Hours of XP are not the same as months of assorted accumulation of reosurces.

Relatedly the amount lost actually is an important way of figuring out how problematic something is. Because getting all that back is a value proposition for the large amount of time and effort spent on it and the rational alternative to bothering is generally just to give up and quit, making sure that value proposition heavily favours staying in the game is the smart play, not trying to make out that the fortitude of 10 world of warcraft players is some kind of relevant virtue.

Lusternia is not a caveman bear-fighting training simulator so how all that "discomfort and adversity" talk even comes into it is a mystery.

Is there a mud that fills this void?

I will be sure to let both you and Allergic know if I find anything like it, investigation pending!

First off, the only situation in which anyone has ever lost "months of assorted accumulation of resources" is when a stockroom is robbed. That, though, is already fixed. What we're talking about here is the things you carry around in your hands. Any mid-range player can earn back enough money to replace all vials, robes, enchantments, etc. within several hours worth of bashing. Nothing worth more than that is carried "on your person" unless it is runed.

The problem is that Lusternia is a game. Games revolve around conflict and adversity. If there is no conflict and no challenge, there is no game. Lusternia is also not meant to be a semi-organized free form RPG. Part of the appeal is that it's a "real" world, with real challenges. The more challenges you remove, the less of a game you have left.

I think this is debatable, especially if you had unusually good stats and are totally insistent on getting them back. Or they were splendours, and you are no longer a tailor. On the other hand, you might just as well ask why people should get to keep their transcendent toys when they change trades, and accept that as a risk you willfully incur when you make that decision.

Actually people do carry huge amounts of stuff on them (regardless of whether they should or not.) Gold, for example. I even see people carry their gold not in a pack, which makes me cringe from instinct every time I see it but nevermind that.


Uh, actually the problem is that Lusternia is a game and games revolve around being fun, which losing all your stuff to theft is decidedly not. That is the core of this whole thing. Risk is entirely secondary. When people play most games the penalty of losing is a loss and (if it wasn't fun, which it often is anyway) the time spent playing the game you lost, not a loss and then a long-ass time recovering from that loss in the sense that you are actually set back behind where you started. So even if you want your argument to end up at "penalty" for some reason you certainly can't start it there as if it's a premise we should be accepting a priori.

Now I will concede that more significant losses like that in Lusternia fulfill other functions, for example deterrents or just that vague "appeal" you mentioned. This is why despite what you said earlier the scope of the loss is relevant because it changes from a useful mechanism or an additional thrill of the challenge to engaging in something to a complete dealbreaker. Most theft is typically the latter and not the former, though if you have some well thought out and feasible idea that could turn this around maybe you could make the case that it's better than just turning it off. Whether there are ways to prevent theft is thus entirely besides the point. I want to point out that although the password-cracking analogy from earlier was highly dubious, an analogy to credit scams is not because they are (coded retrictions aside) entirely within the scope of the game, available to everybody and extremely damaging. There are a variety of reasons they are shut down much harder than theft, for example the psychological effect of considering credits as only one step removed from RL money rather than typically two or more steps like "all your in-game possessions" making credit purchases threatened much more strongly for IRE, but the comparison is well worth consideration.

EDIT: P.S this post took way too long to write so I may not respond if the thread is too much more clogged tomorrow than it is now, g'night

The problem to me isn't theft for the sake of RP or theft for the sake of a gains, but theft for the sake of just being an ass. You could put in flags that make people drop stuff but it wouldn't change the fact that the situation that is mostly being discussed wasn't about gaining personal wealth, it was about stripping a single player of all goods because a clique of people don't like said person oocly. The goods that were taken are probably either 1. Tossed into a nexus of power to be immediately destroyed to further the asshattery, or 2. Locked in a manse. Putting flags up would do nothing because people who are into this sort of grief would just do steps 1 or 2 to keep the items, especially if the flags wore off.

Thus the restrictions on giving the goods away, putting them in a storeroom, and removing safe rooms so they could be attacked. You do bring up a good point though about just hiding in a manse, I am not sure how that could be best addressed. Apply for a warrant to search a manse?

I agree with those who point out how many ways there are to avoid all retribution after you steal and how that makes things lopsided and broken. I also realize that it is far easier to just remove theft than code in a system that allowed a real chance at recovering your goods.

Here is another suggestion that is less drastic than keeping selfishness up or removing the ability for force to take items:

1. If you have not entered a command after X time force abilities do not work on you.
2. Force commands can not manipulate gold.

Now as the official policy is that AFKing is not allowed I am not sure this is a solution that would be desired but it would directly address the situation that caused the thread.

This sounds amazing and I want to play it.

Shiri unknowingly unearthed (pun intended) the next great Facebook game.

I used to know a MUD based on CORPS Dreamtime but it's long since gone. Shame, I never got to play it either. I love that setting.

Yeah, I said a few pages back that actually allowing theft would now require a massive overhaul to a lot of Lusternia's rules, and we're probably far past it being worth it or the administration accepting such a proposal. I'm really not being sarcastic when I say we may as well just keep going. Make generosity unforceable if everyone is so unhappy with the way things are right now. Since I don't support theft (I support freedom of action), there are so many other things I'd rather see the administration spend their time on. At this point, its probably better to just ratchet up the protection more and move on.

Hai Mr. Literal. But seriously - find me this game.

Well, that's pretty lazy, huh? Guess how many people would just carry gold in their hands of theft was more common.

How is theft of org credits shut down harder than theft of items here? Unless you're talking about some other sort of credit scam. I've actually not heard of anyone who's done it being forced by the admin to return them when they were taken in the context of RP. (Thin, see-through RP at that.) It's infinitely easier to steal org credits than it is to strip bare someone who has one or two skills (Selfishness and Heartstop). I'm not that old in game, though, and I obviously don't hear everything, so maybe people have been forced to return them in the past.

I wasn't talking about org credits, actually, because stealing from an org doesn't impact on anyone personally and though it might be demoralising it's a different kind of thing to when you're singled out personally. That might be due another topic. So yes I'm talking about personal credit scams. In fact, I think the reason we no longer drop gold from hands was at least partly because of repeated incidents of BS where someone would have all their friends jump a guy, buy all their credits off the credit market just before they died, and then loot the gold from the corpse (this was in other IRE games mind you.) Note that I'm not making an appeal to precedent here, but I think the two kinds of things are very similar in nature and most people would agree with shutting down credit scamming.

Ahh. I wasn't aware there was personal credit scams aside from socially engineering them out of people. Even though credits are considered IC (and thus that's why someone can ICly rob them all from an org without OOC repercussions), I've always considered personal credits (And dingbats) a bit OOC, since they're not physical things. I can never drop my credits, or just give 20 credits to Shiri. So, yes, I'm certainly of the opinion that somehow abusing mechanics to steal actual credits should be shut down.

If you're talking scams like... I have 500 credits in Achaea that I want to trade for Lusternian credits (Which I do, PM me! ), and a seller and I come to an agreement, I transfer 500 credits to scammer for 0 gold in Achaea, and he doesn't do the same in Lusternia, well... I'm not sure how much the administration would do (Never happened to me or someone I know), but they should probably get involved. Though if you don't really trust the person, you probably should be a bit vigilant and do something like both be online both games at the same time, and take turns transferring 10 credits at a time to one another.

I don't know if the two are really comparable, though, because like I said, the credits aren't actual items. No one can physically steal them off of you, or force you to transfer. The buy credits off market, kill, drops gold thing is something that I'd agree should be impossible, but then again, I don't think you should drop gold on death ever, so there you go.

Wrong. I'm pretty sure people have been made to return them.

I said I might be mistaken, since I've only been playing Lusternia a little over a year, but the situations I'm aware of (Three specifically), those people were not met with OOC repercussions. All incidents involved 500+ credits.

Theft is crap simply because you don't steal from a skilled player, you steal from the level 30-50's or even lower in some cases. Theft is easily prevented, if you have the skill but that for someone trying to be viable combat for with out racking up to big of a credit card bill means it is utterly unpreventable. In sort if you steal things your both a dick ic and ooc.

Yes. You can't possibly just be playing a role IC that involves theft.

Just because it is "ic" doesn't mean it is not bs.