This update brings new content, improvements to features, bug fixes, new features and more!
Since our last update, we've been pushing daily if not weekly updates to our second server, constantly trying new things to push the experience even further for our playerbase.
Today, we're excited to share with you the developments that we have made during this time, and we hope you're excited for them too!
We'll be using a different format of an update post this time, so bear with us :)

Update Highlights

This update is pretty large, so here are some of the highlights that we thought you'd care about the most.
You can still find the full update log down below!

Increasing vehicle limits

A common complaint over the years that we've received from players is that they are unable to spawn more than one vehicle. This completely removes gameplay opportunities that involve trailers and alike, so we completely understand the frustration.

The reason why this limit was imposed in the first place was to limit the amount of clutter around the map, as players would often spawn vehicles and just leave them there. This caused a massive build-up of entities on the server and slowed the server down by a significant amount.

However, since then, we've improved performance by quite a bit and we're confident that we can now raise this limit without major implications.

Here are the new vehicle limits that are dependant on supporter tier:

• Default: 1
• Supporter: 1
• Super Supporter: 2
• Extreme Supporter: 2
• Ultimate Supporter: 3

You still need to disable the "Replace previous vehicle" option in vMenu to spawn more than one vehicle.

Server Hub Redesign

We've taken the liberty to give our server hub a massive overhaul, and add a lot of new things that a lot of you have been asking for.

~ Kick & Ban Reason Histories for Parties

We've added a quality-of-life feature that allows you to select from a list of past reasons that you've used when kicking or banning a member from your party. This seems insignificant at first, but we're sure it will save you some time typing out the same thing over and over again :)

~ Client Checklist

This is an important feature that shows you recommendations and tutorials on how to apply settings that will improve your experience on our servers:

You can click the wrench icon to get steps on how to change the setting.

~ Groups Overview

We've added a page for players to discover the top server groups created by players. The groups are sorted by active member count:

~ Suggestions & Feedback Integration

Ever wanted to suggest a new feature to us, or report a bug? You can do this straight from the server hub, no account required!

You can view this page in your browser here, but do note that you will need an account if you intend to post through your browser.

~ Store Integration

We've integrated with Tebex to display all of our store packages directly in the server hub for you to view. This includes any active sales and their discounted prices:

~ The "User Menu"

We've added a menu to your user profile element that contains some new pages, including one to check your moderation history:

~ Settings Improvements

We've given the settings page a nice redesign, adding group icons, new group designs, and a more modern look to each setting:

Now, we know these don't contribute much to your gameplay, so let's move on to the other improvements!

Meet Zones

~ New Zones

We've added over 15 new meet zones for everyone to enjoy, increasing the number of zones available per rotation (see below).

We're always looking for more spots to add, so please suggest them on our feedback system either in-game through the server hub (see above) or through feedback.rsm.gg :)

~ Daily Rotations

We've added a new feature to the server that automatically rotates the available pool of meet zones every day. At any given time, 50% of all meet zones will be available to use, so the more meet zones we add, the more that will be available per rotation!

The goal behind this change is to encourage car meet hosts to pick new zones to host their meets at rather than the same zones over and over again.

We also hope for this change to encourage people to submit new zones to us to be added to the pool :)

~ Zone Cleaning

A new feature that we've developed for our zones system is the ability to dynamically remove objects from a zone upon entering it. A great example for this is to cleanup any trash that would otherwise block potential vehicle parking spots.
Before -> After (click).

Groups

We've added yet another new feature that a lot of you have been wanting for a long time now. You can now create and manage your own groups!

These groups are permanent until their owner deletes them, and can be managed through our Discord bot which you will soon be able to invite to your own server.

Groups are invite-only and cannot be made public. This is by design, but we may look into adding a privacy option down the road.

We are working on managing groups through the game, but using Discord has helped players manage their ever-evolving sub-communities within our server without the requirement of being on it. It's also helped us develop the feature and get it out faster!

~ Group Roles

Groups have three static roles:

• Owner
• Admin
• Member

The owner has all permissions you'd typically expect, including the ablity to transfer ownership to another member.

The admin(s) can invite and kick other members (but not other admins).

Members are just regular members, they are a part of the group with no special permissions. They cannot invite other members.

~ Group Relationships

You can also manage your groups' relationships with other groups by adding them as an ally or enemy. This will result in changes to game behaviours (such as targetting) in the future when this system becomes more mature in the coming updates!

~ Group Tags

When creating your group, you will be asked to provide a unique tag. This tag is displayed above all members of your group in-game, and is perfect for "repping" your group to other players!

~ Audit Log

Right now, every change made to a group is logged. This is because we plan to implement a feature into our bot when it's able to be invited to your servers. This audit log system will post live updates for when someone makes a change to the group in a channel of your choice. Pretty cool, huh? :)

Leaderboards

We've completely overhauled all leaderboards in our server with a new centralised system that we can use to add more leaderboard types, with support for players and groups.

For now, this new system only supports drifting, but PvP and racing will be added in the next couple of updates. All will support groups, just like how drifting activities currently do!

Spawn Logic

The logic for how you spawn into the server after connecting has been tweaked. You now spawn as a random ped model (instead of the "default danny" model) and you now spawn on a random lobby portal.

We changed this because it's been the same since forever (probably since at least 2019) and spawning new players in completely remote places with little access to roads without any knowledge about the server (yet) can be overwhelming. This change should (hopefully) greatly improve the user experience for new players and make the server easier to get into.

Handling Editor

We've taken the time to improve the accessibility of our handling editor.
Before now, it was rather complex and very technical. Now, we've removed some of the things that cluttered it, and enhanced the names and descriptions of every option:
Before -> After (click).

Interaction Menu

A new feature to get excited about is the interaction menu. This feature allows you to interact with entities in the world, such as vehicles, objects, players, and more.

~ Meet Voting

We've moved the meet voting options away from your keyboard and into the interaction menu. Just walk up to another players' vehicle, hold the interaction menu key, and upvote it!

~ Muting Players

Got an annoying player nearby playing music or just being a general nuisance to your ears? Well great news, we've added the /selfmute command to the interaction menu so you can now mute them by walking up to them and using the interaction menu on them.
This does not mute players for other players, only yourself!

We've got a lot more planned for this new feature, so stay tuned for future updates!

Vegetation Update

We've gone through and hand-placed a lot of new life into the server.
This includes new trees, bushes, plants, and more!

Here are some highlights (click):

• Docks
• Marina
• Observatory

There's a lot more vegetation added around the map, most of it is spread out so let us know if you spot anything :)

~ Christmas Trees

We've added Christmas trees to meet zones and popular spots on the map.
There are over 150 hand-placed trees with this update.

~ NVE 2023 Christmas Decorations

We've also added the Christmas decorations from the December 2023 NVE (NaturalVision Evolved) update to make the server feel more festive :)

These are some amazing decorations and you can find them throughout the map!
Interested in getting the NVE graphics pack to further enhance your experience? Click here!

Full update log, as usual

• Added various improvements to anti-cheat and fixed multiple bugs (by @nex)
• Added major improvements to the design of the in-game update log viewer (by @nex)
• Added daily meet zone rotations to encourage diversity in zone selection by party leaders (by @nex)
• Added a new definition for chat auto moderation to direct people that are making hackusations in chat to the report feature (by @nex)
• Added more monitoring for server performance (by @nex)
• Added and updated all available third-party maps (by @nex)
• Added new backend improvements to significantly boost the performance of various server features (by @nex)
• Added tracking for the amount of time spent AFK per-session (by @nex)
• Added a new feature called "Groups" that allow players to create and manage persistent groups with roles and group tags (by @nex)
• Added group tags to player names, if players are in a group (by @nex)
• Added relationships to groups for managing allies and enemies (by @nex)
• Added a cooldown between using emotes in a PvP lobby (by @nex)
• Added 15+ new zones to the server, to be selected by the rotation system per server restart (by @nex)
• Added minor improvements to the chat UI (by @nex)
• Added several new locations for map blips (by @nex)
• Added support for dynamically removing various objects from the world within zones (by @nex)
• Added auto moderation filters to block common character sequences for displaying group tags in names - use the new groups feature for this (by @nex)
• Added the ability for our staff team to voice mute offending players (by @nex)
• Added improvements to the loading screen layout and improved visibility of certain UI elements (by @nex)
• Added graphs to the latency and player count widgets in the server hub to display the history of those values (by @nex)
• Added a new set of rules to the server hub, including the new rule that prevents hosting large parties outside of meet zones (by @nex)
• Added a spinner after updating the party settings within the server hub (by @nex)
• Added optimisation to displaying party members within the server hub - this should feel a lot smoother to navigate now (by @nex)
• Added optimisation to displaying all player avatars within the server hub (by @nex)
• Added layout improvements to the settings page of the server hub (by @nex)
• Added significant design improvements to the server hub (by @nex)
• Added the ability to toggle the rainbow player name for Ultimate Supporters to the server hub (by @nex)
• Added support for hint tooltips for server hub settings (by @nex)
• Added a hint to the inverse power setting to explain what it does (by @nex)
• Added a command to toggle spawn protection when PvPing - use the /togglespawnprotection command to use this (by @nex)
• Added a confirmation dialog for disbanding a party with a warning (by @nex)
• Added a feature to the party title and description settings that displays how many characters are remaining (by @nex)
• Added a page to the server hub for viewing your punishment history (by @nex)
• Added a page to the server hub for viewing your session history (by @nex)
• Added a page to the server hub for viewing a list of the top active groups on the server (by @nex)
• Added a new UI element to the bottom bar of the server hub for player-specific pages - this is called the "user menu" and can be opened by clicking on your name at the bottom (by @nex)
• Added a new hint system to the server hub that will be used for highlighting newly-added features to players (by @nex)
• Added a new tutorial/onboarding system to the server hub that will be useful for showing new players the features of the hub, with digestable explanations (by @nex)
• Added significant improvements to the store page of the server hub that displays all listed categories and packages, features, prices and sales (by @nex)
• Added reason histories for kicking and banning members from a party (by @nex)
• Added several more performance improvements for the server hub (by @nex)
• Added the new leaderboards system with support for players and groups - currently only supporting drifting activities for now (by @nex)
• Added design improvements to the server watermark in the top-left (by @nex)
• Added a "Client Checklist" feature to the server hub that advises players to toggle certain FiveM and Game settings for the best experience (by @nex)
• Added a new virtual game renderer for the background of the server hub, improving the user experience through better design opportunities (by @nex)
• Added icons to setting groups within the server hub (by @nex)
• Added animations for opening and closing the server hub (by @nex)
• Added a toggle for enabling and disabling the opening/closing animations for the server hub (by @nex)
• Added over 150+ hand-placed Christmas trees to the map (by @nex & @ney)
• Added the NVE 2023 Christmas update for everyone to enjoy (by @nex)
• Added over 250+ hand-placed and optimised vegetation (bushes, trees, etc) to many areas of the map (by @nex & @ney)
• Added back the completed Mile High Club project after a long hiatus from the server, now with better optimisation (by @nex)
• Added over 100+ new animations to the emotes menu (by @nex)
• Added new names and descriptions of handling editor settings for better readability and ease of use (by @nex)
• Added patches to various areas around the map, most notably the docks where signs have been removed and the area has been cleaned up (by @nex)
• Added an interaction menu for interacting with vehicles, objects, players and more - use left-alt to bring this up and interact with an entity, if supported (by @nex)
• Added meet vote options to the interaction menu (by @nex)
• Added player muting options to the interaction menu (by @nex)
• Added the ability to toggle drift smoke - use /toggledriftsmoke or the server hub option to toggle (by @nex)
• Added several patches to areas of the map, such as docks, to improve their appearance (by @nex)
• Added custom textures to advertisements on benches (by @nex)
• Added an interior to the Maze Bank Arena for PvP and car meets - dependant on lobby (by @nex)
• Adjusted the limit of the maximum number of party moderators to 5 (by @nex)
• Adjusted chat auto moderation to be less strict for certain categories of abuse (by @nex)
• Adjusted the category of the nickname setting within the server hub to be under the "Player names" category (by @nex)
• Adjusted how often your ping is updated in the watermark and server hub (by @nex)
• Adjusted the onboarding process to open the hub for new players (by @nex)
• Adjusted the max vehicle limit for supporters depending on the tier - requires the "Replace previous vehicle" option to be disabled in vMenu (by @nex)
• Adjusted the logic for the initial player spawn - you will now spawn on lobby portals around the map with random ped models (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue where players were getting banned for various cases of data corruption (by @nex)
• Fixed all issues with in-game interfaces (UI) where countries were blocking the CDN providers we were using (by @nex)
• Fixed multiple bugs with the new changelogs notification system (by @nex)
• Fixed the use of "chameleon" vehicle colours on newer game builds (by @StOneR)
• Fixed an issue where an intermittent connection issue with our backend services would cause a server hang (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue that affected the speed of Noclip that resulted in slower speeds than intended (by @nex)
• Fixed a bug with the friend system where user input wasn't being validated properly, leading to errors (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue with chat auto moderation where some messages were taking too long to send due to an upstream service issue (by @nex)
• Fixed a performance issue that caused some backend services to become overwhelmed after long periods of server runtime, affecting the chat and more (by @nex)
• Fixed a server performance issue related to explosions (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue where some third-party maps were not being rendered correctly (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue where the blips for some third-party maps were not being displayed correctly (by @nex)
• Fixed a bug where players were able to duck and sprint while noclipping (by @nex)
• Fixed a typo in the server rules of the server hub (by @nex)
• Fixed a typo when toggling long-range player blips (by @nex)
• Fixed a rare bug that would prevent XP from being gained from killing a player in a PvP lobby (by @nex)
• Fixed a performance issue where the game would often hitch due to I/O usage on some systems - this is a FiveM bug that we have now worked around by reducing the I/O usage (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue with the permissions of party moderators in the server hub (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue with the sorting of party members in the server hub (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue where party moderators were not removed properly when they left the party (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue where several UI elements were being displayed on top of the loading screen just before loading-in (by @nex)
• Fixed an issue where the game blur function when opening the server hub wasn't slowed properly (by @nex)
• Fixed a game bug with stunt races where players were able to steer left and right to move forward during the countdown (by @nex)
• Partially fixed an issue where some player stats would very rarely get saved (by @nex)
• Removed thermal vision from vMenu (by @StOneR)
• Removed Developer Tools from vMenu when in a PvP lobby (by @StOneR)
• Removed 3 vehicles from supporter subscriptions that were actually reward vehicles (by @nex)
• Removed the legacy UI for radios as it was causing issues, may be added back after refactoring and major improvements (by @nex)
• Rewrote one of our core libraries that interacts with our backend for significant server performance uplifts (by @nex)
• Updated dependencies to newer versions for most in-game user interfaces and fixed several regressions following this change (by @nex)
• Updated chat auto moderation with new definitions for abusive words (by @nex)
• Updated server branding for the FiveM server browser (by @nex)
• Updated the vMenu header image for a more modern style (by @nex)

Merry Christmas everyone - next year holds a lot of potential for us, and we have a lot of things in the works :)

Happy holidays!