Shattered Kingdoms

What? Darkies can dropkick players that annoy them. If there's a douchebag lightie, and you're playing a lightie, there's nothing you can do about that person. Especially if they're played by people like Muktar that go out and purposely do [REDACTED] to get under the skin of players that he doesn't like so he can get them cursed. Blah blah blah, etc. so on so forth.

What I'm trying to say is that it's much easier to play a darkie.

That's true. My point is only that if we discourage the PvP engines from inciting conflict by having tremendously long and boring jail sentences then we end up with a more boring PvP scene.

The faction who put that person there wins. The villian who was placed there loses. His faction then has to break the villian out, thus PK is still being driven within SK as this sort of thing can, and often does, lead to more conflict and battles.



The only time it is not boneheaded to get thrown in jail is when you willingly turn yourself in. Any other instance can be directly blamed on the player controlling the character who is jailed. They screwed up, didn't plan correctly, didn't enchant their things properly, ect. If you are a super villian, you gotta know super heroes are coming after you for the wrongs you've done.



I think a faction leader could make some reason to show leniency. This is similar to providing atonement for people who are blemished. Sometimes the sin that caused someone to get blemished is so egregious that atonement shouldn't really seem possible. From an OOC standpoint, however, we have to provide some path to atonement otherwise we destroy a character.

Both sides have to be willing to play ball, though. Often, the RP I see from someone getting jailed is more along the lines of, "Pardon me or else!" and obviously that is not going to work.

I sympathize with people who have long jail sentences. It sucks, I know, but no one made you rack up a huge list of crimes. That was your choice. Perhaps "consequence" is a bigger word than you think.

Maybe we should start providing cable TV and exercise equipment and time for socializing with the other prisoners in lightie jails instead. Aren't all prisoners in US issued a Bible still? I think it would be hilarious if all prisoners were given a book of laws or lightie gods in the lightie countries when they get jailed.

Considerations / Suggestions

1) A means for a tribunal to pardon some crimes. (To select off the outlaw list instead one pardon to pardon them all.)
2) A means for bail, to let someone out for X amount of time. Granted, if they don't come back, they don't serve, but if they don't come back, they're out of your hair anyway.
3) A means for a different retribution to be set that people can pay. Clearly it would have to be large, and the person in jail could become indebted to the philanthropists.
... but at least a kingdom could use it for actual income.

Some combination of the above could allow for the existing system to also remain in place, but .. could give options for other alternatives to resolve problems which can accommodate for some of the more extreme or interesting situations.

You could RP all of those solutions. We don't need a code update to satisfy this.

Maybe if you could pay a lawyer enough coin, he could bargain and get you a shorter sentence. Works in the real world.

For now you are stuck playing another game or watching hulu and occasionally checking back with the mud between commercial breaks.
Jail time sucks, I agree with that, but its meant to suck.

In terms of an execution sentence, I feel that if it was implemented, there would need to some kind of drawback to it because anyone could easily get a rez right after.

Lets say... Triple spirit disorientation that lasts the original length of your sentence. Meaning Iritions triple disorientation would last a total of about 24 hrs irl since he killed 33 people. That IS why this was brought up right?

I'll bite,

One of these things I would like to see as alternatives:

Work Release: some sort of mini game that will let you reduce your sentence but not needing to be semi-afk or offline to deal with the sentence.

'Curse': Not the actual spell, but like what Jreid said before, an option to take some sort of massive debuff that would last an equal time. Another reason to not be semi-afk or logged off.

I know that these happen in 3's but, I can't think of another alternative.

Warning wall of text. Skip to half way if just looking for ideas.
Before I throw out a few ideas. Let me first bring up the problem as I see it. I use to be in the camp of do the time if you did the crime. However having grown up a lot from my younger years. With out big bads you have no cool heros.

Not mentioning their abilities there are some factions that can commit crimes with out getting reported for them. This is one of the major issues when it comes to "good" cities finally getting the bad guy. Sure we got him for a few days but how many other crimes has he committed. This makes poor balance when compared to other bads who do not have such abilities and just have to rack up crimes well making the game exciting.
Just going to throw out an example of the latter. Using the waste lands. Lets say on average a bad will rack up about a crime every 5 min they are attacking a city(an amazingly low rate). Compare that to adventuring in the wastelands. If you where to die there for every 5 min you spent there you would have to wait 30 min until you could get a rez. This is an issue as I see it.

The major issue with pardon is two fold. Firstly removal of all crimes for some this is a massive boon others minor its a come one come all. Secondly after you pardon someone there is nothing to force them to hold their end of any negations which logically leads to expected outcome of them ignoring it for the majority of "bads"

The final major issue I see, there is a "win condition" for defenders catch the guy out once. There is no win condition for attackers who can catch you out 100 times. In fact the more times they win the harsher it becomes when they lose. There is faction v faction victories but how often do these actually ever happen.

OK having spoken of some significant problems facing the justice system. Some possible solutions.

Part pardon. Release from jail and force recalled. No crimes removed from the list accept for those served.

Part Pardon where you can pardon X for crime Y as listed on the outlaw list, when by the judge. This would also enable more interesting RP around people helping defend the city where you could pardon them for some things but not others.

Pardon/Curse. Granting a pardon(or part pardon) that also bestows a removable curse (if part pardon then significantly limited). This would give the pardoner some residual power over the arrangement that might be made for the pardon. The curse could range from spirit disorientation to negatives to attack/damage in the nation who pardoned you. This would be similar to blemish atone mechanics so would have to have some measure of Imm supervision.

Group old crimes into limited time. This might be hard from coding. For example after 5 years all crimes committed in a given month would become a new crime called mass murder (month name). Jail time 3 days. Giving people who have a lot of crimes on a few months of attack to eventually get them turned into a manageable amount. AKA giving the bads a win condition that helps reset jail time by not slipping up. This could also be extended into 10 years monthly mass murder would get turned into yearly mass murder.

Chance of self escape. Every 30 min a random chance for self break out is presented placing you in a high risk room outside the jail if you can escape then you make it if not back in jail. The major issue I see with this is some classes have a better chance than others. Word of recall anyone.

People in jail cost faction cash per day served. That way a nation could bankrupt itself if it doesnt ever pardon people.

Nations at war could summon an NPC that would cost the faction a significant amount of coin, take a day or two to arrive in jail cause spirit disorientation of the jailed person and kill them. This would force 30-60 of logged on time. Plus have a significant after effect with the spirit disorientation of dieing and also being rezed. I dont really like this one because factions should be jail breaking.

Are you aware of the "parole" command? When a criminal is paroled, their crimes are temporarily forgiven. They are not forgotten, however. If a parolee were to commit more crimes, their old crimes (for which they were paroled) are tacked back up on the outlaw list and they have to serve a sentence for the old ones and for the new ones.