Stronger enforcement on NonRP mask wearing and metagaming name tags.

[MrUntouchable215]

Just as the title says. You see, I've taken a slight break from ECRP and come to understand the value of RP as a whole during that break. To the extent that coming back to the server, it just genuinely feels like night and day. I'm guilty of a lot of things here and as much as I never expected to post something like this, just stepping on the server makes me cringe. This isn't to diss the server in any type of way but anyone who's ever played anywhere else will surely understand where I'm coming from. 

I had a friend join ECRP, someone who's heavily into RP in general and I watched them try to RP a different voice, RP eating, driving speed limit and interacting with people and if I'm being honest? I damn near cringed out of my skin because I genuinely felt like the level of RP this person was doing, just wasn't the norm. I urge everyone to go take a look at these forum threads and take a solid look at the amount of mask wearing that's going on. Dudes be standing in the middle of stores and the bank with masks on, they wear a mask everywhere they go. That shit needs to stop and for the people who are going to post "IC issue" eat a dick tbh, we all know it isn't an IC issue at all, it's as nonRP as it can get.

This doesn't just go one way as well, as I know crims will likely see this and think Flint's being two faced and I completely agree, I am. This is a recent thought of mine and before I played anything else, it never once occured to me. Benny, the old Clown Leader made a post on Zeta's thread going "I still don't like the constant mask wearing" and if I'm being honest, I got heated about that but when I think back on it, he was 100% correct. This post also moves forward to PD as well. Stop metagaming name tags through tinted windows and using third person view to spot guns from behind the car. PD needs to be held accountable and start acting like actual Police. There's some examples that were set and needs to be followed. Shout out to Shadow, Bacon, Hamilton and likely many others for RPing really well as a cop on an RP server. It's sad to say, but these people are/were in rare form. I cannot say that about a lot of PD members on ECRP and it isn't their fault, this simply needs to be enforced better on an OOC level. Start kicking people from the faction that aren't upholding RP standards and this goes to everyone.

Another point I would like to make is that none of this is any one person's fault. Somewhere along the lines, we stopped valuing RP and started doing whatever the hell we wanted to, all while point the finger at each other. It's a collective problem. You know things are bad whenever faction members become inactive because there isn't shit to shoot and unfortunately, I feel that staff overlooked a lot of these things for entirely too long. People DMing bank and getting appeals accepted, people having like 30 NonRP's returning to the server and many more.

 

Also ffs, bring back the CK system. Stop allowing people to die 1000 times and return as themselves. Factions should be permitted CK perms on their members and CK's need to be handed out to people who can't seem to grasp the idea of valuing their characters life. Last but not least @FatherOsborn and anyone else involved, Good shit on that announcement titled "State of EclipseRP" it's good to see that things are moving in the right direction. All I ask is that staff keeps that same energy involving government factions as well.

 

I dead ass feel like an opp right now posting this, but there were things I needed to get off my chest. 

 

[MrUntouchable215]

Since I can't seem to edit this post, I would simply like to add that I'm not pointing at anyone in particular, mainly just a widespread issue I've come to see as of late. To anyone here that knows who I am, ya'll know I got nothing but love for a lot of people in this community and I simply want things to improve for everyone, not just a certain niche of people.

[FrankieP]

You're not wrong, the state of rp has really declined and most of what we see now is just people playing to win/PvP. Osborn's announcement was amazing, I also agree with that, so big shoutout to him.

Im not sure about mask thing completely, as the small size of the map in comparison to rhe real world makes it hard for people roleplaying undercover characters to avoid other players. I do understand the sentiment though and O wouldn't be opposed to the enforcement of NonRP rules in this regard.

Bringing back CK's is also a fantastic idea, so +1 to that

[CaesarSeizure]

I find the whole mask thing kinda hilarious. Big time criminals have a point to hide their face more than others, but then you have some new player whos first purchase is a mask. What is he hiding from? I do think that masks can be handled ICly though, if face concealment was removed as a citation and left just as a misdemeanor, people would stop wearing masks rather quickly, unless they had a reason to do so. The point of asking people to take their masks off is the same as asking people to not park randomly on the pier, it solves the issue for the full minute you are there and it goes back to what it was when you leave.

Name tags through tinted windows, i agree and i try to keep myself in check as much as i can. Stuff like ignoring the name while im behind a vehicle and overall, it is something that is enforced in some ways, but is a hard thing to catch. But i think this goes beyond just PD. A solution to this would be some script support for hiding aliases unless the person is in clear view. We need to see IDs in case of rule breaks, but an alias should be the last thing you pay attention to.

Speaking of aliases, maybe they should decay with time. At the end, we RP that the city is more populated than it is, and it is a weird situation where you can remember every single person you meet. A solution to this would be an alias decay, if you are not in range of a person you aliased for a week lets say, your alias is reset. This way the people you interact with on a daily basis would still be aliased, but the people you met once, got their name and didn't see for a month, that alias is gone. I am unsure of the amount of dev work that this would take, but it would stop the perfect memory that every player has.

Third person camera is again, something that is far beyond just PD. PD uses it to spot guns, but crims use it for ambushes. Plenty of videos out there where someone just lays down in a completely hidden spot and uses 3rd person to see what is happening around them. I do not really see 3rd person going away, and it is hard to police cause at the end, we all play the game in 3rd person and benefit from that in 1 way or another. I do have to give credit to Aztecas, i don't know if they changed their clothing or are using a smaller gun, but that thing is concealed so much that i just can't push myself to act on it.

CK being brought back would be an interesting thing, but it would have to be something that comes at a cost. The old CK system was just treated as a get out of jail free card and didn't exactly provide any value. I would think a CK would reset all of your aliases and your alias to everyone and maybe even cost something to do so (5% net worth?), could be argued for other form of losses. But it would allow for people who want to CK after a large conflict to start fresh and it could force people who don't value their lives to lose it and start over.

[alexalex303]

Masks

The thing with masks has always been something that bothers you a lot when you first join, but then becomes the norm because every single person does it. Even the legal characters that have no reason to, will be masked at all times. You ask some, they say random stuff like "I don't want people to know I'm here, at the bank".

The fact that we have more people wearing masks for no reason than people do in real life during a pandemic, is a very large red flag. Have you ever seen a group of three people enter a bank all masked up? Not just the bank, even if four people are walking down the street all masked up with bandanas, that's an instant red flag. In most western countries, you'd be searched on the spot. It's something that criminals should seek to avoid.

But on a server where legal people wear a mask just as much as criminals, it's hard to blame just the criminals. I think that the culture is so ingrained by this point, that unless you make an OOC rule about it, it will not change. 

• It is considered nonrp to wear a mask for more than fifteen minutes after you committed a crime, or after you lost law enforcement actively pursuing you.

There. You're hanging around at the bank? with the gang? No mask. The mask should be used when you're actively robbing a store, when you're killing someone, sure. But if you're driving around? chilling? even worse? fishing? Who fishes with a mask realistically? No one. 

Forced Character Kills

The SAMP server where I used to play had a forced CK system and I think it made a huge difference, especially in the context of randomly shooting cops or gang hopping.

If you were arrested for killing a cop, you would get a strike. If you received three strikes, your character would be CKed. This was normal and people got CKed every single day.

Illegal factions had the option to apply for a CK on other players if they had sufficient reason, similar to our war application, but against an individual. The person would obviously not be aware of it, until afterwards. After the CK was complete, they would receive a copy of the application, and a chance to contest any of the reasoning, with a possibility of the CK being reversed if the reasons were metagamed/NLRd/etc.

If you joined an official faction, you automatically accepted the fact that if you were a bad member, in the eyes of the leaders, you could be CKed out of the faction at any point, and for any reason they deemed fit. Obviously it would not happen over petty reasons, because, well, there's no sense in randomly killing a good soldier. But it was something that made gang hopping impossible, and made it more of a serious commitment vs just putting on a color clothing.

But, as to how that would work here, I think that it's something that we all as a community need to think about, if we want to increase the RP standard and stop some less than ideal behavior. both in terms of abusing masks, and possibly losing your characters.

Nametags and Cars

I feel that a script solution to this is the best approach. If you are inside a car with tinted windows, your name is hidden and only ID is shown, similar to if you were wearing a mask inside your car. This would provide even less incentive for people to be masked up all the time, and force people to realistically RP tinted windows. If you are in front of the car where the windows are not tinted, you can always roleplay seeing them and acquire faces through /mes and /dos.

 

 

[givejoshamosin]

6 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

Masks

The thing with masks has always been something that bothers you a lot when you first join, but then becomes the norm because every single person does it. Even the legal characters that have no reason to, will be masked at all times. You ask some, they say random stuff like "I don't want people to know I'm here, at the bank".

The fact that we have more people wearing masks for no reason than people do in real life during a pandemic, is a very large red flag. Have you ever seen a group of three people enter a bank all masked up? Not just the bank, even if four people are walking down the street all masked up with bandanas, that's an instant red flag. In most western countries, you'd be searched on the spot. It's something that criminals should seek to avoid.

But on a server where legal people wear a mask just as much as criminals, it's hard to blame just the criminals. I think that the culture is so ingrained by this point, that unless you make an OOC rule about it, it will not change. 

• It is considered nonrp to wear a mask for more than fifteen minutes after you committed a crime, or after you lost law enforcement actively pursuing you.

There. You're hanging around at the bank? with the gang? No mask. The mask should be used when you're actively robbing a store, when you're killing someone, sure. But if you're driving around? chilling? even worse? fishing? Who fishes with a mask realistically? No one. 

 

While I agree you have a point, I think adding a "Non RP" element to this idea will purely have more of a negative repercussion to the community as whole. Now what I do agree with is to make it more of an IC issue, giving PD more to do and adding more risk to criminals and legals who want to be masked up, PD could enforce a more stop and search approach to all masked individuals as the would in real life. We should be actively looking at ways to implement changes ICly without the need for OOC rules as OOC rules extremely limit roleplay (but that is a whole different issue).
 

Now this isn't me saying I want changes in the way masks are enforced, as quite frankly if a PO1 is bothering me about my mask every 5 minutes its just going to annoy me and I feel like it is ingrained in the culture to have a mask on. 

 

TLDR; I don't disagree with the point being made, but I don't want it implemented, however if it were to be implemented it should be IC not OOC.

[Victor Einhart]

Is it possible to have a script function that hides player IDs by default, and only have IDs come up if you type a command in?  Really you only use player IDs if using other server commands like frisking or stabilizing etc that require player IDs... so if you could type in a command to have it come up for 30 seconds or so then disappear again it might be nice.  You could also spot a metagamer looking for IDs real quick by looking at logs for folks spamming the command.  Or at least reduce the range IDs appear at significantly.

Really the masks have almost nothing to do about IC reasoning and everything to do about stopping people from looking at an alias they've put on you.  There's a "reason" for it, if that makes sense.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Victor Einhart

[CalvinKlein]

As a crim who's part of a big gang, I get into lots of situations with cops, and in some cases I dodge charges even with a mask on, for example Coyer was arresting an ally of mine, we held him up and left, next thing based on the look of my character (masked the entire time) I willingly go into a PD scenario to retrieve my drag , with no mask on and he starts screaming "It's him it's him, that guy held me up x hours ago "he had a micro and was shooting with a micro" - when I only aimed a .50 without firing a single shot at him, forced a GSR test on me after cuffing me etc, then had to let me go - however the person was not happy with this and decided to file a crime report on MYSELF, not just suspicion but saying that my RP character did x x x without ever confirming anything, And to be very fair and honest, it did result in Fun RP  between myself and Cynthia Shelby, and my Lawyer Aldari , however and sorry if bringing your name bothers you, due to situations like that I feel like its impossible for me personally to RP my character properly without being masked 99% of the time, even if I go speeding past someone going 200 and they attempt to chase me and fail to do so I'll be getting the felony evading charge because my alias would show for 1 second as I drive past them 

[MrUntouchable215]

4 minutes ago, CalvinKlein said:

As a crim who's part of a big gang, I get into lots of situations with cops, and in some cases I dodge charges even with a mask on, for example Coyer was arresting an ally of mine, we held him up and left, next thing based on the look of my character (masked the entire time) I willingly go into a PD scenario to retrieve my drag , with no mask on and he starts screaming "It's him it's him, that guy held me up x hours ago "he had a micro and was shooting with a micro" - when I only aimed a .50 without firing a single shot at him, forced a GSR test on me after cuffing me etc, then had to let me go - however the person was not happy with this and decided to file a crime report on MYSELF, not just suspicion but saying that my RP character did x x x without ever confirming anything, And to be very fair and honest, it did result in Fun RP  between myself and Cynthia Shelby, and my Lawyer Aldari , however and sorry if bringing your name bothers you, due to situations like that I feel like its impossible for me personally to RP my character properly without being masked 99% of the time, even if I go speeding past someone going 200 and they attempt to chase me and fail to do so I'll be getting the felony evading charge because my alias would show for 1 second as I drive past them 

The problem is, wearing a mask 24/7 is non RP in itself. People put themselves in situations where they're being hunted by police and figure the best way to avoid it is by putting on a mask to hide their alias, which genuinely isn't ideal at all. Name tagging should be enforced as metagaming, because well..it is. Think about this, you shot someone for whatever reason and cops saw you do it, rather than wearing a mask 24/7, why not change clothes, RP wearing your hat low and go hide out until the heat dies down. There should be zero reason you're wanted unless they know for a fact it's you and if you're driving around and you look entirely different, it's easy to prove you were name tagged in the first place, staff just needs to be really hands on about this type of thing because it isn't uncommon for these things to happen. There is a script manner in which you can hide ID's through tinted windows, I've seen it and while I agree that it's a great approach, it still starts at home. If you know you're about to do some wild shit? Throw that mask on, it's what it's there for but not every single crime should require a mask as the entire point is to be lowkey. 

That goes to my next point, for whatever reason, people are entirely too well known to PD to the point where it makes some of that shit entirely pointless. The amount of time my character has been arrested is just bonkers and in no world should that even be possible. I'd appreciate it if a cop who's reading this could MDC Flint Capone, Flint Johnson or Flint Carwyn and post my record here for OOC purpose, simply so I can stress the point even further. 

CK's when they're not being forced by an Admin or Faction should be requested by forums with the reason as to why you want to CK that character and the story that lead up to the CK, thus eliminating people doing it for a "get out of jail free card". If people want to CK and join another faction, let them. As long as they're an entirely new person and have to meet people all over again, that's fine and there's zero wrong with that.

 

 

 

 

[CaesarSeizure]

3 hours ago, Victor Einhart said:

Is it possible to have a script function that hides player IDs by default, and only have IDs come up if you type a command in?  Really you only use player IDs if using other server commands like frisking or stabilizing etc that require player IDs... so if you could type in a command to have it come up for 30 seconds or so then disappear again it might be nice.  You could also spot a metagamer looking for IDs real quick by looking at logs for folks spamming the command.  Or at least reduce the range IDs appear at significantly.

Problem with just out right hiding all IDs, is that it will create extra work for staff for player reports and will make in-game reports almost always forced to move to the forums. If let's say a bus injures you and drives away, the only way to get IDs would be through log checks, you could also be killed before managing to use a command to see IDs etc.

[DrewBanks]

Just thought I would put this out there but criminals need to start thinking before saying on what they do because they be dry snitching I be hearing people say  yea I just killed/body a couple PD/SD I be sitting there like did just say that like dam they must not value there freedom and to be honest if you that around me or anyone that I kick with we about (1) ignore you or (2)clown on you for your poor mindset unless you new than I'll let it slide but the people been around should know better for real

[TheCactus]

For once I agree with all the points made by @MrUntouchable215. @alexalex303 is being a little drastic here but he highlighted some real issues.

Masks - wear them whenever you commit a crime or even when you are speeding, but take it off when you are behaving like a normal civilian. The only person that would enjoy wearing some accessory that obstructs some of your senses and your normal breathing ability is a psycho straight out of a splatter movie such as Halloween. If you are fishing, chilling in an NCZ like the bank or a police station or you are simply sitting in your car listening to music, realistically, would you randomly wear a mask? I saw a convoy of lowriders the other day and 15% was not wearing a mask. Do latinos really wear bandanas since they wake up until they go back to sleep? I don't know how the US or other countries handle it but you are not allowed to enter some restricted areas with a mask on in Italy. You are physically unable to enter a police station without presenting your ID (and obviously having your face recorded by one of the many CCTVs) but if you manage to do so, with a mask on, you would get detained. Not even the director of a bank can let you in if you wear a mask on. At least take it off when you are 100% clean just for the sake of the realism.

Metagaming name tags - something that does happen but it's hard to prove. It does happen even without tinted windows (i.e.: a Kamacho passes you going 180 while you are stationary, you see 4 IDs and instantly know they're 4) ans personally had multiple situations where cadets metagamed it but I kinda let it slide, stated it in writing so other trainers could make sure they dont do it again and move on. However I am guilty for not disciplining those who do it and not giving it too much weight. In almost 2 years of ECRP I think I did by mistake 3 or 4 times too so it's something that happens but serious factions and legal factions should make sure it's not a reoccuring issue.

The /alias command is just too powerful in my opinion and force people to wear masks so they can have the freedom this simple command takes away.