Hooded help for criminals.

[RunningMountain]

If you're hooded/masked, make it harder for NPC soldiers to automatically know you're wanted. As in you get a brief delay before you're bum-rushed by them. Each cloak/mask could have a number representing how well it covers your face. 0=none, a basic hood and face is visible. 1=some 2=more 3=a lot 4= little mask 5=full mask or whatever. Blah.

It could also invite more trouble however, by PCs or even NPC guardians at gates who will search you to check your identity.
Feedback on this one?!

[Cale_Knight]

I might be for this if NPC soldiers also harrased folks who walked around in cloaks and footpads and climbing gloves and masks and on and on.

As it is, a would-be criminal can walk through the city, failing his sneak checks, holding up a giant neon sign that says "I'M ABOUT TO COMMIT A CRIME," and absolutely nothing will happen to him until he actually does it, no matter how suspiciously he might be acting.

[Armaddict]

failing his sneak checks

What does a failed sneak check look like?  Is it an exaggerated tiptoe?

Is it moving blatantly along the side of the road, crouching from shadow to shadow?  Is it moving in a crowd, but it turns out you're standing in the middle of a 'class' of small dwarven children and you stick out like a sore thumb?

I don't think failed sneak checks necessarily mean you are obviously about to commit a crime.  I think it means you're moving in a way that insinuates you don't really want notice...but that's probably not that uncommon in Zalanthas, is it?

[Cale_Knight]

Is it moving blatantly along the side of the road, crouching from shadow to shadow?  

That's pretty much exactly what I imagine it looking like. A very blatant, very exaggerated, very silly and very suspicious motion.

If all you want to do is move carefully, that's what emote tags on movement are for.

[Armaddict]

That -might- be what it is.  But not every instance, by any means.  Myself, and other people who like playing rogues that I know, all mix up their 'sneak emotes'.  The movement emotes they use while sneaking to describe how they are hidden.

In the labyrinth, you'd probably get a lot more 'shadow to shadow crouches' than in the city.  In daylight, on a crowded road...it's just easier to look like one of the crowd, but keep your face lowered, hood up, and avoid too much interaction.  It may be obvious to some watching, but that doesn't mean that guy is about to go do bad things.  A lot of people on Zalanthas are private and don't want attention.

Myself...I don't really like the idea of making it harder to recognize wanted people because they have a hood up.  If you just committed a crime, and are using a unique cloak...are you that hard to recognize?  Particularly with recent changes to hide, it's probably unnecessary except for to those who are unskilled in being stealthy.  In which case, they probably should not be risking their freedom in heavily-patrolled areas anyway.

[EonBlueApocalypse]

I might be for this if NPC soldiers also harrased folks who walked around in cloaks and footpads and climbing gloves and masks and on and on.

Wearing masks or facewraps should definitely draw suspicion in either city-state.  But really, they have a use in the desert environment.

In response to the original poster, I don't agree with this.  It seems cool, but to balance it, when a crime is commited in public, seemingly, anyone wearing a hood or facemask that roughly fits the description (height, weight, gender) should be detained.

[RunningMountain]

Hey! Is this discuss stupid sneak ideas thread! No! No soup for you! Go de-rail a different thread.

[RunningMountain]

In response to the original poster, I don't agree with this.  It seems cool, but to balance it, when a crime is commited in public, seemingly, anyone wearing a hood or facemask that roughly fits the description (height, weight, gender) should be detained.

But they aren't. The person is automagickally known to be them. And anyone who does fit the description that isn't them is left alone. Nuh.

[EonBlueApocalypse]

In response to the original poster, I don't agree with this.  It seems cool, but to balance it, when a crime is commited in public, seemingly, anyone wearing a hood or facemask that roughly fits the description (height, weight, gender) should be detained.

But they aren't. The person is automagickally known to be them. And anyone who does fit the description that isn't them is left alone. Nuh.

Okay, what about if a criminal commits a public crime and flees, the criminal gets this extra time, but anyone masking their appearance who roughly fits the description is subject to a script that basically harasses them.

Yeehaw, just like real life.

"Boy, are you aware that your left tail light is out?  I'm gonna need you to step out of the vehicle ... "

[Dalmeth]

That's pretty much exactly what I imagine it looking like. A very blatant, very exaggerated, very silly and very suspicious motion.

If all you want to do is move carefully, that's what emote tags on movement are for.

Well, that's just silly.  You simply can't move from shadow to shadow down a crowded street at high sun.

It's more realistic to portray them as walking with their head bowed, walking behind some much taller person, or even mixed in with a group they obviously have no business being with.  At least in crowded places, and I even make sure to show it as such.

[RunningMountain]

That's pretty much exactly what I imagine it looking like. A very blatant, very exaggerated, very silly and very suspicious motion.

If all you want to do is move carefully, that's what emote tags on movement are for.

Well, that's just silly.  You simply can't move from shadow to shadow down a crowded street at high sun.

It's more realistic to portray them as walking with their head bowed, walking behind some much taller person, or even mixed in with a group they obviously have no business being with.  At least in crowded places, and I even make sure to show it as such.

Or hiding in a half-giants cloak.

[Cenghiz]

When you fail sneak, you did something suspicious. Sneaking is not drawing the attention to yourself 'in city'. When you fail sneak, you draw the attention. Period.

[FightClub]

A word I recently began to attribute public sneaking with was "blending" when you're in a crowd, and attempting to sneak around, you're blending in with the others, which means you're trying to make yourself inconspicious by walking closely with another group, keeping deep in a crowd, or otherwise making yourself hard to spot by those you're trying to avoid.  Failing in this wouldn't necessarily mean you were tiptoeing about like a dumbass, who does that? No, it simply means you failed to blend, you could've lost your attention on whome you were following and bumped into them, could've made that templar look your way as you stepped on someones shoe, tripped, or otherwise.  It's not always necessarily comical things, but those are examples I find that work well.

As far as the thread, yeah it would be nice if criminals took a longer time to be aknowledged, but I think as far as that goes due to the fact that you need npc's to bring a person down, and vnpc soldiers/militia aren't accounted for in code, they almost always have to bump them up and insta lay it to you, to make up for the situations that they did not.  As far as changing it, yes I would like to see a more accurate crim code in many respects.

Maybe a sorta SimCriminal, where it goes through a series of checks room to room until you make the get away into a lawless area, i'd like it.

[Majikal]

I like the idea of masks and whatnot giving the crim code somewhat of a delay. Not much, but I could see the fun of it.

As to the derailing about sneaking - Someone fails sneaking, you can comment on it IC about them being suspicious or whatever the hell you want. If the staff didn't want you to know about it their wouldn't be a 'bobtheassasin stealthily moves east' flag.

[Pantoufle]

Granting a delay for hooded/masked individuals implies that most people around them are masked or hooded (which, unless you're in Red Storm Village, this is not the case).  If I commit a crime and toss up my hood or -- good god! -- put on a mask, all I'm doing is drawing attention to the fact that I'm the culprit.

I believe the criminal code needs to grant varied delays for certain situations but not because you're wearing a hood or a mask.  For example, if I commit a crime in an alley (not the Labyrinth of Allanak or Ruins of Tuluk, but just a regular alley), I'd like to see either a delay in becoming wanted or a chance not to become wanted at all.  Many players like to obsess over the fact that there is this virtual crowd every step of the way but the reality of it is that this just isn't always the case.  There would be streets in Allanak or Tuluk (and certainly other places that have lower populations) where, occasionally, nobody is around.  These sorts of scenarios aren't currently realized by the criminal code.  Even in Allanak, where templars patrol the streets ever watchful and the populace is controlled with fear, there should still be areas (outside of the lawless Labyrinth) where I can break the law and get away with it unnoticed.

[Cenghiz]

In some places -where it's logical- you already have a low chance to break the law, Pantoufle. It was mentioned by the staff several times and I had had the chance to check it myself in past.

[Angela Christine]

I kind of like the idea, but I think it would need some refinement.

Like if you were wearing "a red and orange striped hood" and "a rabid tregil mask" when you committed the crime, those items shouldn't delay law enforcement.  Instead of being part of your disguise, they would actually make it easier to identify you as the perp, because very few people will be wearing a red and orange striped hood and a rabid tregil mask.  The mask of Zorro may have kept people from guessing his secret identity, but all the soldiers knew it was Zorro as soon as they saw a guy wearing Zorro's distinctive outfit.

In order for the items to have the desired effect, you would need to don or change your masks, hoods, and other items as soon as you got away from the crime scene.  Logically, removing a mask you were wearing when you committed the crime ought to have as much disguise potential as donning a mask would if you committed the crime barefaced, but I don't think the it could work that way code-wise.


In the end it might not be worth the trouble, because civilized areas would react by making the disguising items themselves illegal.  In Occupation Tuluk the laws listed on the rumor board said something like wearing a hood or veil for the purpose of disguise was illegal.  I assume that law came about due to the activities of terrorists/freedom fighters, but it would be sensible for similar laws to be made in response to the actions of thieves and thugs.

That -might- be what it is.  But not every instance, by any means.  Myself, and other people who like playing rogues that I know, all mix up their 'sneak emotes'.  The movement emotes they use while sneaking to describe how they are hidden.

In the labyrinth, you'd probably get a lot more 'shadow to shadow crouches' than in the city.  In daylight, on a crowded road...it's just easier to look like one of the crowd, but keep your face lowered, hood up, and avoid too much interaction.  It may be obvious to some watching, but that doesn't mean that guy is about to go do bad things.  A lot of people on Zalanthas are private and don't want attention.

If you just want to "blend in with the crowd" use walk.  Sneaking is obviously something other than just walking, or else why give failed sneaks a different echo than walking?  Both failing to be sneaky and running attract more attention than walking normally.  It works out pretty fairly, unless your PC is sneaking or running and you, the player, do not realize it.  If you sneak or run often it isn't a bad idea to stick the %w in your prompt to remind you.