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Forbid Voice Chat for the LSPD


Smilesville

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On 4/21/2019 at 6:22 AM, Smilesville said:

Permitting all players to communicate via VOIP in particular, pre-defined scenarios wouldn't permit (or make more difficult the sussing out of) easier metagaming. My qualms are with the belief that the rule is actually preventing VOIP metagaming from happening. If someone is determined to metagame via a third party platform despite the rules against metagaming to begin with, they're going to - and an additional, unilateral ban on voice chat, even in scenarios in which it is highly desirable and reasonable to use it, is not going to change that.

 

There are countless discord channels closed to the general server population, including administrators, that serve to unify one group or another with a medium of OOC communication. Proving that an individual is involved in metagaming behavior does not require monitoring that third party method of communication, but rather determining that a character acted in an unrealistic manner that just happened to coincide with knowledge they should not have had. The exact medium - voice or text - does not impact the methods used to determine whether an offense has taken place.

 

Again, I'm all for defining the exact circumstances under which individuals are permitted to use voice chat for purposes of a chase - that's fine. If we want to say they have to have others they're voice chatting with as contacts in their phone, or establish that each individual is tuned into the same radio channel before the chase-related VOIP begins, I believe that is a reasonable caveat to have.

 

Ultimately, my problem with the rule is that there is no reasonable answer to this question: How would permitting VOIP communication in chase scenarios for all sides encourage undesirable behavior? There is no practical purpose for the existence of the double standard.

Police pursuits are monitored by supervisors to prevent it from getting too out of hand. I wholeheartedly guarantee that the majority of criminals, should they be allowed to speak in VOIP, would have nothing valuable and it quickly turn into "WHAT THE FUCK RAM HIM RAM HIM WHERE'S THE HELICOPTER AHH WHAT THE FUCK".

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Just now, Westen said:

Police pursuits are monitored by supervisors to prevent it from getting too out of hand. I wholeheartedly guarantee that the majority of criminals, should they be allowed to speak in VOIP, would have nothing valuable and it quickly turn into "WHAT THE FUCK RAM HIM RAM HIM WHERE'S THE HELICOPTER AHH WHAT THE FUCK".

Couldn't bring a better example than that lol.

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6 hours ago, Westen said:

Police pursuits are monitored by supervisors to prevent it from getting too out of hand. I wholeheartedly guarantee that the majority of criminals, should they be allowed to speak in VOIP, would have nothing valuable and it quickly turn into "WHAT THE FUCK RAM HIM RAM HIM WHERE'S THE HELICOPTER AHH WHAT THE FUCK".

Ah, so now the goalposts have shifted from "potential metagaming to "getting out of hand." How does it impact anyone else if things get out of hand? How are you even defining things 'getting out of hand?' This is dramatic hyperbole designed to cast aspersions on any other roleplayer who wants to use voice chat and, dare I say, utterly unhelpful to a serious discussion of what we should do about the double standard in the rule.

 

On 4/16/2019 at 1:34 PM, Keane said:

[...] there's several players that have a cops versus robbers attitude. Cops are assumed to be people that love winning no matter what and would fight to the death to keep any advantage they can. Criminals are assumed to be rulebreakers that will jump at the chance to evade police for fun and then die at the end because they can't face consequences. If players keep this kind of attitude, it won't help improve anything. The sooner you see everyone as another player no matter what type of character they have, the sooner we'll see better interactions between everyone.

There is nothing uniquely valuable about the players in the LSPD over the remainder of the player base. If the assertion that the training camp and applications filters out poor roleplayers, that is obviously not the case. Their players mess up too - especially with regards to the law. The supervisors have been especially negligent in their positions because they don't seem to teach their subordinates much of anything that's not related to driving a cruiser or shooting a gun. If you'd like to cast the majority of criminals as engaging in chatter like "WHAT THE FUCK RAM HIM RAM HIM WHERE'S THE HELICOPTER AHH WHAT THE FUCK," anyone could easily say that cops are, "NINER NINER TANGO DOWN, TEN ZERO OFFICER NEEDS ASSISTANCE, MULTIPLE TANGOS, AHH I'M HIT WHAT THE FUCK."

 

I have plenty of examples of police officers behaving badly - high ranking ones, too. We're all players, good and bad, so have a little faith in players outside the watchful eye of police supervisors and if things don't go particularly well, so be it. No reason not to give it a shot.

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As a former member of the LSPD faction, I wholeheartedly agree with this suggestion and support it.

The pure and simple fact of the matter is this: What LSPD is allowed to do during pursuits would be considered metagaming if regular players did the same.

This says nothing about blatant metagaming that can be witnessed in non TAC channels all the time.

To expect LSPD members, even good ones, to report this is ridiculous considering the fact that LSPD is a faction that they are a part of. If one was to report a fellow faction member for an instance of metagaming via VC and action was taken against said faction member for the incident, OOC drama would be inevitable. Combine this with the fact that OOC voice-to-voice communication between LSPD members everyday is par for the course, it's just not reasonable to expect that every instance of, or even a majority of the instances of, metagaming will be reported.

Many, many times during my time in the faction I would hear people talking about what is going on IC, coordinate, and then say something to the effect of 'Oh, remember to say something in-character. I've never personally understood why the PD faction is allowed to, by rule, metagame during pursuits. But even with this taken out of the equation, there is still a literal constant opportunity for PD metagaming via non TAC channels. This is impossible to oversee all the time by faction management.

I am firmly opposed to PD voice chat in general, but knowing this will not be eliminated I would like to at least put this forward: While on duty, there should be zero tolerance for LSPD faction members being in a channel that does not correspond to their call sign. This would, at least, guarantee that non-partnered units are not idly voice chatting with each other during in-character patrolling.

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I disagree in practicality, but not in spirit. In spirit, I actually agree that TS for IC communications like the PD faction uses it for would best be abolished to provide for a better roleplay experience. An example of this is like when two officers are in a cruiser partnered and on teamspeak, they speak only in teamspeak about anything going on while the IG portion is dead. No /me's with the other officer, no IC communication, simply because they're in teamspeak and can talk and I hate that. However, that's as far as my "in spirit," of roleplay defense lies and why I must disagree with this on practical concerns. Through my years of roleplaying law enforcement, I've come down to the opinion that Teamspeak for PD is only there for one or two good reasons and those are shots fired situations and pursuits. Because it's impossible in this game to have to type updates for a vehicular pursuit through the IG chat as an officer, while driving the cruiser, with rapidly changing dynamics. The same is true of shootouts which are oftentimes pursuits in themselves as suspects are usually trying to run away while opening fire at officers, and thus it is a "necessary evil," in the sense to allow the rapid communication that officers need to properly deal with these situations. And there is just no real alternative to them not having voice communication for those situations for them to be dealt with at-all effectively in an in-game world and thus it is a necessary evil.

 

Granted do I think PD could improve a lot in terms of officers doing more IC roleplay and IC talking then teamspeak talking? Oh, yes. I would always love to see officers more immersed in the IG roleplay environment then the OOC TS environment, but that really comes down to more self-management of the individual then any policy or rule. People are social, and they are going to find ways to socialize and derail things from time to time because that's what they do. They did in during my time in the military, they'll do it on this video game. Maybe more ways can be found to limit the unnecessary TS communication to place an emphasis on the IG communication, but honestly that's just more rules and regulations which are generally unenforceable no matter how strict in principle they may be. So in short, I don't agree with abolishing voice communications for PD as there is no alternative whatsoever for them to communicate effectively (or in many cases at all), during pursuits or shootouts to other officers and outside of the existing rules and supervisions all that is being done to limit the communication is already  being done to the degree that it can, and that may just be the best outcome you're going to get. 

 

My two cents at least. But then again, what authority do I have on this matter? I'm just a forum dude. ?‍♂️

 

 

Edited by Brett
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Just now, Westen said:

Alright, so if it was removed, how would PD commentate pursuits? I'd suggest pursuits are one of the biggest things PD do, and this would be significantly crippled or even stopped altogether by removal of voice chat.

How are criminals or any other group of players expected to coordinate themselves during situations in which it's impossible to type? This argument that they need it breaks down when you acknowledge the fact that literally no other group on the server is given the same privilege. Hell, you could even say this entire suggestion has nothing to do with whether it's right or wrong for them to have it (of course, my reply isn't the same. i wholeheartedly oppose pd voice chat as whole and made that clear) but simply poses the question 'Why are they allowed to do it and the rest of us aren't?'

I, during my time in PD, participated in many pursuits where multiple vehicles were involved on the other side. PD will be the first to complain about these players metagaming - sometimes even doing so over voice chat while it's supposedly occurring. Zero reason whatsoever to bring up the 'Well PD has radios' argument here. As stated above there is no reason criminals couldn't be communicating via phone or even radio which is commonly (and badly) used by all manner of other groups.

 

And to the argument of 'Well how do I coordinate 5+ vehicles during a pursuit?' I say, I have no idea but the reason it'd be deadly for a criminal to stop and type during this situation stems from the fact that there are 5+ cops using voice communications together ready to PIT them or box them in if they do. This is inherently unfair in and of itself.

Nothing sets PD above other players in this community. It is impossible for PD's teamspeak to be monitored by Faction Management as heavily as it needs to be. And to expect PD to police itself from the inside is just unrealistic.

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22 minutes ago, borhoi said:

And to expect PD to police itself from the inside is just unrealistic.

Of course it's impossible when people don't report anything to the people who can do anything about it but imagine trying to solve an unreported problem. OOC drama is irrelevant if it was actually a prevalent issue. If this issue was that bad, someone should of spoken up about it rather than wait for some thread to pop up to attempt to air grievances. That by itself is inherently unfair. 

 

22 minutes ago, borhoi said:

I, during my time in PD, participated in many pursuits where multiple vehicles were involved on the other side. PD will be the first to complain about these players metagaming - sometimes even doing so over voice chat while it's supposedly occurring. Zero reason whatsoever to bring up the 'Well PD has radios' argument here. As stated above there is no reason criminals couldn't be communicating via phone or even radio which is commonly (and badly) used by all manner of other groups.

 

And in this time, I'm sure there have been many occasions where people are told to not do that. Memorandums about these things have been put before and even AFTER you've left the department. You only speaking of past experiences as well and not what we currently have and attempt to have people comply with. While not here, I've already seen the travesty of allowing people who aren't cops to use VOIP and it's always a mixed bag and the only reason why any of them had good uses of VOIP services was because the faction leaders actually cared to keep their standards high. 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Jedai said:

Of course it's impossible when people don't report anything to the people who can do anything about it but imagine trying to solve an unreported problem. OOC drama is irrelevant if it was actually a prevalent issue. If this issue was that bad, someone should of spoken up about it rather than wait for some thread to pop up to attempt to air grievances. That by itself is inherently unfair. 

 

 

And in this time, I'm sure there have been many occasions where people are told to not do that. Memorandums about these things have been put before and even AFTER you've left the department. You only speaking of past experiences as well and not what we currently have and attempt to have people comply with. While not here, I've already seen the travesty of allowing people who aren't cops to use VOIP and it's always a mixed bag and the only reason why any of them had good uses of VOIP services was because the faction leaders actually cared to keep their standards high. 

 

 

OOC drama is most-certainly relevant when it's an in-group that people communicate with voice-to-voice ooc'ly every single day. It's bound to be. To expect it to not be is ridiculous. Who would want to go through the OOC shitstorm making a forum report would bring them? I know I wouldn't. I know I didn't want to. It'd have to have been something absolutely, wholeheartedly, egregious for me to have wanted to put that drama on myself. And anyone can say 'Oh that's just you I would totally report it.' They wouldn't. They're not going to. Take into account the people in PD that are legit OOC friends? Forget about it ever happening whatsoever. Also, it's not inherently unfair for me to be more open with sharing my thoughts on this now that I am out of PD and the thread reminded me of it. 

 

Next. Being told not to do something is not the same as there being real consequences for having done it. Never once did I see someone disciplined for improper use of VC. If it goes unnoticed, for whatever reason, even if that is failure to report it by faction members, then that is a shining example of why it shouldn't be allowed at all. The faction members won't report it, it's impossible to monitor fully, and as stated above it gives an unfair advantage to PD during situations where real time decisions have to be made. These are my points.

And sure, Jedai. I'm speaking from past experience. I have no idea what you lot are up to now as far as regulating the use of teamspeak goes. If there's been a rule put in place that members stay in their own call-sign's channel outside of TAC situations, that'd be awesome to hear and I'd gladly applaud it. It'd certainly be a push in the right direction. And, as I also stated above, it'd be something feasible given the fact that wholesale elimination of voice-chat for PD is most certainly not going to ever actually happen.

 

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