Goblin Squad Member
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Crime and Profit:
Yes, I know, I left out punishment. That is because we already know what the punishment is in PFO for any crime, death (as meaningless as it is). Instead I would like to focus on crime and the profit associated with it. First for the sake of argument, let me lay out a few points that may bring about some contention.
If there is a law that makes an activity a crime, then there must be: a means to commit it; a means to get away with it; a means to punish it; and finally, a profit to be made by attempting it in the first place. As I said earlier, we already know the punishment. All criminal activities lead to a PVP flag which means that the criminal can be killed without consequences to the killer. I personally don’t believe that all crimes should be punished by death, but maybe other alternatives will arise during this discussion.
On the topic of laws, and the acts that they determine to be criminal, there needs to be a relationship between the laws and the acts. In every case a law is paced, making some act illegal because there is a reasonable possibility that the act can occur. Criminal acts occur because the criminal believes in two things. First, that he or she can get away with it and secondly, that there is a profit to committing the act.
For the sake of keeping this original post somewhat short, I will only put out a few activities I would like to see, and then as a community we might suggest how they might work.
1. Theft (PVE and PVP)
2. Possession of Stolen or Contraband Goods
3. Sale of stolen or contraband goods
4. Smuggling goods in or out of a settlement
5. Slavery, Drug Dealing, Prostitution
6. Assault
7. Murder
8. Espionage
9. Assassination
There are basically three categories of crimes: Property Crimes and Physical Crimes and Social Crimes. For each individual or category of crime there should be a means to do it, a means to get away with it, a means to stop it, and a profit motive to engage in it in the first place.
What profit motive should there be for these or other crimes? Obviously, money will be the most common, but it should not be the exclusive profit motivation.
What should the punishment be? Yes, most will and perhaps should be punished by death, but there should be other options. Death for instance is not a very severe penalty, considering that we are all immortal.
What mechanics or systems in the game should there be for detecting such crimes, and or concealing or getting away with them?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Crimes at the settlement level can provide rewards not convertible to or from coin, and settlements don't have any kind of protection from destruction.
Perhaps the real crime should begin at the Mobster level, rather than at the individual criminal.
I'm sorry, I don't understand this. Could you perhaps rephrase it or elaborate on what your suggestion(s) might be.
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Goblin Squad Member
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An assassin's mask makes it so that the assassin doesn't benefit from their gear threading (April 10 "Join Forces Underground" blog), so the punishment for assassination can be loss of gear as well.
Reputation can also be a soft punishment. Both reputation in the game mechanic sense and social reputation matter. No one wanting anything to do with you is a serious punishment in game. Admittedly not everyone will know your reputation so it might just be on a smaller scale effect such as being banned from a certain town. That means losing out on trade opportunities and training options depending on how important the town is.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would say, the only reason death is a decent punishment for most things is... You can/will lose your stuff when you die. Granted not all of it, but something.
And of course the assassin thing. I think Nightdrifter said the most.
Either way, even if I risk the flags and problems with towns. I plan to be a not so nice guy with at least one character lol.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm sorry, I don't understand this. Could you perhaps rephrase it or elaborate on what your suggestion(s) might be.Crimes at the settlement level can provide rewards not convertible to or from coin, and settlements don't have any kind of protection from destruction.
Perhaps the real crime should begin at the Mobster level, rather than at the individual criminal.
I was suggesting that, for example, an active nearby hideout is: required to perform certain types of banditry; expensive, time-consuming, and/or difficult to create; and expensive, time-consuming, and/or difficult to destroy.
Being defeated in combat is a very small penalty for the individual bandits, but having a hideout raided and burned is a major setback. Each time they use that hideout it provides more incentive for somebody to come around to burn it down, and any investment made into having a hideout that is harder to find or destroy also makes it that much more of a loss when it is.
Ok I promised Bludd I would post some idea's so here goes
Touching on items 2 and 4 from his list, and a little on item 3
Contraband
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For contraband to work in a game like this you need two things to happen
1) The settlement as an entity has to have reason to not want those goods coming in and an incentive to stop it and the ability to try and stop it
2) The players in the settlement have to want to possess that good even if it is illegal to the point where people can make it profitable to smuggle in despite the risks.
So here is an idea, settlements(much as I dislike the idea :) ) have a core settlement. Certain goods which are needed for high level crafting can be designated as always anathema to a particular alignment. An example may be powdered unicorn horn for a lawful good settlement.
Each alignment should have a small number, maybe four or five items. All of these items should be used as either high level crafting materials or spell components. This is what gives players a good reason to want to procure these highly illegal commodities.
As an aside you could also enforce the idea that as a kingdom is a collection of settlements that the illegal items are the sum of all the illegal items of each settlement therein. eg You have a kingdom which has a lawful neutral settlement and a chaotic neutral settlement making your kingdom overall neutral. Illegal goods in ALL settlements of the kingdom are those on the list of Lawful Neutral, Neutral and Chaotic Neutral.
The trade in these goods will affect one or more of the DI indices of the settlement, the greater the trade the larger the effect. This gives the settlement a good reason to want to try and stop the trade even though the individual players in the settlement want the goods
Settlement enforcement can be done by the previously mentioned idea of players flying the Enforcer flag being able to SAD people inside settlements, the SAD allows them to search the player and the bags he is carrying and if he possesses any of the illegal items they immediately become forfeit and the player could be fined or get the criminal flag enabling action to be taken.
Stolen goods
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I am not in favour of everything being marked as stolen. However having said that I do like the idea of somethings being marked as stolen. So how does that make sense?
I would like to see it so if a player commissions via contract a special item such as a sword or breastplate to be made for them by a crafter to be identifiable.
If a nasty bandit comes along, lets call our imaginary bandit bluddwolf :) he beats up our player and comes away with the codpiece of awesome posing. This item would be stolen as the player specially commissioned it.
So what does this mean? It means our intrepid hero cannot sell openly on the market of either the home settlement of the player he stole from or the home market of the crafter that made the codpiece of awesome posing as it will be recognised for what it is. This means he will either have to find a less legal outlet for it or take it to a third settlement which will not recognise it. In addition if he is in either of the two settlements and either is wearing or has in his bags the item and is subject to an enforcer stop and search (see contraband section) then he is in deep doodah
I would make it so once our bandit sells it though it is effectively laundered and is no longer marked as stolen.
Fences
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While personally I would prefer it if there was no illegal market mechanic and the role of fence was filled by enterprising players using characters of a looser moral disposition it may be necessary to have a certain npc'ness to it. Though I would suggest GW tries to let players do it first to see if it works, but be ready to step in to provide an outlet. The outlet should ideally be some shady npc which you need some skill such as black market dealing to be able to use. He should act as a mini market type for fenced goods but take a much higher percentage cut of sale price. This cut could be reduced by further skilling up
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Goblin Squad Member
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Could there be a way to imprison a character for a limited time?
A place where the character can't escape (he can log out, but the avatar remains imprisoned), and here's the kicker, the character doesn't accumulate skill training points.
If imprisoned for half a Real Life day it would be extremely frustrating and a real punishment. I would set a maximum time limit (a day? two days?) to prevent abuse, but the length of punishment would be set by the (PC) judge or local lord.
Voila. A non-death punishment that really hurts the character, but is not completely OTT.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Could there be a way to imprison a character for a limited time? ....
I had an idea in that direction too.
How about turning them into a simple mob type gobo for an amound of online time?;) to get everyones bloodpressure down again, i wouldn`t want any of these punishments for ingame crimes.
i`d like them for confirmed RPK`s and their like though, maybe tight to their reputation? and :D maybe in a way that their victims have to give them positive rep before they can turn back?
But, for ingame crimes?
i can`t imagine that being forced to spend time imprisoned would be fun in any way.
fine the criminals, and depending on the crime and local law exile them(giving them a longterm flag if they return into the teritory in a given time, or execute them(as said depending on the crime and law), this could also delete local bindingpoints.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How do you punish a character in-game?
Crime pays, we all know that. There wouldn't be any criminals if it wasn't profitable in some way. How to stop it? Make the chance of being caught a deterrent.
However, as it stand there is no deterrent in PFO. You get flagged as a criminal but there are still plenty of places that will welcome you.
Fined? How? Unless there is a way to forcibly extract PFO coin from a character, even when he isn't actually carrying any, a fine won't work.
Execution? Oh dear - the character has had to respawn and has lost that cheap leather jerkin and knife he was carrying. Not really the ultimate deterrent.
I say that a short imprisonment would be the answer. It is enough that a player would genuinely think about random and easily-detected crime, yet not so much as to ruin the fun of a 'professional' criminal character. It's a real punishment for the character but not the player (who could just go play an Alt or browse the internet for an hour while his character was stewing in chokey).
You could even see jailbreaks arranged by his friends and allies. Possibly even by the Alt!
Note that this would also work for Good characters caught by Evil authorities, so it isn't a punishment for playing Evil characters. It's introducing a real risk to committing crimes and giving players cause to respect (if not follow) enforced rules in civilised areas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Imprisonment has been discussed before, not that that should dissuade you from presenting your thoughts. The consensus was that players dislike losing control over their character and the mechanic would be as counterproductive as indentured servitude or slavery. No jail could hold the accused, since all they have to do is suicide somehow and respawn elsewhere. Execution merely removes the onus of in-game character suicide. So in a nutshell the idea was set aside as impractical. We came up with several interesting possibilities (escape, underworld) inherent in the idea, but ultimately at that previous time the thought was shelved.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Building on Pagan's idea of marking certain goods. I like the idea that a crafted item can be marked making it tagged as "stolen" if it should reach the market still tagged.
Tagging is an added process during crafting and has an added cost.
Tags can be removed by the rightful owner at no cost, when he or she chooses to trade the item.
Tags can be removed by a thief, by an equal or better crafter, at a cost.
The same system could work with magical marks, just swap out crafter for magic user.
As for the actual crafting skill to mark or remove mark, these could be alignment based skill. Lawful crafters can obviously mark items, and Chaotic crafters can remove marks. Perhaps they could do both, but they would gain or lose the appropriate alignment shift.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The consensus was that players dislike losing control over their character
Well yes, if they enjoyed it then it wouldn't be punishing would it? My take on criminal PCs is that the thrill of the danger of being caught is all part of the fun. But what is the danger if there is no way to punish? It would be like fighting monsters with an Immunity Cheat. My character is going to be sailing very close to the law (CN), and I would certainly accept an hour or two in prison in exchange for the potential rewards of (say) illegal tomb-robbing or poisoning a rival.
and the mechanic would be as counterproductive as indentured servitude or slavery.
I am talking of a punishment of a few hours, not permanently enslaving a character! The difference in being a slave and being imprisoned is that a slave is captured against their will and without deserving their fate. A criminal caught committing a crime knows that he is likely to be imprisoned if caught. The difference would be a character dying after charging into a cave full of dragons to grab their loot, or a character being killed as he walks down the street in his home town. One is taking a risk for potential rewards, the other is just a random and annoying happenstance.
No jail could hold the accused, since all they have to do is suicide somehow and respawn elsewhere.
How do you commit suicide if your character is essentially in suspended animation? The only way I can see is if your Alt or friends broke in and killed you, which is the same as a jail break. Other than that, you would have to delete the character, and I doubt anyone would be so desperate as to do that.
Execution merely removes the onus of in-game character suicide. So in a nutshell the idea was set aside as impractical.
Execution means nothing in a world where death is merely a very temporary inconvenience. If I were playing a professional pickpocket, I wouldn't be put off potential rewards, even small ones, if the only potential punishment was having to respawn somewhere else.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The issue with imprisonment as a punishment is that those players electing to play law breakers or evil characters, which are just as valid a part of the game as those paragons of virtue and law, are now impacted far more. As players, they get to do nothing for a few hours because they played their perfectly valid role in game. They may as well not even log in, and in fact will not. A player playing a lawful and/or good character that does not break the law, is only doomed to suffer a character death at worst. They're up and playing again in less than a minute.
As a player, how would you feel about that discrepancy and if you were time limited with your play, which would you choose?
I could also add something about how it would be just completely weird that imprisonment is worse than death. Death should always be the worst things a character can experience, and by extension, the player.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But death is not the worst thing in an MMO, is it? Is it completely weird that death is not permanent, you we accept that quite happily!
To your first point, yes, the characters of players who play criminals would be punished if they are caught. Isn't that the point of criminals? Why be a criminal if there is no punishment? If you are a pickpocket who never gets effectively punished then where is the fun? Playing a valid role as a criminal can only work if there is a working legal system, and that includes effective punishment.
I could use the same argument with front-line fighters. They wish to play their role as the melee monsters, but they are also going to be killed a lot. Why have them killed more than gatherers because they chose to play a valid game role which involved combat?
Why punish necromancers by tagging them as Evil when they are playing a valid game role?
If you know that crime will be punished, then you can still play a criminal but it will no be without effective consequences. You weigh up the likelihood of being caught against the potential rewards.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There's a design principle involved in all the imprisonment scenarios: the result of playing the game poorly should never be the inability to play the game at all.
How awesome would it be in The Elder Scrolls games if you had to wait (even with the game closed, even for 5 minutes) for your character's prison sentence to be completed? One of the biggest improvements on EQ was the introduction of noncombat regeneration, because it reduced the amount of time that players were forced to spend not playing the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you know that crime will be punished, then you can still play a criminal but it will no be without effective consequences. You weigh up the likelihood of being caught against the potential rewards.
In the old Greyhawk campaign, there was a law in the City of Greyhawk that made it illegal to carry a pig down the street.
Pity the player if they don't know all the obscure laws of settlements and subsequently get locked out of their character/account for several hours.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I understood that the legal system was to be Player-driven. That would mean stupid laws like the one you mention wouldn't be an issue.
However. If punishment-free crime is the preference, then I'm up for it. It will certainly make it easier to accumulate wealth and grab power, even if it is at the expense of other players. A pity on the poor player who you have just killed and robbed, but never mind.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could use the same argument with front-line fighters. They wish to play their role as the melee monsters, but they are also going to be killed a lot. Why have them killed more than gatherers because they chose to play a valid game role which involved combat?
The difference being that the fighter will be killed and be able continue to play the game in under a minute. You're advocating a criminal should be killed and then punished further by being locked out of their character.
A better example is if the front line fighter was killed by an assassin and was locked out of their character for several hours
Why punish necromancers by tagging them as Evil when they are playing a valid game role?
Criminals will be flagged as criminal, so they're in the same boat as a Necromancer. Should they not suffer the same fate (death) and not have a disparity?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I understood that the legal system was to be Player-driven. That would mean stupid laws like the one you mention wouldn't be an issue.
I was actually saying the opposite. If laws are set by players, you will get stupid laws such as that one (thanks Mr Gygax!) and people will get incarcerated for silly things. That will just make a mockery of the whole system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The issue of imprisonment does not have to be as punishing as some of you feel would be too prohibitive.
Term of Imprisonment: 10 Minutes - yeah for 10 minutes, you are locked up. Go grab yourself a cup of coffee, take a crap, read a few pages of that Pathfinder novel.
Other non death penalty options:
1. Lock the ability to activate a flag, that was used during the crime. Examples:
Bandit that is captured, can not flag Outlaw for 1 hour.
Smuggler that is caught, can not flag for Traveler for 1 hour.
A thief can have his/her Thieve's tools confiscated (destroyed), having to replace them. They might even be illegal in that settlement, so he/she may have to travel a distance to replace them.
That brings us back to the Capture Mechanic / Non Lethal Combat or Unconscious and Bleed Out states. Also, the Enforcer's Stand-and-Deliver (Search for Contraband)mechanic.
These are needed to have a truly fleshed out, Crime and Punishment System. Yes, they are complex, but having complex interactions will be a selling point for PFO, IMHO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The difference being that the fighter will be killed and be able continue to play the game in under a minute. You're advocating a criminal should be killed and then punished further by being locked out of their character.
The point is that the fighter gets killed because he has chosen to play a role. The player knows that the role is dangerous and is likely to get the fighter killed a lot. Instead of whining that the game is unfair because the fighter role gets killed, the player accepts the consequences of playing that role.
If you choose to define your character as a criminal, you should accept that there will be consequences.
A better example is if the front line fighter was killed by an assassin and was locked out of their character for several hours
Why is that a better example? The fighter hasn't sought out the assassin knowing he might be killed by him. If the fighter looks at an assassin stronghold and chooses to go in to try to kill the assassin, but then gets assassinated, then it would be a slightly better example.
However. This assumes that the fighter has chosen to be an assassin hunter. It also assumes that the assassin is otherwise innocent and has done nothing to cause the fighter to hunt him. In other words, it isn't actually a good example at all.
Criminals will be flagged as criminal, so they're in the same boat as a Necromancer. Should they not suffer the same fate (death) and not have a disparity?
What does being flagged 'criminal' actual do in game terms, though? All it does is mean that the character lives in a community of like-minded characters. If he uses disguise, then there is no reason why that flagged criminal can't carry on as before in the same place.
I think you forget that criminals in a Player-orientated game will be gaining benefits directly at the expense of other, innocent, characters and therefore players. My character isn't putting up a sign to say that she is happy to be robbed or killed, the player of the criminal is making a deliberate choice to harm her for his own gain.
That is why any punishment should be implemented. You say it will ruin your game if you have to spend an hour without controlling your character. Well, it will ruin my game if I get robbed or killed at random when I am not making the decision to go seek adventure or danger. The difference is that you will not give me my coin or possessions back after 30 minutes, but you will be free to carry on robbing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was actually saying the opposite. If laws are set by players, you will get stupid laws such as that one (thanks Mr Gygax!) and people will get incarcerated for silly things. That will just make a mockery of the whole system.
If you don't trust your fellow player to be sensible then a Player-led game is going to be a b$*++ for you.
Remember that the people making the laws will likely be elected to position. They will make laws that affect a large number of players. If they start making stupid laws, or being too harsh with sentences, their authority is very quickly going to be challenged.
If they somehow have a tyranny going where they can make up laws and punishments at will, then the settlement will likely empty of inhabitants who would prefer to live elsewhere.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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A chaotic dickish settlement with lots of draconian laws but selective enforcement isn't a reasonable design goal of a system of player-based laws and punishments?
Carrying a pig down the street is illegal and punishable by forfeiture of everything and imprisonment for the maximum permitted time, but ONLY foreigners are ever charged with animal trafficking.
Oh, and foreigners who fail to carry a pig down the street at the appointed time are charged with cultural aggression and failure to comply with tradition; the punishment for which is also forfeiture and imprisonment.
Locals and their friends aren't exempt by law (like in the lawful dickish settlement), they just don't ever get charged with the crime.
Requiring player settlement laws to conform to a narrow view of "justice" is uninteresting select-a-theme-park style play. Allowing for all historical criminal systems makes the law not inherently better than or different from crime.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As I said in the original post: All Laws will need a means to enforce it, a means to break it, a means to get away with breaking it, a punishment for getting caught and a profit motive for breaking it.
I doubt there will be an open ended, make up your own law. There will likely be a lage menu to choose from.
For the Settlement a law will carry with it a cost. It will have a value that increase the settlements DI score.
If a settlement wants to implement a large number of silly laws, they will expend a large amount of time trying to enforce it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Regarding punishments, settlements might actually have some ability to punish their citizens and members of sponsored companies. Death might be pretty minor in the game, so it's somewhat limited as a punishment. So:
Banishment/Exile: this punishment would mean that a certain character's mere presence in the lands of the settlement is a crime, and punishable by death. The character could be killed any number of times, as a criminal, by anyone, if he doesn't leave the area. This would be a significantly stronger punishment than one death. (I'd suggest the character get a new spawn point as soon as possible). It's basically adding a name to the settlement's kill-on-sight list, which I expect settlements will want.
Once a settlement has the ability to banish someone, players might be willing to submit a character to other punishments to avoid banishment:
Fines: payment for breaking any number of rules. A player might also choose to pay a large fine to get the banishment lifted.
Weregild: payment for committing murder/manslaughter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes I agree that fines are one possible punishment. Banishment from a settlement is a other punishment I hade not thought of.
But what fines are predicated on is a non lethal way of capturing a criminal, locking him up and incentivizing the paying of a fine, rather than sitting in jail for a few minutes.
In the Elder Scrolls games, this stem is in place. You are stopped by NapC guards and offered a choice, pay fine or fight. PFO should have a similar system., Hell why not just copy it?
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Goblin Squad Member
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A chaotic dickish settlement with lots of draconian laws but selective enforcement isn't a reasonable design goal of a system of player-based laws and punishments?
It's perfectly reasonable so long as you don't expect to attract people to your settlement for trade or to settle. If you live in isolation you can have whatever laws you want. If you want people to come to your settlement then you might want to consider if having dickish laws isn't just being... dickish.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes I agree that fines are one possible punishment. Banishment from a settlement is a other punishment I hade not thought of.
But what fines are predicated on is a non lethal way of capturing a criminal, locking him up and incentivizing the paying of a fine, rather than sitting in jail for a few minutes.
In the Elder Scrolls games, this stem is in place. You are stopped by NapC guards and offered a choice, pay fine or fight. PFO should have a similar system., Hell why not just copy it?
Or, a city could contract the collection of the fine (to bountyhunters or bandits working as legbreakers, so to speak)? which would of course increase the amount to be colected by whatver the collectors get paid...
If you don't trust your fellow player to be sensible then a Player-led game is going to be a b~#@! for you.
Well, i trust them to make laws at least as good as those we have in RL,have a look at this or this.
Don`t get me wrong, i understand why you`d want this, i may well regred speaking against your idea after i`ve been robed often enough.
but, well, maybe i just can`t get behind hour-long imprisonment
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Goblin Squad Member
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Minor Crimes: Theft of minor items (less than 1000 currency), Petty Assault and Public Nudity.
Medium Crimes: Theft of items (between 1001 and 10,000 currency), assault with intent to kill, first possession of contraband items.
Serious Crimes: Theft of items (Over 10,001 currency's worth), murder, repeated possession of contraband items.
Capital Crimes: Attempted rebellion, arson, actively attempting to destroy
settlement structures, actively assisting enemy forces.
*************************************************************************
Minor Crimes might fall under, for theft, the cost of the items stolen + 10% of their full worth, scaling up an additional 10% per each offence within the last month, Petty Assault and Public Nudity might result in you having to go and work in the mines or lumber-mill and produce X-amount of resources to pay off your debt to society.
Medium Crimes might fall under, for theft, the cost of the items stolen + the forfeit of your currently equipped gear, Assault might land you with a much larger amount of resources to produce, and possession of the Contraband might result in not only a hefty fine and loss of privelages within that Settlement, but also the Guards forcing their way into your abode to look for more, and not being too gentle in their search.
Serious Crimes might result in banishment from the Hex itself for a set amount of time, or for repeat offenders, for life. At this stage you're not just running afoul of the Law every so often, you're actively participating in criminal activity.
Capital Crimes are basically a 'we're gonna kill you, take your gear, take your house and goods, and then to really grind some salt into that wound, we'll put a bounty on you if you ever set foot in our Hex again' situation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, i trust them to make laws at least as good as those we have in RL,have a look at this or this.
Don't believe the online internet myths about stupid laws. The vast majority aren't true.
One thing to bear in mind is the principle of one law being superceded by another. The one about shooting Welshmen, for example, if it ever did exist (and there is dispute about that) was superceded by he appropriate criminal laws many many years ago.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But what fines are predicated on is a non lethal way of capturing a criminal, locking him up and incentivizing the paying of a fine, rather than sitting in jail for a few minutes.
In the Elder Scrolls games, this stem is in place. You are stopped by NapC guards and offered a choice, pay fine or fight. PFO should have a similar system., Hell why not just copy it?
I think TES has an overly simplistic view of forgiving crimes when a fine is paid. That's not realistic; criminal history accumulates, even when the crimes have been paid for. A person will quickly gain the rep as a repeat offender (think 3 strikes laws) and punishments should escalate.
The TES system did have a third option, imprisonment. That's a bad idea; if a town can imprison someone for a crime then it will be exploitable; people will be able to lock other people out of the game. Not a good idea.
Using town NPC guards to shake down characters at the risk of death or imprisonment might also be a little bit exploitable, depending on how people can be added to the criminal list. Just saying, but it has a whiff of stand-and-deliver at the settlement level. If it's worth doing, maybe player characters can confront the criminals rather than guards.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't believe the online internet myths about stupid laws.
Weelll, beeing a european, i know that until 2008 or so there was a law (EC Commission Regulation No 2257/94) that dictacted how bendy a banana and how curvy a cucumber was alowed to be. Any fruit that fell short of the established norm was strip of it`s status and could not be sold.
i know that this was a real, enforced law. <- that stupid enough?but enough of that, it`s beside the point.
what do you think about the other proposed ideas?
Banishment? escalating fines?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Sadurian Dunno what the HalfOrc had in mind, but I'd think it could be up to a settlement to define it. Settlements might want to define "spamming chat channels" and "gold farming" as other typical MMO behaviour that they want to nip in the bud.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Weelll, beeing a european, i know that until 2008 or so there was a law (EC Commission Regulation No 2257/94) that dictacted how bendy a banana and how curvy a cucumber was alowed to be.
This was a widely exaggerated story, leading to all sorts of myths. The reality is that the bananas being sold as 'Class I' had to be of a minimum size and not have 'abnormal curvature'. The ruling was part of a minimum standard that included all sorts of other regulations, such as being free of pests and being ripe enough to eat. If the banana didn't fit the 'Class I' category it would be sold as a 'Class II' banana.
It wasn't a directive about how bendy a banana or cucumber should be, but a way to classifying different quality and size for the purpose of standardising international trade categories.
The same went for other fruit and vegetables, with a single trading standard in place it was easier for international markets to trade confidently.
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/communication/take_part/myths/fact_033_en.htm
but enough of that, it`s beside the point.
what do you think about the other proposed ideas?
Banishment? escalating fines?
I'm not sure that banishment would work. All you need is disguise skill to be able to circumvent that one. In any event, as you would be flagged as a criminal anyhow, I'm not sure what further censure being banished would attract.
Fines I can't see working, I'm afraid. How do you make the offender pay up? Hopefully you wouldn't be able to access their account or character to take the money against their will. You need to have something to force the character to pay up, something that is a real disadvantage to the character until they pay. I don't see what that is going to be, because a player playing a 'criminal' character role is not going to be put off by having a 'criminal' flag.
I am trying to look at this from both sides because I can see my future character breaking all sorts of laws. You want to flag me as an evil criminal? Okay, I go live in one of the settlements where everyone is a criminal, or invest in disguises (Alter Self is going to be a popular spell). Fine me? Try making me pay up then. Kill me? Oh dear, I have to respawn, and I am not stupid enough to carry anything valuable on me when I am going out anywhere I might be captured.
Sorry to say that, at present, playing a criminal is going to be an easy option.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The only punishment that I think can be made meaningful without stopping play is banishment on pain of death. (and death, along with the consequences of death)
Fines, seizure of items, or imprisonment can be ways of vacating the banishment, on the agreement of both parties. If you've been banished and think the fine is excessive, you are free to start an alliance to press your claim; if they abuse enough people, the alliance against them will get strong enough to destroy them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I Love Sadurian's jail time concept (and love his robust defences and rebuttles slightly more! Well done!)
I would add that all experience gains be suspended during the incarceration as well. You were bad. You got caught. Got play an alt.
I also like his point about Evil Settlements. When my character gets incarcerated for inflicting random acts of unprovoked goodness in such places, I expect to be punished when and if caught.
Nightdrifter mentioned Reputation earlier and, unlike alignment, it will be very visible for all players to see (according to a previous GW blog). Therefore, punching a player in the reputation should be a very effective punishment by impairing naughty peoples' ability to do most anything in a settlement, especially spending XP.
And Urman's points about banishment sound excellent to me as well. Banishment would mean you can't buy. You can't sell. And you can raise your skills. Simply put - crippling. I see it being a harsh, effective method of punishing criminals, at least in the offended community, if not in all communities that share the same alignment.
As DeciusBrutus just said, fines would simply be the option for a player to redeem oneself and lift banishment, but perhaps we could take it one step further and direct some if not all of that money to the injured party! Restitution!
I'm a big fan of Elder Scrolls, and I also like Bluddwolf's notion of swiping the 'fine or jail' option their guards give you.
DeciusBrutus tried to compare Elder Scrolls to PFO, but it's like comparing apples to oranges! Jail time suspension would definitely be silly in Elder Scrolls because it is not a multi-player game! A game doesn't have feelings. A multi-player gaming community certainly does.
I completely understand Sadurian's point. MMO's by nature are rife with opportunity for real people to hurt and upset other real people. GW is very aware of this issue and very sensitive to it. I think we'll see Reputation utilized very strongly and will be more important than many people realize yet.
PFO is trying to maximize realism at levels we have really never seen before. I think jail time is very legit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's a lot of material to cover so for right now I'm going to focus purely on theft. There are 3 types I can think of off the top of my head:
1. Pickpocketing
2. Burglary
3. Armed Robbery
Three will likely be the most common and is a huge subject in itself, so I'm not going to discuss it right now either.
Pickpocketing:
Should allow you to walk up someone and attempt to steal something from them without their notice.
For NPCs this should be coins, gems, and other items of value.
For players I feel like this should be information. This game likely won't have forced 3rd person perspective so the only good way to rob someone is in stealth. If you allow pickpockets to steal people's items, everyone will take perception and nobody will ever go afk with items on them. Thieves will be super annoying but so will being a thief.
But what if by pickpocketing they could see what hexes you've traveled through recently, what sort of monsters and players you've killed recently, outstanding contracts you've accepted, bounties and assassination contracts that have been placed on you, notations you've made on your map, a view of what's in their inventory etc.
Just have it so when you pickpocket a player it says "You find some interesting documents." This makes pickpocketing useful, but not so useful that everyone lives in fear of them.
Burglary:
If there are NPC owned houses either in starter cities or scattered throughout the map there should be hidden valuable that randomly spawn inside of them. Maybe even missions to go retrieve special items for a group (IE: Elder Scrolls thieves guild missions.)
For player owned structures I think the best way to do it is to make it so structures that produce things can be robbed for up to a certain % of what they produce / their upkeep costs. These need to be things the owner can manually remove themselves when they check in on their structures or else they'll just have their friends rob them. But if you have to pay 15% "insurance costs" which you can collect along with what you produce as the building runs, and thieves can steal part of that upkeep and day 10% of total produce, then it makes it worthwhile to rob operations, but not so worthwhile people will never set up a camp and then go do something else.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The difference being that the fighter will be killed and be able continue to play the game in under a minute. You're advocating a criminal should be killed and then punished further by being locked out of their character.The point is that the fighter gets killed because he has chosen to play a role. The player knows that the role is dangerous and is likely to get the fighter killed a lot. Instead of whining that the game is unfair because the fighter role gets killed, the player accepts the consequences of playing that role.
If you choose to define your character as a criminal, you should accept that there will be consequences.
You have a very valid point. My issue is that the criminal will suffer the exact same fate as the fighter AND then be imprisoned. Perhaps if it was made that if a criminal was killed, then their punishment was served fully?
A better example is if the front line fighter was killed by an assassin and was locked out of their character for several hoursWhy is that a better example? The fighter hasn't sought out the assassin knowing he might be killed by him. If the fighter looks at an assassin stronghold and chooses to go in to try to kill the assassin, but then gets assassinated, then it would be a slightly better example.
However. This assumes that the fighter has chosen to be an assassin hunter. It also assumes that the assassin is otherwise innocent and has done nothing to cause the fighter to hunt him. In other words, it isn't actually a good example at all.
I used this example, as you seem to want to inflict multiple punishments onto a criminal, one of which stops them enjoying and playing a game they have paid for for a certain amount of time, yet the front line fighter who kills and destroys all before his mighty blade, just gets a single fate. Not all players will have alts, and if they do, is it even fair they are forced to play that alt for a period of time?
Criminals will be flagged as criminal, so they're in the same boat as a Necromancer. Should they not suffer the same fate (death) and not have a disparity?What does being flagged 'criminal' actual do in game terms, though? All it does is mean that the character lives in a community of like-minded characters. If he uses disguise, then there is no reason why that flagged criminal can't carry on as before in the same place.
Being flagged criminal means that any lawful character can attack and kill them with impunity. Being flagged as heinous as a Necromancer is the same, except it is not just limited to lawful characters.
I think you forget that criminals in a Player-orientated game will be gaining benefits directly at the expense of other, innocent, characters and therefore players.
Similar to when warfare against a settlement happens. The winning players gain benefits directly at the expense of other characters. Would you advocate characters that are killed in war be 'imprisoned' for a period of time?
Actually, that also gives me an idea. The defending settlement could just set up a new law that states anyone attacking their citizens or buildings are criminals, and they therefore get imprisoned when such a act occurs. When an invader gets killed...ZAP...off to prison for an hour for them and the player gets locked out of that character.
While far fetched, player made laws can and will be abused. Allowing imprisonment as a punishment for breaches of those laws will just be horrendous to some players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Pickpocketing is for children.
No, I'm not just being a smartass, pickpocketing is generally perpetrated by children, isn't it? Artful Dodger, Oliver Twist type stuff. And pickpocketing generally only happens in crowds, bustling throngs, shoulder-to shoulder public situations, right? I want this game as Real as possible. Let's think about this:
If there's no crowd, and you're not a child, you are wasting time and effort pickpocketing. Mug Them.
If there's no crowd and you Are a child, you are at much greater risk of being caught and grabbed in the act with little by way of obstacles to stop a powerful adult from doing so.
If there Is a crowd and you're not a child, you are more at risk of being caught in the act by others - you're size makes you more noticable and you have little chance of slipping away unobserved.
If there Is a crowd and you Are a child, no one is paying any attention to you - you are beneath everyone's gaze (They are all watching the execution, listening to the speaker, or trying to determine which way the dragon is coming from). Pouches, purses and wallets are at eye level. And if you get caught, you are small, you are fast, and you have a much better chance of twisting free and dashing through the forest of legs to freedom in the alleyways that you probably live in and know like the back of your hand.
In conclusion I think pickpocketing should be in the game, and performed by child NPCs in crowds. Players beware!
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Goblin Squad Member
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You have a very valid point. My issue is that the criminal will suffer the exact same fate as the fighter AND then be imprisoned. Perhaps if it was made that if a criminal was killed, then their punishment was served fully?The difference being that the fighter will be killed and be able continue to play the game in under a minute. You're advocating a criminal should be killed and then punished further by being locked out of their character.The point is that the fighter gets killed because he has chosen to play a role. The player knows that the role is dangerous and is likely to get the fighter killed a lot. Instead of whining that the game is unfair because the fighter role gets killed, the player accepts the consequences of playing that role.
If you choose to define your character as a criminal, you should accept that there will be consequences.
This is why I have been advocating that there should be an alternative to death penalty for all crimes and or flags.
The option for the victor of the combat is to kill or punish in some other way, not both.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Part of be purpose of this thread was to discuss what profit motive there should be for crime.
As I said earlier, coin is the most obvious. Most crimes should result in the criminal gaining coin, much in the same way that PVE escalations will result in gaining coin.
Other crimes, such as Smuggling, could also impact the settlement's DI in a negative or even a positive way. Smuggling as an attack on a settlement acts much in the same way as a Sapper does, it is sabotage of a settlement's DI. The smuggler has to get the contraband goods passed the settlement's defenses (ie NPC guards, PC enforcers looking for contraband, etc). The smuggler gets paid through the contract system by their employer.
As a positive impact, the smuggler will be bringing in needed goods, through a blockade, during a settlement siege. Again, the smuggler is paid through the contract system and the settlement's DI is increased.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In your first case, if the smuggling is bringing normal goods into the settlement, then the largest impact is likely a reduction of tax income. It would depend on any import duties that exist. I'm not sure how it would affect the DI.
If the items smuggled in are contraband, there may be secondary effects and strengthening of some elements in the town, but that depends on the contraband (drugs? slaves? evil relics? good relics?).
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Goblin Squad Member
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...I think pickpocketing should be in the game, and performed by child NPCs in crowds.
I'll back your play only if we're allowed the option to stick a shiv in the dirty little thief when we catch 'em. Let's have none of this "I automatically take back my stuff, slap his head, and send him on his way" that one always sees in movies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sorry about the delay in getting back to the thread, just threw that in as some ideas off the top of my head.
Laws ... obviously we're going to have at least 3 'Major' sets of Laws, being:
1) Crusaders
2) Hell Knights
3) Scarwall Bandits.
And that's not including the 'minor' factions and the Player-Made/Owned Settlements.
I threw those in as 'basic common sense' laws. Something most people could agree on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Criminal behavior "by the rules" laid out by GW is a perfectly legit playstyle. There are checks and balances being built into the system to prevent it from becoming "crazy bad". Reputation should be a good check on bad behavior.
That being said, every settlement will have some control over it's own individual laws and who they can exclude from access. Inclusion on a settlement's "blacklist", and thus lack of access to opportunities for Shelter, Trade, and Training would be a pretty serious punishment. Every such "banishment" is a bridge burned and a lessening of a player's options. Each settlement can decide what is required to get back off of it's "blacklist". It could be fines, required tasks, anything they deem as reparations. Repeat offenders can be punished with increasing penalties, at the discretion of each settlement.
All of this can be done with just the mechanics as, so far, proposed. IMO no further need for "jail time" or "experience penalties" are really needed.
Add: Every time that you write in a "system wide" mechanic (such as mandatory punishments), you limit the freedom of choice for players and settlements. Not good and not "sandbox".
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Goblin Squad Member
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What profit motive should there be for these or other crimes? Obviously, money will be the most common, but it should not be the exclusive profit motivation.
To address this question, I had to think for a bit Bludd. I think that, bottom line, crimes that are "not strictly for coin profit" each already have their own profit built into their motivations. Non coin payoffs really are the ends to the actions.