Community Input - Laws and Punishment

[BioXide]

Hello Citizens,

These threads give you the opportunity to assist the development of Mankind Reborn, we are a community driven game, so it's ideal to allow our community to influence the development of the game. Here's how this will work, we will work on the design of X feature internally, then bring up a community input thread to allow the community to voice their opinion and give ideas on the feature, we'll then grab ideas from both the developers and the community to further expand on the features and then finalize it in the Game Design Document, this is your time to shape the future of mankind!

Let's begin.

In order to further expand the nature of law and order in Mankind Reborn, we're asking for the community's input in regards to the matter.

We will likely be using a similar system to FOM's "Penalty Points" but with variations, the key items that need to be discussed are as follows:

- Law suggestions - What would you like to see as a law and what's the penalty for breaking it? (Keep in mind the players will be making laws as the game evolves)

- Jail Time Reductions - What are some interactive ways that you'd like to see implemented to do in order to reduce Jail time while serving time or reducing it prior?

- Most Wanted / Fugitive - How should Most Wanted / Fugitive players be handled and what interactions should they expect?

- Arresting / Capturing - How should arresting/capturing mechanics work and why? Other - (Feel free to address anything else that comes to mind)

 

[Sephiroth]

Jail Time Reductions: Community Service would be useful, like they have to mine/create certain items and send them to a person who has requested them from the Government. Each item sent would reduce the time dependent on the item sent.

Most Wanted: When you hit a certain amount of seen kills (not randomly ganking someone when nobody can see it) you would be eligible for Most Wanted that the CPC can monitor. Also allowing their High Command to issue Most Wanted status with certain requirements being met first.

 

[Cadonez]

Laws should be entirely decided by player government
Most wanted should be decided by player government and proposed by cpc and tdc

 

[Chip Lawrie]

Laws should be entirely decided by player government
Most wanted should be decided by player government and proposed by cpc and tdc

Laws exist before the start of the game so aside from the generic 'thou shalt not murder' 'thou shalt not steal' type of laws what would you as the player base like to see?

Leave it up to me you're getting some wonderful English law like Queueing Inappropriately on the Railway and Handling a Salmon in Suspicious Circumstances.

More importantly, this is your chance to alter the mechanics of the laws - we're all agreed that the player government should be allowed to change laws (within reason, no making it illegal to be in a faction (as much as that would make sense in-universe) no legalising murder, etc) but what sliders and tick boxes should the state get?

Drugs and other items illegal/legal as a sliding scale or as a tickbox?
Can the state make it illegal to go to a certain area? (Keep off the grass)
Can the state pass laws regarding alien harvesting?
Can the state pass laws regarding transporting of materials?
Can the state set up customs and quarantine worlds?
etc, etc.


I do like the idea of most wanted being decided by the player government would tie in well with any judiciary stuff we include - how would you propose it would work mechanically?

 

[Kuuwahi]

Leave it up to me you're getting some wonderful English law like Queueing Inappropriately on the Railway and Handling a Salmon in Suspicious Circumstances.

*Raises hand* I Support this motion!

 

[Cammy]

I do like the idea of most wanted being decided by the player government would tie in well with any judiciary stuff we include - how would you propose it would work mechanically?

Mate.

You know how much terrorising im going to have to do to noobs and senators to simply get MW.

This one man unit does not approve.

 

[John White]

Before discussing the generic approach, let me suggest a different idea:
While discussing Laws and Punishment, let add some interactions for law enforcement.
So here's rough sketch of my idea:
As one commits a crime, he gains "penalty status", worlds defenses will auto target players with such status. One must leave the current world to get rid of the status. (You might think being shot at for walking on the grass a bit excessive, but it's a world where cloning is readily available so worth of human life is minimal)
At the same time, law enforcement faction will have a mission added to investigate the disturbance and apprehend the suspect.
While the suspect is still on world, their location will be visible to all law enforcement officers on the world. (pop up on radar in short intervals?) If arrested during this phase suspect will be transferred to prison and appropriate amount of PP added to their account.
If suspect is able to flee the world, law enforcement will gain a mission to investigate. completing some mini objectives on the world will reveal name of the culprit and add appropriate amount of PP to their account.
Now what would be an appropriate amount of PP?
Lets say initial crime PP + PP for moving (steps taken) + pp for shooting (shots fired) + PP for other crimes (murders, hacking, etc)
So if you want to nice you can freeze after committing a crime and wait to be arrested for lower amount of PP. or you can try your luck running and hope police is really lazy and won't investigate. As investigation missions have time limit proportional to the potential PP of the crime. So when fleeing one would want to take shortest route to get out so police have less time to investigate.

now some other ideas for interactions in this system:
Witness cards:
If you got murdered in cold blood you gain a witness card. you can turn it in to an officer investigating your death. This card can only be used by an officer who is currently on the appropriate mission and it will add significant progress to the completion of the investigation.
That it, I had some others but they fell apart before I wrote them down.


Now to generic approach:
Laws: Killing, looting corpses, hacking, other forms of stealing, carrying weapons in high security areas, trespassing.
JTR: Well there's always the generic, make item, shoot an alien, crouch 20 times ways (last one sucks, don't do that).
I had an idea of moral reeducation program. Like record several hours long lecture on morals, right and wrong, why breaking the law is bad. make it as boring as humanly possible. inmates will have an option to listen/watch that recording. if they do it for appropriate amount time according to their PP, they are free to go as changed people.
I remember there being ideas about in prison arena and maybe tournaments that free the winner or something similar. beeflords will love this I suppose.
As for reducing PP prior to serving, paying would be one way, but I rather dislike the idea, at least as direct feature.
What if we take another approach. Wash away your crimes, with, even more crimes!
Add a terminal in Police HQ that holds the records. If one hacks it they can reduce or remove their PP. This is were paying part comes in. You can pay of few "open minded" officers to let you near the terminal. keyword is near, as it will be under tight security which only HC has access too.

MW: I really liked how FOM handled this earlier in its life. Clone restrictions!
Yep, perma death to the scum! that was great. Also don't make MW list publicly visible, only to the police, and no scoring. PP amount should only be know to the player. Make PP feel like punishment and not badge of honor, or an achievement.
Also colony defenses auto fire on MWs.

As for fugitives I want to tie this with arrests.
Earlier I mentioned how in a world with cloning, life's worth will diminish. So there would really be no point in non lethal weapons, as all weapons are pretty much non lethal, sure your clone is dead, but you're still alive.
So give law enforcement special PP weapons, they function exactly as normal weapons, except when player with pp is killed, instead of going to the shiny cloning facility they go to prison.
Here's where my other idea comes into play:
Add another cloning facility to prisons. And make clones from there, inferior, lower stats (health, stamina), lower strength (lower carry capacity, maybe can't hold heavier weapons). Maybe even give them distinctive look, like uniforms welded to their bodies. While player has PP, even if they die they will return to prison cloning. Even if they run away from prison, if they die they will return to prison cloning.
Now how would one get rid of such a terrible mark?
Remember I mentioned records keeping terminal in Police HQ, well if fugitive hacks it they can remove their PP and next time they die they go to normal cloning.
Another way would be, adding some shady ripper shops to outer colonies. Fugitives can go there, pay a fee, cut themselves up, gain access to the cloning core, and overwrite the police permissions. so next time they die so go to normal cloning, still keeping their PP.
Also Police can track fugitives.

 

[Anarchaotic]

Arrests could contribute directly into the government's funds. That way the government (and/or the individual officers) would make more money by arresting more people, but risk uprisings if they get greedy. How much they would get per arrest would depend on the crimes committed, of course.

 

[Nohj]

I don't want to be late to the party here but I have something to add.

As for jail time reduction it would be neat for jailed inmates to have the option to mine things in order to reduce their sentence as someone said above. Production should be in there as well but I think the two should be separate processes making it the factions responsibility to maintain the jail. This gives the CPC depth and adds more potential roles such as warden and his responsibilities of maintaining the jail. Organizing raw materials and moving it to a production queue for example. I suggest this because I believe responsibility like this give meaning to new players and something to do and build towards. Joining a law enforcement faction shouldn't be just patrols or guarding the jail, it needs to be more intricate than that (Hell, add undercover agents or something). CPC will most likely again be the most populated with new players and something like this would add more teeth to the spinning cog that is the CPC faction. As to what happens after inmates finish, maybe the materials should go to the benefit of the government so a majority of their time isn't spent on trade but rather on actual law enforcement to add to their slave labor (Make illegal drugs dangerous to use again!). If you want something extra for the jail, add a trivial jail only plot device, like cloning plasma and a mini game to create batches of it that the Government sells to the medical facilities(if they don't run it themselves).

Thinking outside the box for inmates so they don't just log off or afk, make a death race or maze. Give them the option to get lost in a mini-game/dungeon. Dark sewage system occupied by aliens for example. If they choose not to contribute to the CPC's sentence reduction they can try to break out. I'm talking about a less than 4% win-rate dungeon though. Randomized! No! Procedurally generated! Even though these people are scum they need to enjoy the game too. Maybe let them get sentence reduction benefits in the background while they mess around to escape (so the CPC get their rewards regardless). Make it more of a public game rather than an escape and you can make an arena or viewing area. How about a mini-game similar to death run in a counter-strike mod. Where the viewer (typically one person) has switches that activate traps that the other players frantically try to avoid while racing to the finish line. This wouldn't be a bad thing to put in the Wardens hands to get his guards more involved with the prisoners.

I loved the "keep off the grass" example. Giving power like this to the government of a respective world is great. Now I'm brand spanking new here so I'm not sure if this has already been talked about but it looks like you plan to have AI drones. If that's the case and you will also have conquerable planets, it would make sense if the controlling government of a world were able to close down entire streets to the public (patrolled by these AI who attack during wartime/incapacitate trespassers during peacetime). Maybe with limits, they can try to control the flow path of attackers and defend their planet with strategy. Something like this could be built upon and might actually call for less "zergy" take overs (So it's not a numbers game only). It would take a lot to balance but I could see stealthing and disabling AI (think a console to hack someone in closed off territory), and the need to actually post guards/hire mercs to watch these closed off streets if they are important enough.

I know it sounds like a big system to implement but imagine how interesting it would be if tensions escalate between factions and you see a visible increase in guards. I imagine a takeover system that is a bit more progressive, maybe with stages. Maybe during wartime, the enemy faction can't freely vort(?) into your colony in masses. Maybe they need to do something to sneak people in to hack something to enable them to bring their army. This would really play on the stealth aspect, remember stealth equals secrets and secrets equals drama. With good level design the important bits of the colony to defend may be near a mining terminal for example, now with escalated tensions you have to close off a street, and possibly keep guards there(I reckon this will help with the issue of freelance mercenaries being broke all the time). Imagine having to choose between keeping innocent miners content while living with the fear of being attacked or sabotaged from an enemy, which could hurt your economy. Again, a lot of balance when it gets that complicated and I'm not even 100% sure if it's even the route you guys plan on taking with the game but the more complex something is the more the cogs of each faction can spin together.

State controlled customs would be insane! Being able to limit certain supplies entry into your home world via tax or literally turning it away, can help influence your export from that colony. I'm assuming certain planets will have different refining/production benefits. This would be tricky to do and balance because it certainly can be abused. So I'd imagine factions should get an overall embargo for factions that don't play fairly with trade. Or lets say AE owns the best colony for ammo production (assuming you guys are doing something like that) , and decides to collude with Oda and they both slam taxes on the refined material needed to create ammo. If severe enough, maybe the TDC gets some type of invaders bonus to discourage this kind of foul play and to help them come in and reset order. Also hard to balance though lol. I work in finance and believe me this is something I LOVE. It adds a lot of depth to a game when you understand how economics works. I can even imagine a corporation having an accounting department dedicated to this kind of thing, even selling their consultation to other factions.
Don't even get me started on ingame currency banking. Theft of credits kept on person, faction or corporation run banks, production loans, and personal apartment/government vaults that can be broken into. How long are you willing to be in development for .

So damn excited for this game, I'm going to be keeping up with everything you guys are doing and I'll think more about the mechanical/technical applications of my suggestions, thanks guys!
(Ex merc that was broke a lot of the time)

 

[Skiy]

Add a terminal in Police HQ that holds the records. If one hacks it they can reduce or remove their PP. This is were paying part comes in. You can pay of few "open minded" officers to let you near the terminal. keyword is near, as it will be under tight security which only HC has access too.

Can we discuss this a bit because I love the idea. My first thoughts would be to change it so that anyone with access to the terminal can remove or reduce someones PP (so HC). So by greasing up the right palms you can get yourself out, but it also serves as a point of interaction between CPD and other players. It could also be hacked to allow the same rights as players with access. I would say that to prevent massive breakouts instantly, perhaps a single hacking device would allow for a single use at the terminal before either shutting it down (offline for x duration) or just no longer allowing that device to be used?

Additionally, I'd like to add a few things such as a place to write a reason for an action being taken and a log of the actions that players can view when accessing the terminal. The reason for being able to attach text to an action would be that it'd be useful for not only RP but for managing things. As HC you might be inclined to monitor who's doing what and being able to see something like "Skiy Laroso - 5000 PP Removed. Officer: John Doe. Reason: Paid fine" or something similar might come in handy.

Since you'd be able to hack the terminal I'd want it to be fairly easy to see when something has happened that wasn't done by HC, so perhaps it'd look like "Skiy Laroso - 5000 PP Removed. Officer: Admin. Reason: X" without providing who has done it, allowing for officers a bit lower down the ladder being able to make some cash on the side if they're stealthy ^_^ An additional reason for the log would be so that the government or just the players could hold people "accountable". Maybe you're RPing a trial, maybe someone has released somebody that shouldn't be released. It could serve as actual evidence with no mging or bs. Still avoidable if a HC player hacked the terminal instead but you'd actually have to think about things coming back to bite you in the ass if you're not being careful.

 

[Cadonez]

Can we discuss this a bit because I love the idea. My first thoughts would be to change it so that anyone with access to the terminal can remove or reduce someones PP (so HC). So by greasing up the right palms you can get yourself out, but it also serves as a point of interaction between CPD and other players. It could also be hacked to allow the same rights as players with access. I would say that to prevent massive breakouts instantly, perhaps a single hacking device would allow for a single use at the terminal before either shutting it down (offline for x duration) or just no longer allowing that device to be used?

Additionally, I'd like to add a few things such as a place to write a reason for an action being taken and a log of the actions that players can view when accessing the terminal. The reason for being able to attach text to an action would be that it'd be useful for not only RP but for managing things. As HC you might be inclined to monitor who's doing what and being able to see something like "Skiy Laroso - 5000 PP Removed. Officer: John Doe. Reason: Paid fine" or something similar might come in handy.

Since you'd be able to hack the terminal I'd want it to be fairly easy to see when something has happened that wasn't done by HC, so perhaps it'd look like "Skiy Laroso - 5000 PP Removed. Officer: Admin. Reason: X" without providing who has done it, allowing for officers a bit lower down the ladder being able to make some cash on the side if they're stealthy ^_^ An additional reason for the log would be so that the government or just the players could hold people "accountable". Maybe you're RPing a trial, maybe someone has released somebody that shouldn't be released. It could serve as actual evidence with no mging or bs. Still avoidable if a HC player hacked the terminal instead but you'd actually have to think about things coming back to bite you in the ass if you're not being careful.

I agree with a hackable CPD database to remove PP from players.

 

[Shakespears]

I agree with a hackable CPD database to remove PP from players.

This most likely will be implemented in some form, the trick is balancing it out.

 

[NoahKirchner]

I think that allowing the CPC to edit laws to any extent could actually be interesting. If they, for example, make it illegal to join a faction, in theory the other factions would regulate that by going to war with the CPC and whatnot. At the end of the day, arrests are a tool in the CPC's arsenal to flex their political muscles, so allowing scandals to pop up surrounding their enforcement of laws/creation of laws could lead to some nice wars and whatnot.

 

[Shakespears]

I think that allowing the CPC to edit laws to any extent could actually be interesting. If they, for example, make it illegal to join a faction, in theory the other factions would regulate that by going to war with the CPC and whatnot. At the end of the day, arrests are a tool in the CPC's arsenal to flex their political muscles, so allowing scandals to pop up surrounding their enforcement of laws/creation of laws could lead to some nice wars and whatnot.

That's too much power for the CPC to have. Laws will be handled by a player government.

 

[Necidious]

I think that allowing the CPC to edit laws to any extent could actually be interesting. If they, for example, make it illegal to join a faction, in theory the other factions would regulate that by going to war with the CPC and whatnot. At the end of the day, arrests are a tool in the CPC's arsenal to flex their political muscles, so allowing scandals to pop up surrounding their enforcement of laws/creation of laws could lead to some nice wars and whatnot.

The CPC is the organization which enforces the law, not create or edit them. Ideally, laws should be designed and managed by the government, which is also player-ran.

 

[NoahKirchner]

The CPC is the organization which enforces the law, not create or edit them. Ideally, laws should be designed and managed by the government, which is also player-ran.

Fair enough, the important part though is that I think all laws should be able to be changed, from murder to the aforementioned salmon distribution. If the government votes to turn the universe into a hellhole then so be it, aside from the very basics (murder, and stealing essentially), I think it might be neat if the player gov starts with a clean slate to vote on laws at launch.

 

[Tod Maddux]

I am The Law

 

[Dynamics]

Laws should be entirely decided by player government
Most wanted should be decided by player government and proposed by cpc and tdc

This is a terrible idea. No sandbox MMO that gave players complete control has ever succeeded. At the end of the day players are assholes and their needs to be limitations on what they can do regarding the laws. Assuming their isn't already pre-existing laws for players to choose from.