hillievonb

You know what? You're right. I shouldn't respond to toxicity and poor arguments with toxicity.

The IRL videos are reference to things that aren't really being discussed here. They are mostly irrelevant to the point. You just don't know what the point is. You read the words 'broad daylight' and post your little videos like a knee-jerk reaction, like Pavlov's dog that drooled when he heard someone ring a bell. It's a text-based game, so, you know... reading and writing are a thing? Try doing them sometime! Thanks.

That's just not exactly true, though. There are ample areas of major cities where you don't feel afraid like this, because they're rarely empty and most criminals aren't going to risk it without a good reason. Unless you have a stalker or a specific reason to fear it, you don't feel threatened going to the store down the block during the day. We also have random road rage murders and serial killers IRL, and those aren't allowed either. In LS, I am supposed to RP as if the streets are empty all the time, so... are my characters supposed to just not walk outside? Being reasonably afraid of walking somewhere in the dark or in the rough side of town or across a deserted lot, sure? That makes sense. Being afraid of walking down the Santa Monica pier and keeping your head on a swivel while having ice cream? That's just bad portrayal. I kinda just ignore robberies, sure, take my money, whatever. I just wish they wouldn't waste my time with unrealistic, play-to-win kidnappings.

@Shmoe So, one creep kidnapping a girl in the suburbs for likely creep reasons, and the rest are gang beef. Do you just like posting irrelevant videos?

Playing female characters? They're not even rich, wear fancy clothes or drive nice cars. The robbers got a few hundred and a phone at most, or some weed and a flashlight, that kind of thing. I dunno either.

I had a character kidnapped and robbed on the same week in Vespucci. Another got robbed within four days of making her. Another kidnapping on another. Multiple attempts if I count people blatantly following their cars around or pulling up 3-deep masked before I just split. I don't know what to tell you. We live in different worlds.

Or different character types get targeted at different rates, just saying. Or you play at different hours. Or you play characters with better situational awareness. Or you're lucky. The issue is that some areas are unrealistically dangerous because of unrealistic crime, OOCly motivated because of a perceived OOC lack of risk. Do people commit risky armed robberies in those areas RL? Sure, but generally with specific targets, or jewelry snatch and grabs, etc, people don't just randomly kidnap college students at gunpoint in front of cameras on campus hoping to steal, I dunno what, ramen flavor packets? And why would a random skater looking teen look like a good target to risk serious felony charges on in a high traffic avenue? It's bizarre, and the issue is that it's responsible for encouraging unrealistic RP on the part of ordinary citizen characters.

The US isn't China. It's much easier time suspending my disbelief about wonky geography and distances than about this. It just makes no sense socially or historically, it makes no sense to have long-running gangs in a replica city, or political offices, or anything at all. The distances thing is a normal video game compression, it happens in every game, people should be used to dealing with it.

I don't know about the CK, because it's not impossible for people who were deported to return to the US. It happens.

Most people really don't consider their immigration status at all. Exceptions exist, but I feel like most immigrant characters don't care what the US immigration system is like, what kind of visa they got to the US on, if any, and what'll happen if they get caught, sometimes for even minor things. Even not counting people who immediately turn to crime, generally speaking, people aren't allowed to move to the US to work as a bartender, for example. I'd have to assume they're overstaying their tourist visa and breaching the terms of their stay, but that'll have consequences in terms of access to public services and so on. It would be nice if people dealt with it more realistically, I guess, but then again some people would also just use it as an excuse to DM, like:"Well, my character is an undocumented immigrant. They might get deported, so I had to murder everyone."

Ads are in the phone interface already...

Yes.

Generally yes! But there have been schemes by PM to sell trailers and other country properties specifically to people who actively RP in the country, rather than letting them fall into the market to be snatched up by people who never do. I gave my trailer to PM for that purpose, I think I got back MP + furniture. This was months ago, however. I recall there were open requests for that sort of thing at one point.

I retired a character who had a trailer near Sandy. Then I made another Sandy character. I was not about to sell that and have some tourist pick it up to park their sports car in the trailer park. I just moved my next character right in, because she was a local and would have a place to stay IC. Then when I retired that character, and since I didn't have another country character in the works, I just contacted PM so they could distribute it to a local RPer.

People are terrible at escalation and will use that to render characters unplayable or ineffective when they can't get CK perms. Or they just want to get edgy for the screenshots or to expose how dark and troubled their character is and how badass and merciless their faction is. Put it behind an app or it'll be a horror show.