Suggestions from a New Player

[Fcn]

Why? The vandalism that drove the victim out of the game was performed while that player was offline. Why should it be OK to steal and destroy when your victim is absent, but not to murder?

One is an attack on an inanimate object, the other is on a player controlled character. Player controlled.

Besides, griefers aren't role playing, whatever they may claim; they are acting out their normal real life personalities - getting their jollies by upsetting others, the more upset the better. It's an attack on the player, not the character, and should be responded to in kind.

You are confusing thieves with griefers.

You weren't here when griefers were working hard to make the game unplayable for everyone else - at least, you weren't here for what was very nearly their victory. The mechanics have made griefing somewhat more difficult, but only recently, and I'm sure there will be counters developed - indeed, I've seen new strategies already enacted. The devs don't choose to ban players for egregious grieving, which is what I've seen in many other games. It's excessive and immoral to hunt them down in real life and beat the stuffing out of them, not to mention illegal. Killing them while offline is a poor second to banning them, but I'm glad the devs at least give us that. And no, I have zero interest in role playing a man hunt - or more correctly a vermin extermination trip.

Once again confusing griefing with thievery, however the issue I take here is the fact that you claim you have zero interest in a man hunt. This is kind of the issue, it's the mindset that you believe you deserve to punish someone, you shouldn't have to work for it because what they have done is wrong on some kind of out of game moral level, at least that's what your use of language suggests. That's the problem, right now there is very little work required to kill someone if they have committed a crime, because they can be killed offline, because they are never safe once they commit a crime unless they turtle away somewhere, which is boring for all parties involved.

If it were just theft, and not too easy or safe to perform, I'd be less adamant. But it's not just theft, nor even mostly theft - at least in game terms. It's destroying other people's fun with no benefit to the in game criminal whatsoever - just benefit to the player, who apparently gets his or her rocks off by hurting and upsetting others.

Griefing again, but the game provides tools against this. Walls for example stop macroers in their tracks. Take the precautions and it won't be an issue.

[kobnach]

Once again confusing griefing with thievery, however the issue I take here is the fact that you claim you have zero interest in a man hunt. This is kind of the issue, it's the mindset that you believe you deserve to punish someone, you shouldn't have to work for it because what they have done is wrong on some kind of out of game moral level, at least that's what your use of language suggests. That's the problem, right now there is very little work required to kill someone if they have committed a crime, because they can be killed offline, because they are never safe once they commit a crime unless they turtle away somewhere, which is boring for all parties involved.

Now, I'm not confused. I see very little utility to thieving. I don't enjoy theft. I don't enjoy being stolen from. I don't enjoy punishing thieves.

I also don't see it as particularly harmful, because there are limits to what anyone needs (or can use) and a true thief won't continue stealing what he has no use for, no place to store, etc. So thieves just amount to a tax on honest production - much like e.g. objects wearing out. I can pay that tax in stolen goods, or in maintaining walls and guards, or by retaining top-of-the-line rangers to punish the perpetrators. It's not going to amount to 100% and discourage me or anyone from playing.

On the other hand, I see much negative utility to grieving. It's driven a lot of people out of this game, and will quite probably drive out more. When it doesn't do that, it greatly reduces the fun for everyone. If I were in charge here, I'd ban grievers on detection - particularly the kind that clearly have no personal reason for their actions. (I.e. it's not aimed at a particular person with whom they have bad history.)

Net result - until someone comes up with a mechanism to prevent grieving without greatly inconveniencing thieves, I'm perfectly willing to see thieving made impossible in order to reduce or eliminate grieving.

And as for it requiring little work to kill a criminal - I don't mind that at all, unless it also deters honest folks from putting down criminals, lest it generate clues. The fewer criminals there are, the less "tax" I have to pay, and the more time I can spend on the fun parts of this game, like exploring all the nifty new things I can produce.

[theTrav]

This thread ignores stealth.

Train it up high enough and have your stats high enough and it will be extremely difficult for people to track you.

I'm quite happy with the way the game currently works. If anything I think the small modification should be made to prevent transferring scents. They should be able to exist in players inventories only. This means a low skill player can't just hire a high skill tracker to get some scents for him, it makes rangering a slightly larger commitment.


If you don't want to be killed while offline then keep crime turned off. If you want to be a successful criminal there are several factors currently implemented that lower the risk for you
1 - Living in a large, strong community can be a good defense (assuming people will defend you rather than just run away)
2 - Walls (similar to 1 but not necessarily linked)
3 - A high stealth skill along with whatever stat stealth is linked to (probably agility or intelligence)
4 - Having lots of powerful friends (not necessarily in your community) that will stick up for you if people get a lynch mob together.

So far I don't think there's been much of a problem with offline deaths. The only ones I can think of winged about on the forum are single shot Alt Thieves, and JTG's main... several times...

[Potjeh]

Wait, haven't we agreed on the clue combining idea to get murder?

Anyway, what kind of theft would you people like to see in the game? I'd prefer it if thieves were very selective ,ie stole just one or two of the most valuable items per victim and left the less valuable possessions alone. The case strength idea would go a long way to make theft more like this.

As it has been pointed out, there's still a problem of transferring stolen goods to an alt or something. I think all items need to be trackable and allow summoning of whoever holds them. The minimum case strength would still apply for killing the item holder.