Secure Containers:

[Deano]

There is a reason you go grey for entering a house you aren't a friend/co/owner of. It allows house owners to take action into their own hand. There was a time when this didn't exist and that's when it was a problem.

As for house security;
Keep your door locked. Keep a row of locked down tables or some other form of barrier. Walk in, close door, detect hidden. Say "I BAN THEE" (even pre-type it if you need to!) Your house is now secure.

If players are forced to barricade their house in an unrealistic fashion, then that tells me there is an extreme imbalance of murderers and thieves in the game world. This needs to be addressed.

You've used the realism card several times, how realistic is barricading your house? If you live in a place where you need to bar your doors, then that tells me there is an extreme crime rate that needs addressing.

And once again, you still haven't told me how intentionally entering a players house and looting from the house without consequence, is not griefing.

I think the obvious answer is that it IS griefing. Therefore it's an evil act and needs an appropriate consequence. Murder is grief, but it's not something you can get away with. Bounties are placed on your head, players will band together to hunt you down, guards will never let you in a city etc. There is even stat loss. Now if that is not enough to stop you, then that is where the mighter powers above need to step in and fix the imbalance. Just as Richard Garriott mentioned in the interview I quoted from.

At this stage, there is no consequences for theft of a locked down chest. You steal from the chest and run off grey. Big deal. In a few hours things are back to normal except we ahve a distressed player and character and a slightly richer theif who now blends into the game world as any good citizen. Even if the victim can't act against it. Heck you could even murder the player and transfer the item to another character.

The problem here is lack of consequence and anonymity.

[alatar]

personally I don't give a fuck which direction we take with this, as you can always walk inside, detect hidden, (even with 0 skill in -your- house it works as 100) and then go about your business..

I too, as a pvper would love to just run around with my stealth_thief and take everyones shit, but you have to consider at this point if this is helping, or deterring people and the playerbase..

[Deano]

personally I don't give a fuck which direction we take with this, as you can always walk inside, detect hidden, (even with 0 skill in -your- house it works as 100) and then go about your business..

I too, as a pvper would love to just run around with my stealth_thief and take everyones shit, but you have to consider at this point if this is helping, or deterring people and the playerbase..

I think for now continue to monitor it. Maybe have Game Masters follow around known thieves on the server (of course remembering privacy here, because thieves ARE a part of the game).

Have a thread specifically for complaints in regards to house looting. If it seems the majority of players are doing well by entering their house and detecting intruders, fine.

The problem I see here is entering your house with the key on you, that can be an issue.

[alatar]

I think if co-owners can have a secure box (like they used to) things won't be as bad off as they would without secures and co-own boxes.

[RoadKill]

If players are forced to barricade their house in an unrealistic fashion, then that tells me there is an extreme imbalance of murderers and thieves in the game world. This needs to be addressed.

You've used the realism card several times, how realistic is barricading your house? If you live in a place where you need to bar your doors, then that tells me there is an extreme crime rate that needs addressing.

Isn't Britannia supposed to be a dangerous land where anything could happen? And what's an "unrealistic fashion" Because I have made some very "pro-decor" houses which are also 100% secure.

And once again, you still haven't told me how intentionally entering a players house and looting from the house without consequence, is not griefing.
I think the obvious answer is that it IS griefing.

Griefing is apart of the real world, and every online environment I've encountered in the past decade. I'm not arguing about whether or not house looting is griefing.

At this stage, there is no consequences for theft of a locked down chest. You steal from the chest and run off grey.

Once again, House owners have the ability to remove or kill any trespassers. That's the consequence. If you enter a house you run the risk of being banned or killed.

The house owner has the power, not the thief. If you choice to ignore your powers, then you'll get what's coming to you.

[Deano]

Isn't Britannia supposed to be a dangerous land where anything could happen? And what's an "unrealistic fashion" Because I have made some very "pro-decor" houses which are also 100% secure.

Yes it is, but it's also a form of entertainment. It needs moments where a player can be properly secure to get their bearings etc. Just like how games include a "save-game" feature.

And the unrealistic part? Well this very thing, do you live in a house where you need to cover the doors with furniture?

And once again, you still haven't told me how intentionally entering a players house and looting from the house without consequence, is not griefing.
I think the obvious answer is that it IS griefing.

Griefing is apart of the real world, and every online environment I've encountered in the past decade. I'm not arguing about whether or not house looting is griefing.[/quote]

Then why do you support house looting so badly? Why don't you want secure containers?

PENALTY is a part of every game, not grief. Dying is still fun. It's a part of the game. But if it's causing you grief, you're no longer enjoying the game.

At this stage, there is no consequences for theft of a locked down chest. You steal from the chest and run off grey.

Once again, House owners have the ability to remove or kill any trespassers. That's the consequence. If you enter a house you run the risk of being banned or killed. [/quote]

And if you kill the owner? Take the key, pass it on to your blue character. You've not effectively avoided the game's only consequential mechanics.

The house owner has the power, not the thief. If you choice to ignore your powers, then you'll get what's coming to you.

What power do you really have to protect your house key when the house is locked? What if you can't wield that power as well as others? Are you constantly doomed to being homeless?

Situations like these should be one offs. Just like in reality, they don't happen every day, but they do happen.

[RoadKill]

What power do you really have to protect your house key when the house is locked? What if you can't wield that power as well as others? Are you constantly doomed to being homeless?

Not homeless, but potentially lootless yes. It's part of the risk of owning a house.

If you're a tamer you run the risk of someone killing your pets

If you're a player of any sorts you run the risk of dying and being looted. When you are outside of the City limits, it's up to you and your friends to stop invaders from looting. Looting a corpse will make you grey, entering a house will make you grey.

There's your check

[Deano]

What power do you really have to protect your house key when the house is locked? What if you can't wield that power as well as others? Are you constantly doomed to being homeless?

Not homeless, but potentially lootless yes. It's part of the risk of owning a house.

Why a risk with housing though? It needs to make sense. It should be a very minute risk. There is a difference between entering a dungeon and entering a home.

If you're a tamer you run the risk of someone killing your pets

Yep that's fair enough. But not when you're at the stables.

If you're a player of any sorts you run the risk of dying and being looted. When you are outside of the City limits, it's up to you and your friends to stop invaders from looting. Looting a corpse will make you grey, entering a house will make you grey.

Yes but that doesn't adress what I said. Once you loot a house and flee, you've no consequence, you can just transfer the loot to another character and continue on blue. Heck just sit outside of town for a while and you're blue again. Now they can't do a thing about it.

If I steal from a shop, the cops don't care how long I sit outside town.

Being murdered and looted is a bit different. You're out in the wilderness or a dungeon. When you enter a city, unless there is some massive event going on (Trinsic), you're safe. Why should your home be any different? Given the lack of primitive game mechanics (this is a 10+ year old game), we could probably live in the city.

[King Of Ascalon]

it will make us loose more people from the shard then it would attract,

[Deano]

it will make us loose more people from the shard then it would attract,

This one side. Just like too much policing (Renaissance) will detract people.

It's a very dynamic situation. They need to monitor the game and act when there are too many evil characters and then loosen their grip when there are no evil characters.

This is one thing OSI couldn't tackle. They couldn't simply make evil charactesr "bad" when there were too many, because at an individual level, the player acting evil is not breaking any rules. reality was, it needed a dynamic moderation.