Legal System

[NapalmDeath]

Well someone gave me the idea to start this thread so here i go:

Say a thief steals from a local market / store, and they get caught, they should be put away in a jail for a few hours or so, then when they\'re out of jail, they cant enter a shop for an hour.

Makes it so people wont want to steal for a while.

There should also be a Government for each town, and a Governemnt Building , in the government building, thats where you could buy guild houses, make guilds official, get the updated news on the city and whats going on, trade items and so on.

Also to make this game exciting, it should leave you on your tip toes and leaving you thinking strategicly, So there should be wars against each governments/cities/towns and so on, and when two towns are agressive against eachother, the players should have the city name they\'re a citizen to, above there name.

Which brings me to another point; Citizenship.
Players should choose what town they\'re citizens to at the beginning of the game, Citizenship provides you with the ability to get information only your town should know, building houses in that town...etc.

These are just some idea\'s that would help with the legal system.

Also this is kinda off the topic of the legal system, but players should get to see the armor/weapons/items they\'re wearing, and say a Dwarf wearing plate mail, and that feline race wearing platemail, the platemail\'s should look different to each race, (ex. Dwarves platemail is abit pudgier, has a different color, and slightly different shape, same with the feline, except the feline should have little spikes, and different shape)

All depending on race/class *if their are any*

Thats all.  :]

[Aztec_Brave]

I think to sart off you have just one town. It is however split into eight levels each ruled by an octarch. Even if you had more towns I would make the decision of citizenship a later one.

The thing with the crime and punishment is something the develepors should build on. The police could have some sort of policing skill that starts off as an ability to catch a crook at work and ends up as an ability to know the location and ideantity af a criminal on the other side of Ilyakum.

[Fantasyfiend]

I think I said something sorta like this before, but I liked the legal system in the game Morrowind. It goes something like this. Say your a thief/Assassin. Pretty prone to being on the wrong side of the law. Now, for differant crimes you perform you get a bounty. For something small like sleeping in the streets it may only be like 10 gold. However, attacking and/or killing someone, you get a bounty of at least 400 gold (in the game, I killed a room of politicians and got a bounty of 4000 gold). When you have a higher bounty guards will approach you and give you 3 choices.

1) Pay your bounty and get a discount for cooperating.
2) Do hard time in prison (here\'s the cool part) and the longer your in prison the more skills deteriorate, and how badly they deteriorate. Spend 10 years in prison and that thief won\'t remember anything.
3) Resist Arrest: Usually ends up in death, but if they get away with killing guards, their bounty goes sky high, and they\'ll probably get slaughtered by the guards if they ever enter a town again.

I like it.

[Aruneko]

I like that...

The bounty would have to be really high though, and gaurds should be really tough.

But bounty cannot be payed to other players who kill / capture the criminal, or it will be exploited.  Also, the gaurds have to vary somehow so that a really strong thief doesn\'t just slaughter them all.

[Aduin]

I love the idea. The only thing I would change about it, is have the thief pay the bounty(probably make it a little less,) and spend time in prison. I don\'t think prison should drop your skills, because as it is, they will loose time to be skilling up anyways while they\'re in there. I also agree with Aruneko, that there should be some system in place to keep this from being exploited.

[Link]

No, that wouldn\'t work last poster, You don\'t actually sit in a jail cell, it would say you go to jail then in a few seconds you exit and have lost skills and money because you have been in there for so long but to you it is only a few second.

[Aduin]

Why not have them spend some time in jail? It gives them time to think over the crime. =) Throwing someone in jail for several hours would make them reconsider breaking the law agian. Skill loss seems a little harsh to me though. Paying a fine is one thing, but skills, especailly higher level ones, take a long time to get up. Someone that leaves jail broke, but has their skills, can get money back. For someone that leaves jail with some money, but less skills, it\'ll be harder to recover. I\'m just opposed to the idea of taking skills away from someone.

[Aruneko]

Yes, but what if you cannot pay the fine?

I think also that as some point, bounty is eliminated and at an even higher point, resistance is the only thing possible.

Perhaps in jail, all experience they have gained up for the next skill gain is lost.

[explorer]

if you cant pay the fine, i think there should be ways of excaping, or bribing the guard.
also, if it ever came that you spent like 30min in jail and you didnt want to do any of those things, you\'d be able to get quests or new skills if you talked to a cellmate or just log off then on and you\'d lose the skills or whatever and reappear at the door of the jail

[BaretteDeBeurre]

i think you shouldn\'t touch the skills. The law breaker would think about it during some minutes, but will forget it quickly enough.

i think that someone forced to watch his character several hours in jail(he should have to spend this time online), depending on the bounty, should be the best way to let him think about doing it again or not.

The bounty should only be seen by NPCs and PCs guards, and only them should be able to ask for it if he catch the bountied. If another player kill a bountied man, i will commit murder and will have a bounty, too.
The bounty should come back to 0 if the guy is catched by guards.

But the bounty should only come if the act is seen by at least 1 people. No witness, no bounty, but karma lose.

(We were discussing about a karma system , law breakers and jail at this thread: http://www.planeshift3d.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=1996&boardid=11&page=2 )

[Fantasyfiend]

Actually in Morrowind, if no one sees, no one tells. I like the idea of skill loss, but having to watch your character having to sit in a 8x10 cell for days on end, that might work better. Skill loss depends on time in prison, so if you were a small time pickpocket, you wouldn\'t lose all your points, but if you killed a whole wedding percession, you would get what you deserved.

Has anyone ever played Dragon\'s Lair? What an awesome game. It\'s like playing a movie. The game works like the que event parts of Shenmue.

[BaretteDeBeurre]

i\'m definitely against a skill loss. It would only make the player stop play. I think that the prison system would be better, as the duration would depends on the act, as you said, a little time for stealing a pair of shoes, a long time for a wedding massacre

[Link]

Ok, if you think people are going to SIT in a game and do NOTHING at all you need to get your head checked out, NO ONE is going to play a game where they can\'t do anything. Losing skill works just fine, when you steal there is a risk, and when you steal you are taking that risk, when you kill you are taking it, Or, I could kill a bunch of innocent people and just leave the game on and go to sleep and in the morning I will be out.

[bbum]

links right, no ones going to want to sit in a room three hours everytime they get caught stealing somthing, any jail time at all would total ruin the expierence, and make playing so boring

[Nikech]

Yea if you have to stay 2 hours online in the jail no one will actually sit and watch the char standing still. Skill loss works fine, there has to be a risk.

I think if someone does a really big crime like murders everyone in the wedding, he could be killed by anyone who goes to City Hall(or whatever, it\'s City Hall in Hb) and ask the officers for a job.