SMP: Prisons

[Warlord2150 14]

Here's the problem. In multiplayer, there is no penalty for death.

Sure, you lose any levels you have accrued, if any. Sure, you lose any gear you were carrying, if any. But really, all that happens is you just reappear at spawn or your bed and continue what you were doing.

The issue I have with this process is that if you have an issue with thieves, which I do, killing the thief does nothing if all they were doing was opening your door and snagging stuff in your unlockable chests. I dont mind the RP factor of thieves, I just want a way to defend myself from them. They respawn, come back, and do it again, perhaps after waiting until you log off for the night. I think if you kill someone, a PvP kill specifically, the killed player should be sent to a different area, say the nearest prison block available for example, instead of spawn or their bed.

That way, you can maintain the RP aspect of still having thieves, yet if you have a prison, and can manage to catch the thief, you have the benefit of knowing that he/she wont be bothering you in the future until he/she is released. The prison block itself could just be made from say a bed surrounded by wrought iron ingots (which keeps it somewhat expensive to make) and produces a block that creates a spawn point for anyone killed in PvP.

Something important to note with this, unless you were going to manually release said prisoner, the block would have to put an output signal set to a certain timeframe and you could redstone link it to an iron door that would stay high for like sixty seconds to let them realize it was open. It would pop open say one hour after it was triggered so that the release is automated.

This does several things. Keeps the prisoner locked away for long enough to either make him think twice about messing with you or to reconsider his career choice, lets you hide your stuff (and his) in a different area than before, and reinforce your lodgings so youre not so easy to annoy.

[LordOfWolves 514]

Good idea, but the thief could simply be banned. Did you suggest this to make servers more believable?

[Warlord2150 14]

I wouldnt want them banned. I like people to play however they want to play. I dont like thieves RP wise, and just want to punish them.

[Zandorum 59]

I feel like this restricts pvp too much as well as if this were done I would like a Scenario where another theif could blow open the prison with TNT but then we get into a whole different thing about what fits in tfc and In the end I just dont think this works.

[Warlord2150 14]

I would think it would just prevent zerging. The thief couldnt just keep running right back to wear down the thiefee, and the thiefee couldnt do the same to the thief that is stealing from him. It would ensure that there is one fight for control, unless the thiefee has friends nearby that are willing to help him.

[Menoch 335]

" I think if you kill someone, a PvP kill specifically, the killed player should be sent to a different area, say the nearest prison block available for example, instead of spawn or their bed."

But what if he returns with a thief friend, kills you pvp style, and you were sent to prison? For defending your property.... makes no sense.

[Silverrune 23]

" I think if you kill someone, a PvP kill specifically, the killed player should be sent to a different area, say the nearest prison block available for example, instead of spawn or their bed."

But what if he returns with a thief friend, kills you pvp style, and you were sent to prison? For defending your property.... makes no sense.

Agreed. It's impossible to differentiate people. You could try to have a medical system where someone is held after they die and they can't leave until they are healed, using thing you could also implement specific limb damage. This is believable.

[Hyena Grin 92]

After home stones are implemented it would be relatively easy to white-list people so that if they die in that area then they respawn normally, while anyone else in that area who died is treated as an intruder.

It'd be nice if you could 'flag' people as thieves or vandals based on actions they take inside a home area. If they break a block or take an object out of a chest, and aren't white-listed, then they could be flagged as a criminal and if they are killed before they leave the area they become a prisoner. But I dunno if that's even possible.

Edit: I want to add that attempting to create a 'realistic' and cooperative world in any minecraft server is hampered by the facts that;

i) Unlike real life, you are not in the world 24/7. In real life you spend most of your time around your home or at your place of work. If we were in-game 24/7 either at our homes or in the mines/forests gathering, then thievery would be more difficult because there would be more people around any given location. But if I want to log in for a couple of hours a night, that is 22 hours that I cannot catch thieves and vandals. That's a problem. There are solutions for this (such as 'owned' areas, but that's a discussion for another thread)

ii) Even in the instances where a thief is caught, there isn't an adequate way to punish them. A thief who is thinking ahead won't go into a risky situation with an inventory full of valuables. They will have a chest near a bed somewhere and if they die while stealing some goods, all they've really lost is whatever they failed to steal from you. So it's sort of a situation where they can't lose. Like others I feel like banning people for stealing removes a layer of competition from the game. I'd rather a way to punish them in the context of the world so that 'thief' can be a viable path, but not as easy and consequence-free as it is now.

If it could be done, prisons could be a great solution to that problem. An hour or even a day trapped in a room with no inventory and no visible means of escape might be enough to make people think twice.

Of course it could also be abused: build a prison in an area that cannot be escaped (by building a wall in front of the exit) would trap people indefinitely.

[Warlord2150 14]

What if you region'd homes? Anyone on the 'list' would spawn safely wherever after they died. Anyone else would go... elsewhere.

[halfmaster1 77]

Very simple solution.

Find thief's bed, destroy it.

Works great when you a long ways away from spawn.

[Hyena Grin 92]

Maybe I don't know everything about minecraft or TFC, but can you explain to me how you can actually find a thief's bed? Considering it could be literally anywhere in an enormous 3D space? And considering beds don't exactly tell you who is set to respawn there? Short of actually physically finding the thief near that bed, I don't see how you can just go out and know which bed of the 30 nearby is theirs, or whether their bed is even included in the ones that you find. More likely you'd waste your time destroying the beds of totally innocent people. Which seems silly, especially when the search could take untold amounts of time - time that you are spending away from your home, which means the thief (or a different thief) could easily be ransacking it while you are on a wild goose chase.

[splatman1981 44]

i think the most basic thing to do is have a "lockable" chest, as a new item. that way only the person who created the chest could access it. perhaps a little more indepth solution would be lockable doors, that would also lock all blocks in a given area. so they cant just break the wall down and get in. not sure if that makes sense.

[Joey 59]

player meets new "friend" --> friend and player begin to chat --> player shows new friend pretty gem/ingot collection --> friend likes collection. friend likes collection very much. --> player turns around to tie shoe. --> player takes club to back of head --> player is unconcious --> player is dragged away to friend's secret prison --> player wakes up in prison cell bed/cot.

Waking with no items on hand, the player has no viable way to escape a stone prison, as breaking stone blocks will not be possible with fists. The prison will not be protected with magically indestructible "claimed" blocks, but simply blocks that are unable to be broken by hand, such as stone or iron bars, and a strong door. A lock on the door keeps the player inside jail, unti he figures out a way to break/pick the lock, or friend lets the player go.

[bsb23 303]

Or until he yells "help! Friend has kidnapped me!"

[killster550 401]

here is an example of why there should be SOMETHING done about this: i play a server, agree to meet up with someone, 10k blocks later, he kills me and calls it self defence, nothing is done about it, but i get reset (10k blocks back, no items)

although what there could be done about this would be a incredibly hard thing to do beyond normal moderation, but i feel most TFC servers lack this ATM

[ruhl4 24]

Lockable chests and doors that can be picklocked still let the thieves steal, but also grants good protection from casual griefers. Buildings should also be much harder to destroy so that people with axes/picks can't bypass the locks. The time spent to defend something should be equal to the time needed to steal it.

Also, the easiest way to catch thieves is to live in groups with other people (different timezones helps) so that they can defend your structures while you are offline.

[killster550 401]

well, on your structure bit, if you build a building and misplace a block, you'd take forever getting rid of it, imo you should be able to label a structure connected to a door as a house, with a placed by player yes/no ruling as the border, this way, if you place a door, every playerplaced block becomes harder to destroy for everyone besides the placer himself

[Warlord2150 14]

I would want to have a prison cell (or more than one if possible, so I could have a complex), made from stone bricks or smoothstone and an iron door so nothing can (easily) be broken by hand. I would prefer that it be not made of something more durable - like bedrock - so that friends can also come along and break the prisoner out, but they would have to break into the prison complex and whatnot.

[ECC 508]

Take this however you wish, but this idea entirely sucks.

lets explain greifing to you: If it can be done, it will be done. that is a greifer motto only topped by 'keep going till your banned'

Imagine a greifer plopping this down under the lava in a world after doing what they do and stealing some vets hard earned red steel set. suddenly, you have this uber player running around respawning people into a permanent death point and once they have everyone in the area dead and in the jail they can go on to stealing and incinerating your gear as well as your homes.

I dont care HOW expensive you make an item, I dont care WHAT you do to make it hard to obtain. if it exists at all, all it takes is that greifer to find a vet player who has the materials. once thats done, the map is done.

If this is something you really want and feel I am wrong then code it yourself in vanilla and show us how it can be applied to TFC without griefers getting a hold of it. Dont try discussing it, SHOW me it cant be used to grief.

[renadi 258]

A shovel can be used to grief, I however think allowing us to self police will be the key to TFC's success, I look at Civcraft as a good example, are there griefers, sure, and it obeys way too much of vanilla's mechanics, but when somebody is affected by griefers they can put a hit out on the griefer who will in turn be jailed, unless they have friends they'll likely stay there for quite some time, however reasonable people will often be rescued, Though it does have a bit of a meta-gamey aspect, people posting in forums, reddit asking for rescue, it could use an in game solution, but it works pretty well.

true griefers may be locked in The End forever, unless you get a band of agressive griefers looking to free an army, but honestly, that sounds bloody awesome.

Mainly though justice is carried out, if you're imprisoned and it is unjust you will likely be freed; if it was just nobody will bother with you unless they can gain something, and your jailer will likely ask for reparations for the crimes and then free you if you pay off your debts.

[Warlord2150 14]

ECC, I totally agree with you, yes if a griefer takes advantage of it. However, on that note I also totally agree with renadi in that almost anything can be used to grief. Personally, I think the majority of people will be able to effectively use something like this as it was intended, and attempt to police their servers against irritants. If nothing else, the RP factor alone makes it a nifty and novel approach to thievery.

[renadi 258]

Hah, watch out, don't want someone to think you're talking about RPG's around here...

[Warlord2150 14]

Lol. Yes, I wouldnt want to confuse TFC with Baldur's Gate <facepalm>

[ECC 508]

Im not against siege weapons. Im not against fires. Im not against the mighty pickaxe in my wall. PvP is a fun thing, and War is great on a server. but this idea along with 1sdans constant plugging of a similar user moderation tool is not giving us the community the tools we need but instead giving professional greifer groups what they want. You agreed that the tool exists and has been used by greifers. This idea while it may look nice to you in text has proven already in practice what its solid flaws are. There is a reason why the Op exists on a server and it is to police the user base. If you want to have user moderation on your sever then please write up a TFC compatible mod for it and put it on your server. I dont want it on mine.

I am going to overstep my bounds here and speak for the devs: No. Nice presentation, looks good on paper, but no.

[renadi 258]

I'd think if anything Civcraft proves that the system does more good than harm... Not sure where you're getting the proven idea it doesn't.

It's a large server with VERY little moderation that functions incredibly well because people solve their own disputes.

You say it doesn't work, doesn't this example say otherwise?