Official standing about IC population portrayal - Thoughts?

[Martyn]

2 minutes ago, Koko said:

I dont have an answer. Creating a "map" of hotspots will only create a new crime meta where crime will simply be played differently and abused in other ways with the mechanics given, and potential crime victims will metagame the map to avoid inevitable crime hotspots to run to "green zones", turning crime into a game of tag.

 

All I do in my own personal game experience is ignore time, which leads to my gut, personal reaction "would this happen here on your average day in Los Angeles?"

 

It's not a good system because it's entirely subjective, but it helps me maneuver my own RP environment in a way that I'm happy with.

 

And I totally agree with you and I handle things the exact same way, but other people who are unfortunate enough to become victim to crime in (arguably) unrealistic settings over and over again can become quite tired of it. And it's even more tiring when all you're being told is "Forum report" and after doing that a few times you'll get labeled a snitch or whatever else. There has to be a solid foundation of rules and regulations for these things to avoid grey areas that can be abused by both sides of the spectrum. 

[Pathway]

34 minutes ago, Martyn said:

And what do you propose then, do these areas becomes greenzones due to this large amount of traffic you speak of? Unable to realistically commit certain types of obvious crimes such as assault, murder, robbery etc? Or do you propose a system where players are expected to call 911 themselves to simulate one of those "NPC's" to realistically call the police? Just playing the Devil's advocate here. I personally don't see a sensible resolution to these concerns other than just going about it like we used to. Just roleplay realistically and keep in mind the area you're in and what time it is.

Exactly this. Nobody here is giving actual suggestions or ideas they're just mindlessly arguing and saying "continuity mangement should cover this". What specifically do you want them to say? 

1 hour ago, eTaylor said:

I think this discussion proves that this is just a complex issue you can’t cover with a blanket rule.

 

[eTaylor]

45 minutes ago, Pathway said:

Nobody here is giving actual suggestions or ideas they're just mindlessly arguing and saying "continuity mangement should cover this". What specifically do you want them to say? 

[HeyMambo]

Awesome discussions so far and great questions raised. Let me take a step back and explain how I think it should be handled considering I made the post and then go from there.

 

Ideally, we are in a heavy role play server that models itself after Los Angeles which is a busy, metropolitan city. In the interest of keeping things as IC as possible, we shouldn't compare our crime rates to Los Angeles exactly because it should be as organic as possible. We are still supposed to be a city though, not some small crap town in the middle of nowhere with a population of 1000 people. Have you ever seen a town with 1000 people? It's one of those places with one traffic light and one police officer in the entire town. We should still be taking into account realism and the fact that this is a video game and try to achieve some sort of balance between the two. We are not a free roam server. We are not a cops and robbers server. We are not a DM server. At some point in time, a line has to be drawn to maintain a balance for all spectrums of players. People have real lives, jobs, school, etc. I understand that people via their timezone can only play during certain times. Limiting crime via time of day is just something that shouldn't be done because you're limiting someone's opportunity that way, especially if they plan on participating in illegal activities.

 

However, we should still use a common ground that this is still a metropolitan city which is populated. We should not be acting like we live in a small town of a few hundred people. People harp about immersion all the time. How is it immersive to role play in a CITY as big as Los Santos as a damn ghost town? The staff should not be drawing a line down the middle and just throwing logic to the wind. You want to commit crime in the middle of the day? That's fine. Follow someone until they are in a more secluded place before deciding to jump out and rob them. Hell, walk up behind them and RP putting a knife or gun to their back underneath a jacket or hoodie and walk them down an alley or secluded area. Don't be so brazen in your attempts just because you know OOC'ly that you won't get caught. Put some effort into your actions rather than rushing it out in the middle of public. The argument of "criminals are stupid and sloppy" just aggravates me because it's simply an excuse to commit crime wherever the hell you please out of convenience rather than seeking out a viable alternative that facilitates quality role play for you and others. I don't care that a shootout just happened in the middle of New York. This isn't New York. We're all supposed to be role playing here for the benefit of ourselves and others. Stop being selfish and think about how your role play affects others.

 

In the end the staff should be taking this fact into account and not just, "Oh it's IC." Keeping as much IC as possible is important, but there is a point where things have to be steered in the right direction. There is a reason people complain about crime in our server like its the Favelas. There's a point where keeping it totally IC is counterproductive to the health of the server and the balance between player's preferences as their characters. This new policy draws that line and will continue to further the divide between an already fragile relationship between legal and illegal role play. There shouldn't be a divide. It should all work together to better everyone's experience. Pputting your hands up (staff) and saying report, doesn't help. Reactive administration is contributing to the problem. Saying, "we don't role play a city as a city with people anymore", doesn't help. It will make things worse. Every situation should be subjective. No blanket rule can cover this, but a clear stance that quality RP comes first is paramount. Allowing random throwaways to stick someone up in the middle of Del Perro Pier at 1 in the afternoon with no regards to their own safety, location or consequences in the interests of appeasing criminal role play? That's not quality RP. That will just encourage more low-effort role play because now you've given players a free pass to do so. That doesn't benefit anyone. If you think it does, then this server is headed in a really bad direction. I won't be surprised if the instances of PF shootings increase ten fold because if we're to take the crime rate completely IC, I'm walking around with my head on a swivel. Don't harp on PF owners when crime rates are sky high with low-effort characters leading the charge. You've literally taken away the only thing left that kept low-effort criminal RP in check. Now it's okay to be dumb and sloppy and rob someone in the middle of Legion Square. Realism be damned. IC population means nothing because it barely exists and will only make this situation worse.

14 minutes ago, u10sil said:

Also - unrelated to your reply specifically, but the fact that admins have formulated and embraced this stance in the last few months on ignoring time of day without informing us of it in continuity or server rules is pretty damn troubling. 

Precisely 👏

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by Numelo

[u10sil]

2 hours ago, Martyn said:

 

Very interesting question which I didn't even think of myself when I said that we should ignore time. Population is heavily dependent on what time it is currently. There are obviously less people around at night in comparison to day at certain places. If we ignore time, how do we decide how crowded a location could potentially be? One player could be RPing as if it's night time for him, while the other doesn't. Time and location (population) pretty much go hand in hand. It'd be difficult to ignore one, but not the other and visa versa. And the alternative of RPing what you see, is not viable either. As mentioned before by someone, infrastructures would fail and other catastrophic events could unfold due to a lack of manpower to maintain things in the city. 

Precisely my thoughts. 

Also - unrelated to your reply specifically, but the fact that admins have embraced this stance in the last few months on ignoring time of day is great, but doing so without informing us of it in continuity or server rules (until a very recent QA reply) is pretty damn troubling. 

Edited May 16, 2021 by u10sil

[Greyfeather]

If admins now don't care that a city area is populated, please also inform property management to be ready to accept, without question, my application to move into any house I want.

 

As a civilian RPer, I also should be allowed to disregard population.

 

 

[HeyMambo]

19 minutes ago, Greyfeather said:

As a civilian RPer, I also should be allowed to disregard population.

Exactly. No they will still get on you about pulling your gun out in the middle of the street in self-defense to shoot someone because that’s not realistic for a civilian. Then the other side cries "non-fear RP", even though criminals now can disregard their own safety on account of being “sloppy”. In that case, civilians should be allowed to disregard population and be sloppy too. Without question. This approach is completely one-sided and creates a whole new slew of portrayal issues.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Numelo

[undefined]

It's easily solved with one thing - common sense. You roleplay your character, would he stomps around in sand and get his kicks full of it just to rob someone who's on a beach at evening hours? Would you risk getting shot by an automatic outside a police station for chasing someone in there? Would you risk catching a random bullet for shooting a guy outside a club with a lot of people? 

Think about the win/loss ratio for your character - and portray situations like in each and every one you could get CKed and suddenly you won't find yourself discussing population density. Of course, different and possibly rare situations escalate in perhaps a special way, but on the topic of that an admin should be able to spot that and make sense of it.

[EffPee]

8 minutes ago, Numelo said:

Exactly. No they will still get on you about pulling your gun out in the middle of the street to shoot someone because that’s not realistic for a civilian. Even though criminals now can disregard their own safety on account of being “sloppy”. In that case, civilians should be allowed to disregard population and be sloppy too. Without question.

The issue with civilians pulling guns and murdering someone without roleplaying the repercussions is nothing to do with the disregard for the population. Criminal roleplayers might commit a 'sloppy' crime but they roleplay the repercussions afterwards, they roleplay the severity of what they have just done. If they take a life? You best believe they will take that into account for their characters development, even if it's a random uninvolved character in your story. 

 

The average civilian who is scared at the sight of a criminal is not going to shoot someone, murder them in the street, call the cops and get away with it. They also will not just go on about their day as if they hadn't just taken a life, the only reason they do this is because they take it upon themselves to judge the standard of other peoples roleplay and use that as a scale as to how much they should roleplay around the situation. 

[HeyMambo]

12 minutes ago, EffPee said:

The issue with civilians pulling guns and murdering someone without roleplaying the repercussions is nothing to do with the disregard for the population. Criminal roleplayers might commit a 'sloppy' crime but they roleplay the repercussions afterwards, they roleplay the severity of what they have just done. If they take a life? You best believe they will take that into account for their characters development, even if it's a random uninvolved character in your story. 

 

The average civilian who is scared at the sight of a criminal is not going to shoot someone, murder them in the street, call the cops and get away with it. They also will not just go on about their day as if they hadn't just taken a life, the only reason they do this is because they take it upon themselves to judge the standard of other peoples roleplay and use that as a scale as to how much they should roleplay around the situation. 

The good criminal role players, I'm not worried about. Unfortunately, the bad outweigh the good and don't share your sentiment for taking that into account for your character development. They hide behind the veil of being sloppy out of convenience. Also I have yet to see a majority of people, illegal or otherwise, who actually portrays the severity of what they do. Not just in regards to shooting someone. People speed through streets at 120 mph with no regards for their own life because the streets are IC'ly empty. Civilians shoot people and then walk away like nothing bothers them. Criminals act like they are stone cold psychotics and nothing phases them. The minority who do it right are then punished by the bad name given by the majority who don't give a shit. The average person criminal or otherwise still takes into account their own personal safety, which is completely disregarded here for the most part. You, as someone who appears to do this correctly, I'm not worried about. Rule change or not, you're going to do it right. I'm worried about the far larger group of people who don't care to do so. Reporting it only does so much or it would've been handled already. This shift in disregarding population? Will only make that worse on all fronts. Low-effort breeds low-effort.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Numelo