SL Mafias/Familia's

Perhaps it's my mistake in thinking folks can tell that SL mafias aren't RL mafias and in no way carry out actual RL harmful activities?

We certainly don't go around being bigots, spewing hatred or in any way force our beliefs (whatever they are) on other people, at least not that I've seen. Hell..I don't even like garlic very much.

If you want to look at the mafia title over my head when i wear it and think, "Jeez..there's a real dork that wishes he could really hurt or kill people" then i guess nothing I can say or do will change such judgemental behavior.

People roleplay all kinds of not-nice characters, from real life as well as fantasy. Children do it. Adults do it. It's all over in video games, tvs and movies. I don't see any harm in doing so as long as one is able to seperate fantasy and reality, which thankfully I am able to do.

I think the online groups are called mafias because there inner structure is very much like RL mafias, with people that earn trust and show loyalty rising to positions of "power" or respect, and the roleplayed battles with the other families. I guess you could call them "tribes" or "companies" or "gangs" but they use titles and act in a more modern world with more modern goals, thus the mafia conotation. And some are pretty hardcore in thier adherence to emulating mafia behavior in a fantasy roleplaying setting.

P.S. - Thanks for the votes! LOL

Although the mafia thing isn't too high on my interest list, I have to agree with David on the idea of "Roleplaying in SL". If you're roleplaying, no matter what it is, more power to you... I think it should be encouraged, and has a lot of posibilities for interesting content. The fact that the topic of roleplay is contreversial just makes it more interesting.

However...

It crosses the line from roleplaying into potential griefing, when you involve others that aren't roleplaying with you. No matter what the circumstances, it's important you pop out of roleplaying mode into "SL Citizen" mode, as soon as someone not roleplaying with you is involved. And involved can even mean 'standing nearby'.

If you can pop out of role when neccesary - I'm supportive of the whole idea, in a general roleplaying-sense. But if you can't, it's better something left to private 'Mafia Content Sims', where you can make sure that anyone who enters is in charachter.

In fact, think of the posibilities of a 24/7 Mafia sim.... where others can come & step into charachter and roleplay along with you... by choice.

(Oh... and if someone already ran with this idea.... sorry, I don't get out much)

Travis

I kinda disagree. In my opinion I think a certain level of grief should be allowed -- atleast in one part of the world. It would be cool if there oculd be some "lawless" sims grouped together -- maybe as a new land mass. Now -- perhaps not necessarily lawless. Anything too overt would be crazy... but racketeering and piracy? Awesome. A Utopia is a boring place -- now SL isn't a Utopia, but I think it could use a bit more bad stuff to keep it interesting -- as opposed to lame stuff.

The question I've been trying to answer is how to do this without ruining others fun in any major way. Now what "major" is kinda different depending on who you ask, but in my perfect SL you'd better be able to live some of these fantasies.

Right now I have no good answers or ideas though. =/

I think we should look at Shiryu's point of view in that he lives in Italy, and the Mafia there sound as if they are almost like terrorists or at least an extremist group.

I can see both points of view, but then I do think the people criticizing the Mafia need to realize the following.

We have to differentiate though I think between pop cultural trends, and such.

For instance, I like rap. Does that mean I believe in selling drugs, women being objects, violence, and all? No. Do I think all that should be in songs? Probably not like it is, but its there.

Most of the people in the SL Mafias are playing because of the mystique and the symbol in pop culture the Mafia has. The majority are good people though, just playing in this virtual world like everyone else. To some it is a game, and so they end up griefing more than they should. Others do not do so much.

There are plenty of video games, songs, movies, novels, and many things that contain. and may even seem to promote "Gangstarism". Far more than the SL Mafias could ever do. The SL Mafia is not the "source" of Mafia being glamorized, it is already glamorized in RL and that comes into SL. Most of the people who join the Mafia do so because of the RL pop cultural trend, not because the SL Mafia is making the RL Mafia seem glamorous in SL.

The style is there, the trend is there. RL Trends seep into SL. Its going to happen.

There are many things both in RL and in SL that are glamorized that could probably be considered bad in one way or another.

RL Armies are glamorized, but there is nothing glamorous about them. People die on both sides of the war.

We have to remember, nothing in our Second Life is really promoting anything that hasn’t been promoted in Real Life. That is why it draws people in Second Life, its already in Real Life.

You just have to learn how to ignore it if you don’t like it, just like in Real Life. And if it does affect you in an adverse way and you don’t like it, abuse report it.



Now as far as how the SL Mafia acts, you have to remember that there is no true organized “Second Life Mafia”. There are many varying groups that act with varying levels of maturity, though generally it is unfortunate to admit that the standards of behavior have become very low for some of the Mafias in Second Life. There is a standard that for a Mafia or group to get a reputation and so the other Mafias won’t mess with them, they have to do some level of griefing otherwise they wont’ be taken seriously and won’t survive as a Mafia. But the griefing is usually only toward other Mafias, and does not harm the general public. Now sometimes conflict will spill over such as in club bombings, etc. but it generally is kept between the Mafias.

In fact, some of the SL Mafias actually protect against griefers, and the Lindens are not so strict on them I believe for this reason for instance. The SL Mafias will often take care of those griefers who the Lindens for whatever reason will not, and act as a sort of secondary community enforcer. However, conflict and drama is getting worse within the Mafias, and so it does at times spill out into the public such as with the club bombings and such.

The SL Mafias are not, or at least the largest ones, groups of griefers running around terrorizing the community. At worst they terrorize each other, but not the general community unless it spills over like at some clubs and such. Sometimes when these wars between the Mafias escalate, they make certain people trigger happy but its not as if their just totally terrorizing the general community.

This already exists, and it's called Jessie.
And of course it's almnost deserted, because griefers become soon bored of griefing amongst themselves, there seem to be no fun in their desperate attention whoring if no one else can suffer from their griefing.
Honestly we have more than enough griefers without encouraging them further.



Of course, everyone is allowed to live and roleplay whatever he wants, from the mafioso with no brain and all guns to the al quaeda terrorist it seems. But he should not be surprised not complain if people look at them with sheer disgust. Id the "pop culture" sanctifies the mafia, does it makes mafia any better? Not in my eyes, and big part of the SL mafias don't contribute to make it any better themselves. Breaking in gun fights in the middle of my shop making regular customers fly some sims of distance, coming to me and DEMANDING in an insistent way some products to be designed the way they want and the like... An interesting way to "roleplay", or maybe they are the best roleplayers actually. Ironic uh?

This is a good idea, keep the mafioso activity in "mafia" owned sims. This way, you can bomb and shoot the hell out of each other. I for one, would hate to be in a club, for argument's sake, let's say Lestat's, when some overzealous goomba runs in with guns blazing because Elvis Costello said he was a ninny.

When you're acting in public, do like the "real mafia" and keep it cool. You don't see a member of the Gambino Family out in a restaurant screaming, "I'm mafia, bitch, respeck my ass". If you did, then it wouldn't be the Mafia, it'd be a common street gang, bent on destroying each other with drugs and fighting over a street corner.

All I'm saying, is go ahead, grief one another with your antics, have fun, but leave the general population to enjoy their Second Life their way. If they enter into a KNOWN mafia owned sim, then it's by their choice. Have your fun with them. Just put Mafia in the title, so that those who take issue with you can avoid it. "Drama" can be avoided with a bit of forethought, don't ya think?

Shade

In da Mafia youse don't swim wit da fishes. You SLEEPS wit dem. Dey is some kinky bastiches.

Shaddup you mook. Before someone breaks all yer fingers.

Jessie doesn't count. The key word was "some level". Jessie is all out war -- I'd like to be able to see some subtleness though. Maybe this is where the player government thats come up could take effect... ARs in the region are meaningless -- it would be up to the government and players to investigate, try and then ban users. Now, any newbie or infrequent visitor who comes to start trouble could be outright banned -- since they're obviously thinking it's supposed to be Jessie.

The residents on the other hand... A little bit of fun and underhandedness could happen.

I mean.. I don't care for this SL Mafia. The Mafia's goals is profit. This Mafia seems to just be a run and gun sort of deal.

This is a stretch though -- this idea is not something I think could be well executed in Second Life currently.

I suppose this is why I support the whole player government idea. It's flawed -- and flawed governments lead to some level of corruption and underhandedness -- and we'd still have the Lindens around incase things got too out of hand for the average user.

Then again, from what I gather 90% of SL users what to have perfect happy fun time -- which is fine. I just wish for something nicely set between absolute order and law and anarchy.

Cris - where we will probably continue to disagree is that I feel you and others are applying scale to this and rationalizing by falling back on the 'virtual world' arguement. The one person who has repeatedly stuck to his guns against this glamorization is in Northern Italy. I lived in Southern Italy for some time and understand that the whole "hollywood" twist on the mafia puzzles and angers some.

If I created a sim called 'Columbine' and had people in it walking around in black trench coats shooting anyone that entered the sim, you know damn well some would be offended. Especially people from Colorado. The scale of violence would not matter. That would get a hell of a lot of press but some guy from Italy questions the whole mafia scene, explains their history of violence, and is pretty much told to sit down and shut up because it is not relevant to the rest of us.

I'm not accusing you of that directly but your comments to him to 'lighten up' don't help and suggest this widely held attitude that if it doesn't effect me, I have no sensitivity for you.

You know, the whole Mafia thing has gone too far. Way back when there was the Valentino Mafia, and that was all nifty and all, and then just like clubs, tringo, and anything else that was good then exploited more than a kid in a sweatshop, it's oversaturated. I'm still surprised that I keep seeing mafia's i've never heard of in group lists.

I'm lucky to only have dealt with a few of them (largely because I hang around in Jessie a lot and I almost never go to clubs), but when I did it was like a verbal lobotomy. They'd try and act scary and powerful about me and when I wouldn't do what they want they'd pull out whatever low powered new player weapon they had and shoot me till they realized it wasn't working (and sometimes afterwards). After that i'm mainly assaulted with loosely strung together words which I could only vaguely discern as members of the English language.

So what do I make of the whole Mafia, family, familias, gangs, suspiciously named families that claim not to be mafias but are pretty much the same thing, and all other groups fitting into that general spectrum? It all seems as it was said before, a bunch of people looking desperately for a place to belong in a seat of power. Granted being in a mafia is no guarentee or more likely even possibility of power, but it makes them feel like it, especially among their general staple diet of newbie clubbers who think the watermelon gun is the most badass thing to ever be made in SL.

But mainly I don't understand the interest of shooting at eachother with push guns, especially from what i've seen, non-target based ones. "*script command* *push* <mafia name>*" "OMG u got pwned lolwtftylmao!!!1111oneoneoneone" *repeat till sufficient annoyance.

I'm sure like some things.....okay maybe not mainy things, but HOPEFULLY some things, it'll pass over as a fleeting fad of the fickle Second Life new player base, who's only stable interest seems to be that which is hidden under flimsily sewed together swatches of cloth.

This is why I don't go out and meet new people anymore.

Artemis you know your always welcome on JJW land..

Shadow

Maybe these Mafia ppl should hold their meetings in Chinatown. Then again that's never gonna happen coz if the boss of the mafia group IMs Foxy with "Hey, this guy Xxxxx Yyyyyyy is killing too many of my soldiers, can you ban him from Chinatown?", she's just gonna laugh.

Either that or the Triad will take 'em out.

Down with zee Mafia! Down with zee Cartel!!!!

More brothels!!! Bring back the Mole people!!!

And gimme all your guns and weed!



Lash, Bringing the masses together ... seriously

.....roll'n.....LOL........

This all is beginning to read like ads for reality tv........



phewwww.....lol

I can't believe i just read an hours worth of this crap. Who is anyone to tell anyone else what is right for THEM to roleplay?
Do you people make this much of a fuss over people that join SL modeling agancies? After all, they aren't REAL models. Or people that own clubs? After all, they aren't REAL club owners. Vampires? Nope, i think they're faking it too. What about D/s people? Ok, they might really be doing it, but eh... i highly doubt it.
Honestly, what is all the fuss over how we choose to play our game? As a general rule we roleplay mafia with OTHER families that choose to do the same. I know i'm not going sim to sim demanding people play with us. If youre being grieved, by ANYone, mafia or not... it's wrong.
So, If anyone cares to pay for my game, i'll play it any way you think i should. Untill then, if you have such a problem with what we do with our time in a place we pay to play, might i suggest you stick your nose back in a tringo board, or maybe climb back on a sex ball ( oh yeah! sexballs... theres a great use of time. *eyeroll*)and shut the heck up already....
The only thing i can think of worse than judging a bunch of people you don't know, is wasting your time dedicating 11 pages of posting to them.
By the way, for my 'extended family' on this thread.... i love you guys =)

What I can't understand is why someone would want to grief in this game.

It really doesn't bother me getting shot in this game because nothing happens to you.. you lose maybe 10-20 minutes of your time and that's it.

If you want to grief people go to a game like UO and kill people, there at least when you kill someone you can take all their stuff, rez kill, and generally be mean to your hearts content.

Actually, there are many many many worse ways to "grief" in this game, that would cause a serious detriment to the world. Fortunately, most griefers are too impatient and/or dimwitted to carry these things out. They're always permabanned anyway when one of these events happen.

LF

Ya there are different shades of griefing. Stilll, as Nate says, it boggles the mind why they bother. If someone orbits me, I normally have the abuse report filled out and submitted before I hit the ground. Then I am back to what I was doing in a matter of moments without giving the event a second thought while the Griefer gets account action from the Lindens. Whatever floats their boat.

I've always wondered why guns are even allowed to be rezed in sims that aren't specifically designated for combat, like Rausch. It doesn't make sense to me that I can be working on something, minding my own business and then all of a sudden be shot into the next sim. I don't pay LL for a shoot 'em up game. I have no interest in that.


I guess it would be tough programming wise to stop firearms from being taken out of players inventories and worn though.

There really is no way to programatically determine if an item is a gun.

You know, many crafy users have devised all kinds of clunky "no push" scripts and shields to defend against griefing, but none have been entirely satisfying as they interfere with walking or cause lag or something.

I would like to see the Lindens build some kind of protection into the software. Why not a toggle key that lets me decide on the fly if I am pushable or not. Maybe in the preferences I can set a maximum acceleration. This would allow some modest push scripts to work on me, but prevent the abusive ones. Just a thought.

On a side note:
Woo! last post on page 11.

I'd like that too. I get pretty annoyed if I'm in "work" mode and someone shoots me. It's enough to make me log off for the night in a huff.

amen! i have been asking for a checkbox to ignore all llPushObject() events for well over a year now. It doesn't do permanent bodily harm no, but alot of people actually do 'work' here, and really can't be bothered with people playing gun games, and/or will loose business if people hang around blasting their customers around willy nilly.

Better yet rather than an avatar permission if that seems to 'break' too many things (which has been an argument before) give us more discrete land control, on land i own i don't want to allow any push events, period. That way if pushing is integral to your build, you can have it, and if its not, you can be without it just fine.