Loot Stealing

[*FiveWhats]

I feel like grinding mobs for loot/xp has little to no actual roleplay value in the first place, it's more of a purely mechanical thing. Conflict is a good thing, but conflict over item drops is ridiculous. Don't be shit to play with.

[*Bogus]

There was no conflict over drops to speak of (I'm of the whatever's fine attitude on this). There was a berk in stealth mode picking up bags.

Frankly, at first I thought I was losing them to lag or some other technical problems. Only after a while I thought to do some 'detecting'.

Which is really no big deal. Certainly not enough to warrant any reporting imo. I think it was more of a joke than anything. I swapped toons and went about my things.

What I did want to know is what sort of IC reactions I'm allowed. So to recap: it's not automatic grounds for pvp or at least thoughts on this are mixed. That's fine by me.

@Sinlinara "Spreading smear" IC is not really an option. I never met the character before. Have no IC idea who that was.

[*Ceremorph]

Well I just look at it one way.

Are the actions I am taking preventing someone else from enjoying the game? If they are, I should probably stop doing them. If I don't, I'm an asshat.

[*poststructuralism]

I was playing the character being referred to as a loot thief in this thread last week. Here's my side of the story.

I was sneaking around in the abyss on a lower level toon with invisibility bloodcrowing blood war loot.

I didn't know there was another PC even in the area at the time I picked up the loot that offended the OP.

OP wrote me immediately, called me a thief and proceeded to grief me, so I ignored them and moved on to another area.

To OP I say this: Next time be more civil, and I might respond. Your post suggests I followed you around and stole your loot. I didn't even know you were present until you began to flame me, at which point I simply left the area. GROW UP, and handle your IC beefs ICly, please. If you'd opted to attempt to PvP me, I'd have let you chop my third level shadow dragon to little bits, presuming you could see through the invisibility and ICly determine what happened to your loot in the first place.

Edit: If I recall correctly, the first tell I was sent said "Enjoy the diamond, thief" I believe I responded "?" and then we were in flamesville. If you had approached me with a less accusational and hostile disposition, I'd probably have offered you the diamond (canary diamond I think, lol, not exactly top dollar loot), it meant nothing to me.

[*poststructuralism]

And this is how power creep happens. :P Having non-dangerous things be able to see invis is terrible, but traps and regular damage is fine. XD The point wasn't to make the area more difficult for the existing level range, it was to make the area less accessible to clearly under leveled characters. Which is probably best done by making the loot to drop only when PC (and their companions) is the killer. That in itself should cause players to take more risks to be able to kill the fiends before they kill each other.

Bloodcrowing is a legitimate planar activity, though, isn't it? Isn't it a canon activity to go out there and collect loot? I thought the abyss was set up that way on purpose.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

I don't think it should be encouraged, no. And it seems to be the simplest solution to the problem at hand. Only reason a low level would go there, would be to "leech" high end loot that they didn't even fight for. And death penalty they get incase of failure is at best too meager to make it worth even mentioning, and that is the heart of the "no danger at all" I mentioned before. As such it's not the design intent in the area at all, and the level range mentioned in the access point is a good indication as well. Experience system is made to encourage facing tougher foes, but that is indeed facing, not looting things the NPCs kill. The loot system is there to provide additional reward for what you do.

[*Strawberry Jam]

Being able to shrug off planar effects and dangerous hazards is all part and parcel of becoming a high level character, let alone a planes walker. It's expected.

Destroying all high level abilities and spells that use the "invisible" mechanic for lack of other mechanic and rendering them utterly useless is not a solution.

Even with some monsters with saves around 30 or over you never hear anybody suggesting making a monster (not even a boss!) immune to physical damage or giving them DR 50/-


I dunno about tedium, but there's a saying about the journey and the destination, you know. If your journey takes you into the abyss picking up scraps I think that's fine. If you want a lever that makes you level 30 and gives you a billion gold, I remember those servers existing too.

Actually I think most MMOs these days have an option "pay $10 and you will be maximum levels with best gear" it would help pay the hosting fee XD

[*Jelkia]

Actually ah know of two servers that did just that. They've got end game content that spawns up groups of stuff where ya can only kill some of the enemies with magic an some with weapons. Got really good loot in those places but it takes ah litte teemwork to do. Lots of fun. Even ah few bosses that required 'continual' dispelling an were only sneak attacks would hurt 'em at times.. pretty neat stuff. Be great to have ah place on the server like that. ^.^

An ah think yer kinda.. goin to an extreme there Strawberry. It aint just quick 30 er slow 30 that's tha option. There's ah moderate middle.. but how fast ya want to level should be up to the player ah figure. Let everyone have fun how they wanna have fun. If ya like being 30 an the RP that goes with it.. that's fine. If ya want to build up slowly an develop things along the way.. great! Shouldn't force the issue too much either way. Do the RP ya happen to enjoy the most. Just because ya happen to like it slower er faster don't mean that's right for everyone.. yeah? The RP er leveling speed ya personally prefer aint the only viable kind.. >.>

Fer some folks, ah imagine gearing up is part of that journey. Some people want a different journey. Maybe their character idea works better at high levels and they wanna spend their free time time doing that?

An ah get what yer saying about power creep Mr. Oty. Good that folks are watchnig out for that. Easy for well geared players to talk about things being harder and ignore new folk or people trying new stuff. XD Ah do that sorta stuff all the time. >.>

[*Strawberry Jam]

I played on servers that required mixed groups too, but I think people would get upset if it's done here. Negating a range of abilities is just that, your method becomes useless, it's not just lowbies with an invisibility potion that are affected.

Well ... I'm not talking about changing the pace either. Leveling isn't a tedium, needing to solve a puzzle before unlocking the next dungeon level isn't tedium either, disabling a trap isn't tedium, it's all just part of the game. Like in chess having the pawns in the way at the start isn't tedium that's just how the game is set. Of course people do level here and reach 30 in a few days, not exactly a slow crawl pace.

Some things you might think are tedious enable people to play their game. Merchant rp wouldn't exist if all items are easily available, for example.

And besides lets be honest most people just run over traps without a thought anyway.

[*Jelkia]

Calling them things not tedium is yer personal idea dear. Ya can say its just playin the game.. but that aint necessarily the case. Depends on how its all put together. Yer tedius an mine anit necessarily the same. An the game.. as it is.. might be better by adjusting our opinions on tedium.

But we've had ah topic.. more like two er three.. already about merchanting being tedious.. so ah dunno if ah'd agree with not having better NCP merchants or that it would hurt merchant RP. Figure folks would still sell up their special finds.. set gear an the like. Be.. almost like it is now.

An ah figure this loot 'stealing' business ties inta that 'tedium' concern.. if lower level loot were easier ta get.. maybe ah level 3 fella wouldn't be tryin ta hunt it out down in the Abyss? Dunno that's the case.. but again.. merchanting has come up a few times. Seems like there's something to it. >.>