I know that theft isn't a big problem in Lusternia, but there are still the few *cough*Narsrim*cough* who insist on bringing it into play. By theft, I include also the destruction of property to individuals (breaking their shields).

Here's what I suggest, tentatively.

If you -declare- and force someone to give you something, throw something, drop something, etc, Avechna will turn a blind eye to anyone who decides to slay you for either 5 real days, or one month in-game. This status can be revoked if said items are returned to the victim's possession, including into their inventory or into a letter sent to them. For PK purposes, you are considered "attackable without declaration" by anyone up to the point where the item is returned, after which you have 5 the standard minutes for it to wear off.

If you don't declare them, and you decide to steal from them, it's assumed that you started it, and deserved it.

Players may TELL AVECHNA "Thieves", or any phrase containing that keyword, and he will then tell you in response who has committed theft, and how long they have left on their status.

Also, victims may FORGIVE (Thief) and remove their status, or INDEMNIFY (player) to indemnify others from theft, indefinately or for a certain period of time. They may INDEMNIFYOFF to remove said status. This would be useful for citymates who need something from you, in the case you aren't paying attention at that specific moment, and force you to give it to them.

In a sense this is a good idea because theft is something with pretty much only negative effects on the game, but to an extent this sort of justifies it: there'll already be a consequence, so if you can deal with being hunted by everyone who cares for 5 months (Narsrim certainly can, if nothing else he can just hide at Avechna) you're fine. If only the current setup worked better. :/

the 5 days should be online time only

Neat idea.

Should make it 30RL (including outgame) days like the current avenger.

seems objective enough to me, I would suggest the envoys bring this up, or someone post it somewhere more prominent.

No. If your gunna go to all this effor to stop theft... why not just change the skills that allow you to steal?

Anyway, doesn't avechna basicly not matter anymore?

It doesn't stop theft, it allows people who get stolen from to kill the person who stole from them, without avencha getting in the way.

This would be incredibly hard to track, given skills like vestiphobia.

And shop theft, as with Anisu's manse...a couple other things too.

Would also need to recognize intention sadly or know who owns what.

Player A has their shield stolen by Player B... Avechna calls foul on B... Player C steals shield back from B.. if avechna didnt know intention.. this gets messy.. on one hand.. that means C could return it and let B off the hook.. however if C is malicious and doesnt wish to return it.. B no longer has it nor can it be assumed they get it back.

Therefore:

-Avechna would need know who owns what
-Avechna would need be able to track and notify you of this
-You would need a way to declare you are getting something for someone (else the theft changes thief listed)

If this were all taken care of then it wouldnt be that hard.. but aye some things... such as vestiphobia... diswielding (curse you raziela!) and nexus poofing would be special... the first two are ailments or effects and therefore cant say someoen stole it.. you dropped it.. nexus poofing would permanately destroy the item (quite possibly you could destroy fancy ones like bonded instruments and maybe runed weapons this way) and therefore make it unreturnable.

Who cares about the theft? It's part of the in-game experience. Are you serious that because a few people cried foul, that the general experience should be deducted? Let them live with the idea that you have so and so. If you don't want your item to be stolen, fist, selfishness, grip. There are skills to prevent this. SO USE THEM! Don't complain about it. Little emos...

Emos? I recommend you refrain from such outright attacks on others.

In any case, selfishness isn't exactly a newbie skill either, and a dedicated thief can find ways to bypass that easily.

Also, though Lusternia may be the only MUD I play seriously, I have enough experience in alot of online games to know that stealing does NOTHING to further the environment of the game. If anything, it is a plague on the game itself.

Clise, your avatar is hilarious.

You're from Celest, right?

Tenebrae was being ironic...though I'm not 100% sure he meant to.

I'm not sure how much of this you actually meant, but this idea would actually increase the amount of theft that happens. As it stands players (mostly) refrain from stealing from other players because it's a jerkish thing to do, and so out of respect for the players on the other side of the character, we don't take their stuff.

If there was an in-game mechanic to deal with theft it would legitimize the action. As someone else said early, it would mean that anyone willing or able to deal with the free PK could steal pretty much steal as they wish.

I want to say that I actually like the ability to steal things and think that it should be more fully incorporated into the game so that it becomes more prevalent and less debilitating at the same time. If instead of allowing free declaring, what if it gave the person from whom the items were stolen a command that they could use once during a 12 hour period of in-game time of the offender. It could be like summoning vengeance, except it could stun and strip selfishness/grip/other anti-theft skills.

My idea was that it would allow you to bring other people with you to steal stuff back from the offender. Provided everyone was aware of how it worked, then the smart people wouldn't have anything worth stealing on their person during that time period, but the stun would make it semi-useful if that person participates in raids.

I dunno, just thinking. Of course, there's still the problem of actually determining who stole whose stuff, and remembering the mess we went through when adding DECLARE to the PK system I'm not sure anyone really wants to repeat that.

Yes I am. And Requiem Dot Exe, the problem with that is to script something like that, with the possibilty of that stolen item to be stolen by someone else, will be difficult. And how expensive will a fist sigil be to make? If you are a knight and are worried about your backpack being stolen, why don't you wield it in your hand, and GRIP it? There are so many things that can be done.

And here is something else. Why not also create rules for theft? One of Achaea's is that in theft, you CANNOT web the target then steal, only when the target is NOT prone. Why not make a list of rules here? And theivery is looked down on here as well..

And shiri, I wasn't being ironic. If you have had something stolen from you, then you may go around and cry, but so what? Someone's itsy bitsy feelings are nothing when compared to the tantamount world of Lusternia. And I've been stolen from before. It's not fun. But I moved on.

But if you want, go ahead and make it a PK offense. But don't expect that you will find a system of declaring and undeclaring people due to theft... it's just not plausible to create it.

Tenebrus, is that you?


Leave theft in Achaea. It certainly does NOT make that game better. If anything, it causes players grief.

No, it's not. Virtuoso in Discipline. That's really sort of high up for the only common skill ability that proteccts from theft. In fact, for Noola, it's the only antitheft ability she's got access to and she's far from reaching Virtuoso in Discipline.

Maybe it should be moved down.

As for theft in general... I like that you can do it.. but I also like that most people refrain out of respect for others. That's one of the things that makes this game so awesome.

I'm not sure I like the idea of putting a hard-coded theft-revenge system in place. I agree that it would make theft more prevelant, not less. Right now, respect for others keeps people from going crazy with theft, and scorn from the public keeps those who do engage in it in check. I think that if there's a hard-coded 'policing' system, then people won't feel the need to bother policing themselves or each other. Then, the only thing really holding people back from thieving would be the fear of death... which isn't much of a deterent really (after all, I still go to defend things even though I know I'll die every time), especially since it'd be for a limited time by necessity.