Problem with PD alts

[Sacred]

2 minutes ago, Ink said:

To be quite fair--and I say this with minimal bias because I am neither involved in criminal RP or PD RP on the server--the two are not fully comparable in that regard. Criminal factions come and go, and they're based on immense amounts of character development (at least ideally). A character can rise up through the ranks in a faction in a matter of weeks if it's fresh enough, and that rise is integral to the culture of the illegal faction. There are some serious mixing/metagaming concerns if a player in a leadership role in the criminal faction CKs and creates a new character out of the air who magically has the same rank. Why are all the other members of the organization following this guy? Isn't he going to just slot right in almost exactly where the last character left off?

With the PD, it's different both ICly and OOCly. ICly, the organization is large and vast, and a new police officer can be a transfer from a department somewhere else in the country. So, ICly, it makes sense why a new officer would appear in the department and automatically have a rank. It is also less of a stretch to say that this character was previously a police officer in Los Santos as there is no powergaming in saying that the LSPD has been around for decades ICly, while in the case of a criminal faction it's a lot more iffy to say your character used to be a high-level member of the criminal faction "in the past" and has just come back. 

But more importantly, there's the OOC side of things. It takes months and months of effort in the PD to pass recruitment, to be initiated, to be trained, and to roleplay through the department to learn the ins and outs. There is a huge OOC knowledge and OOC training component of the PD. Frankly, the server needs good, experienced cops. It takes a really long time OOCly for us to get players to a point in the LSPD where they're able to realistically and constructively portray high-ranking characters. Now, I feel that this system can do with a bit of changing overall, but this is the wrong thread to address exactly that point. Specifically to the issue of PD members namechanging/CKing and making another character of a similar rank, there are some serious OOC reasons why we cannot just burn through all those months of work just in the interest of having an effective PD.

 

While they are both player factions, the LSPD is a necessary faction on the server. It must exist, it must be staffed, and it must be effective and full of knowledgeable and dependable roleplayers. It MUST or else this server will no longer be a heavy RP server. That is how vital it is. While having a criminal element on the server is also important, one individual criminal faction is not the make-or-break of this server's success. That's why there should be slightly different rules for how consequences apply and what road bumps there are.

For a criminal faction, a key member dying or namechanging SHOULD be a big hit. That's not an easy thing to replace in real life. You lost a trustworthy, experienced, capable individual who (likely) had the respect of people, connections, and influence. You've lost that person, and that's a hit. Realistically, if the LAPD lost a high-ranking officer, it'd be really sad and a lot of people would be emotionally hurt, but business would continue 100% as usual. The machine would not even miss a beat.

Yeah, that's what I said. It should be dealt by on a case-by-case basis. There are different aspects everywhere, such as the argument that it takes OOC months to get into these factions. Now, what do you think is going to happen if the leader of a faction is CKed, comes back, and is the same rank? What do you think the rest of the illegal roleplay community is gonna think about this faction? What is IFM gonna think? I agree that illegal roleplay and police roleplay are different, however, they should have some sort of equivalence.

[DomThomson]

While I understand what you are talking about I heavily disagree with limiting LEOs to make secondary characters or limit them in any way, generally at least in the LSPD people have their character inside the faction as their main character, with other characters being secondary ones. And I completely understand why people have it, the roleplay you get yourself into can become very repetitive and if you are putting 2-3 hours in a day, it gets really old really fast. And even if it's a game, burnout happens and will always be a large problem with factions of this size. I myself have a second character in the LSFD so I can just turn my mind off from the LSPD and a decent amount of people just don't have the time to go off-duty and roleplay that way, because they just don't enjoy it or as I said, don't have time. I feel like this would limit RP heavily, and a lot of suggestions get denied purely on that reason, so -1

[DomThomson]

Also, I'd like to add that when a person hits the rank of Sergeant or Lieutenant, their positions mostly shifts into mainly OOC responsibilities and little IC responsibilities because the person takes on duties of management inside of the faction, and generally run their own side of the faction. And to get to that rank people are within the faction for year or more, to make anything along the lines of Commander + it's maybe even two years. I myself am roleplaying a character inside the LSPD I currently out over 3+ months into it with around 600-800 hours of on-duty time alone. Now if I keep this going then I might just make Sergeant by the end of the year, now that might be around 1600-2000 of MY free time placed into working my way up to that position both OOC and IC wise. If I get CK'd which results in me being removed I'd just quit the faction, and maybe even the server. It's just not good for the faction and community, and would hurt the numbers inside the LSPD and an other legal faction.

 

[Benavides]

8 hours ago, liq said:

What I'm saying is there's nothing wrong if your capo character gets whacked and you come back on a capo character under the guise of having run the OCG's operations someplace else but Los Santos. Oh boy the times I've seen Uncle Joey from Florida come back to replace LastWhackedMadeGuy™ and nobody bats an eye because said player is trusted, on an OOC basis, to perform to standard.

This is probably one of the best examples I've seen on this thread which compare legal role-play character kills with illegal role-play ones. If you expect law enforcement officers to be character-killed and not return to their previous positions, I believe there needs to be some sort of balance with illegal role-players being character-killed on a case-by-case basis, in regards to criminal charges (stack of felonies that someone wouldn't get out of prison for) and a specific shooting incident, on a more frequent basis.

 

Everyone has fair points. You have to keep in mind that legal role-players who spend months out-of-character to reach the rank of Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain also spend months of their time doing out-of-character forum work, regulating other faction members out of character to regulate the standards and so on due to the faction's size. While on the other hand, illegal factions do not have the same size, they do not have forum-work and the ones who regulate the standards on an out-of-character basis is their leadership, while all others are focused on in-game role-play operations.

 

I believe this more of a mindset issue that can easily be regulated by both legal factions. Most members who use alternative characters are higher ranked, where their "main" characters are not supposed to be out patrolling and doing regular police work. I believe a statement from both official law enforcement faction leaders, re-assuring the community that they are looking into the overall mindset of their members who use alternative characters, as well as being more harsh in terms of enforcing role-play quality & encouraging community members to report people, would do better.

 

It is not worth comparing legal and illegal role-play back and forth, neither it is worth for law enforcement legal role-players to defend themselves as to why they should keep their rank. I believe our main goal as a community should be focusing on the quality of role-play first, then looking at all other alternatives, such as character-kills.

Edited August 20, 2020 by harry

[mj2002]

1 hour ago, DomThomson said:

Also, I'd like to add that when a person hits the rank of Sergeant or Lieutenant, their positions mostly shifts into mainly OOC responsibilities and little IC responsibilities because the person takes on duties of management inside of the faction, and generally run their own side of the faction. And to get to that rank people are within the faction for year or more, to make anything along the lines of Commander + it's maybe even two years. I myself am roleplaying a character inside the LSPD I currently out over 3+ months into it with around 600-800 hours of on-duty time alone. Now if I keep this going then I might just make Sergeant by the end of the year, now that might be around 1600-2000 of MY free time placed into working my way up to that position both OOC and IC wise. If I get CK'd which results in me being removed I'd just quit the faction, and maybe even the server. It's just not good for the faction and community, and would hurt the numbers inside the LSPD and an other legal faction.

 

The same can be said for a properly roleplayed illegal faction, as was mentioned and elaborated on before. If you get CKed, maybe there was a good reason for it? Otherwise, the CK would not have been approved. It sounds like there is a loophole for this faction when it comes to CK rules. That's not right.

[Busch]

Ever since I joined, I realized that PD has always been loved more than anything else. And I have been able to realize why it has been like that. The reason behind it all is because a PD or LEO RP agency is a huge factor that drags players into the community, having a nice dedicated department shows how good of a community it might be for a person that perhaps watches videos on the internet and such. I believe that putting effort and many other things to the PD of the server is really important to increase playerbase, because there is a huge amount of players that join the server with an aim to join PD or SD, if they don't make it perhaps go to a security company. Also why are the LTs CPTs and SGTs not CKed, well basically to become one (correct me if I'm wrong), there is a lot of work and dedication that an individual has to put into a game to become one. Like I think it's essays trainings, knowledge of a complete handbook of regulations and so on. PD is important and keeping it alive and appealing to join should be something rewarding as well.

 

But then again we have the characters in PD (not everyone)

Some characters only RP in PD (and yes, I've seen this a lot). There is hardly no time for these characters to go off duty and develop their normal character a bit more out of the job. Like some characters are only PD oriented if you get what I mean, and I believe it shouldnt be like that, but it is what it is.

[Halcyon]

No one mentions how when we do go off duty, unless it’s within a circle, people will attack us/our characters too. 
 

go to a club and try to prevent a fight, everyone will rile on you for “being a pig” and “fuck twelve”, and I am speaking from personal experience. 
 

the community has a long way to go before making many bold claims that I’ve seen made. 
 

like someone above said, let’s all focus on increasing the quality of roleplay. 

[Syrike]

3 hours ago, Chuck Lee said:

Ever since I joined, I realized that PD has always been loved more than anything else. And I have been able to realize why it has been like that. The reason behind it all is because a PD or LEO RP agency is a huge factor that drags players into the community, having a nice dedicated department shows how good of a community it might be for a person that perhaps watches videos on the internet and such. I believe that putting effort and many other things to the PD of the server is really important to increase playerbase, because there is a huge amount of players that join the server with an aim to join PD or SD, if they don't make it perhaps go to a security company. Also why are the LTs CPTs and SGTs not CKed, well basically to become one (correct me if I'm wrong), there is a lot of work and dedication that an individual has to put into a game to become one. Like I think it's essays trainings, knowledge of a complete handbook of regulations and so on. PD is important and keeping it alive and appealing to join should be something rewarding as well.

 

But then again we have the characters in PD (not everyone)

Some characters only RP in PD (and yes, I've seen this a lot). There is hardly no time for these characters to go off duty and develop their normal character a bit more out of the job. Like some characters are only PD oriented if you get what I mean, and I believe it shouldnt be like that, but it is what it is.

The other thing with this is as Glitch said above PD characters in Los Santos will tend to avoid going to places where people they've had to deal with whilst working gather. This is because of the disproportionate crime rate and the amount of violence in the city. Cops will avoid encounters simply because ICly they do not want to end up shot or stabbed in an alleyway. 

[Declan]

Just don't tell people you're a cop then? I spent a lot of time off-duty and I was never bothered by anyone. Don't try be a hero whenever you see someone fighting. People fight. You don't need to grab your badge and shout "FREEZE!!!! STOP FIGHTING!!!". If you're that bothered, call 911 or don't get involved at all. 

 

Obviously circumstances differ but the gist of what I'm saying is, if you don't need to get involved. Don't. Is it worth risking your life over something so menial off-duty? With your friends and family? Most of the time the answer is going to be no. Think of your character as a person and not a police officer.

[rootless cosmopolitan]

16 hours ago, DirtNasty said:

When a illegal faction member is CK'd do you think they start a alt in the same position as their old character? Absolutely not.

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