Possible Flaws

[Kraiyick 35]

Most likely some of this has been said somewhere and the only reason I haven't read it is because it's deep in the forums so please don't fucking hound me if shit like this is already been posted because I'm not conducting a thorough TSA cavity check on the forums itself to find similar content on a decently broad topic.   

          Ever since Identity came out on Kickstarter, a friend and I have been on the bandwagon for quite a long time, waiting after a long while of silence until this Wednesday when they said updates would now becoming more frequently and we're getting excited and going over all the possibilities in the game. Yet the idea of this game, while perfect, is like communism, in practice, it may not work so well.

          The internet is full of trolls and those who want to dick about and cause a lot of toxicity which I have no problem in and will most likely participate in from time to time. The concern comes in, is that this idea is a make it or break it idea. Some players will be stupid, I have a fear that driving will be atrocious, fender-benders happening probably quite frequently due to poor drivers. I also fear that there will be a lot of people who won't follow the law because the consequences that can happen won't be severe enough to deter someone from preventing a crime. In real life, people stay away from doing crime because sentences are way longer than one hour (which is what I am expecting the jail time to be in this game at most). People don't want to wait years in jail to finally get out. There is also a much more important aspect that is missing in video games but present in all parts of life. And that is the moral part of it. Killing someone in real life has bearing on an individual's mind (most people at least), but in video games, you're killing a virtual player, robbing them, torturing them, and there's no moral part of it because it's not an actual person. The only way I think to replace the moral aspect, is simply through hard punishment. I am concerned that the consequences in-game won't be severe enough to make players think twice before doing something illegal. Grand theft auto, arson, assault and vandalism are all things I envision happening often, and even murder if the only amount of time you have to wait is one hour. This to me is a huge flaw. I read earlier in another post (credit to @Jinx for his thread here) that says (exact quotes) " In reality, however most of these changes are going to have to come from the players themselves, sure Asylum can present their 'vision', they can provide the tools, but it's how those tools are used that will, ultimately, make or break Identity."  

          This to me is true, and when we're talking about users on the internet, instantly I think of Garry's mod, specifically DarkRP. It's full of funny, but stupid shit, all the time. And that's fine, they do their thing. But this game is an RP, MMO open-world 'make your own destiny' game, and it can go all to shit if players are throwing rocks at player's cars and smashing shit and causing damage that comes out of in-game player's wallets. That type of garbage will most definitely drive other, more 'civilized' per say, players away because they don't want to have to constantly be worrying if some fucktard smashed in their car window. And the most likely reason that 'fucktard' was willing to smash in the window was because they didn't have to worry about severe consequences following them should they even be caught.

          Which brings me to another point. Players can do all the illegal activities they want, that's fine, but if there's no way to track them down, using evidence such as fingerprints and DNA, catching them, is all the more difficult. My proposed solution would be either to (if they haven't already planned to have it this way and my information is wrong) have strict punishments, like a 24 hour day in jail, and no, it shouldn't be able to be passable through idle time (you did the crime, you deserve to spend the time). This is my opinion would definitely make people want to be much more careful in how they commit illegal acts or run their crime business. Now another possibility, is if players don't like waiting for an hour, or if they think the punishments are not severe enough, that they can rent or start their own servers and it will allow for in-depth customization of every aspect of the game, but on a private hub, so it won't affect the public servers hosted by Identity/Asylum.

Here's my concerns summed up in a list.

 Consequences are not severe enough to deter players from committing crimes

 Not enough in-game evidence of crimes to allow for police to solve said crime

Poor driving and other stupid shit causing lots of money in damages all the time

The main idea of the game ultimately fails because of reasons listed before.

The end result is GTA Online

 

I want this game to work, I'm all for the idea and I'm very excited for the release of the first module and all content they present to us over the next few months, I am, however, concerned that the work that they are doing will be wasted because of large flaws such as the ones I have stated above. I please ask that before replying to this post, please make sure it is well thought out, that the entirety of my post has been read and comprehended thoroughly and coherently, and that the reply be constructive and ultimately helps answer my concerns thoroughly or helps solve the problems listed above if no exact and/or thorough answer is present.

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Edited December 3, 2016 by Kraiyick

[Vince 276]

My hope is that the developers are receptive enough to player criticism that they'll correct any of these issues early on. 

[JamesLuck01 1,531]

9 hours ago, Kraiyick said:

people stay away from doing crime because sentences are way longer than one hour (which is what I am expecting the jail time to be in this game at most).

I know that firstly the part I quote is not true, and I do agree that I want jail time to be like 1 day or more, but the developers stated that 45 minutes is the max time only because they want to test but the times in jail could be up over hours (i hope its a week depending on the crime). Also the time will be longer than an hour because the Prison life could be a thing and so players may want to play and stay in prison as because you can do a lot of things like what happens in real life. (start fights, make a gang inside, sell contraband stuff etc... )

[Jinx 166]

I'll be perfectly honest here, I do not think that the large majority of people really understand what Identity is, or could, be. Just a quick browse through these forums makes it clear that most people are expecting Altis Life 2, or GTA Online with an economy, look at the youtube comments and it's even worse. The concept of a 'life' mmo seems to be totally lost on a lot of people.

The concept, to me anyway, is clear. As soon as possible we will get our own server, we want to create a living, breathing community, but even we understand that this is going to have it's limitations, it's not real life after all. Someone driving down the road mowing people down IS going to ruin the immersion aspect for many people, does that happen in real life? well yes obviously, but the simple fact is that the majority of people can go through their entire lives without ever seeing such an event.

The key to Identity, for us, is going to be players who want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Everyone will serve the community, everyone will have their part to play, killers, thieves, cops, doctors, everyone. But note the key phrase 'serve the community'.....the game is not even out yet and I've seen people loose their shit on these forums over being the 'baddest' or the 'biggest' and that says to me that it's all about them and NOT about a persona created for a game, and that's self serving. We'll need people who are willing to loose, we'll need people who are willing to let their chars' die.

Consequences are going to be vital to the success of Identity. The simple truth is that a lot of pvp is not really about winning, it's about beating someone down, and before we get into an argument about that let's make something clear, I've played one of the most brutal and unforgiving pvp games there is, World War Two Online & it has a fantastic community.......because the players are there to play a game & NOT beat someone down, compare that to toxic communities like Call of Duty or GTA Online or The Division.....enough said.

Asylum will give us the tools, what each one of us do with those tools will, no doubt, be totally different. Personally I don't see the point in doing something here that can be done better in GTA Online.....or done better in The Division (and yes I play both) this is Identity. Clearly some players just want the freedom to do what ever they want, well good for them, but they won't be bothering the folks on our server. People will die, people will be drug addicts, people will commit crimes.....but people will save lives & build businesses & families, and they'll have the option to live out mundane lives if they want....WITHOUT being run down by some fool who gets off on making other players miserable.

I'm a huge fan  of what Asylum are doing, but I know, from experience, that ultimately it's the players will make the difference here. If Identity can attract all those niche players who hate what GTA Online is, then it'll succeed, if not then it'll fail.

[FishFace 33]

8 hours ago, JamesLuck01 said:

I know that firstly the part I quote is not true, and I do agree that I want jail time to be like 1 day or more, but the developers stated that 45 minutes is the max time only because they want to test but the times in jail could be up over hours (i hope its a week depending on the crime). Also the time will be longer than an hour because the Prison life could be a thing and so players may want to play and stay in prison as because you can do a lot of things like what happens in real life. (start fights, make a gang inside, sell contraband stuff etc... )

I sure hope there's going to be more in Prison than just sitting in your cell waiting and waiting, like you have to do in darkrp.

[impervious 2]

I think a huge way of making sure the consequences are harsh are making sure they stay with you. If you commit a crime, that would be on your record and companies hiring you might see that. You wouldn't want that to stay with you. If you repeat a crime after punishment, your punishment should be worse than before.

[Kraiyick 35]

14 minutes ago, impervious said:

I think a huge way of making sure the consequences are harsh are making sure they stay with you. If you commit a crime, that would be on your record and companies hiring you might see that. You wouldn't want that to stay with you. If you repeat a crime after punishment, your punishment should be worse than before.

That's actually a pretty good idea. But it all depends on whether or not the player cares anyways. If they're in those mafia families or whatever (at this point they're all just copies of one another it's incredibly monotonous) then they won't care because they're paid to do crimes, such as extortion, they're not always looking to go the good Samaritan way about making money. 

[Jinx 166]

3 hours ago, FishFace said:

I sure hope there's going to be more in Prison than just sitting in your cell waiting and waiting, like you have to do in darkrp.

Well Devs have indicated that Prison will be a world within a world so to speak, so I imagine that it will be more than sitting in a cell, for it to actually mean anything however, it's going to take sentences longer than forty five minutes that's for sure.

[Kraiyick 35]

9 minutes ago, Jinx said:

Well Devs have indicated that Prison will be a world within a world so to speak, so I imagine that it will be more than sitting in a cell, for it to actually mean anything however, it's going to take sentences longer than forty five minutes that's for sure.

I think they should be a pretty long fucking time.

[timblegoorn 8]

5 hours ago, Jinx said:

Well Devs have indicated that Prison will be a world within a world so to speak, so I imagine that it will be more than sitting in a cell, for it to actually mean anything however, it's going to take sentences longer than forty five minutes that's for sure.

In my opinion, sentences should either be about 3 hours for petty crime (vandalism, minor thievery, etc), about 9 hours for larger robberies, drug dealing, etc. And 12-16 hours for killing, with each additional kill adding 6 hours onto the sentence.

My proposed idea is that, the player may either spend that time in game, or they will automatically be released without playing after an amount of IRL time has passed, my proposed is 56x that of the original ingame sentence, meaning every 3 hours of in game jail time is a week in real life.

 

Anytime longer and players are likely to quit the game entirely, anytime shorter and many more would be likely to commit crimes. This may offer a nice medium which will cause some to risk it, and others to deter, and others who commit crimes to likely shape up again.

[impervious 2]

8 hours ago, timblegoorn said:

In my opinion, sentences should either be about 3 hours for petty crime (vandalism, minor thievery, etc), about 9 hours for larger robberies, drug dealing, etc. And 12-16 hours for killing, with each additional kill adding 6 hours onto the sentence.

My proposed idea is that, the player may either spend that time in game, or they will automatically be released without playing after an amount of IRL time has passed, my proposed is 56x that of the original ingame sentence, meaning every 3 hours of in game jail time is a week in real life.

 

Anytime longer and players are likely to quit the game entirely, anytime shorter and many more would be likely to commit crimes. This may offer a nice medium which will cause some to risk it, and others to deter, and others who commit crimes to likely shape up again.

 

I agree largely with these times. They make perfect sense. I hope it's something like this in game.

[sGtDeathunter 10]

We still need to consider that there will be lawyers to shorten that time. It will be a hard thing to balance if you have a really good lawyer that gets everyone out of prison. Those lawyers need to be extremely expensive to hire or they cannot help you out of prison but help you to get a penal abatement.

[Indoorseeker 32]

@Kraiyick I think what you have said is on the minds of a lot of people and your concerns are shared by many. The solution is that the community comes together in different ways to get as close to what we want to see in the game be done. Whether that is petitioning and presenting our thoughts, ideas, and suggestions to the game devs or customizing private servers that better accomplish that goal ourselves. Whatever we do, we do together as a community with like minded interests and goals. Be friendly, be professional, and use the resources we have available.

Thank you to everyone contributing to this discussion.

Family First, Mission Always. Stay Safe. 

[Thecop34 0]

Guys the devs said that The official wont be that restricted, If you want someone who made a crime to stay 7 real time days in prison go make a private server and you will have 100% controll on everything the time the weather the laws the time duration the jail time the police outfits , police car colors the city rules and names , bans and severe punishments and driving licences and make them hard to earn them make guns hard to get them make the law more realistic than real life so start from now managing how you want your server to be and there will be many servers like this. so dont worry.

[Rotnsoul 6]

Crime and Punishment - 

  A few things I want to touch on (and these are just my opinion) about crime and punishment is this - 

  .The Devs said that you could live a life of crime. So that means there has to be some sort of black market or crime syndicate to work around. Also they are really pushing video of this cops life style but what I haven't seen is how are you convicted of a crime? So many are talking about the punishment of a crime and the prison life and things around those topics but is it really as simple as a Police Player arresting a citizen and that citizen goes to prison without trial? This game is going to be the hardest game to pull off to date. That means people are going to have to be understanding when things dont work out right away.

.Another thing related to this is that if your idea is to punish a player by making him sit in a cell while he is online just waiting out his sentence then all you will do is lose players. No one is going to log in to sit behind bars - Now if you had in a "prison life" as well as a method or chance to escape then now criminals have some adventure to be part of while locked up.  So again this is not going to be easy to pull off.

It is easy for citizens to be upset about being killed - random free lance death is going to be a real subject the devs have to look at, however to stay true to life you have to accept that it will be part of the game. Car accidents where a car jumps the curb and takes you out walking down the road - A low life thug mugs you and shoots you while doing so...these crimes take place and hopefully this game will be able to balance murder (and lesser crimes) with the death factor.

 

It would be amazing if the "death" factor in this game was just that....death. You have to start over with a new character from scratch (or with a % of your previous players savings) and you went on. You can go on a new character with no tie to the one that passed away or you could be a family member to that person and maybe hold a grudge. I don't know what they answer is I'm just saying that a criminal life is going to be one of the fun aspects of this game, just like being a cop is going to be. Don't destroy that but handing out a punishment that will be a game breaker. Maybe I want to be a serial killer in the game... (disclaimer) ... it could be fun....

 

reminder that the devs have really stated that being a cop and advancing in that career is going to give you things other jobs and citizens wont have. So don't make it boring - give the criminals some things as well and find the true moral compass of the players.