Official standing about IC population portrayal - Thoughts?

[The.Godfather]

Thank you @Numelo for creating this thread. This is certainly an area that needs to be explored and deliberated upon. 

 

I have two relevant concerns so far, and they are not meant to be accusations directed towards anybody in particular so I'd love to get anyone's opinion/counter-opinion on it. 

 

1. The IC population being treated as the actual population. I was recently stopped by a deputy at around 12 noon (server time) when close to a 100 people where online. The reason for stop was that I was driving at a speed of around 30mph, which I reduced to around 10-15mph while turning on an intersection, but I did not come to a complete stop. I argued that my light was green and I was way under the speed-limit, to which he said "what if someone else would've come speeding from the wrong direction?". Now I know the area I was at isn't even populated at peak server time let alone when 100 people are active. How should I be reacting in such IC situations henceforth? Should I just RP looking around me like I'm in a wasteland and laugh at the deputy in a similar situation next time because we're the only IC population on the scene and thats how it is supposed to be portrayed from now on?

 

2. About illegal RPers mocking the superhero PF warriors who gun-down a criminal and go about their day. 

Although I do agree that continuity and back-memory from previous incidents are essential elements of character portrayal, especially in situations like these where you are a legal RPer and you kill someone. People often develop psychological issues post such scenarios irl so it's a valid argument that they shouldn't simply go about their day like nothing happened. 

However, we also need to consider that we're not living in an actual world, but a bubble where 99.9% population carries and/or intends to carry a weapon on them 24x7 and the crime rate is more than what you'd see in a third world country. As an example, a very close IC and OOC friend of mine has been robbed 3 times on gun-point in the past one week. Every single time it was at very popular locations and with minimal RP. Now if we are living in a bubble where we must be prepared to be robbed ever alternative day, we must also consider it to be real to have a huge population of these so-called superheroes on the server gunning-down criminals as if it is the norm. 

Edited May 16, 2021 by The.Godfather

[-CASE-]

Talking about portrayal, I think a good direction to go to sort some robbery issues would be to create basic guidelines for what is good and bad robbery portrayal and whack it under the server rules as currently the only thing there is chain robbing.

 

Honestly, I'll applaud anyone who manages to hold you up on foot with some roleplay or managed to bring you somewhere where they can rob you as you walked into it.. Someone driving around the city aimlessly blacked up ready to rob and run isn't the best roleplay and things like that are what need to be cracked down on in my opinion.

 

(I don't rob people or really get robbed, so if i'm off with this post.. That's why)

Edited May 16, 2021 by -CASE-

[HeyMambo]

21 minutes ago, Dawn said:

Again, portrayal issues are subjective and have many factors that need to be considered character by character. The example that I gave is one of many which we would see as poor portrayal and just happened to be very common and relevant to what has happened on the server.

So in a hypothetical situation. The in-game "population" is about 100 people. Streets are dead. No one is around. I live in the city down the street from the Mission Row police station. Let's assume my backstory is properly portrayed to reflect my reason for driving around on a motorcycle with a helmet on looking for easy targets to rob. Since the streets are now empty instead of realistically populated, I rob someone at gun point just down the main street from Mission Row PD outside the safe zone. No cops are currently in the area. No one is IC'ly walking down the street or driving for that matter (which is a common occurrence on this server during slow times). This is what you're now allowing people to do. It's not going to improve criminal RP, it will only encourage more poor criminal RP. The minority who portray these things correctly, I'm not worried about them.

 

With this new approach, what you're doing is giving criminals a free pass to commit crime because now the only population they have to worry about is IC population. Real life or not, do you not see the issue of this for a server that supposedly prides itself on heavy role play modeling itself after a real-life city? We have a fully-fledged functioning government. Full PD/SD police force numbered in what the 100's? Full-service county jail. All this for a few hundred people? This doesn't strike you as something a little odd?

Edited May 16, 2021 by Numelo

[hillievonb]

27 minutes ago, EffPee said:

The whole “criminals are sloppy” isn’t the only excuse for committing crime in populated areas. Criminals are opportunists, given the slim possibility they’ll realistically make a buck off of their actions, they’ll take any chance they get to do it. If this means they’re hungry enough to rob someone in the middle of a would-be populated area, or attacking an opposing member in a populated area; so be it. Bad criminal roleplayers will ALWAYS find a way to ruin someone’s day, this rule hasn’t changed that nor will it exacerbate the issue.

 

No sane criminal would, realistically, hop off a bike in the middle of Santa Monica pier and hold someone at gunpoint to rob them. People aren't scared to walk around in the equivalent areas in RL, because this isn't not something that happens. Are there occasional shootings and so on? Yes, usually spur of the moment violence or planned hits designed to deliver a message. Realistically? Guns out to rob someone in the middle of downtown, in the open, or in a busy tourist area in Los Angeles would be non-fear RP.

 

In-game? People are scared to walk around in these areas. That's unrealistic. Period. And it's caused by bad portrayal by criminal roleplayers, which this decision encourages. It means that not only rule-breakers will commit these crimes, but just about anyone. After all, admins sanction it so it's no longer considered bad portrayal.

 

Quote

How are people really saying “fight bad portrayal with bad portrayal”? There’s a reason we never get anywhere with the illegal/legal divide. Either side uses the other sides downsides to excuse any poor portrayal on their behalf, we should be striving as individuals to keep our standards high; even if this means losing a situation to someone with poor portrayal. This is the only way we’ll ever get anywhere.

 

tldr: Poor portrayal is not an excuse to gun someone down and just carry on with your day. You should care about your development and character enough to not make this simple mistake.

 

The issue isn't one of winning and losing. The issue is development. You can't expect people to RP as if they're regular citizens of fake Los Angeles, when actually, they've been robbed at gunpoint three times in one month, continuously trip over corpses, and can't feel safe anywhere in the city because it's a complete free-for-all. If we are to take the population IC, we have to take the crime rate IC too, and that's the logical outcome. I assume people who gun down criminals roleplay feeling bad about it, and the heavy psychological weight, etc. However, if we are going to justify criminal behavior by pointing at rare, extreme cases, so can non-criminals who use their guns to defend themselves. All kinds of crazy nonsense happens in RL, we might as well throw the fear RP rules out the window.

 

This isn't a criminal vs. legal RPer thing. This is a bad script-motivated criminal vs. everyone thing. It's about realistic portrayal of a city that's supposedly based on Los Angeles.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by hillievonb

[Throwaways]

Saying there's people populating an area when they really aren't is basically powergaming, then you come up with a million problems that can stem from that, such as people arguing over an IRL counterpart, people arguing over if a place would be populated, ect ect. It is best for the sake of both sides of RP, legal and illegal if the actual server population is what we actually go off of. 

[Beast from shotcaller]

Based decision 

[HeyMambo]

50 minutes ago, Throwaways said:

Saying there's people populating an area when they really aren't is basically powergaming, then you come up with a million problems that can stem from that, such as people arguing over an IRL counterpart, people arguing over if a place would be populated, ect ect. It is best for the sake of both sides of RP, legal and illegal if the actual server population is what we actually go off of. 

So you actually want to RP a full city + county area to be comprised of the current 171 people online? You could come up with a million problems that can stem from that too. This isn't the solution. How does it benefit legal RP at all? This is solely to benefit criminal RP and will take things in the wrong direction. Legal RP'ers are already taking things into their own hands (poorly, I might add) with PF warriors and high instances of pulling the trigger because crime is so bad already. This only makes things worse for both sides. The idea is to achieve balance, not skew things so heavily to one side that it completely neglects the other and then try to correct it later.

 

I can't wait to see how things work out when the new economy update happens and no one carries around cash and doesn't keep anything on them because of how stupid crime will be with a strictly IC population. Maybe that's what will balance this out and it will all go back to square one. Who the hell knows at this point lol.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Numelo

[Smilesville]

Quote

We're going to keep our safezones list for obvious reasons but they're the only instances where location of the crime alone should be bought into question.

Is that right? Now do driving.

 

Why is it so terrible that truckers don't stop for red lights when the chances of their realistically getting caught aren't that great, again?

 

This line of thinking has interesting implications when you get to the logical extreme - assuming we're trying to apply the standard evenly.

[orca112]

This decision will lead to more bad than good. Allowing for the entire city to be roleplayed as desolated wasteland will achieve exactly what you do not want - a glorified cops and robbers server. Crime is going rampant and why should one bother with a halfway decent plan or surveillance knowing they can get away with any sort of crime due to the little consequences there are.

 

Lets take an example I come across on daily basis already - a random person is killed somewhere around the city. It does not matter if south-central, Vinewood, the Del Perro pier, a gas station or anywhere else. The victim immediately logged off, there are no witnesses. All you have is a body and casings which leads to nowhere. The person comitting the Homicide got away scott free unless they go out of their way to actively aid with investigations (e.g. detailing potential CCTV footage). I have no issues with that example happening in a shady alleyway or your typical gang violence escalating in Davis and locals forming a wall of silence. But this scenario on Legion Square, one block away from a police station? On the Del Perro Pier, its IRL counterpart being famous tourist hotspot? Outfront a business that is covered with 24/7 CCTV surveillance? This just begs for LS being seen as the worst city to live in and have to be roleplayed as such opposed to creating an environment similar to Los Angeles. Anyone not doing so would be blatantly powergaming the city something it is not.

 

"In 2021, they voted my city the worst place to live in America. Main issues? Sky high rate of violence and more people living the high life than anywhere else. Can’t deny it; it’s all true... but everybody still wants to live here."

 

Why should criminals improve, adapt or up their game? There is only high reward and little to no risk to committing any crime such as robbing people out in the open a block from a police station. Why bother with proper planning, concealing identity, searching new means of income or anything else? Just take a gun, walk out your house, rob the next best lone walking wallet pedestrian and... profits?

 

Why should anyone not involved in criminal activity bother with it? Lock themselves behind closed doors in interiors, move as groups, arm up and remain inside their own bubble. Be desensitized to any and all crime. Seeing a dead body outfront your apartment block? Yeah, just the usual everyday sight. Seeing a blacked out Sedan rolling up on you around the corner of a Police Station? Better shoot first, ask questions later.

 

With the sky high crime rates, you would have National Guard rolling around the city 24/7. Yet this will not happen as Law Enforcement factions clinge onto immitating the real life counterparts and handicapping themselves for the sake of balance. With this stance as is, one will blow out of proportions, another will simply watch from the sidelines. Anyone not involved in either Law Enforcement or criminal activity will drop any activities or limit them to interiors and small groups exclusively...and we are in Night City a glorified cops and robbers server. Sounds familiar?

 

And lets be real. You cannot expect those players roleplaying criminals to properly limit themselves. Official factions and groups? Yeah, that is possible similar to LEO factions. But your everyday low level criminal that is plaguing the server through unrealistic robberies (PF hunters, bangers going out into the county, BF-400 gangs, copy-paste auto win /me...) using any means necessary to "win" the situations they involve themselves in and do not necessarily associate themselves with any factions or groups? This change is more than welcome and caters exactly that specific group you do not want to have on the server.

 

And do not even get me started on anything else that comes with it such as realistic driving through town.

 

TL;DR - How to kill the last remaining strains of exterior roleplay 101. This standing acts as a catalyst for already existing problems and effectively turns the server into a glorified cops and robbers server.

Edited May 16, 2021 by orca112

[Koko]

If we have to take population being what we see on screen, and all of the crime in very public, open spaces as the IC conclusion of "just stupid robbers being stupid" (which coincidentally leads to justifying beneficial rule mechanics for robbers, with robberies that wouldn't be stupid if areas were IC as empty as they are in-game, which again, is really convenient), then I don't see why IC we don't take violent retaliation from PF/CCW owners as "stupid gun owners being stupid".

 

At this point if we don't take into account NPCs the city has the population density and the lawlessness of a frontier outpost in the Wild West, and therefore being armed and ready to shoot back becomes a realistic necessity.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Koko