BallinByNature

August 22, 2020

Then what is the intent? Why can we not speculate when not being told anything? There are several player run factions with high quality RP that has been waiting for ages to just get a reply on their official application. Do you not see how this is an unfortunate signal for them?

You can speculate, we've just told you your speculations are false, that's all. The intent is to try something new, have a few staff establish a faction to be handed off to players eventually to see how it works out, a pilot test.

This has no change / bearing to the current official applications and player-created faction system, so no I do not see how this is an unfortunate signal for them, other than they have another gang in the city to compete with perhaps.

Can you answer my questions then that I asked Osvaldon?

Why when I asked about LSMC moving to crim world and changing their name to Lost MC was I told I would lose official status? Do you not see how demoralising this is now?

If staff are not in this for the long run, why do you need to each transfer a 50k+ bike and 300k cash each? Why is there now natural progression? Everyone in LSMC had to work hard to get their cash and bikes. But this faction just allows 10+ transfer requests funding their criminals.

You are killing factions with these decisions, why are FM apps taking over 6 weeks for an answer but you guys get an answer instantly? @MrSilky

- It was decided before you had become the first Official Legal Faction we would not allow a faction to start up under the legal guise and then transition to illegal because the paths are different and the tools given to these factions are different as well. This will be true for all factions who start up as Legal Factions, such as a business. We actually do not prevent you from RPing criminal activity or monitor that very heavily. You can be criminal and act as a criminal (which you have as your time as "legal faction") and follow your RP story. What you want is access to gun imports out of the blue when you've been RPing as semi-legal. Not only does it sound weird ICly that the Cartel would be importing to your legal MC which had / may still have police characters in it, but it is a clear OOC motivation for gun imports only, and not that you just are not able to do anything criminal at all or RP properly etc.

They were allowed the transfers to help set up the backstory which they will eventually probably not participate in any longer. Every player who joins Lost MC will have to work hard to get their cash and bikes too, and then they will own the faction, while staff no longer does. They're also not funding much of anything criminal, they're buying bikes and housing etc. which will help staff establish a faction lore to hand off.

This decision actually has no impact on other factions / the current faction system but you're free to have your opinion that we're killing them.

These factions don't go through FM / or applications, we establish them together as a staff team, therefore it is not effecting anyone else's application status / time etc.

I understand being confused and speculating but it is strange Luxas because you were in the Faction Leaders chat and given the announcement explaining these factions yet you still are here spinning it as if you did not see that. Perhaps you did not read it before quitting, but it seems a bit disingenuous that you're acting surprised at information that was previously given to you.

+1

If everyone has to earn their official status if they're not staff and staff just get it handed to them when they please, how is that fair.

These staff created factions will have the same guidelines as player run factions and will be only part of the factions for a period of time to get them up and running for other players. Therefore, it will be players in control of these and will follow the same guidelines, and it has no long term benefits for the characters they have established to help out with the system.

As for the transfer requests, these are not characters they are transferring to because they're bored with their character, want to move assets that don't make sense, want to start a new character and bring over their large assets. Feel free to show me if any properties / buildings have been transferred but I don't think they have yet you compare it to moving entire assets of gas stations when players are quitting their alts. These are not even characters they will play long term, they are setting these up to create a proper lore for players to follow / join in, and eventually hand off that lore / standard to the players once it's established.

It is something to test out and try - and has nothing to do with anyone else "not being good enough" or whatever was said, we're just trying a method of creating a faction which we think might bring some good RP to the community, if you disagree that is certainly fine, and will be noted for our testing.

Thanks for your feed back everyone!

August 12, 2020

We already have IC (and OOC) protocols that outline the requirement for charging someone, investigating someone, searching someone, etc... All of this is in PD/SD handbooks.

@Kyle White Raven IC protocol wasn't followed in the scenario you're taking your reasoning from, nor was OOC protocol. Each player, including PD/SD players, are capable of non-RP (roleplaying actions which are unrealistic) and that is what this was determined to be.

Officers should have the autonomy to determine the charges on a suspect without OOC punishment

I disagree, if their actions are unrealistic and effect other peoples RP negatively, as per the Server Roleplay rules, that should certainly not be allowed.

Additionally they do have the full autonomy to determine the charges on a suspect, if they've actually confirmed who their suspect is.

This means that if someone does get charged incorrectly then they can lose their job, get suspended, fined, demoted, etc...

This is already the case, too. However being that we're in an environment with limited players, praying on the fact of limited diversity and a high guessing probability, is not sufficient to be randomly placing charges -OR- attacking any player in a situation not involving police at all. You cannot "guess" you have the right person, you must know, or you could be guilty of DMing there as well.

Having this rule prevents us (law enforcement) from performing any sort of basic investigations and more importantly provides civilians and criminals with masks a blanket immunity to any possible charges, assuming they aren't caught.

This rule is not something new, all players are held to the non-RP standard of performing realistic actions. Having this rule actually does the exact opposite, it sets the guideline that basic investigations are actually required (not prevented?) instead of just guessing at charges which would not hold up in any real sense. Charging criminals based on your personal hunch after having done little to no investigative work is not a realistic action for a player with the OOC privilege PD / SD players are granted.

Furthermore, this takes any sort of IC story building away, such as getting to know criminals, their patterns, their clothing, their voices (text and VOIP), their vehicles, etc...

+

However, the way the ruling affects us is by not allowing us to make IC decisions based on the way someone looks (tattoos, clothing, voice, accessories, etc...)

It is clear to me that you didn't read the entire opinion or did and are trying to straw-man the excerpted quote. The full explanation clearly states those things can be the bases of basic investigation, he could be a lead suspect, brought in for questioning, go to their home and stake out to see if he arrives in the vehicle, etc etc etc. Just because you cannot blindly charge them, you now can't have any IC story building? Was blindly charging them the pinnacle of your RP story building really?

I'm sure this will turn out like any other thread that mentions PD and Criminals in the same breath, but I would hope people look past this individual case and ponder to themselves whether or not this type of precedent is something you want in the server (E.g: OOC punishments for reasonable IC actions)

Implying that these are reasonable OOC actions is precisely misinterpreting the ruling of the report. An officer placing felony charges as a guess on someone then providing the evidence that they were placed based off a personal educated guess based off clothing and voice sound, is not at all a reasonable IC interaction. So that is not at all the precedent being set.

ID'ing someone by voice is something that happens

As mentioned to Dashingly below, identifiable yes, evidence sufficient of being a valid charge, no. The ruling encouraged further RP with him as a suspect, but just because 1 officer has a correct gut feeling, doesn't make a charge valid.

What CAN happen is you hear someone and you assume their identity, continuing to investigate you notice that person is wearing the same clothes they usually where, in the same vehicle, same hair style, etc... At that point the chances that person is on their alt dressed exactly the same is very very slim.

Continuing to investigate wasn't done. The person was not driving their own car. Hair style and clothing alone are not sufficient evidence for an irrefutable charge.

More importantly, I would like focus the overall point of this discussion. What you mentioned Aldarine isn't simply to prevent PD/SD from charging people solely based on mask and/or voice. We don't do this as explained above.

This is precisely what was done in the report, he placed the charges based off of mask and voice.

The staff member in question said the following: ''what is required for them such as confirming the identity beyond a shadow of a doubt which cannot be done with masks on and based on voices\''

What this means (unless I am wrong and if so feel free to correct me), is that we as PD/SD can not charge someone for a crime if they have a mask on, regardless if we have matched their clothing, tattoos, accessories, vehicle, voice and have gone through a bunch of other investigative RP, all because it was OOC'ly decided that the requirement for identification CAN NOT be achieved if they have a mask on.

What this means is you have to follow your PD/SD protocol which says the exact same things. That is correct if you have no evidence that it was that person, they were not caught in the act, and they have not given any sort of admission of guilt what so ever, you cannot place irrefutable charges based on clothing worn, a tattoo, voice, or accessories alone.

"and have gone through a bunch of other investigative RP" is being awfully generous considering absolutely 0 investigative RP was done before placing the charge based on the voice and clothing.

Not only is this an IC issue which should be handled IC'ly (charging someone while they are wearing a mask is rare as is)

Unrealistic actions (filing charges based on a personal educated guess with 0 evidence) are not an IC issue, all players are held to the non-RP standard within the rules. The player involved in the report had prior reports and cases where he charged them in similar fashion with a mask on as well, so it is not as rare as you claim.

knowing that as long as they commit crimes wearing a mask they can not be charged.

Only someone intentionally trying to misread the ruling would suggest they can not be charged, because it says very plainly as explained that it can be the basis of further investigation and possibly eventually lead to a charge with more evidence. That is up for your RP to decide, but you don't get to place irrefutable charges based on your characters best educated guess and do 0 investigation and claim you can't ever place charges now.

For this situation, it feels like the problem hasn't been established at all, which is why I encourage people to post any reports or recount any stories (that can be backed up by PD/SD) about situations where someone has been wrongly charged because of wrongful ID while wearing a mask and/or through voice. Are these things that happen every day ? Every week ? Every month ? Is it severe enough where an OOC rule is needed or can this be dealt with IC through IA (or even OOC'ly through IA) ?

The frequency of a non-RP action does not make it more or less non-RP in most cases. A player being charged unrealistically, just once, is an issue to be worked on / corrected.

An OOC rule wasn't created once again, OOC rules surrounding realistic acitons are indeed needed, and were already in place prior (non-RP).

The point here is to specifically discuss how we are no longer able to charge someone if they wear a mask, regardless of how much investigative RP has been done and other things (like clothing, voice, tattoos, etc... match)

Is visually seeing clothing , tattoos, and vehicles, the only investigative RP available in your opinion? In my opinion, that's a very surface level observation any officer can make, let alone a full on detectives investigation which should be far more in-depth. Do you truly believe placing charges based off a brief visual of him stepping out of a car and shooting at the officer for a few seconds is the pinnacle of investigative RP and he has exhausted all resources to confirm his suspect? I would disagree completely.

I think that this will lead to situations where PD/SD can confidently ID someone (even with a mask)

Precisely why it is both unrealistic and not allowed. In no realistic way would charges stand up based on a confident identity guess with facial obstruction.

but they will have to ignore it or dumb their own reactions due to OOC restrictions.

No one told them to ignore their IC guess, we just asked them to RP them out realistically, not place unrealistic irrefutable charges based on a personal educated guess.

There's no way to metagame IDs anymore and if I have enough evidence, I charge the individual.

@TheCactus Because the MDC does not pop up their name via their ID does not mean it is not possible to metagame someone's identity. He also wasn't even punished for metagaming, it was for non-RP. The ability to "guess" based on voip or player model is drastically increased by OOC information in a small community which has much less chance of having a doppleganger (especially while wearing a mask) than real life may be, that is why your guess is not entirely an IC guess when you're basing it off player model and voice. Additionally people can have multiple characters so saying that their characters voice is so unique to them as the sole basis for identifying them is not a fair OOC tactic what so ever in terms of valuing the RP possibilities.

Your statement that if you have enough evidence is fine, however, guessing based off a voice sound during a car chase and a brief interaction seeing their mask as they are shooting at you, is not "enough evidence" as confirmed by PD / SD chiefs during discussion. The protocols in place within the faction both OOC and IC require more for placing charges, so doing so in violation of the OOC / IC protocols is not an IC issue.

Why should an officer get punished OOCly if he managed to successfully confirm the identity of a suspect (and all this happened because of the lack of effort of said suspect)?

The officer wasn't punished for successfully confirming the identity, it is well stated in the full explanation that these things could be used as the basis for investigation / targeting a suspect. What he was punished for was placing charges with absolutely 0 evidence other than personal guess. He could definitely follow up and use his successful guess as the basis for a proper RP investigation with a primary suspect.

Like is it our fault if people wear the same clothes while paying their fines and murdering someone over and over again?

No, it is not your fault people do that. Just your fault if you place irrefutable charges based on clothing alone which is unrealistic. Just because you know Ricky Brasco wears a blue t shirt a lot doesn't mean you can go around charging any suspect in a blue t-shirt as Ricky Brasco. Arguing the ability to guess charges based on clothing and voice sounds alone is unrealistic.

If you know you're gonna kill, smart up.

If you know you're gonna charge, gather evidence.

easily identifiable by accent, outfit, and his mannerisms

@Dashingly identifiable yes, evidence sufficient of being a valid charge, no. The ruling encouraged further RP with him as a suspect, but just because 1 officer has a correct gut feeling, doesn't make a charge valid.

A mask shouldn't be an automatic get out of jail free card.

It isn't, and prior RP experience with a person shouldn't be an ' ability to charge irrefutably based on a situational guess' either.

I just don't believe that this should be an OOC rule break. This is an IC issue on all levels.

Actions that are unrealistic which promote a poor quality of RP have and always will be an OOC issue under the non-RP rule.

August 6, 2020