I don't think players will have the ability to just willy-nilly report people for committing crimes falsely.

More likely, someone can only report a player who actually committed a crime in their presence, or to their character.

Posted By Gothix at 5:29 PM - Mon Mar 20 2017

Posted By Kaynadin at 10:49 PM - Mon Mar 20 2017

testimony of a victim is almost universally enough to warrant an arrest.

That would be horrendous.

In that case people would just make troll characters and go around reporting half the Kingdom, all ending up in jail lol.

How would you feel if people that don't like you just keep reporting you for different stuff constantly taking away your play time (and i don't mean sentence, even if you are not convicted you still lose time on waiting in jail and going in front of the judge)?

I bet you wouldn't like that, would you? :)

So no, report alone should never be enough to issue arrest token.

Except with false ids that is a thing. It won't be easy and it won't be something everyone can do. It will require a considerable investment down the deviant tree as well as time spent studying your target.

Once you have sufficient (whatever they call it) knowledge points you can actually pass yourself off as your target. In essence you can be framed for any crime by anyone with the skill and patience to pull it off.

Posted By Selique at 6:37 PM - Mon Mar 20 2017

I don't think players will have the ability to just willy-nilly report people for committing crimes falsely.

More likely, someone can only report a player who actually committed a crime in their presence, or to their character.

If you get your forgery skill up high enough where you can forge IDs, Documents, etc - you sure as hell can falsely accuse someone of a crime. :)

From what I saw of when the dev's talked about the justice system on one of the Q&A's, it mentioned chatting with NPC's in regards to reporting things. I don't think a player will be able to hop on voice chat or standard chat and say "Ben just killed somone" and cause a token to be generated. He will probably have a text chat unlock that he can use when talking with npc's or other players. Also, they said there would be language barriers when trying to chat with players from other kingdoms. This gives more credence that some form of typed chat will be required in order to report the crime. They also stated it would be possible to spread misinformation to npc's as well allowing for false information to spread. I highly doubt any player will be able to just have a token generated. Disguises mean I have to see through it to report the player. Murder seems to automatically generated the token where as being knocked unconscious requires the individual to be reported. Also, the other mercenaries there to collect on a bounty are also at a risk when attacking other players who are guarding a wanted player. So having guards will actually increase your chances of survival especially if attacked first. Guards could stand between the mercs and provide a shield. Also, it increases the number of witnesses to the possible crime of attacking players who have no bounty on them. Seem like there will need to be a lot of work to get this mechanic balanced out.

Right. I'd assume that testimony would require a system generated item verifying you saw what you saw. Just typing out or saying something in discord is not the same as official testimony in game I'd wager.

Some of it is behind the scenes, from what I understand. Almost like a "perception" check. If you have a reputation in the area and are well-known, then you need a better disguise to mask your identity. As you get to know someone better, the game shows their name to you, but the name it shows could be a fake one if they are using a fake ID. But, if your character learns enough to figure out that their ID is fake and learns their real name, then you will be able to recognize who they really are when you interact with them. The rumor/reputation/identity/whatever system is one of the hardest to really grasp, but this is my current understanding so far.

@Gothix, not a single person has agreed with your suggestion and so if I say that the community is against you that is based on the evidence of literally every person telling you that you are wrong. And additionally I am speaking for the community because the majority of the community, even planned criminals, know that allowing this game to devolve into a gankbox because of foolish decisions like not allowing people to testify about made them spirit walk is a BAD IDEA.

What Selique said is most likely the truth for testimony when it comes to generating a bounty token, though I do believe we are able to spread false rumors somehow. But, I would imagine that NPCs have a trust meter ingrained so that if I am an upstanding member of a town who the NPC knows and then you visit one day telling that NPC that I am a scoundrel, then they are unlikely to believe you without you having forged some document as proof. You may have to have some sort of "proof" to show anyone to even start a rumor anyways.

Posted By Gothix at 6:52 PM - Fri Mar 17 2017

Posted By Malais at 10:03 PM - Fri Mar 17 2017

My understanding is a player can be the witness to their own murder since we don't really die just suffer "grievous wounds" spirit walk back and recover. NPCs don't and for now are just dead.

I don't like this. It feels like we will be playing Buffy the vampire slayer, and zombies come back from grave and testify...

We may as well call this Chronicles of Carebears soon...

If prefect crime is committed, without witnesses and evidence and game mechanics still force punishment upon perpetrator by letting victim testify... then I'm really disappointed.

We may as well leave only those who want to play Farmville here and move on, because if deviant players will be stepped on by over-punishing game mechanics on every step then what's the point of even trying.

Murder victims should not be allowed to testify, it makes no sense whatsoever, and if they are then perpetrators should be allowed to turn to bat and fly away from court house, it makes as much sense as the first thing.

I get where you're coming from but you have to realize that in a game where you can murder anywhere the benefit to murderers is far greater than the ones that are being murdered . So if you do happen to want to kill someone then you better realize people will eventually find out , this is a video game sure but there has to be checks and balances .

I come from a hardcore open world full loot pvp mmo called Mortal Online . The flagging system is far from perfect and the reds (murderers) in that game have penalties against them but it does not stop or even curb rampant murdering . If there's no way for a person to realize who just killed them in such a large open game then the benefit of murder becomes to great, whereas the negatives of murdering is only feeling bad for a few seconds (and for some not even that).

Without nameplates or identities being stuck to our characters like in other MMOs , we need to be incredibly careful with how we approach murders in the wild .

My opinion : if you are murdered and no one is there to see it you should be able to go to a special NPC to draw up the murderers face (automatic when you pay the fee) . After that happens you receive a copy of the drawing and are able to give it to the local sheriff , mayor , or bounty hunter - which ,when this happens and the murderer is spotted (in disguise or NOT) by any official , the officials will now see through the murders disguise and flag him for a criminal . NOTE : you need to give the drawing to each town / city separately if you believe the criminal is hiding in other towns than the one you died in ! This allows for REGIONALLY BASED MURDERS !! One murderer in City A can be an innocent man in City B as long as the innocents he has harmed hasn't shown a criminal sketch to the towns local authorities yet .

This game needs to be complex , but generally ANYTHING can be balanced by adding a dash of realism , and with this it adds a bit of work for both the murderer and the murdered (and it doesn't have to be murder it could be any crime in which you can't figure out the criminals name) by making the murderer hide in disguise and flee town when he thinks someone will have the gold to make a criminal sketch of him , and the murdered has to go and pay for a sketch if he has the available funds (or if he knows the persons in game name he can just simply set a bounty without having to identify the criminal via criminal sketches).

My ideas are OP.

I actually really dig that idea Grape.

1. It makes identifying the criminal take time (because you need to get the sketch done) This gives them a chance to flee the immediate area.

2. It costs the victim money, meaning they have to invest both time and money if they actually want the murderer punished.

3. It requires either a very peeved off victim, or a strong justice system, to spread the chance of catching the murderer to anywhere but the immediate vicinity. (ie. players motivated enough can post the picture in more places if they really want to, or leaders can have systems set up to circulate pictures to their bounty hunters)

4. Bounty hunters need to be proactive, and search around in different cities.

Really dig it, creative thinking.

thank you are for you impute

Before answering that specific question, I should point out that disguises already have flaws. The only people they will work reliably against are those that basically have never met you before. Anyone who knows you or has skills in 'investigation' (not sure on actual skill name) will either slowly or very quickly see through your disguise. I point this out mainly to make it clear that the above suggestion by Grape does not break a system that was previously 100% successful.

Basically all Grape's suggestion does is extend the amount of people who are 'familiar' with the disguised person, namely bounty hunters or lawbringers. If the disguised person manages to steer clear of these people or stays outside the reach of these bounty posters spreading altogether they will not affect them at all.

That is why a bounty hunters should probably have safe houses and maybe even a friend who can conduct business for them on their behalf. Then they can concentrate on maintaining their disguise.

Posted By Gothix at 12:09 PM - Tue Mar 21 2017

@Grape @TheMata

But what would be the point of disguises then if anyone can just see through them? Why even bother with disguise if it would be like you suggest?

I agree with your point here, I would prefer a disguise do his job and unless you yourself can see that it's him under that disguise you have no idea. Or something to that effect or maybe it flags it depending on the disguise level vs your perception.

That is exactly what is happening though, they see the sketch, and therefore see the person under the disguise because they see the similarities underneath.

Disguises to have to have the failures guys, people can't just run around doing whatever they want and then be fine to walk right through the same town they just turned upside just because they levelled some skills and made a rubber nose.

Living as a deviant needs to be a proper challenge, so that only those who take it seriously succeed.