Shattered Kingdoms

Demon, in a game with the breadth and scope of SK, if some aspects of jail are all you have to pick on I think we're doing okay. As stated, jail already has several options that you seem to have considered:

- break out (requires help, which your choices of groups limit your options for)

- RP with the law to get parole-banished (have you tried this?)

I do like the idea of a self-help method for jail-break (Shawshank Redemption-style), however you'll be wanted again as soon as you're out, since you can't assume another identity in SK... so aren't we just delaying the same complaint when you get caught again?

Ideas

Fighting
a) A brawling contest , that would give a reward each round
a2) You could trade the reward for coin and buy stuff from an "inside shopkeeper-guard/inmate" that would be otherwise illegal in jail.
a3) This guy can also train you self-defense/brawling/ and wild fighting?

Community Service
b) Handcuffed to disable you from spells/wielding weapons/quaffing
b2) Chained and not allowed to move than once per minute
b3) Given a broom to clean the city while citizen mocking you/spitting etc
b4) Get awarded with an item/coin/reduction of prison time each time you clean a place

Intellectual/Learning
c) Library with lots and lots of books
c2) A prison slang trainer

Minigames
d) I've heard of some gnomish/dwarvish minigames
d2) They could exist while in there, challenging other inmates, prizes involved

Real life stuff
e) Jail Tattoos
e2) A gym that would get you buffed when out of prison for 1 month

Throwing some more ideas

There are ideas for jail entertainment I've considered yet never found a way to achieve what would be an ideal system, so that kind of got dropped.

like soap.

At least the jail system is more tolerable to a degree than it was in the past. You want to talk about destroying the richness of RP? There used to be characters that started all kinds of wonderful IC conflict with cities and were eventually caught and thrown in jail, only to find out their term was 100+days, so the OOC solution was delete, delete.

The system as it is now is far better than ever. When the parole changes went into effect, people were still outlawed, but could essentially taste freedom so long as they didn't break any other crimes for a long time. You can serve jailtime while offline, so bust out that alt you've been toying around with and enjoy some richness on another character, multiplay free of course. You can pay money for lesser crimes to reduce or eliminate jail time entirely, and coin in game is unbelievably easy to get now to pay off the law for most muggings. Or just RP a pardon or jailbreak, then go back to being dastardly evil. There were a lot of options added because of the limitations to the jail system to ease much of the burden.

The most important point anybody made on this thread so far has been, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." Or, just don't get caught. If you do get caught, RP somehow that you're turning yourself in to the leaders and see if you can cut a plea bargain deal, Law & Order style.

I definitely don't agree that the jail system should be removed entirely, however, because people shouldn't be able to just tear through cities more than they do now and destroy the richness of the game for newer players still discovering the game. The primary cities are not only a place for vets to hang out, they're a safe haven for newer players to get used to the environment. It would look really bad for the game if you were trying to show a new player around, but had to tell them they couldn't train at such and such or buy something from whomever because that NPC keeps getting killed without the offenders ever seeing punishment. As a result of that alone, and the sweeping changes that have been made in recent years, I don't think any changes will be made or should be made any time soon. Alot of the complaints in this thread were the same ones from a few years ago, and sparked the evolution into the jail system in place today.

great ideas yorwos

You could just spend the time annoying your friends and enemies with long-winded tell conversations.

What was that halfling's name?