On occasions like this, The contract taker should be looking towards the gods not at the leaders to have a sloth rule in place. Altho, I must be honest I have my own doubts that it is factual.

Really? Why must people run to the Gods with every little problem? This is something that the leaders can and should handle themselves. It shouldn't be up to the Gods to deal with this.

Every little problem? I was talking about a rare occasion.

Ive been saying all along that you people on the side of the sloth rule shouldnt even be running crying to your leaders. So you can stop with your "Every little problem" rubbish.

It was more of a generalization saying we can't really depend on them for everything, sometimes we have to step up and do something about it ourselves.

On occasions like this, The contract taker should be looking towards the gods not at the leaders to have a sloth rule in place. Altho, I must be honest I have my own doubts that it is factual.

I'm not here to petition for the God's to be involved in something our upper structures can handle themselves. We bitch and moan when they interfere as is, screaming to let us control things like this, so it seems like that's what they are doing... as for having your doubts, well, that's on you. I have no doubts whatsoever that it is completely factual.

You see sadly, there is a "flaw" in this kill for hire business and in the arguments I've heard today. For those that have eyes like a hawk, just take a look around and sometimes you'll see some people hanging around. They don't quite look right, but there they are clear as a bright blue sunny day. Most experienced hitters will know that these are kill for hire people, and can take aim if they please. All it takes is a little patience on their part and a slightly faster trigger finger. Bam. A kill on someone else's dime.

People have stopped going to the gods about stolen MIA's, this is because they have put in the stoppages they see fit to stop "stealing" from (commonly) happening.

Stealing being racing someone to their contract, More then a second would be abandonment... Thats what the message from the gods say as a contract kill is taken out.

It is extremely difficult to find out the name of a contract before they are able to be killed. When Contract kills was first added to this world, It was extremely easy to find and race people to their contracts and complaints were made. Since then many changes were made and warnings were put in.

Aizlynn, I apologise for my previous statment, after talking to a few of my colleges I must admit, It could be quite factual. I have even gone to church and had a little word about it.

Believing that way around is wrong after so many efforts were put in place to avoid it from happening...

But you cannot deny, that is a rare occasion.

I even had to double check to make sure it was accurate, and not some gun malfunction. So no harm done.

I would agree that it's not common, but lately it hasn't been rare either. There have been quite a few complaints on this happening, not enough to warrant Godly interference but enough that it's ruffling feathers. Trust me, I'm all for taking abandoned MIAs.. but I guess I have too much respect for others than to blatantly steal one. That may be my own fault though. So, I do agree that there should be some kind of measure put in place.. but I also agree that even 5 minutes is a long time.

The whole point is, People were complaining that their contact kills were being snapped up the MOMENT they turned?.... I'm telling you now... Its... Not possible.

Sorry James. But thats not true. I know for a fact TyrionLannister was constantly looking for MIAs and often found them before the allotted kill time, he raced for those kills just as he would for any other bum that was found in the middle of the street with an RIA tag on his back. 

Actions like Tyrions weren't uncommon, so of course people were going to become disenchanted with the removing of the 10 minute rule. Despite profiting from the rule change, I'm sure Tyrion would have said the same as me and agreed that some amount of time should be afforded to the person that took out the contract, whether thats a couple of minutes or 5 minutes makes no difference. 10 minutes was a long time, so I think the new rule of 5 minutes is actually a decent compromise.

It is extremely difficult to find out the name of a contract before they are able to be killed.

Once again James, thats extremely incorrect. Tyrion had names coming out his ass every day he found so many. He had almost trained his gun sufficient enough to consider him at a level we call "maxed" - all this without ever paying for a single contract kill.

Sure, a LOT of those kills he found were the forgotten MIAs that had been left more than 10 minutes, but when that rule was abolished he sure cleaned up with around 8 free contracts per day.

You know what else really irks me about all this? How utterly, completely nonsensical the Gods views on MIAs are when contrasted against their views on mugging.

Someone goes and signs onto a contract that has a big bright warning that says "YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY TRY, THIS ISN'T GUARANTEED!" and then doesn't try? Well, piss on the shoes of that dirty rotten thief. They took all of $500,000 from someone, and heaven save us if the Godfathers won't protect their members from that sort of abuse. Hell, if that jackass won't stop it, the gods are apparently going to require our leaders to demote or even kill over it.

But then someone else goes and steals $3,000,000 from someone who picked their pocket? Well, too bad little doggie. You volunteered for that risk, after all. So if any big bad mean leader tries to protect their members from that, we'll have to punish them.

Say, if I make a public statement in my shots on guys tagged with "MIA" that "this is a consental encounter, just ask the dead guy" -- will that mean that I can sidestep the rules on contract killing? After all, the person that spawned it volunteered for that risk. Hmm...

YourAWizardHarry, if thats the case why is it in so many district rules, but yet unpunished in many cases?

After listening to all the childish whining and whinging Don Maple could you just clarify something for me.

The ruling now is that a person should not shoot an MIA tagged person unless they personally spawned it in the first 5 minutes it is classed as a gangster.

Is that statement correct?

For the fools who don't understand our world it is perfectly easy to know of an MIA's existence the moment it is spawned, equally knowing this information it is possible to shoot it the moment it turns from being a thug to a gangster.

Well I have to say that every time I see something like this happening it's a bit disheartning. 

I'm sorry but I will have to go a tad OOC here due to the reasoning behind this. I feel terrible bad for the leaders in situations like this, because the truth is, there is no point in being a leader, because you can't really lead.

We are no longer in the times where leaders could indeed make plans, inovate and play around with rules as they wished. It's no longer like that and this very rule is proof of that. Leaders gotta bend their own rules for the god's wishes or things will simple get hard coded around leaders wishes.

I really wish that gods would see that doing things like that is really contradicting everything this place is about. Just like the advertisiment for this place says.  Mafia Returns - The Game! Prohibition era mafia management game. Browser based text game where the action is yours, the reaction is not.

We are supposed to react to leaders inovations, changes and ideas. If we don't like something, we have the power to change it. That's what this place is about, sadly, the reaction nowadays is not by players though. 

Rules made by players are never stable, because leadership changes. Rules is also one of the things that can cause conflict between cities and families, possible creating disputes and turning this into a more exciting place. Some of the biggest street activities were also seen in the past in discussion about different rules in cities.

This place can only gain by allowing leaders to inovate. Perhaps, we will run through a couple rules that are a  tad weird, but as I said, no one lives forever and another leader steps up with new rules.

I really do miss the time that we could as we wished, like the last time my bloodline was a crewleader, she did whatever she wanted and the players reacted every single month. 

It would be nice to have that again, because this is one the things that makes people unmotivated about putting effort into it.

This world is an investment. It is (to some) a financial investment, to all it occupies our time. These are limited resources for which we daily determine their proper destination. As many (if not all) are aware, at any moment the time we have invested in our lives of organized crime can be laid to waste by rival factions, corrupt agents, or even the slim chance of accidentally shooting yourself in the face. It is this quality of our time spent here that many have spent generations and generations among our ranks, for it provides a true sense of mortality at every turn; for any decision you make may be your last.

However, as with any investment, there is risk. That risk is typically provided by other mobsters. But Pocket postulates a different kind of risk; an external risk. Inconsistency in the rules of the Gods and any undue influence on our world provides new risk to our investments of time and money. That new risk, like most risk, drives down an individual's motivation to invest further. While the risk of mortality is one we all accept when we enter this life of crime, we can't accept the future risk that the Gods' decisions pose for we don't fully know them until they occur. They occur based on the decisions of the players, so while the "action is yours," sometimes our actions overstep bounds invisible to our mortal eyes.

We like our sandbox. We love toys in the sandbox, and we have nothing but gratefulness for the Gods' provisions thereof. We take issue solely in the "catch" that seems to come with new toys. We get in the sandbox believing that we can make the biggest baddest sandcastle this sandbox has ever seen, only to be confronted with sandcastle regulations and rules about taking the other kids' sand to make your castle bigger. By the time we confront these boundaries, we've already invested heavily in our sandcastle and we like it. So rather than tear it down and start over with the new rules, we fashion further developments based on the new policies, until we realize that the sandcastle looks nothing like what we imagined when we started building.