Clarify and Expand on the CCTV Rules

[alpha dogs]

What: Clarify what the CCTV rules are as numerous admins have made a myriad of contradicting rulings over the years. Expand on the CCTV rules to remove ambiguity, confusion and room for misinterpretation. 

 

Why: Every admin who rules on an incident which revolves around CCTV footage recorded by server owned businesses contradicts one another's rulings on how these rules should be interpreted. This is obviously an issue as it creates a whirling void of confusion that you often get caught up in when working sprawling investigations that last a week or more. The rules themselves are incredibly vague and leave a lot of questions unanswered which leaves a lot of room for interpretation and misinterpretation. 

 

"CCTV cameras have to be mapped in before they are considered present. Attempting to claim a camera exists when there is no item there is powergaming. OOC recordings can be used as the footage pulled from CCTV cameras, in the absence of OOC recording, players are able to challenge CCTV footage if they believe the recording party may have forgotten or falsified details.

 

If desync is suspected, the contesting party may provide a video of their own to look for any inconsistencies or consult a staff member to decide. This may be looked over if the desync is clear within the original recording provided. 
 

Government building as well as server-owned stores (e.g gas stations, 24/7s, clothing stores) all have cameras by default, which law enforcement agencies have the capacity of acquiring. 
 
When using OOC footage, players are expected to keep in mind which direction the cameras are pointing. "Dome cameras" are best specified in /stashinfo, otherwise an admin will have to decide on their own. 
 
All state agencies and Government vehicles have dashcams. OOC recording rules apply to dashcam."

 

I'll attempt to dissect this rule piece by piece to illustrate how vague it really is.

 

 

"CCTV cameras have to be mapped in before they are considered present."

This line would lead you to believe that in order for anyone to role play that a CCTV camera exists it has to be mapped in and visible.

 

"Attempting to claim a camera exists when there is no item there is powergaming."

This sentence further emphasises the first line that cameras need to be physically visible and mapped into the server in order to be role played as existing.

 

"OOC recordings can be used as the footage pulled from CCTV cameras, in the absence of OOC recording, players are able to challenge CCTV footage if they believe the recording party may have forgotten or falsified details."

This line explains that OOC recordings can be used as CCTV footage even if they're not taken from the same angle of the actual CCTV camera's mapping, with obvious caveats made for the position and distance from the camera. It also explains that in the absence of an OOC recording you can 'roleplay' what the camera sees through text chat: in my experience this is usually done by PMing the suspect(s) and asking what the camera would show and then screenshotting the chatlogs to preserve the evidence for further use. This line also adds the caveat that the suspect is able to contest the roleplayed CCTV footage if what the detective/law enforcement officer says is on CCTV is inaccurate. 

 

This line however begs the question: How is this OOC footage obtained? If the victim of a robbery who was working at a store gives you an OOC recording of them getting robbed that's OK? If you find the video on YouTube but it wasn't personally sent to you is that OK? Can you use any footage available to you as long as it's unedited and is of the actual scene in question? Is it OK for me to contact the suspect and get them to send a copy of the robbery footage? What if that suspect uploads a DM montage video and puts that footage in their video? Can I use that as CCTV footage?

 

This line needs clarification and further expanding in order to clear up the question of sourcing footage as it's recently come into question see Bryan Keo versus Esther Cohen 2023

 

"If desync is suspected, the contesting party may provide a video of their own to look for any inconsistencies or consult a staff member to decide. This may be looked over if the desync is clear within the original recording provided."

This line is pretty self explanatory and it's a good added bit of explanation that wasn't there until recently. We need more of this clarification and footnoting going forward as it helps clear up a lot of the confusion.

 

"Government building as well as server-owned stores (e.g gas stations, 24/7s, clothing stores) all have cameras by default, which law enforcement agencies have the capacity of acquiring."

This is where the the meat of the confusion is; this line states that government buildings and server owned-stores such as gas stations, 24/7s, clothing stores that do not have a registered player-owner all have cameras by default. This line does not stipulate that if those cameras have to be mapped in or not. 

 

For the sake of the argument let's assume they do have to be mapped in: Who is mapping security camera models onto government buildings and server-owned stores? I've been playing the server for three years and this isn't something the staff or server management does or intends to do.

 

With that in mind a reasonable person would conclude that cameras do not need to be mapped within government buildings or server-owned stores because a reasonable person can safely assume there would be security cameras in these places. If you shot someone in the forecourt of a gas station you can reasonably expect there to be cameras covering the gas pumps, even if no cameras are actually mapped in (because they're not and won't ever be).

 

I've been playing for three years on this server and I've had numerous admins tell me that server-owned businesses and government buildings do not need to have mapped in cameras to be role played existing, however, this has been openly contradicted time and time again.

 

"When using OOC footage, players are expected to keep in mind which direction the cameras are pointing. "Dome cameras" are best specified in /stashinfo, otherwise an admin will have to decide on their own." 

 This line is again harmless but didn't exist till recently so it further illustrates the point that this rule needs to be further expanded upon in order to avoid confusion.
 
"All state agencies and Government vehicles have dashcams. OOC recording rules apply to dashcam."

 This one is well known and people seem to have no problem grasping the idea that every government vehicle has a dashcam on it but have difficulty coming to terms with the idea that there may be a security camera in the Hospital parking lot. Why can't that same logic extend to server-owned businesses or government buildings?

 

Who am I and Why am I Doing This?: My name is Josh or Skates and I've been role playing as a detective with the LSSD on GTA World since 2020 so have around 3 years of experience from which to draw from. Before going to GTA World in 2020 I role played on another Grand Theft Auto server for 7 years within which time I role played a detective on and off for a total of around 2 years. This suggestion comes from a good place; I want to open a collaborative and positive space for discussion. This suggestion isn't just coming from me, it's coming from the albeit small but hard working detective role player community that put a lot of effort into what they do.

 

What do I want from this?: I've been role playing in the LEO scene for a while now and it's a recurring issue that I keep seeing come up a lot and it's beginning to get frustrating. We (LSSD detectives) have raised this issue within our internal channels to try and affect change or at very least some clarification but contradictions are still happening.

 

First and foremost we want confirmation: What are the rules regarding CCTV footage in server-owned businesses and government buildings? Do they need to be mapped it? Do they not need to be mapped in? Do we need to get the CCTV footage from an admin first to verify it or can we just role play collecting the footage and then find it through our own means OOC? Before we can even begin to debate and mechanically alter the CCTV rules I think we need to have it down in writing on stone what we can and can't do, from a detective's perspective as it's clearly a point of contention and has been for a while.

 

We also want to open a proactive and collaborative discussion with the staff/development team in order to create a balance between criminal role players and detective role players. As it stands law enforcement factions have a crazy advantage over criminal role players in every aspect but on the other side it's still incredibly easy to get away with killing someone on this server. I'm not saying that it being easy to get away with murder is a bad thing because it's not, this is a game and killing people is fun and you shouldn't be force CK'ed every time you want to shoot someone. HOWEVER, I can't understand why the rules/staff team seem to hamstring detective role players over CCTV footage rule contradictions. I agree there needs to be balance in order to make things fun and interesting for both sides but the CCTV rules seem overly restrictive and completely cut out a widely used avenue of investigation.

 

If the argument comes up that 'CCTV cameras are too overpowered! They make it impossible to commit crimes!' my counter would be: Wear a mask, it costs next to nothing and hides your character's identity. Wear gloves, it costs nothing and it stops anyone from being able to role play fingerprints. If you want to use a car, you can buy a screwdriver cheap and remove your car's plates or use a stolen car.

 

Using CCTV footage isn't unbalanced or unfair it's just a filter for bad criminals. If your character puts zero thought into a crime and does it in plain view of CCTV footage in his own registered vehicle you can't claim that the detectives who work a case for a week to track you down, build evidence and arrest you are playing to win because if they were they wouldn't even look at your case - they'd just ignore it, and drive around waiting for the next shooting. By stifling investigative role play you're not cutting down on 'play to win' cops you're cutting down on those who put hours and hours of work into a single case only for it to be thrown out because Admin #1 disagrees with Admin #2.

 

We want to improve investigative role play as it's been proven to be a great driving force for illegal factions and has proven to be incredibly fun for LEO role players who want a more story driven experience as opposed to patrolling waiting for something to happen.

 

Conclusion:

The CCTV rules as they stand have recently been approved but I still feel they need to be revamped and re-written in order to cut out some of the ambiguity. Admins need to be briefed on the rule changes so that they don't contradict each other and that the rule the staff team decides to stick with (for better or for worse) is gospel and not to be changed on a case-by-case basis as it opens up 'What if?' questions. Once we've established what exactly the CCTV rules are then we can start talking about how to balance the rule and improve it.

 

tl;dr - CCTV rules are vague, please expand on them. Please explain why admins contradict each other on CCTV rules. Do server-owned businesses need to have mapped in CCTV cameras to be role played? If yes, who is going to put those cameras there and when?

 

Please post your experiences, thoughts and any questions aimed at my argument below. Thanks.

[okcity]

As a long time detective roleplayer, I ask the same question.

[Inked]

Just now, okcity said:

As a long time detective roleplayer, I ask the same question.

 

Welcome to hell.

[Smith]

Very well put, Josh. I think you echo Detective's qualms with the current ambiguous CCTV rules. 

 

I've personally had admins have no issues with role playing CCTV cameras from server owned buildings (that weren't mapped). I've also had admins do the opposite. If we're at the whim of the interpretation of the rules by every other admin, we're open to wide spread issues that will stem into player reports and voiding role play which shouldn't be the case as we should be focused as a community on fostering quality role play that comes from investigations in a fair and balanced approach. 

 

While I understand management has put the mapped cameras stipulation for player owned buildings behind an in real life pay wall, I see no reason why logical places that would have cameras and are server owned wouldn't have them. 

 

+1 

[Frezemis]

I'll expand on them tonight. Long topic requires more effort 

[defillbert]

+1, especially when you consider that there isn't CCTV where irl it's required more or less.

 

Gas stations for example, are uninsurable unless the pump area is on camera.

[DasFroggy]

1 hour ago, okcity said:

As a long time detective roleplayer, I ask the same question.

 

Literally saw an entire investigation get shut down in a report because the admin decided that a gas station had no outside cameras at all.

 

+1

[Log]

very important and crucial to investigative roleplay.

[mrtnzi]

7 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

 

Literally saw an entire investigation get shut down in a report because the admin decided that a gas station had no outside cameras at all.

 

+1

In another incident a mugging was entirely voided (and muggers punished) because they ruled that it was unrealistic to perform a mugging at a gas station which would be covered in cameras outside 💀

[AM]

+1

 

please god i want to be able to actually have a concrete, non-shifting ruling on where cameras are meant to be that doesn't result in cases being overturned or becoming dead-ends due to discretion