So this is my very first post in the forums which should give you an idea as to how irritated I am by the recent change to stealing. Also, I don't browse these much, so if this is being discussed somewhere else, please tell me.

My complaint is thus. Under the old system, you could steal from players just fine. If they caught you, they had consent to attack, accuse or ignore. If they attacked you, they had full consent for a total kill. Fine.

Under the new rules for stealing, by choosing to steal from one character, you are, in effect, giving full consent to everyone out there to come hunt you down. The player you steal from, any alts they may have, any friends/spouses/children/great-great-grandchildren they may have or even be remotely associated with. Additionally, they have full consent on you (you're now set to PvP open) until they get bored of hunting you down and killing you. This can last for as long as your PvP status is set to open, which, even if you change it immediately after stealing from a player, lasts for an hour. So what is going on here is that if I want to avoid PvP with the World, I can't steal from any person. It used to be that if I thought I could a) get away with stealing, or b) figured I could fight the person even if I got caught, I was fine. Now, I have to be scared of some big-brother type coming in to hunt me down if I steal from a newbie outside the gate. WTH!

Thank you for listening to my rant. I'm incredibly upset about this PvP change. If I wanted full on PvP, I'd go over to Fallen.

A quick reply:

By having your character steal from other characters, you have shown you have an interest in PvP. That is you have shown you are OK with applying negative consequences to others player's characters. The system now is able to recognize that you are ok with this kind of interaction, and so what is good for the goose, is good for the gander, and your profile is now changed by the system to reflect that.

>>any alts they may have

This is still abuse. If you feel it was an alt, you are certainly free to assist on the matter.

>>So what is going on here is that if I want to avoid PvP with the World, I can't steal from any person.

See the first point above.

>>It used to be that if I thought I could a) get away with stealing, or b) figured I could fight the person even if I got caught, I was fine. Now, I have to be scared of some big-brother type coming in to hunt me down if I steal from a newbie outside the gate. WTH!

This is not OK, and is rather telling in itself.

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TG, TG, GL, et al.
Also: Moo.

Well, many of these points were addressed with the previous thread (which I saw after posting this in the "Complaints" section).

I spoke rashly when I said "Newbie." This isn't necessarily the case but was only using it as an example. To rephrase: If an 80th circle Thief steals from an 80th circle Trader, this would be a situation where the Thief is much more likely to win the fight so shouldn't feel too bad about (as you have all said) "picking on" the other player. But this is the type of Thief/Trader interaction which is supposed to happen. Perhaps this can be a completely different discussion.

>> "to steal from newblings all day who cant do anything back"

Umm, that's what the justice system is for. They may not be able to PvP, but they can take advantage of the systems that are in place.

Next, if said 80th circle Trader has a 120th circle Barbarian friend/alt come and take out said Thief, I fail to see how this could be construed as abuse if your profile is set to Open. That's the whole purpose of being Open, to welcome any and all PvP conflicts on you.

>> "By having your character steal from other characters, you have shown you have an interest in PvP. That is you have shown you are OK with applying negative consequences to others player's characters. The system now is able to recognize that you are ok with this kind of interaction, and so what is good for the goose, is good for the gander, and your profile is now changed by the system to reflect that."

This is probably the best response. The logic that if you are ok with applying negative consequences to others, you are ok with having them applied to you is valid.

The problem that I still have is that of the change itself and of the relation of the available recourse to the act of stealing. Conceptually, one should not open themselves up to repetitive assassination based on an act of stealing. The punishment does not fit the crime. Consenting to unseen and unforeseeable recourse is the problem I have with the change.

If this was the intended change, so be it.

>>The problem that I still have is that of the change itself and of the relation of the available recourse to the act of stealing. Conceptually, one should not open themselves up to repetitive assassination based on an act of stealing. The punishment does not fit the crime. Consenting to unseen and unforeseeable recourse is the problem I have with the change.

This isn't modern day America. In the world of Elanthia the punishment does fit the crime.

>>This is just amusing. Obviously the setting is one of fantasy war. However, murder is still illegal and punishable by the authorities. This change to the system changes cold-blooded murder to consensual combat. Barbaric, even for a feudal society.

Nothing has changed about the murder laws.

>>This is just amusing. Obviously the setting is one of fantasy war. However, murder is still illegal and punishable by the authorities. This change to the system changes cold-blooded murder to consensual combat. Barbaric, even for a feudal society.

Murder is punishable by a fine, which is the choice of a person that's killing you. Nothing has changed about that. The change is a good one over all even if you don't think so. If you don't want to participate in PvP don't steal from PCs. It's not a good way to train so the only thing left is for RP and if you want to RP that way you have to accept all of it.

>>However, murder is still illegal and punishable by the authorities. This change to the system changes cold-blooded murder to consensual combat. Barbaric, even for a feudal society. <<

No. Murder is not still illegal and punishable by the authorities... everywhere. There are very many places where you can get away with murder all day long with zero consequences.

If it's money you're after, there are a lot more lucrative ways to gain plats than by stealing from players. If it's experience you're looking for, there are a lot better ways to gain stealing exp than by stealing from players. If it's RP you're looking for, there are a lot better ways to RP your thief than by stealing from people who never see you and therefore can't interact with you. If it's not one of those that I already listed, then it's clearly a case of you wanting to harass other players by stealing their coin and not suffering any consequences whatsoever. Sad, really.


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Clerics are on the sectual radar.

Just to be clear - I didn't do it. Not sure who did, but it wasn't me.

- GM Raesh

>>My honest opinion is that instead of going to Open, it should go to Guarded. This would seem to alleviate the concerns of myself and those others that have already posted.

The only difference is the ability to report. Going guarded would mean the same thing as going open. By stealing you're saying that you're willing to PvP but they'd think they could report about it and it'd only waste GMs time.

>> "No. Murder is not still illegal and punishable by the authorities... everywhere. There are very many places where you can get away with murder all day long with zero consequences."

The use of Murder in my previous posts was used to indicate non-consensual killing. Punishable by account lockout. Hence, punishable everywhere.

>>Also, Harassment is usually seen as repetitive or persistent. Stealing one time would not be harassment.

Stealing from someone and getting killed for it shouldn't be an issue. You started it. It's not going to actually hurt anything, and it does tend to open up some very enjoyable RP more often then not. However, if things do get out of hand, harassment is still harassment. If you get chased down and murdered 50x by some HLC that just happened to hear that you're Open and has decided to spend the next 4 hours camping you, you still have the ability to ask for help. Same if you get chased down by someone's higher level alt, mech-abuse seems to trump RP. I don't have any actual experience with this, but you can still warn interact someone I think?

Really though, I just don't understand what the fear of being set to Open for a few hours is. I think you'd be surprised at how many people don't even realize that you're Open, especially if you decide to spend that time hunting out of town or some such (Or just set yourself to Open always, and no one will know the difference). It's really not that bad, unless you have a string of people that have been foaming at the mouth for the chance to kill you and randomly happened to check your profile at just the right time. If that's the case, I'm not too sure what to say and I don't think the problem has anything to do with the recent changes.

I'll try to make a consolidated post. Apologies in advance for the length.

>>Additional Question here. Does attacking another player change your stance to Open? I don't think it does, which begs the question, why does stealing and not actual PvP?

Not yet. It is planned already.

>>This is just amusing. Obviously the setting is one of fantasy war. However, murder is still illegal and punishable by the authorities. This change to the system changes cold-blooded murder to consensual combat. Barbaric, even for a feudal society.

And yet, in your earlier arguments, one way those who couldn't stand up to you in combat could affect you was through the justice system. I'll bet you had no problem stealing from those outside of the justice system either. Someone murders you in town, justice takes care of it (same as stealing). Someone murders you outside of town, you have effectively no recourse (same as stealing).

>>The use of Murder in my previous posts was used to indicate non-consensual killing. Punishable by account lockout. Hence, punishable everywhere.

I would learn to use better terminology then. Even then, see my first post in response. You are forcing negative consequences on others, why should the same standard not apply to you.

>>Or the third option. Stealing from Traders to upset the status quo. It's not about making money, it's about taking it.

Or put another way:

It's not about killing (mobs), it's about murdering (player characters).

And thus why this change exists.

>>Finally, the insults are unwarranted and not appreciated.

And yet, on target.

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TG, TG, GL, et al.
Also: Moo.

>>Additional Question here. Does attacking another player change your stance to Open? I don't think it does, which begs the question, why does stealing and not actual PvP?

> "Not yet. It is planned already."

So we agree there's a flaw in the current system.

> "And yet, in your earlier arguments, one way those who couldn't stand up to you in combat could affect you was through the justice system. I'll bet you had no problem stealing from those outside of the justice system either. Someone murders you in town, justice takes care of it (same as stealing). Someone murders you outside of town, you have effectively no recourse (same as stealing). "

I'm not really sure what the point here is. To go to the last part though, if there is a non-consensual killing (murder) outside of town, it is reportable. To point to the earlier posts, tit-for-tat has always been accepted, it now can go one step beyond into consensual killing by a third party. This is where the problem lies.

>>Or the third option. Stealing from Traders to upset the status quo. It's not about making money, it's about taking it.

> "Or put another way:

It's not about killing (mobs), it's about murdering (player characters)."

I'm sorry, this doesn't make sense. I fail to see any analogy here.

Finally, I came here for a policy discussion, not a series of personal attacks about play style or personal tastes.

I am done with this conversation since only a few individuals are actually interested in having an actual discussion on this topic.

Thank you.