Revisiting our VOIP discussion

[GioSerpo]

At my previous home, I was RPing as a firefighter. We weren't allowed to use the TS for calls, and the PD was only allowed to use it for pursuits. I never did understand why though, because the criminals they were chasing had to be able to communicate too. Letting the PD use voice in pursuits gives them an unfair advantage and a lot of the people who RPed as criminals had a secret TS server that they used to level the playing field back. Was it against the rules, sure, if they got caught. That is exactly what is going to happen if we allow PD to use TS here too, and all the talk about being different, being better, will have just been talk. All the time, effort and love put into this project, wasted.

 

And yes, I'm sure that there will probably be people who would break the rules like that here, but the thing is, fairness. I feel like it's way less likely for people to want to break the rules like that when everyone is held to the same standard of rules.

[GioSerpo]

1 hour ago, Rodrigo_Ferrer said:

Let's be completely honest here law enforcement has always had an unfair advantage with VOIP, and it's never been used exclusively for pursuits. You should not be allowed to communicate over VOIP with minimal delay when other players have to type in-game. 

 

I don't know how many of you remember xMovie's /copchase but there was a system for pursuits where cops could share their real-time location (blue map marker) with others: whoever was the lead pursuit vehicle switched it on with a letter/command (which the partner who's not driving can easily do), and if the lead pursuit vehicle changed they could swap (and multiple markers could be on simultaneously).

 

The rest should be dependent on trained practices for police emergency vehicle pursuits and in-game communication. Period. 

 

 

 

When it's allowed for law enforcement, it lowkey encourages other players (hit squads, racers, mall rats, etc. you name it) to use VOIP as well, and it turns into an unregulated spiral of potential metagaming (often distracting the players from roleplay). 

 

It's either everybody is allowed or nobody is allowed, and last I remember it's a text not a voice roleplay server. 

THIS. Yes. A command to turn on or off a 'pursuit beacon' of sorts. Short enough that even a slow typing driver can type it if they don't have a partner. Something like /pb or similar. It'd add a blip to the vehicle of the person who used it. Could even be on a timer so if someone forgets to disable it, it'll automatically do it after some time has passed. I vote that this is the route we take for two main reasons. One, the server motto is LITERALLY "A new era of RP," so do something new that none of the other servers are doing. You can't be all talk and no action and expect people to want to play. But the second reason is that at the end of the day, metagaming is defined as 'using IC information OOCly or vice versa.' Your IRL voice is as OOC as it gets, especially for people who like to be creative with their characters, so, to essentially let the PD break this rule when they are in a pursuit is unfair for everyone else, especially when there are many other methods of doing the same thing that adding VOIP would do. Like the one mentioned.

 

Thing is, most cop cars have GPS trackers in them IRL, that way dispatch can see where they are to send more units if they think more are needed. We can possibly add to the lore that the LCPD is using new technologies to prevent criminals who listen to the police scanners from knowing where the crimes are happening, so they use GPS tracking along with a GPS map app on their MDC for real time location checks on their officers. That way, you've got a lore based reason as to why they don't use their radios too.

 

EDIT: And yes, before anyone asks, there are police scanner apps that you can literally download on your phone IRL.

[cerberus]

3 hours ago, radreaper100 said:

or how about the walkie talkie is literally the ingame one? which is legitimately the actual radio. use that.

ts3 isnt needed, this is a serious roleplay server that we dont need to win that badly that we resort to ts3

I am not sure why you are so fixated that "Heavy Roleplay" and "Serious Roleplay" means that we should not use TeamSpeak. Just because cops have TeamSpeak does not mean they will win all the time. I do not know what experiences you got from other communities but all these years that I have been part of LEO roleplay, I have seen little to no metagaming in individual TeamSpeak channels. 

 

We are trying to replicate real-life, and having a /pursuit command not only brings RPG vibes but also eliminates the immersion we are trying to bring. 

[Fat Bulldog Ferrer]

55 minutes ago, dean said:

I am not sure why you are so fixated that "Heavy Roleplay" and "Serious Roleplay" means that we should not use TeamSpeak. Just because cops have TeamSpeak does not mean they will win all the time. I do not know what experiences you got from other communities but all these years that I have been part of LEO roleplay, I have seen little to no metagaming in individual TeamSpeak channels. 

 

We are trying to replicate real-life, and having a /pursuit command not only brings RPG vibes but also eliminates the immersion we are trying to bring. 

 

1. They may not win all the time (if they did it would be ludicrous) but they do have an advantage. What makes having that advantage fair toward regular players? 
2. How do regular players know that LEOs play fair and don't metagame? If history has taught us anything in that regard, it's that regular players will secretly use VOIP to balance the scale, leading to potential metagaming even if LEOs play fair. The question is what we encourage as a community/server, and what is fair for everybody.
3. The /pursuit command was the simplest solution to the most commonly argued point by law enforcement roleplayers which is communicating during pursuits. However, all complex systems that work evolved from simpler systems that worked. If you want to build a complex system that works, build a simpler system first, and then improve it over time. You could ditch VOIP as an idea and research and develop realistically existing technology as part of script features. When you focus on the function (of many police vehicle systems including GPS technology/tracking, and map displays showing the present location of the vehicle) instead of the fact that a map marker gives you RPG vibes then frankly I don't know what immersion you're talking about.

I sense modal bias and I don't think you realize how big of an advantage LEOs have over regular players with VOIP. The only reason no community has got rid of it is because it's easy and nobody cares: back in the day, criminals had the advantage because script requirements and limitations made LEO options highly limited so they gave them something [that used to be blatant rule-breaking before] to balance the scale; because they couldn't think of anything else at the time. You are essentially defending a more than decade old solution despite there being significant script advancements which would allow us to go down a different route.

 

Otherwise when me and my buddies plan a robbery with walkie talkie radio earpieces then we want VOIP as well, to make it fair. Who's going to supervise that? Catch my drift by now? 

[GioSerpo]

51 minutes ago, dean said:

I am not sure why you are so fixated that "Heavy Roleplay" and "Serious Roleplay" means that we should not use TeamSpeak. Just because cops have TeamSpeak does not mean they will win all the time. I do not know what experiences you got from other communities but all these years that I have been part of LEO roleplay, I have seen little to no metagaming in individual TeamSpeak channels. 

 

We are trying to replicate real-life, and having a /pursuit command not only brings RPG vibes but also eliminates the immersion we are trying to bring. 

For me, it's more about it being "text based RP." Text based RP means text based. As I said in a previous comment, metagaming is mixing IC and OOC, and your voice is as OOC as it can get, so by using your voice, you're metagaming, which is breaking the rules. When you implement exemptions to those rules, you introduce a higher chance of people breaking them. I don't know where all you have RPed in the past, but every community I've RPed in that have a rule allowing PD to use VOIP in pursuits have had an issue with PD members breaking rules and not getting caught, AND members in illegal factions making secret TS servers or using other VOIP services to level the field back out and make it fair again.

 

As a person who is as anti-RPG as you can get when it comes to RP, a command like that don't seem too RPGish to me, cause, as stated in a previous comment, cop cars already have GPS trackers and dispatch can see them on maps IRL. It's not going to be long before the cop cars have maps with the locations of all the other on duty officers on their MDCs. I'm re-stating this, one more time, this server motto is "A new era in RP," so if you don't like the other ideas that have been proposed, then come up with something new.

[GioSerpo]

10 minutes ago, Rodrigo_Ferrer said:

You are essentially defending a more than decade old solution despite there being significant script advancements which would allow us to go down a different route.

This fact plus the server motto is the biggest reason we should ditch the VOIP system.

[Effect]

5 hours ago, Rodrigo_Ferrer said:

 

1. They may not win all the time (if they did it would be ludicrous) but they do have an advantage. What makes having that advantage fair toward regular players? 
2. How do regular players know that LEOs play fair and don't metagame? If history has taught us anything in that regard, it's that regular players will secretly use VOIP to balance the scale, leading to potential metagaming even if LEOs play fair. The question is what we encourage as a community/server, and what is fair for everybody.
3. The /pursuit command was the simplest solution to the most commonly argued point by law enforcement roleplayers which is communicating during pursuits. However, all complex systems that work evolved from simpler systems that worked. If you want to build a complex system that works, build a simpler system first, and then improve it over time. You could ditch VOIP as an idea and research and develop realistically existing technology as part of script features. When you focus on the function (of many police vehicle systems including GPS technology/tracking, and map displays showing the present location of the vehicle) instead of the fact that a map marker gives you RPG vibes then frankly I don't know what immersion you're talking about.

I sense modal bias and I don't think you realize how big of an advantage LEOs have over regular players with VOIP. The only reason no community has got rid of it is because it's easy and nobody cares: back in the day, criminals had the advantage because script requirements and limitations made LEO options highly limited so they gave them something [that used to be blatant rule-breaking before] to balance the scale; because they couldn't think of anything else at the time. You are essentially defending a more than decade old solution despite there being significant script advancements which would allow us to go down a different route.

 

Otherwise when me and my buddies plan a robbery with walkie talkie radio earpieces then we want VOIP as well, to make it fair. Who's going to supervise that? Catch my drift by now? 

^
Literally this on everything. Can't voice my concerns any better than this really.
Plus it always bugged me that me, as a player cannot hear what the officer does speak on his walkie talkie which my character cannot react in any way and so...

[ddyelo]

LCRP be like: yeah we are "new era roleplay"
also LCRP: yeaaaah police can use TS3

[ddyelo]

14 hours ago, dean said:

I am not sure why you are so fixated that "Heavy Roleplay" and "Serious Roleplay" means that we should not use TeamSpeak. Just because cops have TeamSpeak does not mean they will win all the time. I do not know what experiences you got from other communities but all these years that I have been part of LEO roleplay, I have seen little to no metagaming in individual TeamSpeak channels. 

 

We are trying to replicate real-life, and having a /pursuit command not only brings RPG vibes but also eliminates the immersion we are trying to bring. 

Just because YOU didn't see it doesn't mean there wasn't metagaming.
Sure, LEO players won't openly metagame, but as the person above said, during normal patrols they will communicate just like they would IRL "look at her 5'2 big boobs LOL"

[Biography]

@Rodrigo_Ferrer

 

There is another issue concerning blips that isn't considered by the players who advocate for the removal of TS. Often times, especially during peak hours, there are multiple emergency situations (shootouts, pursuits, foot chases) occurring at the same time. If we do adopt the blip system, PD will unfortunately plunge into chaos as there will be no possible way of overseeing which incident has responding units, how many and whether they are equipped to deal with the incident. This limits the shift supervisor to properly direct resources and may also cause further unfair advantage of PD because of the following:

• the blip system is always accurate and if a police officer is chasing you without having to update, they focus only on the driving and therefore your chance of evasion becomes even limited.
• because there is no way to properly direct resources to an incident, you can have as many as 10,15 units show up to an incident, significantly overpowering you. In most cases, the shift supervisor, upon seeing how many units are in a TAC, informs those who are not in the pursuit line, for example to discontinue from engaging and proceed with patrol.

As much as I don't like officers chit-chatting in their individual TS channels whilst on patrol, this particular suggestion, I fear, will not serve as a balance instrument and may turn to be the opposite.

 

@ddyelo 

 

There is another important aspect that you, as an individual player, might not be considering. One of our interests is to maintain a certain percentage of playerbase in order to keep the server active and be able to pay for the expenses. If this suggestion goes through and PD is simply not able to function properly due to massive confusion, we risk loosing a significant number of LEO players, which in turn will affect the entire playerbase. This is also one of the reasons to make this a community vote, because we understand it is a debatable subject. If it is ever to be accepted, it must be a slow change over time and not something that takes effect immediately.

 

There has to be a balance of the playerbase in regard to government/criminal factions to maintain diversity. Otherwise, it will become unplayable.

 

What I suggested earlier, in my opinion, is more beneficial and should be trialed.