Should publicly wearing masks be 'legal?'

[BongoJoe]

It's definitely offputting as a new member that the majority of players in the city openly wear masks when going about their normal activities. 

 

Im on mobile so I'll just provide a quick example I've seen multiple times already. 

I've seen numerous people just walk into the bank masked up. This would certainly trigger some sort of negative reaction if we are speaking in terms of realism.

My personal opinion is that the PD should start cracking down on this. It's not necessarily a severe offense I'd believe but it should at least be treated on the same level as jaywalking. 

Your thoughts?

 

EDIT: I have seen the multiple discussions about masks in the thread but I believe the more open discussions we have on the subject the more likely Either 1) Something will be tweaked in the rules or 2) We can get a final say from administrators that the current situation is fine. 

Edited June 20, 2019 by BongoJoe
Spelling & Clarification

[Drizzy.]

I personally like the ability to wear masks whenever I wish or feel like I need to. You have to remember we can't have everything identical to real life, there has to be a balance between game and realism. Sometimes I just want to put my mask on and not want to be bothered.

[BongoJoe]

1 minute ago, DrizzyDre said:

I personally like the ability to wear masks whenever I wish or feel like I need to. You have to remember we can't have everything identical to real life, there has to be a balance between game and realism. Sometimes I just want to put my mask on and not want to be bothered.

A perfectly valid point. My only negative to this is that while we certainly may not be able to achieve absolute realism, it's a pretty thin line. 

Traditionally, concealing your identity in public is associated with criminal intent, not necessarily when you're just walking about, but absolutely when you decide to walk into a shop or public institution (Banks, Hospitals, Gas Stations, etc.)

As soon as a masked person walks into a store, everyone in said store would likely be on edge, and more than likely report authorities.

Like I said though, I've no prior experience in law enforcement or anything of the sort so Im not sure it's an actual offense, but when I'm walking around the server I feel like the whole city is about to start a revolution. I've nothing against it, but it really limits RP if you're not a criminal that's packing heat at the moment. 

[Yputi]

This is indeed a discussion I opened earlier, not too long ago: 

Someone also suggesting the same indeed, to get PD do something about it. The point where my concerns are is more towards metagaming, as people use nametags to identify people instead of appereance.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Yputi

[BongoJoe]

24 minutes ago, Yputi said:

This is indeed a discussion I opened earlier, not too long ago: 

Someone also suggesting the same indeed, to get PD do something about it. The point where my concerns are is more towards metagaming, as people use nametags to identify people instead of appereance.

Yeah I've seen quite a few topics on the subject. 

Also a pretty good point on the meta gaming thought. I suppose implementing a law against concealing your identity would require a lot more faith in not using OOC knowledge. I suppose it is just a lesson that we should focus on what we see more rather than what we can read above people's heads. 

You may have actually changed my mind on the subject though I still believe that it happens a bit too often, slightly breaking immersion. 

Edited June 21, 2019 by BongoJoe
Spelling

[Yputi]

15 minutes ago, BongoJoe said:

Yeah I've seen quite a few topics on the subject. 

Also a pretty good point on the meta gaming thought. I suppose implementing a law against concealing your identity would require a lot more faith in not using OOC knowledge. I suppose it is just a lesson that we should focus on what we see more rather than what we can read above people's heads. 

You may have actually changed my mind on the subject though I still believe that it happens a bit too often, slightly breaking immersion. 

Indeed. What I personally think is that /alias shouldn't be a thing anymore. The only thing above people's heads should be their ID since nametags were always ment to be OOC. I know this won't be much easier with recognizing people, but as I also stated in my post; when I was new on the server, I didnt even know about /alias for quite a while. And I can confirm, it's not even that hard. I believe this would also lower the amount of masks being used. And yes, even I use masks on my legal and non-legal character, because it's just waaaaay to easy to identify people.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Yputi

[Balastas]

Masks are bullshit in this server cancerous as hell. I see many criminals coming even without having mask on and then putting it on infront of you and then claiming you couldn't recognize them. The thing is that mask are way too op and it's because there's a low possibility to actually track someone down. Etc. there is no other people, so if someone havent witnessed a crime then basicly he got away, even while in real life there's people arround 24/7 and if you look most of criminals actually get caught because of someone witnessed it and then police would also track all cctv cameras in the city to check it.

Not even mentioning dna test, finger prints and so on. As biggest example you would come to the body and you find someone dead and basicly that is it, if you haven't witnessed someone running its over.

Not even considering the fact about people stopping for no reason at active scene and trying to bait people and you can't do a shit if he's wearing mask since you won't drop active scene just to chase someone else and that is just because PD can not charge people just car plates while in real life all would be documented and if owner didn't reported it stolen it is his Responsibility to explain and make it clear otherwise he was the DRIVER.
 

[Drizzy.]

I see comments of examples of singular people behaving in a manner which isn’t favourable. The actual ability of masks and alias isn’t the issue. Also about alias, if my brother wore different clothes would I not recognise him? Alias is there for when you know someone, unless they’re masked you’re going to remember the people you know? Regardless if they change clothes..

[alexalex303]

5 hours ago, DrizzyDre said:

I see comments of examples of singular people behaving in a manner which isn’t favourable. The actual ability of masks and alias isn’t the issue. Also about alias, if my brother wore different clothes would I not recognise him? Alias is there for when you know someone, unless they’re masked you’re going to remember the people you know? Regardless if they change clothes..

The ability becomes an issue when it's regularly abused by a very large percentage of the player base. There is no way to justify wearing a mask when you take money out of the ATM at a busy bank in Los Angeles, and yet if you slide by the bank, how many people there will be masked?

[ShyNudist]

If I ICly obtain someone's identity and /alias them, how is that metagaming?  I can recognize people's faces IRL.  The resolution in the game isn't high enough to use that method, which is why we have /alias.

You can make it so getting plastic surgery removes all /alias, although maybe that already happens?  Or the /alias tag only shows up when they're within FOV? Although the latter would take a lot of coding.

Edited June 26, 2019 by ShyNudist