*coughcough*Happenedtwiceorsoinmytimehere*coughcough*.

If sigils are supposed to provide 100% protection against theft
AND
if sigils are never meant to decay in a shop
UNLESS
the shop owner makes a simple OOC mistake (bad command entered)

then the argument against changes to prevent theft boils down to wanting to support punishing players who you feel are not as smart as you as you would never make such a stupid mistake.

If something is permanent it should be done in a way mechanically that results in actual permanence, not in a way that relies on players not making a mistake.

This would be more coding but what if a storeroom had a special item added to it, this item had slots for X sigils. It would take a special command to place a sigil in or take one out. Sigils in this item work normally and never decay. This item could never be removed from the storeroom.

Hrm, good point. I guess we'd just have to have shops prevent picking up anything, even gold.

Also, I didn't know Imperian had such anti-theft measures for shops! Learn something new every day...


I'm still a bit on the fence though still leaning towards more shop security to stop them nasty thieveses.

If you go the super-security route, add a command (similar to stagemanagers for theatres) that's something like SHOPKEEPERS LIST, SHOPKEEPERS ADD X, SHOPKEEPERS REMOVE X, SHOPKEEPERS CLEAR, etc. That way, people can still share/rent shops, while maintaining the new security measures.

Alternately, change all shop doors to special aether-doors that you have to TOUCH (or ENTER, or some such) to get into, and automatically lose any following players. This might be easier to code if you could borrow some manse code (I.E. SHOP SET PORTAL PERMS MIRAMI). The door would then be magical, to prevent souls/ghosts from entering, rendering shops nigh-impregnable. This would have the added benefit of not having to worry over keys, and would explain why taxes must still be paid- the Commune/City has to pay for the upkeep of these portals.

I like both of these like... together

Shops are a lot of fun. However, they are not worth the upset caused when they get cleaned out, and the bigger the shop, the worse the effect. As described by Kharaen, the scenario of a shopowner just closing the business and selling the shop after an experience like that is not uncommon. This adds nothing to these games. It merely threatens to remove good, well-stocked shops and to drive players away.

All hail the dawn of a new era! Maplestory, the lusternia edition. Complete with fun text and ansi colors, we also have some nice pictures made from text and the ability to let you use your imagination! Feel free to explore our stress free environment where PK is not allowed and anyone who causes drama is shrubbed.

Updates include but are not limited to: Bashing is now prohibited because of the bloody attack descriptions, we don't need those gorey things cluttering up our social environment! We have also disbanded the leadership structure of all cities and communes, who needs to feel like they are under anyone? Everyone is equal in Maplestory, the lusternia edition!

Special note- Anyone who happens to feel depressed or just generally put off by someone else only need message the administration. We're thinking about removing emotes next!

Ultimately this would be a good thing since whenever it does happen its a major 99% negative event, but since it happens so rarely you really need to be careful not to screw up normal usage as Xavius points out.

This doesn't seem like a very helpful argument to me. I see similar things on the Achaean forums all the time.

I wasn't attempting to be helpful. Only stating that problems arn't going to end and that is where we are headed. I just did it in a sarcastic way that really wasn't necessary.

Slippery slope arguments are, by their very nature, a fallacy. It is not necessary that because shop theft is severely restricted, so indeed will be (to use an example) bantering via shouts, pk, political maneuvering, et cetera. The differences lies partially in severity (shop theft is an extremely traumatic, not to mention dramatic, event with a decidedly imbalanced benefit-to-detriment ratio) and partially in purpose (that is, politics, pk, and social interaction are all part of what Lusternia is about; theft is not, though it has existed for some time). Therefore, unless the situations cited in a given slippery slope argument are identical, which is very rarely the case, the argument is ineffective.

You have to forgive Daedalion. He's always been a drama queen.

If you seriously think the game has turned into Maple Story, you really haven't been playing (or else you're just doing it wrong).

It will eventually, mark my words! The prophet hath spoken!

Providing measures to prevent anything that could be construed as 'griefy' is a good sign that we're heading to an environment where we have to try even harder to generate conflict or PK (theft is not the only way to generate these things, but I'm talking in a much larger sense) or a sign that we'll lead to a stagnant environment. However, I don't know if I disagree with the idea of providing a very tiny upgrade to shop security somehow.

What if gold from purchases could be linked to drop directly in to the owner's bank account? That would at least prevent the gold loss - which is not the problem, per se, but would soften the blow if the shop is at least successful enough to generate the revenue to partially replace what they lost.

Griefing =/= legitimate conflict.

Curbing one will not curb the other (though the admins have already remained willfully ignorant of this)

There's a reason I threw quotes around 'griefy' - lets be honest, everybody has a different definition of the word, and the Admin are no different. That's not a topic for this thread, though. :/

If we want theft to still be possible, then perhaps instead of making it harder to do, we should make it harder to get everything. If you use dominate skills to rob a person, you can usually only get so much at a time, so the extent to which the person is robbed is proportional to how mindless and unprepared they are. But with a shop, if you can get anything, you can get everything; and there's a lot more everything in a shop. That's why shop thefts are so devastating.

That said, since you're not at the shop when it's getting robbed, I don't know what kind of coded technique could be used to limit how much was stolen at a time that wouldn't be crippling to shopkeepers too.

It's not griefing until someone gets their e-feelings hurt. Stealing from a shop hurts the shopkeeper's feelings, thus, is by nature Griefing. It's obvious that all we need is an anti-griefing rule and the game can go back to normal, Azoth can join someplace to take care of him, and so on.

Maybe we can all get issued yellow cards, and if we feel we're being griefed, we hold up the card and the person has to walk away.

What if you implemented a shop allies list that contained you and any shopkeepers you provided, allowing them to pick up items with no penalty - but if you pick up an item in the stockroom and aren't on that list, you face a penalty?

Any of the following: karma loss, experience/essence loss, statistical disadvantages, untyped damage, being put on the suspect list of the owner and all shop allies, etc.

I personally do not agree with the idea (and in retrospect, I think it's dumb now that I look at it typed out), but it's a solution nonetheless. I don't think you could ever implement a system short of preventing shop theft outright that people who feel they are being griefed or targetted with hatred or being done wrong will ever really be satisfied with. Leaving the avenue for theft to be possible is another topic in itself, honestly.

Just wondering, but wouldn't it be easier to just make the shop entrance a 'magical entrance' that does not permit someone to follow but has permissions like in a manse. This way we can still have other people take care of our shop in our absence (allowing shop allies to pick up stuff wouldn't protect against theft that much since it is linked to ally lists).

I am against shop theft for several reasons:
- the amount that can be stolen takes a lot more time to replace then when you die. For similar reasons dropping all your gold on dead was removed
- Say Rika is robbing my store and I notice it and decide to kill her, there is no way for my to get the items back since she does not drop them on dying. In my opinion if the intent is to allow shop robbing then likewise everyone should have a skill to get those items back when they catch the person with the goods still on hand, right now people heartstop just to get out of the store with their loot.
- Say Rika is trying to rob my store but I kill her before she can take anything, I should still be able to rob her corpse of everything in her inventory, equal risk is only fair.