Go ahead and ask us anything.
I personally encounter it and have also been seeing people submitting clips of people talking while they are in the hospital. They are not meant to be able to talk and frankly they should not be able to speak while they're technically in an intensive care unit which is meant to indicate they are under the scapel.
Honestly, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to speak.
If we're trying to apply some element of real life to the in-game hospital, an ICU would be separated rooms, not a single, multi-bed room, so it's not exactly realistic to call it that.
Even if we do call it an ICU, it still wouldn't be the place someone would be "under the scalpel", as that happens in an Operating Room. They might be under intensive care procedures like heavily sedated or on a ventilator, but any procedure that requires a scalpel would not be carried out in an ICU.
Additionally, not just anybody is allowed to enter an ICU and the room in the hospital is completely open the public.
Now, acknowledging that this is a video game world, not actually the real world, and understanding there are likely technical limitations to having actual separated ICUs, Operating Rooms, an ER Pit, private hospital rooms, etc...I don't think it's patently clear that being at the hospital is considered being "in an intensive care unit". Why? Because I literally didn't realize it was supposed to be an ICU until reading this thread.
Additionally, I think restricting all speech while in hospital limits potential RP situations unnecessarily.
Again, in real life, there are many reasons a person may need to be brought to the hospital that would not preclude them from speaking. People have arrived to the ER with extremely serious conditions such as multiple gunshot wounds, rebar sticking out of their chest/leg, bowie knifes in their heads, etc and still retained the ability to speak.
Now, acknowledging again that this still isn't real life, an in-game example would be apt:
When one of my characters tried to swim, despite not knowing how to, and almost drowned, the person I was with RP'd that he broke his leg after jumping off the pier to try and save my character.
The person who broke their leg was talking the whole time and I used "/me" to indicate my character was unconscious to EMS and my character didn't say a word until his time in the hospital was over, as he was "in a coma". Two different characters, two personal choices on how to deal with the situation.
In this example, should the person who saved my character have been restricted from RP-ing his leg as broken, been unable to call EMS to bring us to the hospital, and presenting what, I feel, was a pretty interesting RP situation for all 4 people involved (2 EMS and 2 regular ol' joes)?
If the answer to the above is yes, okay - I guess getting knocked with no one else around to contact EMS just means you're out of RP options and just have to wait the time until respawn.
If the answer to the first question is no, then would the broken leg person have been "allowed" to talk the entire way in the ambulance, but then have to stop speaking when he got to the hospital because he was now "in the ICU" or "under the scalpel" for a simple broken leg?
I want to make it clear, I'm not advocating that everyone should be able to RP any possible situation out however they want all the time.
However, I think there are definitely some valid RP reasons to allow people to talk in the hospital and to allow the characters to determine the appropriateness of their character's ability to speak in the hospital, dependent on the situation.
If someone is clearly abusing that, they should be dealt with according to the situation at hand, but cutting out the legs (pun somewhat intended - okay, fully intended) of everyone else's RP for what I feel is pretty questionable logic seems unnecessary.
I'm definitely open to other opinions on this, but I'm just not seeing the logic behind it based on the original post.
Honestly, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to speak.
If we're trying to apply some element of real life to the in-game hospital, an ICU would be separated rooms, not a single, multi-bed room, so it's not exactly realistic to call it that.
Even if we do call it an ICU, it still wouldn't be the place someone would be "under the scalpel", as that happens in an Operating Room. They might be under intensive care procedures like heavily sedated or on a ventilator, but any procedure that requires a scalpel would not be carried out in an ICU.
Additionally, not just anybody is allowed to enter an ICU and the room in the hospital is completely open the public.
Now, acknowledging that this is a video game world, not actually the real world, and understanding there are likely technical limitations to having actual separated ICUs, Operating Rooms, an ER Pit, private hospital rooms, etc...I don't think it's patently clear that being at the hospital is considered being "in an intensive care unit". Why? Because I literally didn't realize it was supposed to be an ICU until reading this thread.
Additionally, I think restricting all speech while in hospital limits potential RP situations unnecessarily.
Again, in real life, there are many reasons a person may need to be brought to the hospital that would not preclude them from speaking. People have arrived to the ER with extremely serious conditions such as multiple gunshot wounds, rebar sticking out of their chest/leg, bowie knifes in their heads, etc and still retained the ability to speak.
Now, acknowledging again that this still isn't real life, an in-game example would be apt:
When one of my characters tried to swim, despite not knowing how to, and almost drowned, the person I was with RP'd that he broke his leg after jumping off the pier to try and save my character.
The person who broke their leg was talking the whole time and I used "/me" to indicate my character was unconscious to EMS and my character didn't say a word until his time in the hospital was over, as he was "in a coma". Two different characters, two personal choices on how to deal with the situation.
In this example, should the person who saved my character have been restricted from RP-ing his leg as broken, been unable to call EMS to bring us to the hospital, and presenting what, I feel, was a pretty interesting RP situation for all 4 people involved (2 EMS and 2 regular ol' joes)?
If the answer to the above is yes, okay - I guess getting knocked with no one else around to contact EMS just means you're out of RP options and just have to wait the time until respawn.
If the answer to the first question is no, then would the broken leg person have been "allowed" to talk the entire way in the ambulance, but then have to stop speaking when he got to the hospital because he was now "in the ICU" or "under the scalpel" for a simple broken leg?
I want to make it clear, I'm not advocating that everyone should be able to RP any possible situation out however they want all the time.
However, I think there are definitely some valid RP reasons to allow people to talk in the hospital and to allow the characters to determine the appropriateness of their character's ability to speak in the hospital, dependent on the situation.
If someone is clearly abusing that, they should be dealt with according to the situation at hand, but cutting out the legs (pun somewhat intended - okay, fully intended) of everyone else's RP for what I feel is pretty questionable logic seems unnecessary.
I'm definitely open to other opinions on this, but I'm just not seeing the logic behind it based on the original post.
I honestly put it in moreso because we did not actually make the move to change it this way but moreso that it broke, but we have actually started to talk about it amongst leadership and I do personally actually feel like this is a good break!
Talking to people while you're in the hospital is pretty nice. I guess I still worry about some scenarios I can see happening but I feel if they happen we can curb it from a staff perspective. :) So I may end up closing this afterall and just monitoring how this plays out.
I honestly put it in moreso because we did not actually make the move to change it this way but moreso that it broke, but we have actually started to talk about it amongst leadership and I do personally actually feel like this is a good break!
Talking to people while you're in the hospital is pretty nice. I guess I still worry about some scenarios I can see happening but I feel if they happen we can curb it from a staff perspective. :) So I may end up closing this afterall and just monitoring how this plays out.
Sounds like a reasoned and measured approach!
Fixed… a long ass time ago