  • The lesson: the complaints are about moderation, griefing, and having nothing to do alone, not missing features.

Patterns across all three

  1. Moderation decides whether a server lives. RDM and admin conduct appear in every burnout story; feature gaps rarely do.
  2. Few loops, tuned for years, outlast many shallow ones (Olympus, 313 updates).
  3. Every role needs something to do when the other side is absent. Bored cops turn on players; lone civilians log off.
  4. Pay-to-win or pay-to-access poisons trust, and platform owners eventually forbid it.
  5. Loss makes stakes, but grind after loss makes quitters.

3. Gaps and opportunities

Adopt, and how it exists in the world

Gap Genre version Our in-world version
EMS Medic faction with a revive menu A downed state before death. Reforger already simulates bleeding, tourniquets, morphine, and saline. A medic job carries a real kit, stabilises the patient, and drives the ambulance to the hospital bed from M1-26. Not stabilised in time: you wake in hospital with the bill
Investigation MDT, DNA, fingerprints No computers in 1989. A payphone call gives a vague description ("man in a green jacket, tan Škoda, plate starts B-") on the station board. Casings and a dropped item are physical evidence bagged into the evidence locker. Plates come from EL_LicensePlateManager
Comms Phone UI with apps Payphones (call a service, anonymous tip), pagers for jobs and police, Reforger radios on frequencies. Interception (a scanner) is a crime tool
Heist ladder Fleeca → Pacific with tool items Till → corner shop → cash van → bank → the armory. Each tier needs a real tool or intel item from the tier below or from contraband: drill, blasting charge, keycard, guard rota on paper. M1's alarm rules stay
Licences City hall menu Card items issued at a town-hall desk. The gun shop sells serialised weapons to licence holders. Serials feed investigation
Civilian depth Businesses, mechanics, judges Player-run businesses: a bar, a garage, a store stocked from player-made goods, with a till that can be robbed
Gang territory Cartels with capture bars A protection racket on a business, a hideout others can find, contraband routes that pay more when held. No capture-bar UI; control is who stands there and who gets paid
Moderation Ticket queue, admin menu An incident log the server keeps (deaths, damage, cash moves with who and where), readable by admins in Game Master. Rules are cheaper to enforce when facts are recorded

Skip on purpose

  • Phone UI and apps. Decided: period comms only.
  • Floating name tags and a Y-menu hub. Decided: introductions, one interaction menu.
  • Visible XP and skill trees (Elan's 11 skills). Decided: hidden experience.
  • Hacking minigames as screen puzzles. A drill that takes time, makes noise, and can jam is in-world and gives police time to arrive.
  • Paid whitelists, priority queues, donor gear. Violates Bohemia's policy and the genre's trust lesson [25][R].
  • Global "war zone" exemptions from the rules (Olympus cartels): see question 1.
  • A fixed government fine schedule (Elan). Our ticket is written face to face; an officer judges the amount within a config range.

Where Reforger lets us do what no life mode has done

  • Radio as gameplay. Directional, range-limited radio is native to Reforger. Police dispatch can be overheard, jammed, or answered by the wrong person. No phone app can produce that tension.
  • Medical simulation. Reforger's wound and bleeding model makes EMS a skill, not a button.
  • Vehicles and physics. Real damage, fuel, towing, and spike strips (built) make the pursuit and the mechanic job matter.
  • 1989 and no GPS. Paper maps, plates read by eye, descriptions from witnesses. Investigation becomes human, which is what makes stories worth filming.
  • Game Master. Reforger ships a live admin and event tool. Events and moderation can build on it instead of a custom admin panel.
  • Workshop and consoles. Mods download automatically and reach Xbox and PS5 players. That is reach Altis Life never had. It also means input without a keyboard (see question 8).
  • Proof tooling. No life mode tests itself on a dedicated server with a visual harness. Fewer dupes and fewer broken loops is our moderation multiplier.

Top 10 roadmap candidates for M2+

Ranked by how much each fixes a cause of community death or creates stories, weighed against what it builds on.

  1. Incident log and Game Master moderation tools. Moderation killed more servers than missing features; facts make rulings fast and fair.
  2. Downed state, medic job, and ambulance. A third role with its own loop. Reforger's medical sim does half the work, and M1-26 gives it a destination.
  3. Payphones, pagers, and the station dispatch board. The decided period comms. Every service (police, medic, taxi, mechanic) needs a way to be called.
  4. Witness descriptions and physical evidence. Gives police something to do between chases and makes the vague-description wanted system real.
  5. Heist ladder with tool items. A tentpole crime per tier (the Fed Reserve lesson), each feeding the next, on top of the M1 bank and alarm.
  6. Licence cards, gun shop, serialised weapons. The decided licensed-weapons rule; serials connect crime to investigation.
  7. Buy and furnish property. Decided. The longest-lived retention loop in both Altis and GTA RP.
  8. Supply/demand prices and trade routes. Decided. Stops grind exploits and gives the contraband run and trucking jobs a reason to move.
  9. Player-owned businesses. The fix for "70% pick cop or criminal" and for solo play leading nowhere. Uses the shop, till, and organization code.
  10. Organization rackets and routes. Gang content that stays in the world: protect a business, hold a route, defend the hideout. Altis cartels' payoff without a capture bar.

Just below the cut: AI police when nobody is on duty (decided after M1), world events on Game Master, a mechanic and tow job with impound, and courts.

4. Open taste questions for the maintainer

  1. Is any of Everon lawless? Altis servers kept war zones and cartels where rules about initiating combat did not apply. That concentrated PvP away from town and gave gangs a home. Do we keep one law everywhere, or mark a place (a quarry, the islands) where the rules say "shoot first is allowed"?
  2. Do we encode "hostile intent" in a system or leave it to admin rules? Every lasting community wrote initiation rules (talk first, 5 seconds to react). A sandbox could make it a mechanic instead: a hold-up action, or a raised weapon that marks intent, which the incident log records. Is that friction, or the rule we need?
  3. Should big crime have a gate? NoPixel gated serious crime behind applications; Olympus gated it behind items and police count; we chose "always allowed, louder alarm". Does the top tier (armory, cash van) need reputation or an introduction from a fence, or is it open to anyone with the tools?
  4. What does death cost beyond the bill? GTA RP has character kills and "value of life"; Altis has the New Life Rule (no return for 15 minutes or 1 km). Do we want a rule that you forget the fight that killed you, a permanent character death by consent, or only the bill?
  5. Scheduled PvP or only emergent conflict? Olympus runs Conquest four times a week with a cash pot, and it is one of its longest-lived features. Is a scheduled event like a cross-country rally, a gang war night, or a strike at the factory part of the flagship, or does that break the sandbox?
  6. How much of a court do we build? Elan fixes fines by law; GTA RP has judges and lawyers. Ours is an officer writing a ticket. Do we add an appeal or a bail desk where another player decides, or leave justice to the officer and the config?
  7. Will the flagship take cosmetic donations? The framework is never monetised. Bohemia allows cosmetics and reserved slots on registered Reforger servers [B]. When M4 runs, is the flagship strictly free, or cosmetic-only within Bohemia's policy?
  8. Are console players first-class on the flagship? Reforger reaches Xbox and PS5, and Elan players blame console players for RDM [E12]. Typing a name, an amount, or a ticket is harder with a controller. Do we design every interaction for a gamepad first, or accept a PC-first flagship?

Sources

[G] GitHub repositories read via gh api on 2026-11-08: esx-framework/esx_core, qbcore-fivem/qb-core (and qb-phone, qb-banking, qb-management, qb-inventory, qb-houses, qb-apartments, qb-policejob, qb-bankrobbery), Qbox-project/qbx_core, overextended/ox_core, ox_inventory, ox_lib, ox_mdt, ox_banking, project-error/npwd.

  1. https://github.com/AsYetUntitled/Framework (README, LICENSE.md, file tree)
  2. https://github.com/88tom/Altis-Life
  3. https://github.com/Armitxes/TakistanLife
  4. https://www.pcgamer.com/how-arma-3s-altis-life-mod-brought-pvp-and-roleplaying-together (2018-09-25)
  5. https://www.pcgamer.com/mod-of-the-week-altis-life-for-arma-3 (2014-03-30); paid-review queue: https://progameguides.com/gta/how-to-join-the-nopixel-server-in-gta-v-rp/; [7c] https://forum.cfx.re/t/qbcore-esx-carboosting-vin-scratching/4819300
  6. https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/altis-life-fuer-arma-3-aepfel-drogen-und-rebellen,3055791.html (2014-05-18)
  7. https://wiki.olympus-entertainment.com/wiki/Main_Page
  8. https://wiki.olympus-entertainment.com/wiki/Cartels
  9. https://wiki2.gaming-asylum.com
  10. https://olympus-entertainment.com/blogs/entry/313-altis-life-update-2026-09-11-september-content-update
  11. https://olympus-entertainment.com/blogs/entry/312-roundtable-summary-09052026
  12. https://wiki.olympus-entertainment.com/wiki/Federal_Reserve
  13. https://wiki.olympus-entertainment.com/wiki/Conquest
  14. https://wiki.olympus-entertainment.com/wiki/Altis_Life_Rules
  15. https://wiki.olympus-entertainment.com/wiki/Olympus_Plus
  16. https://gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/respect-my-authority-role-playing-as-a-cop-in-arma-3 (2014-09-30)
  17. https://steamcommunity.com/app/33930/discussions/0/135512305401937455
  18. https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/177973-arma-3-server-monetization/
  19. https://www.bistudio.com/monetization (now redirects to bohemia.net; quoted via secondary sources)

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