Loot Stealing - Acceptable Now?

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Tirith
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Loot Stealing - Acceptable Now?

Post by Tirith »

This has not happened to me personally yet, But I have heard various stories of people having their loot taken from them right before their eyes, whether the offending player is visible or not. When reporting this, certain sysops (see, I wont say any name, so don't censor me) will give you a lecture on grabbing your loot as you kill to prevent people from stealing from you. Why should one have to do this, If you want to keep your loot, you must leave your hunting area everytime you have a sackful or take the risk losing your loot?

Congratulations SYSOPS, another rule strictly enforced.

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Post by Stormwind »

- You may not loot/search another player's kills
- Your kills ( unsearched ) are yours , no matter what hex they are on.
- You have exclusivity to LOOT only on the HEX you are currently standing on, or on UNSEARCHED corpses.
- If you loot a corpse, and drop the loot, and move off, you have forfeited rights to the loot.


Brad's rules. Personally I disagree and feel these rules should be changed.

Perhaps if enough people reply here and make some sort of statement to that effect, Brad will "adjust" his rules.

I feel that a "reasonable" hunt area is 1 screen which I believe is a 9x9 grid.
Last edited by Stormwind on Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Crusher »

Hunt area should be your screen... Your kills should be your loot regardless of how they are searched... It makes Barbs zerking an extreme pain at lower levels.
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Post by flisk »

You mean we actually expect the players to pick up their loot to keep it from getting taken by another player?

You mean we will actually tell a player that the best way to keep someone from taking their loot is for themselves to pick it up?

Sarcasm aside, it boils down to several conversations I've had with players (yes these are direct quotes from players):

A) "I don't coin when I'm in upper I just go there for the exp, so I don't care if someone takes the coins."
B) "I've been here for 6 hours and I'm too lazy to pick it up lol"
C) "Oh nm. It was (name removed) and he was in our party and left. He was just getting his share of the loot."
D) "Everyone in my party says they did not take it" (yet when I investigated the person that actually reported it was the one that took it)

Yes, to keep your loot for your own, PICK IT UP.
Last edited by flisk on Thu Jul 28, 2005 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Doro »

I also disagree with this ruling, I vote your loot is what you can see on the screen, not what is on your hex.

I vote the rule is changed.
ho

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Post by flisk »

you loot is what is on your screen would never fly.

As soon as you take one step in any direction, what is considered "your loot" under that rule would change.

At what point do you not consider it your loot?

I can step 10 hexes north and walk onto someone else's screen, I see what is on my screen; they see what is on their screen. Problem is, we share the same screen. Who's loot is who's?

Whoever was there first? Sure that makes sense. What happens if they both claim to have been there first? Dig through the logs for the previous 6 hours and see who walked into that area first? That's not realistic.

What is realistic is for players to PICK IT UP.

I'm not saying you have to pick it up after each kill; but c'mon, you can not expect to have loot sit there for more than an hour and not expect someone to come by and pick it up.
Last edited by flisk on Thu Jul 28, 2005 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Tirith »

Flisk, please re-read what you just said. You take a step in any direction and what is considered your loot has changed. Isn't that exactly how it is now? What is on your hex is your loot, you take a step, what is considered your loot has changed to whichever hex you have moved to. Is it realistic to make sure everything you kill lands on your hex or more realistic that everything you kill lands within your view. Psi users and Hally/Bow/Thrown skilled players arent restricted to kill only what is on their hex, So the rule the way it is could be changed to accomodate those players.

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Post by flisk »

if you guys want the rule changed then you seriously need to think about what you want it changed to.

Don't say; "it's a silly rule it needs to be changed! I vote the rule should be changed!"

That won't change it.


What you have to do is:

Define the rule.

Define ALL parameters of that rule.

Define WHO it will effect.

Define HOW it will be enforced.

Define the penalty of breaking the rule.

Be prepared for crossfire of different scenarios from each rule you come up with and you MUST be able to answer the questions or situations that arise from your new rule.

In the mean time, where your loot is concerned; PICK IT UP.

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Post by Tirith »

my original post has nothing to do with wanting the rule changed, but since it is not too far off from the subject, i wont say it went off topic. I don't care if the rule is changed or not, I would just like to see better enforcement of the rule that is in place, instead of telling someone what to do to avoid being stolen from. Thats like telling somebody not to drive to avoid getting in a wreck.

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Post by flisk »

Comparing me telling you to pick up your loot to telling someone not to drive in order to avoid a wreck is not a good comparison.

I would tell anyone to be aware when they are driving and to pay attention in order to avoid getting into a wreck.

I'm not telling you guys not to hunt in order to avoid getting your loot taken. I'm telling you to PICK IT UP. Why is that such a difficult thing to do? Search, pick up. Easy. Takes less than 20 seconds to do that.

On the other hand if I were to go through each line of the logs, I am looking at what every player in the scenario does.

Tirith sells 1 uncut emerald.
Tirith sells 1 uncut emerald.
Tirith sells 1 uncut emerald.
Tirith sells 1 lair diamond.
Doro walks 1 hex north.
Tirith sells 1 lair diamond.
Tirith sells 1 uncut emerald.
Doro walks 1 hext north.
Tirith sells 1 uncut emerald.
Tirith sells 1 lair diamond.
Doro walks 1 hex north.
Tirith sells 1 uncut emerald.
Tirith sells 1 lair diamond.
Doro attacks Uther.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Tirith buys 1 Instant Health bottle.
Doro attacks Uther.
Tirith closes merchant window.
Doro attacks Uther.
Tirith opens banker window.
Doro kills Uther.
Tirith deposits 125,932 gold.
Doro searches.
Tirith closes banker window.
Doro sees 1 uncut emerald.
Doro sees 1 lair diamond.
Tirith walks 1 hex north.

Note the above is a "cleaned up" version of the logs. What you see above did not necessarily happen, it's shown to give you an example of how detailed the logs are. In order for me to find the ONE person that took your loot I have to look 1 line at a time and see what each person in that scenario did. The above illustrates 10 rounds. With just 2 people. Take the average numbers of players in (we'll use Cobrahn for this) Cobrahn, which is about 50 at the lowest; that's 500 lines to look at in just 10 rounds. Consider that 10 rounds takes up what, less than 5 minutes? That's 1,200 rounds in an hour, or 600,000 lines of code per hour (approximatly). For me to go through 1 hour of logs takes me about 2 hours (and that's also assuming I do not get PMed by other players who need help). I'd much rather do other things with that time, such as run events or hide goodies for you guys to find.

Let's look at the logic of this.

Option 1) It takes you less than 20 seconds to pick up your loot.
Option 2) It takes me over 2 hours to search the logs.

Which option makes more sense?

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Post by Crusher »

You have my vote. Courtesy is one thing, but people try to get by the rules. I had someone a few months ago claim a spawn as his, only 2 hexes away from me.

Well, looking at logs is one thing, but people will still loot. Giving them a bit of freedom saying only the stuff on hex is yours, they'll use that to their advantage. Then they'll fight for their right because of the rules.
Last edited by Crusher on Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by flisk »

All the logs are, well... Logged. I do check on each complaint and each person I find to be in the wrong, I do deal with. I do not discuss what I do with anyone except for the player that I am dealing with. Just keep in mind that because I do not divulge the information to you does not mean that I did not find the person that took your loot 3 hours ago.

Just to let you guys know, why do you think my in game participation has been non-existant for the past month? It takes time to look over these logs. I can't just snap my fingers and get the information that I need.

In the mean time, to aid me and prevent your precious loot from being taken by someone who is not you... PICK IT UP.

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Post by Crusher »

I set fate traps over my gems :|

EDIT: Just saw the first posts, you say the loot from your kills is your loot.
Then keep it that way, make your kills only your/party's loot. This would replace the old rule of only your hex is yours.
The current rule allows a lot of space for people to mess with. If it's not on your hex, someone else can loot it. That's how some people see it.
If there's another person hunting nearby, the person will most likely be more cautious of his loot. By putting it all on one hex and not have it spread out all over the place.
As I said, barbs have it harder. That means they have to dezerk, search, loot, sell, rezerk, start killing.
If it's in a fast respawn area, then you get hurt when you run to sell.
Last edited by Crusher on Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Teh_Cheat »

What about having maybe a few more hexes than just 1? Maybe like a 9 hex area instead of a full screen. When I solo ud4 I usually just keep a 9 hex area, and when a kill a quaz or something that ont come into the area, I search it and move it to the main loot area.
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Post by Roland »

Just randomly perusing the Drak forums, cause I'm bored and not sleepy..

On this issue, when I played the game, I always thought that Brad should recode the loot thing a bit.. Granted the corpses need to rot for new to regen, why not have them rot as usual, but after a corpse rots have it leave behind a 'pile of bones' , that get the search rights that the corpse previously had. The 'pile of bones', when it becomes the 'pile of bones' gets the loot that the corpse would've had assigned to it, when it is searched, but piles of bones never rot. Would accomplish a couple of things...a person could hunt an area, and search the piles of 'piles of bones' whenever he was done, no more problem with others stealing other's loot, also since most things drop multiple items, 'piles of bones' that aren't ever searched would lessen the amount of items on ground hexes. The only thing that would get rid of the piles of bones would be either the janitor program or perhaps put an 8 hr decay rate on them.

Some may respond saying that would ruin areas where they depend on other things to kill stuff, but that was pretty much negated with the change way back on the corpsekills by NPC's
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Post by Gizmak666 »

Seems to me the sysops need a tool with which they can more easily search through the logs. A simple search by crit name, hex number/range and/or time period would, based on Flisk's description, help enormously.

Of course, I've no idea how the back end of this game is set up but even a simple SQL (or something) serach through the database wouldn't take hours. Rather than spending time coding whatever next version of things Brad should take some time to improve the effectiveness of his sysops with a couple tools like that.

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Post by Brad »

Any solution which puts work out of the game and onto the sysops is not a solution ( smile ).

Its completely impractical to give someone "their view", its not even worth discussing. Other than that, if someone has a more practical solution, i'm open to it.

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Post by Gizmak666 »

Huh? Was that directed at my 'solution' or something else? If you're saying it's impractical to let your sysops get to the root of an issue (did someone do x at that place?) in a timely manner then I really don't understand the purpose of sysops. My proposal doesn't put work out of the game and onto the sysops--it frees the sysops from drudgery.

Flisk is saying he'd much rather spend time doing good for the game stuff rather than poring over the logs for hours. If the logs were easier to read and/or search he'd have more time for that.

It may well be that such a tool would be horrific to code or something (because of the age of the database or whatever) but that doesnt' speak to its practicality.

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Post by flisk »

I think what brad is saying is that he would rather the players come up with a solution to solve their lack of picking loot up rather than depend on the sysops to figure it out.

Yes we are here to help, but we wear many hats, some of which include running events for the players. It's hard to do if we even have to spend 5 minutes digging through logs to figure out who took your loot.

It's just such an easy solution for players to pick up their own loot.

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Post by Stormwind »

Well, personally I've adjusted my hunting style to accomodate the existing rules. Now when I hunt in a "high coin" area I loot very often. I also grab corpses as I kill them and throw them all into one pile, the pile I kill from. At least this way if someone snags anything I am in my rights with the rules. Its a bit easier for me though being a Mentalist with Teleport. Keep in mind that Brad plans to make some areas "truly distant" to travel to in the future and this could make "looting as you go" even more of a pain if not unreasonable.

The problem I think is that there used to be a sense of courtesy and an unwritten rule that the immediate area which you were hunting in was "yours". This doesn't mean you could flatten an entire level like UD 3 (thats abusing the courtesy) but certainly you could claim a room there and all the loot thats drops within it. Some common sense had to be used to define this as it could change depending on where you were hunting. Every scenario has its quirks and even certain hunt areas.

Unfortunately a few players with no morals have caused a lot of problems and increased the number of complaints to sysops to the point that the sysops were forced to determine a "legal" definition of what constituted your hunting territory. With limited manpower and no easy way to define a hunt "area" they did the most sensible thing, which was define your space as wherever you were standing plus whatever you've killed. This is due mostly to the constraints placed upon them by the system.

Now those people with few or no morals are able to continue doing what they did.. only most of it is now legal. They can jump into a pile of loot in pillars for example and strip out anything lying on the ground as long as no one is on the square at that instance.

Sadly its a lot like real life... when criminal activity increases we must make adjustments to our own routines and give up some of that which we took for granted to put a stop to it.

Looting as you go tends to break up the rythym of "grunting" and in a party can cause problems as people leave to unload, forget to leave party, then forget to rejoin, etc. etc. It takes the "fun" and makes more work of it. Also for those who do not have the luxury of speed looting, they can run into the problem of having a hunting area contested by someone else who slipped in while you were away. This is why everyone is so grumpy about it and get surly when the sysops respond "pick up your loot". They feel they are being punished for the actions of others when in their eyes those perpetrators (who I'm sure have long records with the sysops) should have just been deleted and have done with it.

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Last edited by Stormwind on Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Brad »

Sorry, i thought my comment was pretty clear. I wasnt stabbing anyones ideas, im just saying that the best solution is one thats handled in game, and doesnt CREATE work for sysops.

Example.. In a perfect world no item on the ground would be pick-upable except by the person who killed the crit. As it is now, only the killer can search, but people like to wait for stuff to decay.

Creating something that just makes log entries for sysops to peruse isnt a solution.

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Post by Gizmak666 »

Hey, it's an idea, stab it all you want. However, my idea doesn't create work for anybody, except the guy that has to code it. I'm just reacting to Flisk's comments about it taking forever to figure out who did what. There's no reason for the sysops' portion of the complaint equation to take forever. The issues are still there that need to be resolved--the pms to sysops will still happen, whether it takes them an hour or a minute to determine what they need. This won't keep people from stealing loot or doing whatever else people do. It'll just keep the sysops more available and less cranky.

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Post by BoneCrusher »

Well the post I'm replying to here is Flisks. Do you play this game anymore? Do you play a barb? So you are at full froth and hunting and you should stop and pick up all your loot, lose froth, and kill someone in CC trying to use AUTO's? Give me a break. If you are a player in this game you understand the severe inconvenience this is, and why can't we have a hunt area where people shouldn't just come in and start looting every hex we aren't standing on? These rules are influencing people to loot others items. If you don't see it that way you aren't paying attention to what people are saying. They outright say "the rules state I can loot any hex you aren't standing on." I've heard it quoted over and over. It's ridiculous. And I do realize you didn't make this rule Flisk, but I do see you helping to enforce a rule you know isn't fair and makes no sense. And yes I'm aware of how hard the logs are to read, but thats the job you took on as a sysop. Its not our fault that people are constantly doing things that aren't right in this game and you need to check the logs, why not enforce harsher penalties or change the rules to accomodate the true players in this game and not the beggers and looters?

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Post by flisk »

BoneCrusher, if you feel the rule is not working then, as I stated in an above post,

Don't just shout out that the rule is lame and it needs to be changed and leave it at that. Go ahead and shout out that you don't like the rule BUT ALSO give us a solution, a new rule.

What you have to do is:

Define the rule.

Define ALL parameters of that rule.

Define WHO it will effect.

Define HOW it will be enforced.

Define the penalty of breaking the rule.

Be prepared for crossfire of different scenarios from each rule you come up with and you MUST be able to answer the questions or situations that arise from your new rule.

In the mean time, (for you barbs - alow zerk to wear off ) where your loot is concerned; PICK IT UP.

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Post by BoneCrusher »

By the time my zerk wears off people will have already looted the area, as you stated it takes very little time to coin.

Also, we obviously disagree greatly on punishments and rules as just a week ago there was a pker running wild in drak, and 24 hours later he was back. So that is considered appropriate punishment for pking anyone and everyone in game? Besides all of the cursing and name calling that same person made in dz chat.

I think you should state that the "new rule" is that no one should go into someone elses hunt area and loot it at all. If the person is present and hunting you don't take their loot even if you are on another hex then they are. I thought I made that clear when I said we should be able to have a hunt area. There is a small area in ud4, the east side. I can't be on all the hexes at once and I do coin differently now, but that does not avoid the problem that was started when this rule was made. Like I said before, looting others coin/gems/items is being influenced by this rule.

As far as definining the punishment, as I stated at the beginning of this post, you and I strongly disagree on punishments. As there was another incident when someone outright stole a kill from me, and took the item, and them saying it was "an accident" and that I could have the item made it alright. I don't get that. So I shouldn't use a baby crit (an appropriate size crit btw) to hunt a small lair, because a huge NL crit can come in oneshot it and then just hand me the item later and its no big deal? Whats the point of actually playing the game if those are the things that are allowed and influenced to go on?

I can see where you don't want more work made for yourself, but I would hope the integrity of the game also meant something to you.

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Last edited by BoneCrusher on Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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