I personally was dubious about the NCZ change when it first came in and thought it could open some areas up to becoming the wild west, but I am pretty pleased to say that, in my experience, I was wrong. There have been many more opportunities for RP and for criminals to RP acts in these zones now that I actually think it's a positive change for the server.
I understand there was the pillbox shoot-out, but this largely was an isolated event in the first few days, just like Ash said, and it was dealt with already, so I am not entirely sure its the best marker for why we need NCZ's there.
The picklock ing of cars is frustrating and its a pain I feel since Weazel, which has a gated back parking, at a busy News Network Studio, with multiple cameras focusing on the parking, which is right beside a busy construction site, in the middle of a populated city, has long been a target for multiple car picklockings a day. I certainly do not think it's justification for putting up a NCZ around a police station again, since one facet is suddenly strangling a whole host of new RP scenarios that have opened up. Reporting an individual for non-rp picklocking and the subsequent staff investigation would really only take a select few players out of RP for a short period of time, versus a NCZ which completely removed RP opportunities for players, until their removal in those zones.
I am sure there are also IC actions that could be taken to mitigate the picklock issue at PD such as parking in a legion square, cycling to work, not keeping your items in a car etc. The removal of the NCZ's around the server, in retrospect, has been a great relief to potential RP blockers and looking back, their existence did not make the greatest of sense either. Its claimed these areas would be "considered populated, extremely public, and areas that would have ample security measures such as cameras, staff, and so forth" but realistically we take many liberties with how populated San Andreas is, and quite rightly so for gameplay aspects.
The long term opportunities for RP and the benefits that bring, greatly outweighs short term teething problems that can be mitigated via added faction lockable doors, or mitigated via IC decisions.
