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Hrm. Perhaps a rule whereby you can only rob someone if there's someone currently online? Maybe even if -they- are currently online? Creates a hint of danger for the thief, and increases the likelihood of them noticing and generating RP from it before everyone and their mother realizes their crates are open and enters a stealing frenzy.
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I generally agree with Keres on these things. But I will add what I can.
Being Dry Looted - If your house gets broken in to, and everything is gone(Hell, even if an unreasonable amount of resources are gone) then I'm sure a GM would help compensate you, because that shouldn't be allowed. Taking resources from someone's house is iffy, taking all of them and screwing them over is an OOC offense in my opinion. I don't know if that's ever happened, so I'm taking a shot in the dark, but I think we can trust our playerbase to not do such a thing, and if they do GM intervention would be appropriate. Maybe something could be posted like an OOC guideline for thiefs and tell them not to dry loot or steal resources. It's never happened to me so I don't know, but I don't think this is a strong reason to have secure storage.
Losing all your gold - This would be frustrating for sure but not the end of the world. You'd have options. You could seek justice, or go vigilante and try to get your gold back. Or you could continue on without gold because it really isn't that important. I've been pay people with leather hides for a while now. I don't use my gold very often, and I prefer to pay gold when I'm paying for an RP type service. I payed Zanven 50 gold just to collect meat for me. Keres post detailed this fairly well, it is very possible to make money without trade skills. None of my characters have had any and they got along fine.
The bank itself - Pretty much anyone can take over the bank them self and do what they want with it. It's a room full of empty boxes and the owner is dead, so any character could take over. I considered doing so on my churchie, but I didn't think it'd be appropriate. If you did take over, you could have all sorts of precautions against theft. Trapped boxes, locked doors, etc.. Needing to register with the bank before getting your key, etc..You could make money off that, selling people the rights to use the bank boxes.
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I dont really mind being robbed, as long as its done ICly and roleplayed out. As in not going in with 2 packhorses and looting me dry, but if they take things they can actually carry and actually need themselves. I dont mind, I'll just work hard to get it back. And my character(tinker) gets to work on upgrading the home-security system. Ive done it many times already and ive only played 3 weeks or so. But I know for a fact certain people who dont play as much and log into their character that they hadnt played for a week only to find their few belongings either scattered by the wind or sold off long time ago. Sure you can rp with it, but if you have to start over again everytime you manage to get play time, it WILL get tedious even for the most devoted roleplayers. And if they havent managed to log into the game in 1 week or more, its not easy picking up the scent IC either.
Last edited by Haap (2013-08-11 00:25:09)
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Any kind of rule for theft would be good.
No stealing resources
No stealing more than x amount of weight.
No stealing when no one is online.
Any variation of those should give players the protection they need to not be screwed over. If it happens they'd be compensated by GM's and whatnot.
It'd also be a great idea to let everyone know OOC that it isn't okay to take things out of a chest just because you found it unlocked. If you don't pick the chest yourself, you should leave it alone.
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If you don't pick the chest yourself, you should leave it alone.
Hoagie is a wizard with scripts, im sure he could make boxes autolock themself in time if they were picked open.
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+1 to the above. That'd be perfect.
If rules were implemented along with some way for boxes to lock after time, I'm sure the problem would be fixed. Assuming of course the main concern here is that of being dry looted.
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as someone with a fair amount of gold stored up and then stolen by the milita how do i complain to the milita? that isnt an option for my char and i spent a lot of in game hours collecting that gold from chest spawns i doubt even a quarter of the amount has gone missing from folks that have been robbed by the verius lp chars as was taken from me as "evidence" so there is not always a recourse to go to for that and due to the low levels of gold in the game most folk cant afford to buy armour all the time so your kind of playing it from both sides there, do you want folk to be able to buy armour and keep the economy going or do you want them to have a low gold society?
i think i have reasonable prices on althy especially since i do most business as trade for resources and make very little gold on top of which i employ other players to try to promote rp by giving them reasons to be in a situation where groups should gather i do this at a loss because i want this to be a good shard and feel i can help in this way i also have hopes for a shop where i can employ more staff and take on some apprentices to promote rp that way and all of this comes out of gold i have saved up by long hours of toil and can be gone in five seconds from a thief. im not asking for nothing to be stealable not even for enough space to store all my resources not even all my gold im saying space to store some of my gold and a few basics to restart if all else is lost is a sensible thing
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Respectfully, Althalus, I think this is something that there are more IG options to exhaust before going to the forums for a lack of options. You could at least talk to the mayor and any other town officials before declaring it a loss, and demand that it be returned to you if you aren't charged with a crime or something. Because there are so many IG fixes that don't seem to have been attempted, I'd suggest trying all of those first. Does your character IC know it was taken BY the militia? If not, complain to the militia. If they do know, demand justice by everyone that will listen. I don't think the militia taking gold from you IG runs counter to the goal of people being able to afford armor, so I don't think it seems like they're "playing both sides."
I think asking that people only steal from people that are on, or if a GM is around or something like that would be helpful, or a way to lock boxes after a certain time - but I also like the idea that this is a relatively rule-free shard because the way the game is built sets the RoE with little involvement... so to me it is appealing to find a fix that isn't a rule people have to dig up.
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as someone with a fair amount of gold stored up and then stolen by the milita how do i complain to the milita?
If you've been screwed over by the militia, you can always challenge their authority as an institution. There is no guild for you to be kicked out of for doing so. You could try rallying the town against them, framing them somehow, complaining to the mayor, etc... You may lose, but you can't always win. The option also exists to join the militia and screw over somebody else. That's strictly an IC problem though.
due to the low levels of gold in the game most folk cant afford to buy armour
I think there is supposed to be very low levels of gold. I think the desired effect was that we'd hold on to our gold for special occasions and use barter and trade for every day things. By that logic, we shouldn't need gold to buy or repair armor. If the smiths are only accepting gold, then they should be run out of town because no one has that kind of money. Trade hides, arrows, wood instead of gold. If people can't afford to buy armor, that's also an IC problem.
i spent a lot of in game hours collecting that gold from chest spawns
and all of this comes out of gold i have saved up by long hours of toil
Obviously losing gold obtained through hard work is frustrating, and in kind, my response will likely be frustrating. But I must ask, why collect gold in the first place? You can trade with resources/services. + I think the reason that it's so hard to collect gold from monsters/pickable chests is to discourage people from doing it. And my understanding of economy isn't too good, but doesn't adding more money into the system create inflation and whatnot?
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ok a few quick clarifications, 1) am am pursuing in game options to recover my gold, difficult when the players not online but no ones fault thats just life so its taking time, 2) the comment on wanting both sides is low gold verses needing new armour all the time, 3) althy bearly ever makes gold 90% of his trades are for resources 4) i have a lot of toil making gold cos im on a lot what else do i do at 4 am when no one is around? and as stated i use it to pay wages etc that im giving away for for effectively just the incentive to play, you dont do anything you get your wage every week long as you come see me to get it, i price things stupid cheap and still offer a percentage to staff to sell them so loose more there to increase incentive to actually do the job and have offered to buy a range of things from the traveling merchant just for novelty value to offer to customers that i make a loss on so that people can afford to buy them. I am aware large amounts of gold are not desired in the shard but i put a lot of time in so it is the result, i am happy to use this to improve the shard for everyone but loosing a few hundred is one thing loosing 4k all my regs and gems is taking it a little far but even that im rp'ing IC im not saying "give me my stuff back or im leaving wah wah wah" im just saying from my observations what is frustrating to me can be devestating for someone who can less recoup their losses and i think it needs looking at so we dont loose players through things that can be avoided.
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Aye aye. I do think that a solution to the problem of not being able to re-lock boxes is needed. I actually really dislike the fact that I can't cover my tracks by locking the boor behind me on my way out, and its why I haven't really done anything independently with Mary in a while. She's mostly just picking things on request now, because I feel bad OOC leaving someone's door and chests wide open. If I've ever stolen a spare key, its so I could use it to re-lock the chest after skimming some valuables off the top.
Maybe a system whereby you can make a key to fit an unlocked chest.
Or an automatic re-lock after a certain period of time.
Or a limit that you can only loot through a chest if you were the one that picked it.
Any of these would go a long way towards preventing the stealing frenzy that seems to spark whenever something is left unlocked.
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So Hoagie and I have been talking, and disagreeing heavily, about the whole stealing issue for a while now. The crux of the matter is that this is an RP shard, first and foremost, and as such, we try to keep things as realistic as possible. However, with 20 minute nights, and varying levels and times of activity between player playing across continents, well, absolute realism is impossible and, as such, things that are possible in real life, like spotting a criminal in the act in a small and heavily populated village like Blackwell, is essentially impossible.
As a tradesman character with interests myself, I do not like the idea of re-locking chests, mainly because it makes it a good deal harder to tell when your chest has been looted, especially since the lock-picking seems to happen when offline.
Obviously, those who steal should skim rather than devastate, and those who steal in-character should be punished IC, once they have been found out IC. By
as someone with a fair amount of gold stored up and then stolen by the milita
I assume you mean the gold taken by Craystor and Derek right infront of Jake Jeckel, whilst he was in disguise. As I see it, Jake has chosen to be a criminal, and has set his sights on terrorising the town without reason, and so IC reaction is reasonable, and the things taken by the militia as a pretty brutal police force, has been taken with IC justification. Personally I see this as a scenario that should be RP'd out. How you choose to do that is up to you, though. Still, if you hae aims to prove Jake's innocence, the sooner the better. If this is not possible online, leaving a note slipped under a door, as has been done previously on the IC boards, is always an option. It's definitely a shame that a large amount of gold is lost without return, as the shard's gold sinks usually provide but, like in real life, thievery isn't exactly a fair game.
I've always felt that, though smiths can get a lot of money through creating full armour for citizens, the characters are, on average, reasonably poor, and don't need armour changes all that often and so, with the increased competition from more and more smiths joining the shard, the incredible wealth gained by those in the trade needed to come down to reasonable levels after a while. I appreciate that Althy is very magnanimous with his pricing.
As far as re-locking chests goes, I have seen it as a tinkering skill, and whilst discussing these things with Hoagie, GM Tinkering allowing the re-making of keys for an unlocked chest was thought of as a possibility. Obviously, Hoagie isn't a slave to the code and will get around to it in his own time, if he so chooses. Also, going back to the realism theme, doors, safes and lockboxes that are tampered with don't tend to relock themselves.
Only being able to look through a chest if you were the one that picked it
Would be an idea to reduce the effect on the victim, but it's also reasonably unrealistic, so I'm torn. Obviously, I'd rather people be law-adibing citizens, but human greed is unavoidable.
Fine By Fruehauf
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We could just accept it as inevitable. Eventually thievery will be driven down when, as a result of increasing theft and citizen unrest, we demand that branding and maiming are fair punishments for first-time offenders. I like relatively rule-free environments and think the solution should not be something that is typed out, self-enforced and posted on the forums.
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I didn't actually choose to make Jake a criminal it just kinda slipped that way after craystor set me up first time lol
Aside from the whole thief thing which i only brought up as an example and as i say am dealing with IC my main point which seems to have got lost is the need for more variety now we are starting to fill up our fishbowl, we still have new people joining so need easy areas for those and none combat crafter chars and the harder spawn for more trained chars and even larger for groups with some area to explore, we have all been around the current area a fair bit now so opening up a passage to despise for example might be a good way to expand the area
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On a different Note, I know some one who is more into a murderous criminal element. To the point they'd play a serial killer, while I know there is nothing against this except the fact their character would be hunted down really fast., I was wondering if we could set up a slight brigand system like that in place for undead, not armor so much as brigand reputation that would allow a brigand player to hire in npcs in the fort to fight with them. Armor and weapons would obviously need to be stolen or made by them still but something to add a bit more outside threat would be cool and it would give someone who just wanted to be a truly evil human a viable option.
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If B&E larceny is becoming too easy to profit from surely it should just be approached the same as any PvP balance issue? Make lock picking harder.
Ramp up the chance of failure, make lockpicks more valuable / delicate and start introducing some brutal, devastating tinker-made traps.
Someone could get some good RP out of playing a home security specialist and traps could have some tidy consequences. You have the balls to try and rob the bank you should expect it to A. be fucking hard and B. cost you dearly if you fail. Severed arm from explosive wire trap? Next time you won't be so reckless.
I'm all for crime in RP but nothing should be free money. After reading Keres post on the forum, one of the first things I did on Martens was wander in to the bank and try my luck, purely out of curiosity to be honest.
I'm currently wearing someone's boots and shirt. Thanks for that. It really shouldn't be that easy though.
Last edited by Bones (2013-08-19 10:59:46)
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Its already a 9/10 chance of failure -and- pick break at GM Lockpicking.
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Can you make the disguise kits so that you can pick the hairstyles, hair color and name? And make them re-usable? That way you could 1. Get disguises that aren't horribly stupid and 2. Actually use the disguise kits to give yourself another identity instead of being 8 different people over the course of a week. Maybe also make them harder to craft so they become more valuable.
Last edited by Delfer (2013-08-19 23:25:15)
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For once, I agree with a feature request! I Second Buttons' suggestion.
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Can you make the disguise kits so that you can pick the hairstyles, hair color and name? And make them re-usable? That way you could 1. Get disguises that aren't horribly stupid and 2. Actually use the disguise kits to give yourself another identity instead of being 8 different people over the course of a week. Maybe also make them harder to craft so they become more valuable.
Can you not pick the hair style and does the hair not default to white? That's what happened post pub16 on OSI so its definitely possible. You could dye the white, disguised hair and get your own hair back afterwards.
I do like the idea of being able to pick your disguise name, though. Would always have been useful on Europa.
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I like that idea. I shall look into it.
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Also, could there be a message that shows up when you get death points? I will illustrate the example I thought of in my head.
Bob was killing orc mages last week to train. Last week they gave him 6 death points.
Bob wants to kill orc mages this week, but he doesn't know that GM's have boosted their fame, and they now give 10 death points.
Bob gets killed 3 times thinking he'll be fine, but he's actually been permakilled!
Not that I want to encourage getting killed by monsters as much as the system will allow, but you know... I'm not gonna anatomy myself every time I die if I -think- I know how many death points I'm getting.
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Makes sense.
"You awaken from your beating, this time, but the wounds have taken their toll ((+5 damage points.)
Bottom corner when you res, or something similar?
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Bob probably shouldn't be trying to solo the horrors of the wilderness anyway, and pretty much deserves what he gets. >_>
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It's not about soloing the wilderness. Olivia and Sasha went hunting the other day... Olivia had forgotten about her deaths during the tournament and accrued 24/30 points before I checked on her and pointed it out. I don't think a little thing popping up above your head or in the lower-left of your screen when you die (or when you resurrect) indicating your current point level is unreasonable or even silly. It seems pretty simple and nice for the absent-minded, and I don't really see any reason not to have it (unless it's hard to code or something).
I also like the proposed dkit changes - I will vainly cycle through 17 disguises waiting for a name that seems reasonably like another character name - it could also give us the chance to pick a last name, too, making the kit not so obviously a disguise.
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