This is not Arche Age!

"I am still smoldering after being burned to a crisp from paying $194.00 for early alpha on that game last summer"

TheShadowScout wrote: »

The idea has popped up before... no reson to restrict it to player caught criminal scum though!

it -would- be neat if you had a third option between "pay your fine" and "run away!" when the guard catches you... an "do your time" option...

...for minor infractions, spend some online time locked in stocks, for other players (or even NPCs) to laugh at and throw rotten fruit... perhaps even a public whipping, with a lingering deboff for a while after...

...for major ones... well, I would love to see some "prison island" public dungeon, where all skills, weapons and armor are disabled, you run around in an forced "prison rags" costume, and you have to "serve your sentence" by doing a lot of mindlessly repetetive activities like breaking rocks or sewing sacks, each earning points towards lowering your bounty (which wouldn't decay on its own while in prison, and the amount of points earned would be dependent on build and task - stamina builds earn more breaking rocks, magica builds earn more sewing sacks...) or find the hidden "jailbreak" quest... (which would not be visible as quest marker, but had to be figured out by talking to the NPC inmates, earning their trust to do miniquests for them, etc. - and which, once found and started, would have a failure chance dependent on how many of the "escape preperation" hidden miniquests you find and complete... and if it fails, it will add to your sentence and no longer be available...)
Naturally such a prison dungeon would also have other encounters, from the mess hall confrontation (persuage may keep this from turning into a brawl) to the obligatore shower scene (intimidate will keep your virtue intact... )
And of course, there could be a lot of nifty achievements coming with prison... titles... dyes... perhaps even special tatoo unlocks once there is a barbershop...

I for one would looooove to see this in ESO!

I love the prison idea.

I don't really care of the idea of a "prison island". Prison worker dungeons are more in keeping with the TES theme (IMO), but that really is just window-dressing. The core concepts are great!

I have previously put some thought (and unposted words) into the idea of a prison. The concepts discussed here are spot on giving players the OPTION to go to the stocks, the local jail or the regional prison instead of paying their bounty.

Each level of imprisonment should give players different gameplay opportunities and different rewards. The stocks could be escapable only if other players help out. Other players can choose to dishonor you or set you free at a risk to their own wanted rating. Local jails is where players should be able to find the one lockpick hidden in their cell or they could sweet-talk the guard. The regional prison is where players would encounter prison brawls, great escapes, and a guild that can only be joined from there and afterwards can be interacted with in the outlaw dens. Think of the guild as a sort of Anti-Undaunted.

I also played around with the idea that the great escapes are group tasks where players cannot escape alone. Open PVP with the great escape mechanics only being open at certain times so it becomes a competition. A player could escape alone using different methods, but would be more difficult and time consuming. Escaping prison or jail shouldn't lower your wanted level or bounty. In fact, it should increase it. The only way to leave prison as a free-citizen is to just do your time, which (as was suggested by @TheShadowScout) should be should require a certain number of tasks to be completed and shouldn't be dependent on a clock. These tasks would have to be varied and interesting enough to be fun but also tedious enough to be a chore.

All of this could be accompanied by a more substantial justice system in which a player's wanted level doesn't deplete nearly as quickly. As such I was thinking players could have Infamy levels that would allow a player to have wanted levels in one city, but not have a wanted level in a neighboring city. As wanted levels increase, their regional-wide, faction-wide, and Tamriel-wide infamy level would increase. This would mean that a player who is a fugitive in one city could be notorious in a neighboring city, disreputable in a neighboring zone but unknown in a different faction. The greater the infamy level, the greater the bounty (of course).

Then I got into killable guards (which would increase bounty and infamy significantly) non-depleting wanted levels, speech-craft type mechanics for players to talk their way out of jams and bribing prison guards, PVP implementation with this system and appearance change inclusion as a way to get escape your reputation (think GTA car color change).

Paying for your crimes could be a really interesting part of the game and would likely be a DLC. Paying for the DLC would simply add the options to "Submit" to guards instead of paying bounty or running.