I think these should be tied into achievements, on a tiered level. The more tiers of achievements, the more reputable criminal you are, the more punisment you will recieve.

Petty Crimes

Initital sentence of 1 minute, adding 1 additional minute for each tier of petty crime achievements you have completed. Thus the new mobster unknown to the authorities will be 'let off' with a compartively light slap on the wrist (60 seconds in jail),the more established 'career criminal' who has completed in excess of thousands of petty crimes will have the book thrown at them

Felony Crimes

Much more serious than petty crimes, the standard sentence would be, as present, a 10 minute sentence. For each completed tier of felony achievements, an additional 2 minutes would be added.

Drug Crimes

Somewhat more difficult to apply the realism concept to this considering dealing marijuana would carry such a vastly different penalty than cocaine, so I feel there are 2 ways of doing this:

1) Following the achievements mould. 5 minute initial sentence, adding an additonal minute for every completed achievement.

2) An additional sentence of 1 minute, with 30 seconds for every additional unit being added.

Overall, I feel this would be an excellent addition. From a realism point of view, it stands to reason that the repurcussions of your criminal activity will become more severe when there have been previous arrests and you are a more notorious individual. On that basis,it stands to reason that a new account would get off fairly scot free, whilst the extremely old accounts would pay the price as in real life.

From a gameplay POV, I can't see any big downsides. Longer sentences for older accounts for sure, but they would be no harder to bust and in the grand scheme an extra few minutes is hardly a big downside compared with all the benefits that rank brings.On the other side of the scale, I would bet my arse quite a few new players are put off by 10 minute jail sentences being slapped on them from the off - a frequent occurence especially when starting in Philly or New York. This would remove that possibility and lead to a better user retentionl, long term. Probably.

Not sure how difficult this is to code, so any coder feedback would be hugely appreciated. Also, Ive thrown some figures out judging from both the seriousness of the crime in real life, and the frequency with which they can be committed on here - if anyone has better ideas regards to length of sentencing please add yer feedback.

oxoxoxo

Noah

I think this would bring an interesting twist to things, and since there is a lower chance of being thrown in jail as you rank higher, I think it would be fine to increase jail times as you rank. Attaching this directly to achievements will only serve to make them more then just some random creation for the game, they'll begin to get into the game features, which is fine with me.

I think you're correct about it possibly helping retention. From a completely player view point I find this idea would be an excellent addition.

There really shouldn't be an issue with it, as the lowliest thug can bust a Godfather with enough training, so what would the big deal be? Like you said, it's not increasing difficulty of busts, just jail time.

I support this idea. I think it would bring more realism to the game. As you said, a hardened criminal should be given more jail time for their misdeeds.

I love this idea. Bravo Noah.

Good idea

Excellent idea.

more realistic = much better..

good idea noah..