Public Execution

[Roeth]

... a row of piked players leading to a city gate and if you hover over the mangled bodies you can see their user name and offense and just know, to be good.

Now that is progress. Talk about an incentive for a low crime rate! I'm all for public humilation of cheaters. I know Simutronics doesn't want to alienate or lose business. But do you really want the business of a few cheaters? All they do is encourage others to cheat or break the rules.

Start with a warning for minor offenses to be sure, but if they are repeat offenders then they are just asking for it. I don't see anything wrong with a 7 day prison term for second offenses, that allows them to reconsider their wayward ways. Maybe just ban the problem character but not the whole account? Then if they repeat a 3rd time or still cause trouble; ban, jail, pike'em or bon-fire'em.

 

[WatchMaker]

Actually, I will be slightly dissapointed in the Dev's if they don't take these ideas into consideration.

 

[Daax]

I'd be surprised if they actually implemented this. I just thought it would be a good idea for their Exocutioners.

 

[sylveria]

Gemstone had their notorious jailhouse (with trial), DragonRealms had stocks in town (with rotten tomato-throwing). It would be safe to say that some of us find this kind of thing...rather...appealing.

 

[tasoli]

Buncha sadists.

 

[Arremus]

Personally, I think the MMO genre is long past the point of 'sheltering' those who cheat and exploit. By this I mean, whenever someone posts on the official forums of whatever MMO "I saw PlayerX doing this, for two hours! He was botting for sure!" it's usually a matter of minutes until a mod deletes the post, asking people not to name names etc.
This is fine, due to the fact the poster may be wrong, BUT this policy also extends to the point of people who ARE punished receive their sentence privately etc, without anyone ever knowing.

Case in point, a guildmate of ours in EQ2 played like 12 hours a day, was always around, and he always had enough money for cobalt for a full set of armour etc, was always a step ahead of everyone else in regards to gear. This is fine of course.
But then he "went out of town for 5 days" at some point, and no one thought twice about it. Turns out, as he confided to some of us in MSN 6 months later, that he was actually banned for 5 days for having found to buy gold from one of the well known gold selling companies.
If he'd not told us about it, we would never have known.

Point is, there is no deterent at all for someone to buy gold in EQ2 (or whatever other game doesn't publicly announce cheaters). Keep in mind too that this fella was well regarded and looked up to in the community. A position he very much enjoyed.

Now consider this. A public notice board in the Harbour, listing a person's (character's) name, and the offence they've been found guilty of.
I wander past the board and see "PlayerX, guilty of illegally buying gold, to the sum of 10platinum. Sentence 5 day ban"... PlayerX's high reputation suddenly goes spiralling downwards.

You want a way to deter the everyday gamer from buying gold and exploiting? I personally think something along these lines would go a long way to helping reduce it, especially for short bans etc, because that person then has to log back in with the humiliation of everyone knowing they were banned.

There are other ways to do it, but I personally think it is high time that MMO Devs started to announce the names of cheaters to deter others from doing it.

 

[cordy_CinVin]

I agree Arremus that cheaters anyway should have their names drug through the mud and announced to the community what they had done. This would deter most not all but most people imo from doing such acts because they would be forced to reroll more than likely since any guild with any standards at all would expell that person.

Now as far as people who pk someone, I don't agree with publicly humiliating those people. They are playing within the guidelines set forth by the game and if thats how they chose to play then so be it. Grievers on the other hand should be tried in the city and in jest made fun of if caught. My only problem with that is, is if the system allows them to grieve then well they aren't doing anything wrong except being immature buttheads. And I still stick by the idea that the community should take care of those people and protect the younger players. Just my opinion though.

 

[Arremus]

Yes I have to agree on those points Cordy.
By saying "cheating or exploiting" in my post, I was only talking about gold buys and dupe exploiters etc, not people who act like buttheads within the rules.

I think a system that's open enough to exact social punishment on those sorts of people is enough; it's not like they're acting illegally. The problem will be if you have a system open enough or not.
Such as in EQ2, someone can be a total nutjob, and you can't do a think about it... even on the PvP server if they're on your side I suppose.

It's a hard one from that point of view, what to do with griefers without making the game a messy free-for-all PvP experience.

Mah faith is in da Simutronics brothers 'n sisters!

 

[crisisfox]

A dissenting view

I am actually against this idea, and before *I* am the one being executed, let me explain why.

In-game mechanics should not be used to punish out-of-game transgressions.

If a person bought gold/wyr from a some child churning out change in China, and his character goes up for public execution.... what is the crime that will be read out before the character is executed?

On top of that a public execution is effectively an event, and some drama queen will break the rules just to have this event centred around their character and attend on their new account.

The stocks in Dragonrealms are there to punish the character who break provincial laws and are subsequently caught (doesn't always happen, and could take a while). Some of the less tolerant communities, such as the barbaric clans will chop off a thief's hands, and other punishments are also present in various nooks of the game. None of these are used to counter violations of policy (out-of-game laws). These are handled by GMs with things such as lock-outs, bannings, policy rooms, etc. all behind the scenes.

The deputy idea is flawed for very much the same reason. Players should not be responsible for policy enforcement, much like amusement park visitors don't get to vote on one of them to have a go at the ferris wheel controls.

----------------------------------------

Now all that being said, I think the public execution and even the deputy thing are great ideas. I would love to see convicted murderers be publically executed.

The deputy thing could be awesome if, for example, the Arcanum got to elect 7 Spellsworn, whose function is to enforce the will of the Arcanum, and they would be free to engage in CvC against anyone at all times. A character could issue a ritual challenge to a Spellsworn for his/her position, by having a quorum of 21+ members of the Arcanum witness the battle. If the challenger wins, the assembled members of the Arcanum would get to vote on whether the defeated is to relinquish his position to the challenger.

All this would flesh out the world, providing for immersion, fun and wonderful depth.

Just my opinion anyway.

 

[cordy_CinVin]

As far as in-game offenses are concerned ie: grieving another player, pk's, breaking provincial laws, I see no reason why characters shouldn't be the one's enforcing the punishments. If a character is able to do these types of offenses then the develeopers have then allowed them to take place. With any type of pvp game your going to run into immature people that want to just lvl up a char and then spend their days grieving lower lvl's for the sake of them wanting to be cool. This should then be handled by the community if the community allows it well then the grievers will go uncontested but if not then higher more experienced people should come to the aid of those not able to protect themselves.

Now as far as Cheating/exploiting is concerned my question is why not post their name publicly. I see where your coming from as far as not doing an in-game trial or what not. But on the forums I do beleave their name should be told and the offenses that they have commited. Public image is a strong deterant for anything. Yes you will have those that do it just for the attention but I beleave the vast majority would be detered by it.

Its just an idea of course its not the cure-all of people exploiting but maybe a step in the right direction. Remember most people play mmo's for the community and if they are mocked by the community do to their cheating/exploiting ways they will either change their ways or more then likely quit which I have no problem with either of the two.

 

[Thaos Nightwind]

On top of that a public execution is effectively an event, and some drama queen will break the rules just to have this event centred around their character and attend on their new account.

Yeah. I thought about that aspect also and it would happen. Probably on more than one occasion for sure. We'd probably really see a lot of this with peeps who decided early on that they didn't particularly like a character and wanted to roll another one in that char slot. I don't think that type will be willing to risk having an account/credit card # banned from the game.

But consider just a little while ago WoW banned some 30,000 accounts for cheating/bots etc. I don't think the few self centered attention hounds are gonna make that significant of a difference overall. We're talking about the hardcore percentage that infect every game initially and can screw up the games economy. They should be able to tell the difference.

 

[crisisfox]

Now as far as Cheating/exploiting is concerned my question is why not post their name publicly. I see where your coming from as far as not doing an in-game trial or what not. But on the forums I do beleave their name should be told and the offenses that they have commited. Public image is a strong deterant for anything. Yes you will have those that do it just for the attention but I beleave the vast majority would be detered by it.

Posting their names on the forums (out of game) could be a decent idea. But you have to watch out for people using such information to make it easy to contact them and share notes on how to hack the game.

And again, the attention-seeking element I wrote of would only really apply to in-game events, like public executions, not just any bit of public name-calling.

 

[WatchMaker]

Player's character appears on the gallows located in the middle of the city. There he/she waits until noon. In the mean time, the executer can be clicked for information on his/her crim. Once noon comes around, the player drops and you can see his neck broken. He hangs their until 12 midnight, at which point he is added to the row of bodies outside the city.

 

[Roeth]

...the attention-seeking element I wrote of would only really apply to in-game events, like public executions, not just any bit of public name-calling.

What about adjusting their character model for a period of time to include a dunce hat and pink underwear over their armor that they couldnt cover? Now there's public humliation.

 

[Thaos Nightwind]

What about adjusting their character model for a period of time to include a dunce hat and pink underwear over their armor that they couldnt cover? Now there's public humliation.

Hehe. Ye 'ol Scarlet Letter treatment eh? Not a bad idea. Something that gradually wears off as their probation period expires wouldn't be bad either.

 

[Daax]

No we chop off their heads!!!! It's my idea!!!! >

 

[WatchMaker]

How about this. If player is caught cheating, he gets 3 strikes. First time, his stats are lowered drastically for a few days. Second time, he gets a tag declaring him a 2nd time cheater and he cannot gain XP. Third time, both the first and the second happen. A forth offense is deletion.

 

[Darrt]

Three strikes are far too many.

I've learned from expierence, you can only give people two chances.

They mess up the first time, that's okay, we're human.

They mess up the second time, they're probably gonna do it a third.

 

[Daax]

On Gunz, they don't even give second chanced....anymore. Before I put my foot up the GM's ass they used to give 94758476046408670 strikes.

 

[WatchMaker]

Well, GunZ is still pretty cool about GM'ing, but they certainly are tighter about it now.