Game Development: Crime & Punishment

[loftar]

Also will you see all the "crimes" your kin/other town members commit? it seems like a normal day in my community will generate tons of crimes.

You will be able to see them, but, as described in Jorb's initial post, you always need to toggle tracking on, precisely so that you don't need to see it all.

[Winter]

[quote="loftar"]
[quote="Winter"]Also will you see all the "crimes" your kin/other town members commit? it seems like a normal day in my community will generate tons of crimes.[/quote]

You will be able to see them, but, as described in Jorb's initial post, you always need to toggle tracking on, precisely so that you don't need to see it all.[/quote]

Yeah I kind of ment it as that other people could see that your kin have "stolen" stuff from you and you wont be able to tell the difference between a real thief and a kin if there are 100's of clues in your town.

Though it was said that you were working on shared claims which will make me happy.

[WorkerDrone]

As its being stormed about on IRC, this is the "Cycle of Retribution".

Person A Steals from Person B.

Person B is angry, tracks down this character, and either beats down this character to get his stuff back, which is two 'crimes' when HE'S JUST GETTTING HIS STUFF BACK, and Person B tracks down person A with this, goes to his Hearth Fire, logs him in, and permakills him. Or Person A, if he's extreme, instead kills Person B.

So, clue items can be used by anyone? THEN this is what happens.

Person B creates a new character. Then he uses a Macro to get the appropriate skills in a few hours. He tracks down Person A, and perma-kills him with that clue item.

JUSTICE doesn't work anymore, because APPARENTLY Justice, is A CRIME.

WHAT.

THE.

FU-

[Vattic]

One more question for now, does the clue record your skill when you left it or does it refer to the players current skill.

So say someone trespassed with a Stealth of 5 and then bought his way up to Stealth of 10 afterwards would you need 5+ Exploration or 10+ to find the clue?

[theTrav]

Chill out worker drone, your situation has improved unless you were a thief. Play with it for a few weeks and I'm fairly sure you will find that is the case.

1 - 8hhp damage has been removed, that was only ever an extremely small issue, I have over 80 hhps
2 - You require tresspassing to enter a claim as previously done, but now you require theft to touch ANYTHING that's in the claimed area. Previously you had one skill barrier now you have two, increasing the investment a thief needs.
3 - If someone DOES commit a crime on your property, they'll be marked, and trackable for a substantial amount of time, so your goods may well be recoverable.
4 - If someone does something really bad, they can't just log out to escape all punishment.

You're winging a LOT about the 8hhp loss and paying no attention to the increased skill barier (far harder to get the extra skill than 8hhp) and the ability for revenge.


As to everyone who's worried about vigilante's... Don't. I'm pretty sure most people won't just be looking for criminals without talking to a real person first... It typically takes a wronged party to instigate a bounty hunt.

Lastly, I've seen a few people repeat the question "killing a murderer is not a crime right?" the answer is NO. All killing is murder, even if you do it in the name of justice. I suspect this is an phillosophical decision by the devs and I strongly agree with it

[Dondy]

It seems to me that rangers will require high pay or they will not be willing to track a thief or someone who attacks other players. From what I read on the forum if you don't have bear meat or wrought iron or coins you don't have anything much that anyone else will want. That kind of stuff takes a lot of playing time. New players, or players who don't choose to work on metal are going to be at a disadvantage. New players may find it impossible to get started if rogue thieves pilfer wagons and seed or put a drying rack in front of someone's front door and take low level items like that.

Not everyone will be able to afford to buy justice if it has to be paid for.

It seems to me also that this will drive everyone towards the mining occupation, just so they can afford to pay vigilantes.

But there may be solutions. For example if Clayshire and Shady Acres and Zarekin club together to put a ranger on retainer as their official chief of police and thieftaker, and it is known that if you assault anyone from those towns a high level fighter will come and quietly perma-kill your character it will put a dent in the crime rate; particularly if nobody knows for sure who is actually enrolled in the program. Robbing random players means sooner or later you get one who has bought protection.

[Winter]

yeah.. it kind of sucks that if you attack someone who has been trying to steal from you, and don't even knock them unconscious, they can then come back when your offline, grab the clue, summon and kill you while you're helpless..

Also can you clarify theft?
- the case of The Reek of Theft, track the object that was stolen
- The theft, battery and murder smells can be used to force summon a logged off player character.

I'm assuming theft only allows you to find objects like meatgrinders and chests, but if its a helmet you'll find the character? o.O

[WorkerDrone]

[quote]yeah.. it kind of sucks that if you attack someone who has been trying to steal from you, and don't even knock them unconscious, they can then come back when your offline, grab the clue, summon and kill you while you're helpless..

Also can you clarify theft?
- the case of The Reek of Theft, track the object that was stolen
- The theft, battery and murder smells can be used to force summon a logged off player character.

I'm assuming theft only allows you to find objects like meatgrinders and chests, but if its a helmet you'll find the character? o.O[/quote]

People are missing what I'm complaining about.

Everything that Winter said is the only thing I'm complaining about.

I don't give a damn about the fucking HP LOSS! Okay? Okay.

I care about the fact that JUSTICE. Is considered A CRIME. Damn it.

[Lightning4]

I have an idea...

Murder should be the only crime of which you can be killed for.

Battery and Theft only should allow you to reciprocate with a maximum of another beating. You can summon the other person to beat the tar out of them if you wish, and they'll probably take a little HHP damage, but they cannot be permakilled in this state if they did not murder.

This way, they too can only reciprocate with another theft or beating. And considering doing so would just earn them another beating in return, the chain will stop... eventually. It's far less damaging, and you should be able to take your stolen goods back without any loss.

This way, you can't be killed while you're unable to do so. That's just aggravating and incredibly controversial, even if it is supposedly justified. Logging on to find that a criminal had killed you and you had lost months of work? No, no, no, a thousand times no.

You can obviously still take care of a master thief if you manage to track him down while he's online. He's able to fight back, and kudos to you if you win. But killing him while he's offline? Cowards way out.

[WorkerDrone]

[quote="Lightning4"]I have an idea...

Murder should be the only crime of which you can be killed for.

Battery and Theft only should allow you to reciprocate with a maximum of another beating. You can summon the other person to beat the tar out of them if you wish, and they'll probably take a little HHP damage, but they cannot be permakilled in this state if they did not murder.

This way, they too can only reciprocate with another theft or beating. And considering doing so would just earn them another beating in return, the chain will stop... eventually. It's far less damaging, and you should be able to take your stolen goods back without any loss.[/quote]

This.