Remove 911 from Off Duty legal faction members

[Björk]

7 hours ago, Cobra said:

I'm not too sure myself because if no one's on duty, none of the 911s will get answered at all because no one knows.

 

I've always roleplayed that if a 911 call is received, seeing it off duty means I've been paged by dispatch and I can then report back to quarters to collect my apparatus and call in the rest of the crew before heading over to the scene. 

Plus my character carries her own scanners off duty.

Just like in real life, anyone on or off duty or civilian can know if a department has received a call out by listening to their radio and by using apps like PulsePoint.

 

As for people MGing. Jumping on duty is kind of what we do in response to pagers. And if you're in or near the station you can hear the turnout tones go down so you know there's a callout.

 

But people SMSing/Calling others to get involved isn't acceptable. And that should be something a department's IA deal with. I'm not sure if that can be considered MG though as they'd know via their pager, scanner or the station tones. 

 

I am how-ever concerned with people who never go on duty, and only go on duty if a callout is received. But I think it should be up to the department to deal with the individuals rather than a blanket ban.

 

Most of the time I'm on GTAW I'm on duty, going off duty on the odd occasion. I just feel like this would be yet another reason for me to never go off duty. 

 

I do think it should be toggable to avoid spam though.

I see the problem, but my main concern is that -even- if you're the only person online you icly wouldn't know that there was a 911 call unless you're nearby  the station like you said. Only the Command + team can put out pagers in that case if we were requested to do so. That's why I'm not saying take away the radios from Off duty members, seeing as Command + need the radios in order to appropriately get a response going. In the case, you should rp getting a pager in that situation if you're the only one on. 

[fivexfiver]

I support this 100%.

[Cobra]

1 hour ago, Björk said:

I see the problem, but my main concern is that -even- if you're the only person online you icly wouldn't know that there was a 911 call unless you're nearby  the station like you said. Only the Command + team can put out pagers in that case if we were requested to do so. That's why I'm not saying take away the radios from Off duty members, seeing as Command + need the radios in order to appropriately get a response going. In the case, you should rp getting a pager in that situation if you're the only one on. 

 

Perhaps 911 calls only appear to FD if no FD are on duty?

And same with PD.

_________

 

I mean the way GTAW works is the moment a 911 call is received, the department's units are aware of it. There's no middlemen.

In real life it'd go from the caller, to the 911 call taker, the dispatch and then the units in the field either via radio or pager. Obviously we don't have that.

The way I always RPd it is that the first 3 steps were already done, and me seeing it was my pager.
I always roleplayed receiveing the pager.
So ICly I would know.

And if it wasn't my pager, it was my phone or scanner.

As for being at the station, the other day I walked in and before going on duty the fire script called in and I had no idea. The engine was about to leave until I flagged em down lol. ?

 

 

It's just the main concern for me is I'll never want to go off duty if no others are on duty. I always felt happy knowing I could get on if someone called 911.

_________

Eitherway long story short, we could trial your suggestion or try out the method I suggested above. Or both? Thoughts? ?

 

For me personally I'd prefer it to be toggable like other chats are.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Cobra

[Björk]

It's debatable, honestly. I'd much prefer there wouldn't be any 911 calls while we're off duty. 

 

It's the potential risk of MG and as well the feeling of less spam / relaxation in the chat.

[Cobra]

Just now, Björk said:

It's debatable, honestly. I'd much prefer there wouldn't be any 911 calls while we're off duty. 

 

It's the potential risk of MG and as well the feeling of less spam / relaxation in the chat.

 

I just think like other things, the MG should be targeted at an individual level.

And the ones FD/PD recruit should be trusted not to MG, rather than to have the features removed from all.

 

Also /toggle911 for spam reduction?

 

Perhaps off duty 911s only work for people who've passed their recruit/probationary period? ?

 

Or my suggestion of off duty 911s only work if everyone is off duty?

[Björk]

I will stick with completely off.

[Koko]

15 hours ago, Cobra said:

I've always roleplayed that if a 911 call is received, seeing it off duty means I've been paged by dispatch and I can then report back to quarters to collect my apparatus and call in the rest of the crew before heading over to the scene. 

As per our instructions this was until recently not the case, and was only to be the case if there was no people on.

 

To me it's an issue of RP feel and people establishing their priorities. The end goal is to encourage to at least always have someone on duty, or to establish a clear difference on what your RP experience can be depending on what you choose to do with your time: if you choose to go on duty you get all of these additional calls and if you choose not to go on duty you don't get them and your game functions as if you were a normal citizen, unless you go the more contrived route of looking it up online, or there's simply no other people on duty.

 

Having your own scanner is fine and whatever but that's a minority of characters that would actively be so invested, the rest would probably be engaged in other activities such as being at some loud club or going about their lives and not to be actually listening to the crackling radio frequency of a 911 dispatcher that you can honestly barely understand unless you're actively listening to it.

 

... to people who do that, the solution might be to actively spam the MCD, or whichever other alternative that requires attention, rather than assume your character passively gets all their dispatches, imho.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Koko

[Keane]

In my opinion, when you're off duty you should be off duty. It should be a chance to roleplay your character and not have to worry about any calls that are coming in. It's a lot more fun when you realize one or two calls being missed isn't exactly a big deal. Before I played on here, I was on two servers where the 911s appeared on duty only so playing on here with 911s constantly visible was a big change. I felt it was a lot better to have the 911s visible to on duty employees only.

 

To me, I don't think anyone from either faction should have their radios off duty unless they have a specific reason. Think about whether your character would want to relax at home or have a night out. Working in general is stressful. Working as a police officer or firefighter in America right now is even more stressful than a regular job. All characters in these factions should have roleplay away from their jobs so they can actually enjoy the character properly. It also gives them a chance to have activities to relax rather than being at work constantly. Staying on duty all the time or going off duty just to wait for calls to come in is just going to turn your behavior robotic. You need off duty roleplay without on duty interference to help develop a proper character. Having 911s visible just encourages players in these factions to worry about these calls and jump back on duty instead of roleplaying off duty.
 

The main issue is the 911s being visible instantly. The information is there and can easily be metagamed. I say metagamed because that information should not be available IC in the first place. 

To sum up my opinion, remove the ability for off duty faction members to see 911s. It just promotes metagame and encourages players to spend time on duty instead of off duty.  

[Hollywood]

On 11/28/2018 at 11:08 AM, Cobra said:

I'm not too sure myself because if no one's on duty, none of the 911s will get answered at all because no one knows.

 

That sounds about right. If no one is on-duty and 911 calls aren't getting answered there is a very serious In Character problem. 

 

 

 

 

Personally speaking, my character is a Government employee, not an LEO. I make it a point to ignore all departmental communication unless my character is in/near his Government vehicle (shortwave mounted inside). 

 

 

Overall, having some script support for both 911 call and department radio visibility could be very useful. 

[Franelli]

As a matter of fact it reminds me of another forgotten suggestion: 

 

The one above sounds about right when I come to think about it. While the debate continues whether or not an off duty officer needs to receive dispatch calls, I think we can all agree that a police officer who intentionally switched his radio off should not. Being off duty does not necessarily mean the officer does not have the department radio in his possession - so calls may still go through. However, if the radio is switched off that would be the end of it.