Ninja Looting

[*dordon]

Give the Jarl +30 spot/listen and have him periodically cast True Seeing ;)

[*pelhikano]

Give the Jarl +30 spot/listen and have him periodically cast True Seeing ;)

I very much hope we won't have to resort to extreme measures like that.

[*Mabus]

Well as stated, I agree that I don't foresee any problems so long as people don't camp the chests. If they're caught by a DM just hop on and play with 'em. *evil look*. Make 'em nervous so they won't take the chance camping 'em anymore.

[*Marek Ovilion]

Anyhow, this chest camping issue has been one for a while, but you've got to understand too that these chests are also on a timer. Just because you get to a chest, doesn't mean that it wasn't just emptied by another party that's no longer in the area. To point the finger and say "Every chest I run across that's empty has to be a stealther!", just isn't fair and it's not accurate.

Just because there are spawn in the area, doesn't mean a party didn't come crashing through it just seconds before. I've seen where the spawn resets just a few seconds after a party leaves an area.

[*[<3]]

During the last couple days here on SCoD several people spoke to me, complained even, about the recuring and ever-present ninja looters, therefore I'll bring this issue up here.
Ninja-looters being people who sneak / invis / ethereal into some area, avoid all the spawns and grab all the loots without fighting anything, leaving the next party who comes along and actualy bothers to slay the spawns with nothing but empty chests.
This seems to occur mainly in the caves of the ice giants on the paraelemental plane of ice, but in some other locations as well as I've been told.

Quite a few people are seriously pissed off by this sort of behaviour, and personaly I have to agree with them that ninja looting is not only rude, but also a blatant violation of the server rules.
Thus far I've been identifying 3 players who ninja loot regularly, no need to spill the names or put them into a bad light, perhaps some of them didn't know better, though I can confirm one to be an exploiter pure and simple.

So, just for starters and adressing everybody else as well ...

Please do not ninja loot !

Thank you.


[<3]

[*Mabus]

While I'll admit I've done this with the wererat areas, I was sneaking through with my assassin for that purpose. To pillage them secretively, as a rogue would do. But you've given me thought on the technique. While I would agree that a thief sneaking into an area and "stealing" from an NPC would be something a thief would do, and I would further (IMHO) agree that it should be considered IC and allowable, I would also say that if the/a NPC is right there within sight of the target container that the character would be risking that NPC seeing them, and it should be RPed as such. Same reason as breaking into housing in our NWN1 world was run, if a guard was there you'd be risking them seeing you breaking into the house (ie. a DM seeing you and hopping into the guard and taking actions which could result in jail time, fines, etc.). Doing it to simply be an arse OOC'ly should be considered wrong. But there should always be options C'ly for it. IMHO.

In this light, I'll redo my actions. ;)

[*pelhikano]

Not exactly the same, but I've heard this excuse before on another server when "grinding" an area with a group of people I didn't know, I mean people that ninja loot and don't share anything because their character is a lowlife scumbag and wouldn't do that either. I think that sort of thing works maybe in pen&paper, and even then you will have to deal with the rest of your party getting very angry, but on a PW it simply does not work at all. Yes, it's OOC, but no "IC" character trait gives you the right to openly grief other people like that.

As for the chests, we may have to think of ways to stop rampant exploitation, and if we see people abusing it too harshly then the countermeasures will be harsh as well. I urge all players to keep that in mind at all times.

[*cryptc]

Sneaking into a place and emptying chests without fighting the monsters is absolutely fine, just so I've said it... we have designed SCoD to be friendly to all classes, even non-hipsing rogues.

That said, _camping_ said chests is not fine, standing there hidden to empty it whenever it respawns... We have already increased respawn times on chests considerably because of this and we might increase it even more if we still find its being abused... or start implementing preventions that stop people from camping chests...

[*cryptc]

Oh, and another note... things like abusing of chests are the things that take precious time away from the admin team to actually implement new cool things to SCoD... So please, do not try to abuse such things, it will only make us have to focus on removing said exploits...

[*Mabus]

just for the record, I don't camp the chests. I run through the dungeon and snatch 'em up then exit. If and when I do it again is usually quite a while later. Also, if there were anyone in that zone fighting, then I don't do that; only when the zone's empty. In that case I'll join the group and get them that way. Also, if I'm in a group, I don't care how "ebil" I am, I always share all loot equally.

Although from now on, I'm reevaluating my deeds and taking an even more IC'ly view on it. In other words if I'm going to sneak all the way into the wererat's lair to pillage the chests, then I should, by all rights, have to eliminate the shaman there first (ie. assassination, then stealing the chests, and exiting). Just seems more realistic and fair to me. After all there's a good chance he'd see/hear the chests being opened around him. If there's no NPC around then I don't see why it shouldn't be a free-for-all. B)

(Not to mention by assassinating the rat there there's the risk of attracting others with it. :o )

On a side note it might be reasonalble to say that a single player cannot loot chests this way any more than 1/day, much like the quests, to be fair. Any more would be abusing the system......??