Shattered Kingdoms

Is it just me or does jail time after a certain point becomes a OOC punishment than IC.

Sorry Jennbo and everyone. I've calmed down a bit now.

The problem is not only the law code it's the whole restitution thing as well. By making a person drop all their equipment before turning them in they get added jail time. Not only that, play a warlock and it's stupid easy to rack up laws. Fireball, Chain lightning, a lot of spells are off limits because of the destruction they incur and number of people they hit. Granted this isn't just exclusive to warlocks but anyone can run through and rampage on bounty NPCs and get the same thing.

If you get banished, that's that. There is no hope of ever getting unbanished with some places and simply put, bounty NPCs start spawning. It's not a big deal until you're say, in a raid trying to free someone under the same situation. Do a couple of jail breaks and all of a sudden you now have a 400+ hour crime list yourself due to bounty NPCs and NPC's spam reporting you.

The law system is flawed. Rolling an alt shouldn't be a requirement because some people simply like to focus on one main character. Regardless of the excuse, no one would find it funny if this happened to them and they literally were forced to stare at the screen. My character has tried offing himself multiple times only to fail because of that rogue way back when that was killing people that got jailed. None of the death items that kill you work except 1 which is only available during certain time frames. I've been idling for about 4 hours and there wasn't another jail break attempt. A few attempts to smuggle some things in so I could kill my character but ultimately failed.

At this point, it's just ridiculous. If the character is going to be executed, it should just skip the sentence and execute them and be done with it. No one, no matter what crap they've done unless they were spam killing newbies deserves to be forced to sit and stare at a screen and RP through tells for days irl on end. At that point it becomes an ooc punishment because you're testing the players patience. There's a reason people delete when they get caught and jailed in these situations. It sucks.

Nope. Not just you.

It's most definitely a punishment, but there's nothing OOC about it. That's what jail is -- a punishment. Or are you trying to say you were convicted of crimes other than those your character performed?

I've got a new saying: "If you do the crime and you can't do the time, don't get caught."

D, I'm not sure what goes on in your mind, but there is only so much RP you can do via tells and such. Furthermore, the balance isn't always enough that people are online to rescue you all the time, not to mention taking in account defenders thwarting rescue attempts. You can't even suicide to get out and literally you're forced to sit there and stare at a screen or log off because as mentioned, the whole "We don't negotiate with terrorists" stance that most lighties take ensures that you'l probably never receive a pardon or parole of any kind, no mater how much you beg and plead.

If jail was a bit more interactive, there wouldn't be an issue. Every plan that I tried failed. I tried plagued items, the magic fizzled. I can't cast spells to magma myself to death and I can't actually get any instant death items to actually get out. There was absolutley 0 chance to escape for 8+ hours real time. What goes through your mind that justifies making any person sit and stare at a screen or play another character for days or even weeks on end? Some people prefer playing one character and only one character and simply saying "Don't get caught" isn't some catch all as even the best eventually slip up. I rescued Edoras' necromancer from jail because he had a similar situation, 400+ hours.

The main complaint is there is absolutely nothing, you can do in jail but sit and stare at the screen. The SK time to IRL time ratio is completely off and given how easy it is to stockpile crimes with your ingenious bounty NPC system, it seriously makes this an ooc punishment after a while. This is a simple change, really. How about after a certain amount of crimes are accrued, you're just executed and all your gear confiscated? That would actually allow people to get back to the game. It's bad enough making a person regather armor, re enchant and such that there is absolutely no sane, logical reason outside of a sadist's mind to think that making someone stare at a screen for 8 or more hours or play an alt, that they may not want to play, makes any sense. Relying on the good moral compass of players, especially in THIS player base is simply foolish when people will do whatever they can just to screw you over for as long as they can.

Just as an FYI, I'm not sure how many hours I would have were I to get put in Taslamaran jail again, but it's a lot more than 400 IC hours. As I recall I did the math and realized that if I was using the "play the alt" method to get rid of my jailtime, it would take three months.

You have nobody to blame but yourself for that predicament.

Actually, it is. When it gets to a certain point that you would have to stay logged in for several IRL days just to wait out the punishment, it becomes better to shelve the char and play an alt till the debt is paid. That in itself is OOC. If the option to deal with that much time is to play an alt, it becomes an OOC punishment.

No one forces you guys to steamroll cities and kill people. You choose to play your character that way. There are consequences for that kind of playing, but luckily, you can typically find people to break you out of jail or help you out. The only, only change I would be willing see is that maybe bounty NPC deaths shouldn't count toward your sentence. But killing of random PCs and other NPCs IS a crime, and SHOULD be punished accordingly. The idea is that the punishment is unenjoyable, even more than just getting PKed. You're being punished for years of law-breaking and PK. It's not easy to get someone arrested, especially the archvillain of the country, and that's why whenever people like Surrit get arrested, it's super epic.

You think that jail is some big hassle, and it is, but you caused equal amounts of hassle with your PK, looting, and mob-killing, bank-draining tactics.

Seriously, you're crying over eight hours? I sat eight hours in a jail cell AND a real life week with a "no magic collar" trying not to die because I ACCIDENTALLY cast final strike. I was just thankful I didn't have to delete my dumb [REDACTED] character.

If you don't have enough friends to help you escape from jail, that's your own fault. When you play characters a certain way, there are going to be checks and balances for the grief you cause tribunals etc. It's conflict, and sometimes you have to pay for causing that conflict.

Sorry, but "death and jloot" don't really make up for it RP-wise in the eyes of the law. That's just any old day of regular PK. Not to mention - the character would just immediately get re-equipped and go back to PKing in the land with their shiny new clean record. That would be stupid. People would hide their loot and go to get executed so they could immediately get a clean slate and start back up again with the same old crap.

I really don't think that someone who plays diabolic characters should complain about sadism. Staring at a screen for eight hours? In reality, isn't that what we're all doing anyway?

If there WAS a cap on jail time, I'd put it at 2 weeks or something. Certainly not 8 hours.

My favorite thing to do in jail is yell from my jail cell and write notes on the wall and send harassing tells. It's a lot different than say, getting helled by an IMM. It's also fun to get someone to come into jail with you and have a partner in crime. I've had some great experiences when I've been in jail with another person or two.

jenn, I don't really have any amount of crimes stacked up anywhere. Don't plan on it either. Just that if you play a char that is going to rack up a lot of crimes, there just needs to be a better way to spend the time than logging off and wait for several months. I don't want a cap on it, just a way to reduce your time somehow via ingame.