[Egil]

They need to figure out how to not get themselves in Prison AND work with the people that will actually react, not the people that will fight and then go 'NO YOU DON'T GET TO KILL ME' before turning around and reporting to the Guards. Intentionally ignoring the fact that some players can and will pull that kind of awful out of nowhere is going to shut down any hope you have of 'creating RP'.

There isn’t much you can do to spur on conflict and avoid jail at the same time without making your character an outlaw- which isn’t a bad option at all, but at the moment, it’s pretty lacking. You just sit around in Law’s End and are either trying to mug/kidnap folks or waiting for a powerful oldbie to pass through to take your head and collect a bounty. As for there being bad players that can’t be helped- I would agree if most ‘not bad’ players were receptive to anything you could try to pull on them. The thing is that there’s nothing stopping anyone from lolwalking away from you or skype-no-jutsu for allies or otherwise cockblock whatever you’re trying to do for the sake of preserving the status-quo. And it’s frustrating because some of the same people that do this are the ones bitching publicly (and sometimes, to me in private) that nothing changes… and, yet, they’re part of why nothing changes.

Honestly, I would rather that my character die and that death make some meaningful change in others’ characters and the story (even if the latter is very minor) than rot in jail for an OOC week or two and then return to a dull, unshifting atmosphere.

"If there is a case of a Guard incorrectly performing their duty, talk to me. If there is a problem with the Guard(s), I will correct them."

I have repeated this (to various degrees) at least a thousand times, and so far, it seems that a serious minority have actually done it. Everyone seems to go, 'the guards are incompetent/corrupt/useless/etc.', but when almost no one provides an actual case (and I usually find that the Guards were doing their job in those situations), I find it hard to believe that people aren't just whining out of their asses. Right now, you appear to be doing the exact same thing; claiming that there's cases of Guards in the wrong but not actually stepping forward and providing them so I can see what problems (if any) need to be rectified. If you can prove me wrong, then do so. But do not stand here and claim 'THE GUARDS ARE FULL OF CORRUPTION AND CONSPIRACY' when you can't even provide anything concrete.

That being said, I am also quite vigilant in overlooking what the Guards are doing. OOC 'buddy benefits' aren't a thing on the Guards, and if I ever saw it, I'd shut it down in a heartbeat. Again, if you can provide something solid on the matter, I can deal with it. But as far as I've seen, the Guards are acting without particular bias.

I apologize for not being specific/bringing forth evidence for my claims. It was a mix of not having really any tangible logs or images to present (because I didn’t think/care enough to do so at the time that some of these things happened) and not wanting to derail the topic. I’m used to games where admins can read roleplay logs, so I’ll have to adjust and document incidents in the future.

Until then, yeah. I won’t be making blanket ‘the guards are all corrupted and shitty’ statements. It’s moreso about the prison than the guards anyway.

Let me make this clear:

The Guardship (and Prison, by extent) is IC first and foremost.

Going to jail is not a pseudo-ban. In fact, the current Fort Arjav was built to allow prisoners (unless locked up in Solitary) at least something to do while they're imprisoned. Granted, some portion of those features have yet to be added, along with the remaining maps for the Fort. However, at the same time, most people just log off once they're in and not bother with them until the sentence is up. It seems a little dry to call the current Jail a 'pseudo-ban' when most don't even bother.

....If you feel like that the current system is really that bad and would either have me go with the alternative I've suggested in my prior post, get some kind of tally on who would be for it; if there's enough people that will roll with it, I will try it out. If you think you have a working alternative, provide one. Know, however, that any system for sentences should dish out a punishment equal to their crimes: If they've committed small time, they suffer small time. If they've committed big time, they suffer big time. If they're irredeemable, I'll let them know that they're close to getting executed.

I… don’t think there’s anything tangible to do in the fort beyond walk around. I tried to play the card game numerous times, but it kept causing my client to crash before it would ever start. I would wait around for guards/people to visit, but even if I pestered them over skype, usually no one ever came. If they did, it would be very brief. So… I don’t know what to say. I do want there to be consequences for IC crimes/actions/etc, but I do not want one of those to be RP isolation. That just doesn’t sit well with me. I think that adding a warden role to the guardship is a very minor thing that you can do that has huge potential in my mind. At the very least, I would actively RP with this character whenever I found myself imprisoned.

As for alternative systems, uh… I would be okay with something like ‘Oh hey, you’ve been arrested for stealing three times? Goodbye one of your hands, and now you can’t equip most sub-weapons’, and then those sort of things either being permanent for that character or taking a huge amount of effort/time to overcome. If I had to think of something better, though, I think that cutting down on prison time with murai fines sounds pretty great, both for compensating guards and not isolating prisoners from RP.

You are completely incorrect. There isn't a slightest bit of 'elitism' in 'find the right crowd'; it's common sense. Would you roleplay with people that no-sell most of everything you do and potentially play their characters as labels, or the people that can at least decently react and show that their character is a person? While yes, cliques that shut off absolutely everyone else are detrimental, just because you're operating in a group of certain people doesn't automatically make you one of those cliques. It's up to each person on how much they leave their doors open.

Of course, there are some folks that I’ll never be able to jive with in roleplay, and I’ll naturally drift towards those that I find fun to RP with. However, you just said yourself that cliques that are completely exclusive are a problem- and they exist. I’ve experienced them already. Now, they aren’t as common as folks that’ll just go ‘Nah I’m OOC for the night fam’ and then five minutes later you see them being IC with their lover in the arena, but I don’t see how ‘finding the right crowd’ doesn’t have the slightest bit of elitism when the very nature of ‘closing your door’ to someone stems from elitist attitudes. ‘Man fuck Airide, I don’t want to RP with his character because of a sexist OOC comment he made’.

It happens all the time, and I think that introducing plot progression would make it unnoticeable/irrelevant.

[headline=1]Temporary Bans for IC Actions[/headline]
Not being able to do anything as there is no one ever at the jail to rp with, and/or the RP is static and pointless.

I see the point here. I can understand how it feels to be put in timeout for your actions and away from the entire game in a sense. As it's been noted in this thread, there is a difference between OOC and IC, but this is an RP mandatory game after all, and it always has been.

Isolating people from RP forcibly in an RP mandatory game seems contradictory to me, yeah.

OOC characters (Characters who claim to be OOC at a certain time or for example The some-variation-of-OOC alias) have been given a bit of a pass because they're simply testing things, grinding levels, checking shops, building houses, not able to RP in depth at the moment, going somewhere to RP, etc. Stuff that doesn't involve the IC realm.

I was told before that that wasn’t a thing that was allowed. I only got a different response after I made this topic, so either whoever I was speaking to was lying or ignorant of how this sort of thing works.

It has been noted if you get in trouble OOCLY (bans, etc.) Your IC character is obviously impacted. The same is true in the reverse. IF I beat a corbie down, and then (With their permission of course) ripped their wing off, I would be subject to prison time. If I had no further crimes at this moment, I would be given a Severe crime in the rating of something along the lines of Aggravated Battery. Resulting in 23 OOC Day Jail Sentence. Twenty Three days where really, I'm not interacting with anyone. I'm stuck in the fort and cannot do anything.

You could contact a guard over OOC or Skype (Most have their Skypes listed under their names here on the forums) and ask for them to come give you some RP. Normally when I've been asked, I have made time to come spend an hour or so roleplaying and conversatin'.

I think that needing their permission to do that, alone, is toxic to the game. If guards can force you to sit in jail away from RP because of something you did in IC regardless of whether or not you want to go to prison, then why can’t you maim/kill someone for something they said/did in IC regardless of whether or not they wanted to be maimed/killed? It’s a form of coddling that makes it harder to accomplish anything impactful.

Furthermore, if I was stuck in prison for 23 OOC days, I would probably end up not playing those whole 3+ weeks because, essentially, that’s 3+ weeks of not being able to get any roleplay as a consequence for… roleplaying. That isn’t cool when guards/the prison system are the only terrible consequence that one can come across in IC. Beyond eventually being executed if you continue to get arrested, there is absolutely no way to be forcibly killed/maimed/bothered with in any way, and uh… that’s pretty bad, to me.

Here is a direct quote from Chaos on crimes and their times; I'm probably not suppose to put this out, but I feel it should be public record.

Crimes that people commit are separated into three categories, each with different lengths (using IC days/OOC time as measurement):

Minor Crimes (1 IC day/3 OOC hours each): Anything considered a 'misdemeanor' in reality. Petty theft, vandalism, assault (see: intending to injure but not doing it), public intoxication and anything else that a street urchin/small-time street thug would most likely do would be a Minor Crime.
Major Crimes (8 IC days/1 OOC day each): Anything considered a 'felony' in reality. Battery (intending to injure and doing it), Arson, Kidnapping, and other 'serious' crimes fit the bill here.
Severe Crimes (184 IC days/23 OOC days each): Reserved for very serious crimes. Murder, Treason, Rape, Aggravated Battery and the like would go here. This is rather punishing to charge someone with; do not mistake this for Major Crimes.

To date, only 9 people have ever been charged with Severe Crimes. Two of those ended in Execution recently.

Some of the longest running sentences in the Criminal Records include those who have stacked up a variety of Major Charges and then commit a minor in fraction, followed by a Jail Time of 7 OOC day for a normally 3 hour OOC time. The stacking charges work in a sense to deter further crime for good reason.

Stacking charges deters crime from an IC perspective and deters anyone from doing anything significant from an OOC perspective. IC is important, but just because it’s completely realistic to be able to explicitly sexually molest an infant in private doesn’t mean that that should be tolerated/allowed. IC isn’t just IC. IC needs to make sense OOC’ly for there to be some standard of common sense.

1. However, I feel that minor charges should not factor in prior charge except minors; While in a reality it makes sense, in a game like this it becomes a seriously handicapping time.
   
   Example: Current Formula is: OOC Days to be served =(B*1/8+C+(D*23))
   
   Previous Charges: 3 minors 2 majors
   
   New Charges: 2 Minors
   
   Current Time to be served under current formula: 63 Hours.
   
   Time served with only Minors: 27 Hours.
   
   This would not apply to any Major+ charges and any previous Minors will factor into time to be served with a Major or above.

I feel that this would help to give the lesser offenders more breathing room to still play, but also still factor into charges going forward as their should be severe punishment if you wish to commit a crime ICly.

Seems legit. +1

[headline=1]'OOC' Friends[/headline]

I fully believe every guard currently serving are very upstanding community individuals. They all separate their OOC bias when dealing with IC natures. You're free to say what you'd like about the guards OOCly including myself, but I assure you they are each held to the same standard as everyone and nothing gets by with Chaos and to a lesser extent Sly noticing.

Oh, I have nothing bad to say about the players who play the guards. I didn’t mean to say anything in that regard.

1. -- That being said. There are obvious advantages to being friends OOCly to a guard. Primarily because you are likely friends with their IC character. And much like reality, being friends ICly tends to help you when you get into legal trouble. Benefit of the Doubt comes to mind.
   
   I'm not saying go suck up to a guard and get less sentences, this is not how this works. I myself have given breaks to a variety of people I never interact with OOCly. I just try and play it case by case. If you want to complain about an arrest the moment it happens and say this is bulls#%@ and cry for a GM...they're not going to help you. The most important thing in these arrests is keeping your emotion 100% IC. The moment you take it to OOC, you've no case.
   I fully believe every guard currently serving are very upstanding community individuals. They all separate their OOC bias when dealing with IC natures.

   .
   
   For example. A few days ago, there was an incident where someone had explained about how they would brutally injure someone in a private whisper @ the arena. Though someone overheard, and reported it. I was forced to make a decision rather this was just smoke or an intent to actually murder someone. I resorted to pulling the parties aside and they stuck 100% ICly, I felt after considering their situation to let them go with a minor stay in the prison as a cool off period. A warning more than anything despite their few prior charges.

Uhuh, makes sense.

-- On the other side. Many guards have alts whom have been arrested prior or even while they themselves have been a guard. In fact, a veteran guard, even before I joined, recently had an alt arrested for a Severe crime and served their time, all 27 OOC days.

There is no special treatment, there is only RP treatment; at least as far as I'm concerned. If you want to talk to me ICly and sell yourself essentially, I may be more lenient on your charge and take the hit ICly for being soft on crime or what have you.

That goes in reverse too. If you decide to do something stupid while Roje is a bit irritated for one reason or another (Red Iahsus hi), I may be inclined ICly to throw you in jail no questions asked for your crime.

Is that fair? Possibly not...I just ask going forward, you keep everything IC when dealing with the guards. Keep in mind the rules as well including:

1a - On the other hand, the guards are expected to only use their exceptions when necessary and to follow other rules. This means that they cannot force death upon anyone, use their exceptions outside of guard duties, etc. (If you think a guard's out of line, report it to a GM.)

I don’t think I should report a guard’s misconduct to a GM if you’re trying to say that how a guard deals with situations is completely IC. I’m confused as to the point you’re trying to get across- should guards be dealt with in a purely IC manner or should you always be look out for corruption/wrongful acts on their part?

Beyond all of that, though, thank you for posting! I appreciate your perspective, and the perspectives of everyone who posted w/o passive aggressiveness or attempts to sabotage the topic.

[Ranylyn]

I'm with Miv on "for an RP mandatory game, I'm seeing a lot of stuff about OOC." In fact, ALL I'm seeing is "I don't think I should have to take accountability for my actions, and because I can't mechanically make the character I want without OOC metagaming anyways, then I'm entitled to eternal OOC access without restrictions." What's that? There's a lot more than that that basically boils down to petty biases? Yeah, for my own sanity, I openly admit to ignoring that nonsense... because grow up, people.

If you're going to ICly commit crimes, be prepared for OOC consequences, because everything about RP boils down to OOC; you chose your characters' name, race, gender, appearance, acotins, etc. And 23 OOC days is a pretty long time, duyring which your skills would dull from disuse, so I don't know why you shoud expect to be allowed to OOCly grind and come out of jail stronger than ever before. If you need to check your skills or gear or something, you can still log on to look, and you have more character slots to work with in the meanwhile.

Maybe actually saying "no" to this "omg I want to play OOCly" will actually encourage intelligent RP instead of "you pissed me off so I'm going to attack you in front of 20 witnesses and expect no consequences" and "You used an illusion so I'm going to use Magaisendo in the middle of Cellsvich just to be a piece of shit." But maybe that's placing my hopes for this community too high.

[MegaBlues]

to be fair, it's kind of hard to catch someone and plan an intelligent crime when you can teleport around / run across the continent in five seconds, and everyone is usually surrounded by five other people at the least

[Egil]

I'm with Miv on "for an RP mandatory game, I'm seeing a lot of stuff about OOC." In fact, ALL I'm seeing is "I don't think I should have to take accountability for my actions, and because I can't mechanically make the character I want without OOC metagaming anyways, then I'm entitled to eternal OOC access without restrictions." What's that? There's a lot more than that that basically boils down to petty biases? Yeah, for my own sanity, I openly admit to ignoring that nonsense... because grow up, people.

If you're going to ICly commit crimes, be prepared for OOC consequences, because everything about RP boils down to OOC; you chose your characters' name, race, gender, appearance, acotins, etc. And 23 OOC days is a pretty long time, duyring which your skills would dull from disuse, so I don't know why you shoud expect to be allowed to OOCly grind and come out of jail stronger than ever before. If you need to check your skills or gear or something, you can still log on to look, and you have more character slots to work with in the meanwhile.

Uh. I 'unno if you're speaking to me directly or to others, but I don't really care for being able to OOC'ly do whatever I want with my character. When I was told before that I wouldn't be able to leave prison to do anything OOC'ly, I didn't throw a fit. I just logged off because there was no roleplay. And being isolated from roleplay on a roleplay mandatory game seems ridiculous to me, so I'm advocating for changes in the prison system/plot progression in general so that, no matter what happens to your character (beyond death of course), you're getting RP... on this RP-mandatory game of our's. I shouldn't be forced to make new characters just to get some roleplay.

Maybe actually saying "no" to this "omg I want to play OOCly" will actually encourage intelligent RP instead of "you pissed me off so I'm going to attack you in front of 20 witnesses and expect no consequences" and "You used an illusion so I'm going to use Magaisendo in the middle of Cellsvich just to be a piece of shit." But maybe that's placing my hopes for this community too high.

You sound pretty heated up. I think you and Rendar should chill out, because yeah- if you do something stupid, you should face consequences. But I don't believe that one of those consequences should be roleplay isolation for weeks on end OOC'ly. This is a backwards mentality to me- especially if you only have one character and don't want to make another unless you completely lose your current one. So. I think we can hash out some changes that the community at large would agree with, whether they be with how prison works or how the game itself treats the story.

to be fair, it's kind of hard to catch someone and plan an intelligent crime when you can teleport around / run across the continent in five seconds, and everyone is usually surrounded by five other people at the least

That's why player villains and event characters alike need to be enabled/given tools that allow them to function properly. Otherwise, the pit that I perceive us being in will remain.

[Ranylyn]

First off:

Egil, don't worry, I don't mean you; actually, my comment was aimed more at Sderg (Rendar) saying that not allowing OOC access to imprisoned characters is a bad thing. And if I seem heated, it's because I often don't get along well with the rest of the community so we can seem a little short with each other at times. But it's also not like I particularly dislike them either, we just have very differing opinions a lot of the time. In a way, I actually have a degree of respect for most of them for various reasons, but now isn't the time or place to get into that (I could easily write a paragraph about a lot of the top forum posters and what I like about them, though.) Maybe I am coming across as hostile and for that I apologize.

MegaBlues » Sat Jan 16, 2016 5:58 pm[/url]"]to be fair, it's kind of hard to catch someone and plan an intelligent crime when you can teleport around / run across the continent in five seconds, and everyone is usually surrounded by five other people at the least

This is also very true. I once had a character driven to her breaking point and starting a fight in Pink's Pub, casting Salamander (read: causing hundreds in property damage and possibly burning the whole building down if it wasn't brought under control quickly) and she was able to escape to Gold to find sanctuary with an acquaintance in Law's End before the guards were ever alerted and before travel restrictions could be placed. (In fact, considering I've never seen the name "Silvi Fanelia" on the wanted list, I'd even assume the crime went unreported, but details. It may have even been before Player Guards, since it WAS ages ago...)

Thing is, this happened in Cellsvich, right beside the Mage's Guild, so it's far more plausible than running across the continent quickly. But it still reinforces your point of how quickly you can just escape repercussions - and it's honestly a little silly. But even I admit that as nice as it would be to RP travel as taking awhile, it's jarring if you need to, say, travel to Law's End and back (Walking in sand isn't the fastest journey) and you've only been gone a compariatively short time in everyone else's eyes, so it's not like it's realistically plausible to do sometimes. *shrug*

[AudioFreakXD]

I do agree there need to be some change. I feel since many of the population who have been complaining about guards should have a major say. One side says, "There's nothing wrong with it. Just don't do anything stupid on your character." (which is what causes RP limitations) and the other says, "Guard system is unfair ."

I, for one, think there doesn't necessarily need to be guards. Just should people follow the rules and know they can't force death. At the time they were added, I am sure there were excitement for fun roleplay. But, I miss some of the really serious RPs I got in back in the day.

What was wrong with before exactly?

I am not exactly asking, "Oh take out the guard system! Problem solved. No one will complain". The guard role-players would complain, anyways.
I am saying there should be change to make things more fair.

[Felkesste]

I, for one, like what the guards represent- they bring a level of maturity, and realism to the RP. Most of what they disrupt seems to be based almost entirely around relationship drama, too- some Sigrogana Legend role-players seem to mistake dating for a 'valid means of producing RP, and pushing plots forward', and will start dating someone, break up, start dating someone new, and cyber at least once in all that, in the course of a single day. Most of the most 'dramatic kinds of RP' are built around relationship drama, as a result- young couples arguing, people loving the same person and fighting over them, 'defending m'lady's honor', etc. etc.

Guards disrupt that, and I think that's a good thing. It's making people question what they can do to produce RP, that isn't just arguing about who's really dating Sally CatEars McBigTits, or white-knighting for female characters so hard, that fedoras materialize out of thin-air upon everyone present's heads, and tip themselves before anyone even knows what's going on. I'm not saying that that kind of RP is wrooong, I'm just saying that that shouldn't really be the 'point' of SL2. For all the plot, the lore, the classes, the combat, the political intrigue, the societies, and the events to all amount to who's -truly- Stoic "Handsome Swordsman #42" Johnson's actual waifu. Aiming higher is not a bad thing...

As for the concept of being punished with lengthy stays in the prison- I think the problem here isn't so much that the prison exists, and that stays in it can be lengthy- it's that commiting crimes in the first place isn't particularly satisfying. If you were doing something genuinely wrong, and were reaping rewards of some kind for it, like actually stealing from people, or actually causing damages that wouldn't just regenerate- like heck, here's an idea, give cities economic 'health-bars' invisible to the average player. If property gets damaged through the proper mechanics, the city's economic health takes a hit. Steal something from an NPC? Minor hit to the health bar. It regenerates over time as murai flows in and out of the city, but if ever it hits the negatives, then A) The Guards aren't doing their job, because I mean, with a lot of cities/towns, their economies are so solid, only consistent crime could possibly bring them down, that even a single guard could have discouraged, and B) There's some effect on the town, the plot, the factions involved, maybe even like, bandits, and random encounters spawn in the city, ravaging the place, and attacking players, making it unsafe to visit, because it's a 'wretched hive of scum and villainy'.

But yes, being jailed for fighting in inter-personal drama-sodes, for lengthy periods of time, that can be frustrating, I imagine. If crimes were able to be scaled on levels of varying severity, you could probably get away with arguing in favor of less harsh punishments. Defending yourself when someone attacks you, that could get you a slap on the wrist- doing something that can be tangibly proven was a crime, and detrimental to someone, or something that makes up society, that'd get you a deserving punishment - that hopefully feels justified, thanks to the satisfaction of the crime.