[Implemented] (inSim) Changes to [MED] - Add to the RP/Server experience

[[TC]»Elmo«]

I'm tempted to merge this thread with the other one, because the discussion subject is basically identical and IIRC there are a few things that were said/discussed in the other that are being repeated here.

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Med rights.
It has already been said that if the Med(+Res?) role is to become official, it will require InSim support and will be tied to Cop rights.
Answering a few questions above about that:
1. The skills required to be a competent medic are largely similar to those required to be a competent cop. Also, the things that would be likely to make a bad medic would be similar to those that would make a bad cop. Both roles require a good driving standard and the ability to follow the correct procedure/rules.
2. As far as I'm concerned, losing your cop rights is generally not a good incentive to not lose Med rights. As it is at the moment, many(most?) 'problem' Meds are only being Meds because they already lost their cop rights, usually for poor driving or breaking the basic Cop rules.
Surely the prospect of also losing Med rights would be more incentive to not lose your Cop rights in the first place?

(2012-09-04 15:18)Kiz Wrote:  But either way, surely TC should be more entered around the community, not around the fact that the creator doesn't want something. I understand he may not want it in game, but if that's the case, TC should at-least make it clear that the valid reason for not having an inSim MED system is because Chuck (I assume) doesn't want it in the game instead of dressing it up with all of this abuse non-sense. If I'd known that the reasoning behind this was purely to do with the administrators not wanting it full-stop, I wouldn't have written the thread.

The valid reasons that are in discussion here, in the other thread, and in the private TC area(s) are thus:

• What useful role(s) can Med(+Res?) have that makes sense for a Medic to do?
• How can it be implemented practically in the servers and InSim? This is generally the nitty-gritty of how the system would actually work and the rules that govern it. It also includes reducing the avenues of abuse and how to enforce said rules.
  For example, it is generally agreed (originally from previous discussion in other thread(s)) that Medics would only be called 'on emergency' to specific types of incident and that at all other times they must obey all road laws.
  Whatever system/implementation would have to be largely automated. This includes how to reliably work out whether an incident counts as 'emergency' or not, whether a non-emergency situation later becomes classed as an emergency (or vise versa) after a Medic/Tow is called/responding and how to clearly communicate that change of state to those who need to know - this includes cancelling the call if the incident is clear/finished before a Medic arrives.
  Also, given the complexity of some of the above, we would need to ensure that there is no significant computational load needed for the server.
  

As you can see, (and as I said in the other thread) we haven't said or decided that we "don't want" an official Med role. On the contrary, I would very much like to be able to get this to work, but it must be practical, simple for all the players involved to use and the role must, if at all possible, make sense. We have already put a lot of thought into this, but it is obviously a complex thing to work out and implement at pretty much every stage.
We (meaning TC and the community collectively) haven't even come to a conclusion on the 'makes sense' part.

(2012-09-04 16:25)Mr. NB Wrote:  Yeah, it would be nice if more suggestions would be considered by the TC, but unfortunately, it does not work like that here. It is not that people in TC would be ignorant, it is just that there is a certain logic and idea of what TC should be going on there and there is no way for people to change that easily. It obviously is a successful idea, since TC has been most popular server for years, so hands down on that, but i do agree however, that there is a lot of very useful and detailed suggestions out there. There was even more of them on the old forums, but you could count all of them that were acctualy implented, on the fingers of one hand.

If i myself was the one that made the InSim and owned the servers and i saw that community (people, without who this community would not be what it is, let's not forget that) likes one idea a lot, i would certainly think about it, even if i myself, didnt like the idea that much. But i guess that Chuck is not like that and you can not change people. Also, this topic about MED's has been discussed many times before, hell, when i was active, even as a Team Leader In Training in the TC, i myself did not know what a MED can do and what he can not. So there is certainly a lot, that could be done on that area.

We do consider the vast majority of (if not all) suggestions made. Just because we don't actively implement all of them doesn't mean they haven't been seriously considered and thought about by Chuck and/or at least one Leader. If that wasn't the case, then we wouldn't have bothered creating (and re-creating) this area in the first place.

(2012-09-04 16:42)Bez Wrote:  People are too scared of change that's all.. It wouldn't hurt anyone to do trial runs of some ideas to see how they work out for 2 weeks, then if they don't work just remove it from the insim/server.

Doing trial runs is all very well in theory, but in practice it's a balancing act between time to implement vs risk (chance of success) vs reward (how big an improvement).

There are often things that seem very simple initially, but end up a bit of a bugger once we think about how to actually do it.
There are things like this Med discussion, which practically everyone likes on the whole, but is a bit of a bugger at every stage from working it out in the first place to implementing it in the end. Not to mention the suggestions that are basically impossible/completely impractical.
There are other things that are often very easy to determine if they're going to work or not (eg layouts etc) without even needing to go near the main servers.
There are also one or two things that we've put on trial due to vocal demand, that unsurprisingly turned out to be a complete failure (eg Fully open, one way Autobahn - lasted only a few hours afaik).


Essay over, time for sleep