I was not talking about newbies, I know very few newbies who have selfishness. I am talking about people who have all preperations but are just not combat savy. Heck even combat savy people have been robbed (although that was about unruned weapons)

Targeting newbies for robbing is rather unprofiteable no?

Then what are you arguing? You're arguing for non-newbies with selfishness who are bad at combat? My point was that when they change it so generosity is not forceable, it takes one alias to make yourself protected. The comment was directed towards Xenthos (Who was suggesting that there be some sort of CONFIRM command when you try to give something to someone, as opposed to creating one alias to toggle selfishness/generosity), but you picked it up for something else. And what is so combat savy about triggering to send generosity when selfishness drops? Also, wielded items (especially unruned ones) are infinitely easier to steal than robes, shields, gold, ect.

This situation wasn't of someone who was combat inept. It was that the player wasn't there. I'm just not seeing the helpless masses (newbie or not) being stripped on any sort of regular basis - or even a very irregular basis. I'm very much sure that if newbies were getting robbed, they'd be crying to their guilds, and the older members would be bitching here or sending emails to Estarra. We're making rules for situations that really only exist in the hypothetical.

EDIT: And yes, targeting newbies would be unprofitable, I'd think. You're obviously not reading my posts, because I've said that once or twice here. It was one of my talking points.

And the question is, if it's that simple, why should everyone be required to make an alias to turn it on / off? Why not just give us a command to override selfishness?

Honestly, the more you argue against it, the more I like the idea. It fits in with a lot of the changes they've made and seems like it could actually be a pretty simple change. Puts (almost) everyone on the same playing field, especially if selfishness is lowered in the skillset. It further removes having to turn it off / on again, with the accompanying balance loss, etc.

If the argument about "laziness" is the best argument against it that there is, I don't really see any reason not to just do it, heh. And I do personally turn on selfishness as part of the defup process for me.

I suppose it would allow you to stay protected when defiling shrines.

I've been robbed as a novice. To this day I'm still not sure the extent of the loss, but it was at least 10k+ gold. At the time that was all I had. If you're new to Lusternia or not inclined to fiddle with your system it doesn't seem unreasonable to be oblivious to theft, especially in the spam that is Lusternian combat. I've also lost my backpack to vestiphobia, but luckily Shuyin was there to save the day. Chade also lost his master plate a while back, and Athana found her shop cleaned after a hiatus. Novices that have awful experiences might just be unaware or just leave with little fanfare.

and even if they hire a fanfare, very few people would remember the name of a novice leaving. Heck I don't even remember the name of a Celestian I daily had 2 hour conversations with for over 4 months in 2008.

I wonder if they could code it so that selfishness only stops forced give/drop/etc.

The argument is that once upon a time human beings rose to greatness or failed because of their own abilities, their own cunning, their own strength, and their own creativity. Coddling to this level (And to the level that many of the recent changes have taken, which it sounds like you enjoy, I don't, so we obviously differ on what's good and what's not - to each his own.) creates weakness. Weakness breeds more weakness. We're getting to the point where you don't even have to try anymore. There's no attempt, fail, retry, fail, retry until success. It's just attempt, fail, cry, soften, succeed. It feeds the entitlement culture that we've let ourselves slip into. Everyone feels that they have some innate right to succeed. But they don't, or shouldn't. Success should be earned through effort. It's should not be guaranteed, nor handed to you.

The less a person has to do personally to get what they want, the lazier and less creative they become. Their ability to solve their own problems degrades, and humanity as a whole suffers. I believe a mud should be just as the earth was when we first showed up. It was this giant thing that gave us our rules and our obstacles. We're not guaranteed success, and generally our mistakes are met with harsh consequences. The world doesn't change to suit us, we adapt ourselves to the world.

World has bear, bear eats man, man says WTF?, man sharpens rock, man groups up, man kills bear. People died in this process. Eventually, man creates spear, bow and arrow, crude traps. Less people die. Man creates gunpowder weapons and projectiles. Even less people die. Nowadays bear related deaths are pretty uncommon. Did the world change bears to be less dangerous? No. Man used his environment, the knowledge his people had acquired over countless bear attacks/observation, and his intelligence to shape the environment and tools to help him succeed.

Don't bring shops into this. Entirely different scenario, already been bitched about, already been solved. I really do understand I'm in the minority here, or at least the vocal minority, it seems. And I understand Lusternia is a business, and Estarra is going to make decisions that she thinks will keep her game running, which makes sense to me. But if someone leaves entirely from one bad experience, I honestly don't think that this is their game. It's that same weak willed nature people have developed that I mentioned. People nowadays are confronted with a little discomfort or adversity and they immediately crumble or run away if at all possible. It's just sad.

They can. But that's a more extreme measure than just making generosity unforceable.

Again, I'm saying make generosity unforceable. I'm agreeing with you people. We're obviously never going in the other direction towards more openness, so we may as well go further in the other, since no one is satisfied with the current situation.

The day I meet you in Kandahar, is the day I will take any part of that crap seriously.

I'm confused.

Oh, I see, you're questioning my own character. Not that it matters, but I did six years in the Army and spent 14 months in Iraq. If you want to flex military peen, pm me instead. At any rate, in no way was I trying to set myself up as the example. There are people smarter, stronger, more clever, and with a stronger spirit than myself for sure. I have to keep my complain-o-meter and it's too hard demon in check all the time, just like everyone else.

Regardless, my point still stands. Even if I'm not what I described people should be like, doesn't mean that it's not true and something that everyone should strive for.

This is a game not real life, want to test your skills with severe consequences go take some missions against guerillia tactics RL. Almost every game designer realizes that hefty punishment for failure in games is not enjoyable. And most people demanding hefty consequences in games have never dealt with hefty consequences real life has to offer.

They actually changed it a long time ago so you can offer with Selfishness up still. This includes sanctifying / defiling.

Theft is just one of those things where people can't make up their minds. If theft is okay, why do the administrators step in so often to fix it? If it's not, why do we have so many abilities and mechanics that revolve around it (i.e. leprechaun)?

Personally, I don't have a problem with theft. The argument about protecting newbies is mostly a straw man which exists only as a theoretical point. Quite simply, it doesn't happen. Theft is - and should be - policed by the player base. Right now, it is only policed OOCly through forum rants like this one, but I would be all for allowing IC policing. Auto-enemy the person doing the thieving. Throw them out of your org. Continue killing them until you get the items back. Theft should be dangerous and should have consequences. It could, theoretically, add a decent aspect of danger and RP to the world.

There is nothing wrong with expecting people who are capable to take the proper measures to defend themselves. If you are afraid of theft, you can prevent it or protect your belongings in any number of different ways. Failure to do so should have consequences - like being vulnerable to theft. Arguing otherwise is akin to arguing that PVP should be impossible. After all, when someone dies and has to pray, they can lose hours of hard work. The obvious answer is that they should learn to defend themselves, escape, or just avoid putting themselves at risk of being jumped. Apply the same logic to theft.

- Leprechaun steal is severely limited, see how people wined about dilute the theft people are talking about is more akin to that level of annoyance.
- kicking people out of orgs and keeping them out is hard, especially since when people attempt this for various reasons one or another patron will start lobbying for them
- Comparing theft to dying is not really fair in lusternia, because on prime avechna already limits dying for the very reason you mention. But theft is unlimited.

The rest of my ideas on theft are shattered around here but they sum up to, even the playing field of theft and it would be ok.

People play games for entertainment value. Discomfort and adversity aren't generally entertaining when you have no way of dealing with them (again not talking about preventing them), which is what theft is right now, as rare as it is. So either make it a non-issue, or allow people to do something about it.

1) The amount lost to theft isn't really a good standard of measure for whether it should or shouldn't exist. If vestiphobia were changed to only drop normal clothes (i.e. not greatrobes), would it be better? Really it's an endless argument. Any loss is a loss, and will likely hurt someone. Dilute was different - it was way to easy to pull off, and it was accepted and promoted ICly.
2) I agree with this, but those were just examples. In any case, there should be IC consequences if someone is caught stealing. At that point, it's just a question of being good at it, or stealing enough to make it worthwhile.
3) Theft is far from unlimited. The extent of the theft is not limited by mechanics, but that's not nearly the same as being unlimited. You can lose everything that you happen to be carrying on your person, if you're completely unprepared. The limitation is to keep your prized positions in a safe place - which makes them virtually impossible to steal. That is actually a very effective limitation.

I think we're actually agreeing overall. I just really enjoy the roleplay of people like Yrael. He was a thief, but never stole (and kept) anything of great value, which is why he continued to be accepted by the populous even though he regularly stole from people. It added a lot of flavor, and he was fun to work with even for the people he robbed. I don't want to see that kind of RP thrown out in order to prevent some theoretical situations from someday, possibly occurring.

This is what I've been arguing the whole time... I just favour the latter rather than the former, but it's obvious most players want it to not exist at all here.

The latter is a lot more work and probably requires some new mechanic. Do you have some decent idea for it to suggest?

Got lost back in the thread but I have always wanted to see something like this. As you say though the work required for such a system is far greater than just turning off theft through various means.