PK and CK

[Aquila]

I've pointed out a problem before with a CK system on any kind of roleplay server, and that is the OOC fear of getting involved in any form of roleplay outside public/social roleplay. People will fear losing their character for getting involved in any form of crime, because there's always a possibility of their character getting entwined into a character kill agreement, or they get in too deep and can't escape, both OOC and IC.

[Haitian]

so one minute people cry and complain that the entire server is filled with gangbangers and carjackers who shoot everyone over nothing and next it’s “well now people will be scared to do crime and that’s boring”

 

as usual

[Jauss]

To add - I can only come to the conclusion that this would be for illegal roleplayers and people who are a part of illegal factions. As I would assume that the people liking / writing comments that support this discussion, are all in some way into or already a part of the illegal roleplay scene. 

 

I get how it would be good character development, from an illegal point of view. The fact that you actually whack someone who would never physically appear in front of you again, is a nice thought, indeed. As it portrays realism.

 

But this subject would never support the legal player. The one who strives to make a living on a legal basis, or the one who would spent hours upon hours trying to build some sort of business from the bottom.

 

I can only encourage people to look at both sides, when it comes to as serious discussions as this is. 

[HaveADream]

10 minutes ago, Jauss said:

To add - I can only come to the conclusion that this would be for illegal roleplayers and people who are a part of illegal factions. As I would assume that the people liking / writing comments that support this discussion, are all in some way into or already a part of the illegal roleplay scene. 

 

I get how it would be good character development, from an illegal point of view. The fact that you actually whack someone who would never physically appear in front of you again, is a nice thought, indeed. As it portrays realism.

 

But this subject would never support the legal player. The one who strives to make a living on a legal basis, or the one who would spent hours upon hours trying to build some sort of business from the bottom.

 

I can only encourage people to look at both sides, when it comes to as serious discussions as this is. 

This is incredibly true, as someone that solely does legal RP and calls PD at every little problem, I have absolutely no interest involving myself in a situation that I can get CK'd. However like I said you can get PK'd for anything, I'd honestly struggle to motivate myself if that lead to a CK after all the work I've done.

[Haitian]

14 minutes ago, Jauss said:

words

 

the way i see it for the most part is that people who really do have legal characters and try to stay on the straight and narrow shouldn't be affected by this. at least, not nearly as heavily as those who do part-take in the illegal side of things. if you screw someone over and get murdered, well, it's your own fault. if you're just someone who runs a lawyer office, though, i can't think of many (valid) reasons anyone would be able to come up with to murder you.

 

anyway;

 

people on roleplay servers always forget how serious death is. id wager that 60 - 70 percent of the reasons people get killed for on this server are reasons that would absolutely not carry over into the real world. people get killed for 'disrespect' (its not 1985 anymore), people get killed for 'posting on our block', people get killed for 'stealing my niggas whip', yada yada. these are all things that have consequences both in real life and on the server, however on the server it's pretty much always death.

 

the other problem is that death can never be treated the same way on a roleplay server as it can in real life. i reckon that half - if not more - of all the deaths on the server go entirely under law enforcement's nose because of how bodies work. street gangs can hose somebody down on the street and they can be gone in as little as ten minutes. 

 

"i aint kill nobody dog, you cant search me. you see a body anywhere? i dont." fifteen minutes after they've splattered someone in broad daylight and done zero body disposal roleplay - but it's fine because their body vanished. 

 

idk its difficult. if we had dead body persistence i imagine it would be a lot easier for law enforcement to actually stop crimes being committed. but that of course would probably cause lag, etc and wouldn't last through server restarts, blah blah. 

 

Just now, HaveADream said:

more words

 

if you're worried about calling the cops in fear of getting killed over 'snitching' then your character should know not to call the cops over every little niggle they have. adapt your characters personality to fit the fear of death rather than try and skirt around it then complain when you get murdered. 

 

i personally don't think people should be murdered for calling the cops anyway but hey ho it seems to be allowed. 

[Canadian]

No.

 

I think that CKs should be more common than they are right now with reckless behaviour or intentionally getting yourself killed to avoid consequences. I agree with a CK in those circumstances but then it comes down to discussing what actually constitutes reckless behaviour?

 

The reason I don't want to remove PKs is because of the long term effects. As an LEO RPer, I've been shot a number of times in situations I literally couldn't avoid. For example before I got staff, one time I was driving along Mirror Park Boulevard and I hear a bunch of shots go off and I see a drive-by. Before I can even react I was being shot at by people riding 4 deep in an SUV and then they chased me down in my last minute attempt to get away from the shooting and call it out. Could you argue this is DM? Sure. They never got punished though so I would've lost my character if PKs didn't exist.

 

Let's take a look at another example. If I pull someone over, they give themselves a reason to shoot a cop or maybe they think they're being pulled over because of something they did. One time I was playing an illegal character and I had recently gotten into a fight over selling drugs, cops pulled me over and my character with all of the adrenaline going might've been all hyped up over that. I found out it was over a small traffic violation but my character wouldn't know that in the moment so it could be justified to shoot at the cops in that moment if it came down to it. Now an LEO who has pulled someone over for a traffic violation has lost over a year of development because the suspect thought they were in trouble for something much more serious.

 

@Haitian pretty much hit the nail on the head on my thoughts on consequences. Almost anything will result in death. Way too common for any form of conflict to result in death.

 

These are just some examples I can think of involving LEOs. There's a lot of situations for criminals / civilians where they can lose so much time put into development over petty stuff.

 

The long term effects we're going to see over everyone being CKed is as follows:

• More admin reliance if you believe a death is unfair.
• Poor character development.
• Lack of motivation from players.

I have personally witnessed countless situations where people have CKed their character when they weren't ready to and they ended up just losing all motivation on the server. Given, it was up to them but they jumped the gun a bit with a CK. Imagine if every death was a CK. People are just going to stop caring about developing characters and actually roleplaying in this real world because at any moment they can just lose it over something so silly. At the end of the day this is a game and we're here to create a story. All stories have to come to an end character wise but if we're forcing people to end their story short then they're not going to be satisfied with the ending. If this game was a 100% replica of real world we'd see much more law abiding citizens who are living average jobs and just living their lives. It's way too common on GTA:W for someone to turn to a life of crime or whatever the case might be because we come here to create interesting stories, not create a life that we could live in real life. I'll pretty much leave it at that.

 

Tl;dr: This is going to kill motivation for people who lose everything that they've worked for character development wise and I can completely understand if PKs are removed why someone might not care about developing a character properly.

Edited May 23, 2019 by FullyCanadian

[Caracosa]

If there were no PKs, only CKs, all of my PKs with my current character would have turned into massive admin issues involving multiple factions and dozens of players. And these issues would have stretched out over days or weeks. Lots of uninvolved players (who were not even IG when I was PK'd) might have to pause RP and maybe stop playing entirely while issues got sorted out behind the scenes. It would be super confusing and time-consuming for everyone involved. There would be a ripple effect. All our stories are so deeply intertwined, even if we don't realize it. CKs should not be taken lightly IMO.

I say this as someone who has never ICly used a weapon, but lives in Rancho.

IMO we should focus more on storytelling than living or dying. For me GTAW is more like a novel or movie, not a game. CKs don't always make for a good story. We are like writers/actors. Just because actors aren't risking their lives, doesn't mean they can't "get in character".

[Smilesville]

There's enough of a crippling fear of CK's on the server without making them more common, however.

 

Criminal entities are composed largely of throwaway characters due to the fact that a CK could happen at any moment; naturally, this means that an established character has much more to lose than someone created a few days ago, and so those characters that have been around for some time forging a story don't interact with anyone outside their usual OOC circles for the crippling fear of having all their progress erased within an instant.

 

The esoteric standards by which these applications are accepted does nothing to help matters; the application only states that "we will not be accepting petty reasons, and we do require thorough evidence of the circumstances leading up the individuals need for death." I am not alone in worrying as to what criteria Faction Management uses to determine what a valid reason is, and rather than leaving that circumstance up to chance, it is much safer to limit your interactions with others altogether. Furthermore, we have assurances that self defense against a character with a CK app will result in their permanent death, but how is the CK target to know that they've just defended themselves against someone with a CK application on them if they haven't been told about it to begin with?

 

There are too many variables up in the air, and when CK messages flash across your screen daily from the ajail messages, you get into the mindset that it could happen anywhere at any time.

 

Our goal for character kills shouldn't be to make them more or less prevalent, but to make them more impactful; here are some steps I believe we could take towards that:

• Script support for CK's. That is, when the application is accepted, two characters are tied together. When the script determines one was killed by the other, staff are notified and can take action automatically rather than having to wait for a /report; optionally, we can send the message to both players involved as well. This offers reassurance for potential targets that an instance of self defense after an application's acceptance won't be missed by any omission of the CKing player.
   
• Restrict who can apply for a CK. I'm inclined to say that any individual character with less than 200 hours of play time on the server cannot apply; this stymies any attempt by players to use throwaway characters in pursuit of a CK. They are permitted to defend themselves and CK someone who's applied to kill them, of course.
   
• Publish guidelines used by staff when determining whether an application will be accepted. Like many others, I'm completely in the dark as to what the staff deems to be a verifiable reason to initiate a CK. Players would be reassured if they knew where the line was and be more open to interacting with new players - the life blood of any server. I'm also of the opinion it should be easier to CK a member of a criminal faction, but that's a detail they can work out on their own.

[Keane]

To start, I'll say that I'd actually like to play in an environment were CKs happen a lot more often. However, it needs players that have a certain mindset. It requires players that actually roleplay characters and put a lot of thought into what their character does. It requires players that see the benefit in letting roleplay between characters continue over a long period of time, rather than cutting it short because it benefits them. It requires players that do things because it's what their character would do and not because it's something they would do. 

 

I've played on quite a few servers before I came here and they all had the same issue. Most of the killing done by players is for OOC reasons. There are very few scenarios I have seen where a character was killed for strictly IC reasons. It is just impossible to solve this unless you want to start a 20 person server where you know every single person involved. 

 

There are several different kinds of killing for OOC reasons, which I will describe below. I have seen this happening on every server I've played on, including this one.

 

You have the players that start as roleplayers but get bored, so they just log on to create scenarios to shoot others. They often show up as robbery crews. This allows them to get more guns to fuel their robbing sprees. It also gives them quick and easy access to scenarios where they can shoot other players. You didn't react fast enough? Shot for not complying because one of the members are jumpy. You roleplay reaching into your pocket for your wallet? One of them thought you had a gun. Some even try to make the roleplay as painful as possible to encourage you to be more likely to pull a gun on them when they show up next. There is also the police attention they get because they don't change their clothes or the vehicle they use, even if they get killed by police. 

Even if you start CKing these players every time they die, they just make new characters and continue doing the exact same thing. If you give these players the ability to CK others, they get all the reward for a lot less risk. They use characters that intentionally have no background, no development and no depth to ruin the experience for others. These characters have zero value to them but they have the ability to CK someone's character that they have put months and sometimes even years of effort into. Because these types of players have plenty of experience on various servers, they know how to get around the rules. Every time an admin explains the rule to them, they get a better idea of where the line is. This results in a lot of borderline killings. 

Another type of OOC killing is done by players that can't take a loss. This plagues every RP server. Some players are overly sensitive about their character's appearance and reputation. Either that or they don't want anything negative to happen to their character, so they kill someone else. They will often try to kill someone else first before the other person has a chance to kill them. The thought of being seen dead by other players horrifies them. I'm sure many of you have seen people log off after they get shot down or on servers where you can hide your nametag, they hide their nametag to avoid being seen dead. This happens most often on LSRP because the mentality of players taking screenshots of dead players and sharing them everywhere is common.

 

That brings me onto my next point. We have the players that don't split IC from OOC. It's the same type of people you see arguing on faction threads instead of keeping the beef IC. They're quick to post a screenshot of a dead faction member on the faction thread of the dead faction member. Or maybe even a video of when the killing happened. There's also some insults included to put the icing on the cake. This is the more obvious form of it happening. There is also situations where someone wants to leave a faction, so the faction CKs them. We have had it happen here with at least two players in the past few months. It caused quite a lot of drama and involved appeals on every step of the ladder. I can't imagine how bad it would be if players could CK more freely. 

 

There was also the argument of not getting involved in dangerous situations. The problem is that due to the types of players that I listed above, sometimes death is unavoidable. Allowing more CKs will just encourage more players to roleplay inside when they should be out meeting new people, teaching newer players and giving people a reason to keep playing. I'm sure there's a bunch of you that hate logging on to just drive around for an hour and quit. More CKs will make this happen for more players. 

I would like CKs to happen more often, however. The server with its current playerbase just won't be suitable for having CKs happen regularly. Every situation involving a killing is different so it would be very difficult to get a fair CK rule in place. 

Edited May 23, 2019 by Keane

[kilerbite]

I am going to disagree with this suggestion, although, I do agree with the fact that a big percentage of players do not roleplay fear properly and that when you get PKed you lose little to nothing. So I think the best option for the time being would be to be harsher on the consequences of a PK.

 

In a perfect world, this suggestion would totally work, but sadly it won't work with the current mindset of society in general, not even the playerbase or the server.

 

I would like to compare it even with money.  I think it is safe to say that, on a perfect scenario, pushed towards realism. You could even set the prices of everything to 0 and people would be able to afford everything they want, as long as it worked for their character stories. Would this work? Of course not. And I don't even need to tell you why, as you read this, you can think about the multiple ways and scenarios that this would be abused.

 

If we were to have CKs all the time, instead of having the PK/CK as it is, we would face multiple unfair situations that have been written here by some of you. No, I wouldn't be happy if someone that played 100 hours on a character could just dictate when the character that I have played for over 1500 hours can die, most of the times possibly for a very poor reason.

Yes, in real life you're not protected, but as sad as this sounds, we can only compare the game to real life to a certain extent, due to the mindset and limitations of the game and other variables even, such as time.

If we made the game exactly as real life is, we wouldn't be able to age up characters, prison times would need to be roleplayed as OOC time, the economy would have to be completely revamped, gun stores wouldn't have a limit of guns you can buy, people would need to stay over 1 week at the hospital when they get injured (even if that meant NPCing and roleplaying by themselves), there would need to be a business for every sort of need your character has (insurances, supermarket, pharmacy etc) and this list could go on and on and on.

 

The point I am trying to make here is, as good as this sounds in theory, this wouldn't work out. The game is still a game, there will always be limitations to what extent realism can go, it is sad, but that's the truth.

 

This is just my 2 cents anyways.

 

Thanks for reading.