PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => PvP,PK and Thieving => Topic started by: QuantumG on November 24, 2004, 05:14:13 am
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It\'s interesting to note that CB will have lockable objects which are pickable but it will not have pickpocketing. The original idea was that chests would only be openable by picking. I thought that was pretty strange, so I implemented keys. Now players could conceivably buy a lockable chest and put all their stuff in it. Someone could pick the lock on that chest and take all their stuff. It\'s strange that we consider this ok but we don\'t consider pickpocketing ok. It\'s kinda like we\'re saying that the player\'s inventory is sacred but anything in the world is up for grabs. It\'s possible that all chests we sell in the game will have pick skill values set at 110%. Then no player could ever pick the lock of a chest. Of course, what\'s to stop someone from taking the whole chest? We could have it so that no player can pick up an object that is \"owned\" by another player. So if you throw your sword on the ground no-one can pick it up unless you specifical religuish ownership with some command. As we recently made it so objects tossed on the ground disappear after about 3 hours we might as well just give players the ability to destroy objects straight from their inventory and remove the ability to drop objects. Of course, by that point we\'ve no use for chests cause no-one can pick up anyone else\'s stuff anyway and the chests will disappear shortly after they are dropped anyway.
All in all, we don\'t have much of a policy on ownership. Players own things, but if they drop them they disappear after 3 hours and we really don\'t know if we want to allow other players to pick up dropped items or not. If someone locks something up in a chest they\'re definitely saying that they don\'t want others to have it, but are we going to honor every request of a player or not? It\'s all up in the air.
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My thoughts in this post vary as you read each paragraph... I didn\'t have a set direction with this, so sorry, but you\'ll have to read the whole thing to understand why I wrote it. :P
Perhaps another direction on this idea would be allowing Player Inventories to be pickable, whilst Chests act as the sacred safe-haven for people\'s valuable items?
Chests would be non-degradable, but come in a variety of sizes. New players wouldn\'t need to spend much to buy a little lockable purse for their money (a limited amount), which would stay in their inventory, but be unpickable. Old players might need an entire room of storage space, and would buy it as an addition to his house, if he has one.
Alternatively, players could use their pack-animals as chest-like storage. But if the animal dies, perhaps everything is dropped, free to be looted... (by anyone? Or just the owner?)
The bigger the chest, the heavier it would be to carry. And of course, you can\'t just leave it lying around on the floor. So perhaps an early approach to solving this problem could be to use the \"magic\" excuse. ;) Chests that are summoned, used, and then disappear again untill they are needed by the player.
In the future, perhaps more grades of player housing might be considered, such as little slum houses made of sticks and hay, for the poorer players to keep their chests. I don\'t really like this idea, to be honest...
Reading back on this post, I can\'t help but think there should be no safe-haven storage. I do find it extremely unfair and frustrating, as do most other people, when something very valuable and costly is pilfered straight from my pocket in various games that allow this ability. The worst part of it is not knowing who was the culprit, especially in a crowd.
Thus if there were to be no safe-haven storage at all, pickpocketing should require high skill and alot of luck. The amount taken, and what taken, should be random- and have a % chance decreasing with increases in the potentially stolen item\'s value (So with a player\'s inventory full of sticks, and one Uber-Axe-of-Doom, you\'re far more likely to get a stick. Every time. Going for the axe would be too noticable to succeed unless you\'re married to Lady Luck and found 9 four-leaf clovers this morning).
But pickpocketing is a gamble, with some chance of success, so it will be quite popular. So aswell as failing the pick, you might do a rather terrible job of withdrawing your hand unnoticed, and the player would realise you\'re up to no good (name turns Red, or something). Your PK would be turned on temporarily, and you\'ll have to flee or potentially be sent to the Death Realm by the very angry victim.
As an addition to this, stolen items could have a flag in the DB to say who was the original owner of the item. If the thief is killed, someone could try to loot his body. If he has any items in his inventory which were stolen from you specifically, you can take them back. Nobody else can do that for you, however, to prevent obvious abuse. And if the thief managed to get away long enough to deposit your item in his chest/house... tough luck, unless you take the fight to his door.
With that said, I think too many games these days pander to players\' needs for keeping their loot safe, to the point of hardcoding it into their program that loot cannot at all be stolen. This is wrong... it removes a massive aspect of roleplaying and renders the \"thief\" class in most games completely useless as anything other than an assasin. Like I said, I understand how frustrating being looted is, and hope it will never ever happen to me ingame. But fair do\'s if it does- that\'s life, and that\'s good roleplay. Maybe I\'ll hire the Mercenary Guild to track down the thief and take back what I own... :)
Just some extra thoughts for people to mull over. :) I vote \"randomly pickable\" by the way, as it best sums up the mess I\'ve written in this post. :P
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i would say that a idea would be to sell differnt levels of chest at price ranges
say like a cheap chest would be easy to break into then the most pricey would need a near god like lock picker to open it.
and if a player drops it tough crap if it gets stolen its there fault for being so careless :)
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Hmm, I think most locks should be pickable, but have different levels as Seperot said. In fact, I wouldn\'t mind having a certain lock unpickable. This would be a very rare/expensive lock.
If you lock something in a chest, you should be able to hide the chest to reduce the chance of it being stolen/picked. I also think there should be chests that cannot be moved, that are bolted to the floor. You could put these chests, or the movable ones, in your house to prevent them from being stolen. This brings up another question. Should house doors be pickable? My opinion is that house doors should not be pickable, so you can have an absolutely sure place to store your items safely.
If someone simply drops an item, anyone should be able to pick it up.
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Why not have a local bank, that can\'t be robbed, hold all you valuable items. The items have to be over a certian overall value to be in the bank, like you can\'t just store 1 ruby crystal. the bank can store almost anything that is not alive, and with no limit of storage time or heigth of value.
Example: I would like to store 3 ruby crystals.
I\'m sorry the lowest amount storable is 10 ruby crystals.
I would like to store 1 Uber-Axe-of-Doom.
Ok, let my take care of that for you.
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Why not have a local bank, that can\'t be robbed, hold all you valuable items. The items have to be over a certian overall value to be in the bank, like you can\'t just store 1 ruby crystal. the bank can store almost anything that is not alive, and with no limit of storage time or heigth of value.
Example: I would like to store 3 ruby crystals.
I\'m sorry the lowest amount storable is 10 ruby crystals.
I would like to store 1 Uber-Axe-of-Doom.
Ok, let my take care of that for you.
This is a good idea. This could mean that other chests, inventories, and indeed even houses could be robbed. It also means that most robbers would end up stealing a few mediocre items from careful players who don\'t leave valuables on their person or property. Yet some people might, so there is still a chance of grabbing something worthwhile during the heist.
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Some how I can\'t imagine Gandalf the Gray going to a bank. Even if this were remotely believable, banks store money, not items. The benefit of having a bank to store money is that it can be loaned out and therefore stimulate the economy.
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Warehouses then. There\'s already a fair few places one of these could be set up. ;)
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I voted not pickable, can I change my vote to pickable?
The bank is a good idea, but I think they should have limited space, so that a players most treasured item can be placed in it, like an actual banks safety deposit box. Anyone is free to store what they want in that place.
Chests use will be encouraged as a result, not only for more storage space, but also allow for players to bring a little more and store them close by rather then walking for ages to get back to the bank they deposited their item in.
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I hope that chest will be able to be to be picked only once by every person. So everyone gets a chance to pick the chest but they can only do it once each chest. There should also be random items in the chest like so...;
Silk shirt: 10%
20 tri:70%
book of the gods: 10%
Ring of terror: 5%
you get the picture
:]
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Banks can store items, ever heard of safety deposit boxes. Although they can only store a small amount of items, banks can hold millions in money.
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Jagean: You know little of PS it seems. :) The currency in Yliakum is called Tria, and is money, not the crystals you find spawning in the MB tech-demo.
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I heard of PS last month. I am a newbie. lol
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Well if you\'ll have a bank store the money how about making a down side? :D
The bank can only hold a certain amount of widthdrawable money each game day, so if someone withdraws say... all 1000 from the bank then the players will have to wait for the next day when the bank gets more funds, this will make it so that banks are a safe place to store money, but it will discourgage people from placing every last cent into the bank. The gm/devs are free to set a width limit per character/day if they want as they may work too.
As for the safety deposit box... I thought that was what my limited space statement meant...
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i can hear the crys of the disgruntled players on the pickable chest issue. Whine they will about how long it took them to get that item.
i really dont want to see the message boards/text channels overflowing with that rubbish.
Originally posted by Jagean
I heard of PS last month. I am a newbie. lol
newbies, midbies or oldbies are relative.
so as compared to Gromo the Grizzled Ancient who has been here though thick and thin for 4+ years, you my friend are a newbie.
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Anyway, banks should be able to hold large amounts of money, and small valuable items. I also think that banks should be able to tax the amount to money put into them. The larger the amount the larger the loss from taxes. This way players can\'t get to rich, which i think can be an unfair advantage over new players.
Chests can be picked and stolen from, but not stolen themselves. The more expencive the harder to pick, but all of them can be picked.
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@ snow_RAveN
I think that it would take a while before people could get enough items that are valuable enough to be stored in the bank and have to put them in chests.
Nonetheless that would be a problem, so I propose being able to spend some tria to increase your bank storage space.
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I think locks should be pickabl but people should still have a safe place like a bank to sstore stuff too.
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Paying the bank for more storage space... that sounds perfectly valid, I like this idea, the very very rich players can buy tons of room, though maybe it should have an escalating cost based on how much room you try to use above standard.
Since this isn\'t a physical bank I don\'t think taxing is viable, unless you mean they take a small percentage from what a person enters into the bank, a small percentage... say... 2-5%?
Though on that thought I can see very very rich players fuming about how the bank charged them 5000 tria when they inserted 100000 trias. I really don\'t know how to think of it..
Another problem to wonder about, will merchants know how to auto extract money from the bank, or do you have to goto the merchant with the money on hand? Maybe you can give him something like a cheque (the game will hopefully have a built in mechanism that pervents phony cheques). The cheque like objects can be purchased from the bank at several tria each, as a convience feature.(As a side note, money given away in a check is transfered immediately, there is no taking the cheque back and ripping it so that the transfer doesn\'t go through)
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By what you just said all banks should be able to get there stuff stolen but each bank is a individual entity. But like for instance a piece of equipment shouldn\'t be able to be stolen because that takes alot of time to do and if the bank does it right shouldn\'t be stolen with it locked in a customer lock, only he has the key and unpickable. Also I think you should have chest pickable just because any item in the game is recievable by the player so it just happens to be luck that travel your way if you have a house with a entarence that is unpickable.
Anyways I don\'t think the bank should charge a taxing of the money you store in there but whatever you do send in there should be pooled together and governed by a interest rate of equal to that of the game itself.
The simpliest way to govern that would be like a check on your card or notice telling them how much money you have in the bank. This here to turn everything into just a piece of paper so players can haul around all of there belongs as paper and transfer it over to another bank or player.
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I chose randomly pickable because it should depend on the character\'s skill. Like seperot said,
\"say like a cheap chest would be easy to break into then the most pricey would need a near god like lock picker to open it.\"
Some chests should just be too good to be picked, too. That way if someone really values their items they will save more for a better chest. Otherwise, they are open to the more talented pickpockets.
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maybe instead of all of this stuff(banks warehouses, etc.) being implemented by hard code, implement code which allows players themselves to open up a warehouse business, just buying a large building and putting a lock on the door, let them build thier own reputation for honesty. could create some interesting competition. Locks would be an indepen dant item, which can be applied to a chest or door to secure it, and removed with a key.
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the bank should be located in a ridiculous (sp?) far off place. then the players can either spend 10 minutes to get there (:D) or they can buy a chest to store it and have easy acces
limits on banking
better chest=more tria
bigger bank accounts=expenises
withdrawl from bank=5% tax
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Disclaimer: I haven\'t actually played PS yet (am downloading as I post). Don\'t be surprised if I sound Naive.
Icefalcon had a good idea, but I\'ve played games with a bank system and it seems to work well too. IMO, a mix of several of the ideas here would serve as an amazingly robust, versatile, and lifelike idea. Create a bank where a person can deposit items and tria. There could be maybe 3 different account types. The first would be totally free but have only a small amount of space for items and a limit set at a relatively small amount of tria, something that would be a decent amount for a low-level player but not so much that after the person establishes a good income, they would want to keep that account. The second account has a larger storage space and a larger limit of tria but carries a nominal, periodical, fee. The third account would be for the established person. It should have the largest item storage area (though not massive by any means) and no limit to the amount of tria a player could store, but with a heftier price tag.
The bank should be in NPC hands simply to engender trust, and a player shouldn\'t, necessarily, be able to go to merchants and shop using the money in the bank. I did like the check idea and I think it would make alot of sense. You pay for the convenience of being able to shop using your bank balance and the checks are \"magically tuned\" so that they can\'t be forged.
That said, chests with a varying quality of lock (read: difficulty to pick) could be sold and even made as a tradeskill item. A person with a high lockpicking skill combined with metalworking could craft really good locks because they know the best ways to open them. You could make the best locks tradeskill only so that a player would have to seek out another player to obtain the best locks in the game. These locks would, in turn, be attached to the doors of a person\'s home and/or the locks on their chest.
This kind of mixed system allows an unlimited amount of storage (in theory) but only some of it is totally safe.
A few notes: The bank should have offices in every major city and through magic, your items can be available in those cities but not out in the wilderness. Also, not every merchant should accept checks, i.e. the less law-abiding types.
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Nice ideas here, I just wanted to put in my two cents.
Most locks will be pickable, and (as posted many times before) will vary in pickable-ness (yes, that\'s a word) depending on the price of the lock (chest/door). The very good locks, player-made only with lockpicking and forging skill as Kravius posted, could be also opened in a difficult much time-taking proces: The thief will first need a wax-print of the lock. Working together with a smith willing to do this action, he can make a key-mould, for that specific lock. Once the key is made (maybe out of copper or some other weak metal, one time use) he could open up that chest... Of course, you might say that this won\'t be fair for the robbed ones, but keep in mind only the best thieves working together with one of the best smiths that are willing to do this (when noticed, this will surely ruin their repuation, getting less customers, encouraged by the one that was robbed, you know, making leaflets and such \"Do not buy your weapons at Loran\'s smithy, for he is a raging lunatic that helps thieves!\" that kind of things...). And that very rich player that spend his trias on the custom lock will probably hire npc-guards to protect his home (/private palace), if there will be any, that is. Hireable npc\'s would be another nice feature, in distant future of course. Combining guards and the custom lock, the thief will have a very hard time stealing the treasure, and has a high risk on being caught (for the sake of the players that will be robbed), but, when he has enough experience in sneaking, breaking in and wax-print-making (:P) he might succeed, and sharing his loot with the ones who helped him, this riskfull action will be rewarding. The wax-mould will be lost, as well as the key, so this won\'t be repeated (probably). The victim will also invest in more bank-space I suppose.
Concerning the fact of pick-pocketing, I\'d say (as many others) the inventory will be split in several parts. There will be the normal inventory (that we all know), and an inventory like a small chest (but I actually can\'t imagine someone carriing chests around, but who cares when you can carry 10 swords and 5 shields anyway) or a purse. Unskilled thieves will only get to pilfer to normal inventory. The skilled ones could, when having a pick-pocketing knife, cut the purse of the victim\'s belt and take home the loot. As said before, the purse as well as any stolen items could be flagged for a certain time (let\'s say one day), and when recovered within that day, the victim will just take home his items. When too late, the items will count as the thieves\' ones, so he\'ll probably need to send a thief to loot the actual thief :]
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I vote we need to clean up the forums... I\'m posting off the stickies in the wish forum, not even noticing the sub-forum below. ;) And I\'m too lazy to double post novels.
I\'m for pickable... but lock picking should not be a random skill check.
http://planeshift.oodlz.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=6616&boardid=11&sid=88dbeab8edd9be52ea32f46bd2b7fb1a&page=1#9
Growl... I have been using the search and look what it gets me.