Temp Dropped Item Ownership

[Stephen McNaire]

Okay...my beef here is that I was doing an RP and in that RP I was casting a ward. So as a nice visual aid, I dropped one of my last Ruby Crystals...and almost immediately some jerk runs in and takes off with it. Of course I ran after and tried to get it back, but was completely ignored. It's not like I dropped it in the middle of nowhere; I dropped it in the middle of a trio huddle.
So I talked with some guys and here's what we came up with as a solution to this really irritating problem; Temporary ownership over a dropped item:

First there would either be a prompt when you drop an item ("Are you relinquishing ownership of this item?"), or perhaps there would be a command (/place). Either of these would allow you to set an item on the ground with it temporarily unable to be picked up by other players. In sense it is still in your inventory, but others can see it and perhaps do things like look at it, but may not pick it up and therefore transfer ownership.
To prevent random spaming you can only leave it out for X amount of time, and then it returns to your inventory. You may also only walk X distance away from it before you forfeit your right to it (Or it returns to you inventory). Perhaps to keep you from accidentally walking too far away, there would be a flashing icon to warn you that you are getting too far, it starts out slow, but gets faster the further you get away. Then perhapes a system message pops up asking you if you want to give up your item. Also, to protect against the game crashing and you losing your item, if you client crashes, the server simply returns the item to your inventory.
'Placed' items would also have a new button labeled 'release' or something, clicking this will que a prompt, clicking yes will release ownership of the item.

This would be wonderful because then people who are RPing could use items in their events without worrying about losing it. Or even just showing a special item to a group of others that you got from an event, like a ring, which can not normally be seen. This would also be useful in the future when things like personal books are implemented. That way you can share your writings with a group of friends, and still have your valuable book in the end.

[Pale]

I like it! 

Perhaps extend it to when you are trading items between players, if by sheer bad luck, when handing over the item, the recepient can't hold any more, instead of falling to the ground and becoming free-game, it either falls and is still untouchable except by two players involved the trade, or it is returned to the originating player.

It'd probably be a nightmare to program though 

[neko kyouran]

First there would either be a prompt when you drop an item ("Are you relinquishing ownership of this item?"), or perhaps there would be a command (/place). Either of these would allow you to set an item on the ground with it temporarily unable to be picked up by other players. In sense it is still in your inventory, but others can see it and perhaps do things like look at it, but may not pick it up and therefore transfer ownership.
To prevent random spaming you can only leave it out for X amount of time, and then it returns to your inventory. You may also only walk X distance away from it before you forfeit your right to it (Or it returns to you inventory). Perhaps to keep you from accidentally walking too far away, there would be a flashing icon to warn you that you are getting too far, it starts out slow, but gets faster the further you get away. Then perhapes a system message pops up asking you if you want to give up your item. Also, to protect against the game crashing and you losing your item, if you client crashes, the server simply returns the item to your inventory.
'Placed' items would also have a new button labeled 'release' or something, clicking this will que a prompt, clicking yes will release ownership of the item.

Dropping an item, is the same as you throwing something on the ground, hense, it's fair game for anyone.  That aside, going off your /place idea.  It would work much better if you simply used '/place [name of object]'.  This would then place the item on the ground for people to see and you would still retain ownership.  This is much simpler than dropping something and having a popup box everytime asking you are you sure you want to drop that.  If you want to discard something, just drop it.  Dropped items are afterall, free game for anyone to pick up.  A /place command would differenciate between the two already, thus no pop up boxes, less annoying spam windows.    

About the time and distance thing.  The person that placed the item would retain ownership for a certain time, but I would say no longer than 10-15 minutes, to prevent littering the lanscape with items no one can get rid of.  Also, logging out should effectively orphan that item and make it free game, crashes or not.  It would have to be that way since the game cannot tell if you log our or crash, it just simply knows if your client is still connected or not.  If you wanted to have it return to your inventory upon crash, that would have to be solved.  Distance,  you step too far away from your item, it effectively becomes fair play for any one walking by.  You can't leave cash lying around out in the open in RL and walk away and expect it to still be there once you return can you?

All, in all, I likes the idea.

[DaveG]

It would just have to kick off a timer to go public after some interval.  However, that being said, you shouldn't drop stuff you're not willing to lose.  Frankly the problem at hand here is not that an idiot stole your stuff, but that you had no way to get it back or even affect them in any way.  The only way to correctly solve this issue is to have some limited open-PvP and some theiving stuff, which is a loooong ways off and would be rather hard to balance.

[Under the moon]

I see you put the conversation to good use, McNaire.

Venge suggested that the /placed-displayed item never actually leave your inventory. It would still be 'in' your possessions until you released it. Perhaps a checkbox in your inventory for 'placed' items would be in order. If you walk away, your item could be picked up automatically. The same if you logout/crash.

Another thing I would recommend would be only a few items place-able per person. This would prevent spam-art, as well as be more realistic. A person can only keep an eye on so many things at once.

This display feature would work well with possible future crafts, such as laying out wares (swords, baskets...), arts (paintings, pots...), and writings. Then you would be able to see at a glance what folks are selling/showing, rather than having to read their description.

All in all, a good roleplaying aid.

(and doom on the person who stole your ruby right in the middle of our RP)

[Odilatinam]

you shouldn't drop stuff you're not willing to lose. 

Items drop when you place it into a window that doesn't accept the item.  The item should only drop if you drop it on the ground/game world.  If a window doesn't accept an item, it should return it to your inventory at least.  This is why dropping needs to be changed a little, it's always not intentional

My story is:  I finally got enough to get a pick, mine gold, and then sold my first haul.  While waiting for my mental stamina to regenerate, I bought glyphs.  While mining, I was playing around with glyphs trying to load it into my spellbook.  I tried to "drop" the air glyph onto the spellbook window, and it dropped to the floor.  I immediately saw it wasn't in my inventory, closed the two windows, right click on the glyph on the ground, and it had disappeared already, meaning someone else picked it up in the crowd of miners.  That was maybe 3 seconds or 4 seconds elapsed time.  After that I figured out there's a button for glyphs in the spellbook.

I realize it's a newbie mistake (I started today), and I shouldn't have been testing things out in a crowd, but still.  If a newbie like me didn't have my father as a miner, and had lost something that they were trying to figure out how to use and had just bought with their hard earned money from hours of rat killing, they wouldn't bounce back as quickly as me.  At least for me, it was maybe a 5 minute mistake at most.

[bilbous]

make yourself a macro for target next item and pickup bind them to adjacent keys, makes picking things up a lot easier and as a bonus lets you discover things hidden in the geometry.
THis is what they look like in my shortcutcommands.xml:

Code: [Select]

    <shortcut6 name="next item">/target next item</shortcut6>
    <shortcut7 name="pickup"><![CDATA[/pickup
]]></shortcut7> although they don't look quite like that in the shortcut interface.

[Idoru]

meaning someone else picked it up in the crowd of miners.

You should just check your system window in the chat box and it would say who picked the item up (I think) Then you can just ask for it back

[Odilatinam]

I didn't see anything in the main window nor the system window.  It was strange, because I usually see people picking ores up in the main window.  In my disappointment, I first did an OOC [] in main, then tried to RP it, but finally said to myself it's just a few minutes loss.

The reason I decided to bump this thread was because something is needed for item dropping.  I don't necessarily agree with the OP about ownership.  The easiest suggestions would be:

1.  Dropping an item into a window is invalid and hence goes back to your inventory (and not to the floor like right now).  Make it so dropping onto the floor is how it drops onto the floor.
2.  A warning box to say that you are going to drop the item, that you can have the option never to see again.

[Nyramael]

As a side note why not alloy people to be able to hold anything in their hand/s. I mean if it can fit in your inventory (in bag on your back) you should be strong enough to hold it in your arms. I know this can already by done with ores and stock. Then instead of dropping things on the ground where you can noobs and jerks run off with it, allow players to see what other people are holding i.e. right click on the item in their hands. Alternatively work that into the description window. This would also mean you can check out peoples weapons which you would be able to in real-life - differentiate between iron short sword (dangerous) and maybe a fire short sword (not so dangerous). Also means people can intimidate others without actually fighting for some fun RP.

As a side note this would also fix the un-able to equip armor to repair it like the repair weapon method

This would also solve the problem of things being littered and players loosing stuff on a crash.

[LARAGORN]

As a side note why not alloy people to be able to hold anything in their hand/s. I mean if it can fit in your inventory (in bag on your back) you should be strong enough to hold it in your arms. I know this can already by done with ores and stock. Then instead of dropping things on the ground where you can noobs and jerks run off with it, allow players to see what other people are holding i.e. right click on the item in their hands. Alternatively work that into the description window. This would also mean you can check out peoples weapons which you would be able to in real-life - differentiate between iron short sword (dangerous) and maybe a fire short sword (not so dangerous). Also means people can intimidate others without actually fighting for some fun RP.

As a side note this would also fix the un-able to equip armor to repair it like the repair weapon method

This would also solve the problem of things being littered and players loosing stuff on a crash.

I think this is a very good idea, anything in inventory should be able to be held in your hand.

[Under the moon]

A bump on this thread, asking for any fresh ideas. The problem is still that too many people have no respect for things other people drop for the purpose of roleplaying aids. Some just grab all they can out of greed and a poor understanding of RP, such as the one dwarf who took -all- the food at a large party without saying a word. Or, they take things because they are evUl, and evUl people steal...right in front of many other people who can do nothing about it.

So, give us some more suggestions.

[Nikodemus]

It was proposed already some time ago that we could have a /watch function, so that if you drop an item, you are near and somebody want to pick it up, a popup will appear that if he do so, a duel will start and he may be killed.
- If he yeld, he looses the item.
- guards may be called for help (when they will be capable)
- an item may be watched by multiple people, so the duel word doesnt sound proper anymore for a fight beatwen many people.
Yeah, i gues thats all i can remember from the previous thread.

[Zan]

I think that a good idea in this area would be that all items get a mark of ownership as soon as they are bought, traded or looted. So when you buy, trade with another player or loot a piece of equipment it is marked as your property by the game. Now if you drop it it remains your property but anyone can pick it up. When someone else picks your property up it becomes a stolen/illegal item. It remains marked as yours but is in the hands of another.

These illegal items can be found by NPC guards. The guards at the gates of cities should be able to perform routine searches on people in the future. Those searches are to find stolen items and when found the thief will recieve a penalty and lose their stolen gear. Of course there can be skills allowing thieves to avoid searches or mask/forge marks of ownership but there still should be a relatively high chance of being caught.

Marks of ownership should only appear on equipment items, not on raw resources, looted animal parts or consumable items. Only weapons, armor, tools and glyphs contain a mark of ownership. The rest is simply too abundant and temporary to be traced.

This idea will not only give players who have items stolen a chance of retrieving them with a little help of NPC guards but it will also add to the thrill of being a thief. Now a thief just picks something up and walks away, not very hard but when they have to stay out of the way of guards and cities with their stolen goods it's a whole different thing.

[Under the moon]

Hmmm. Good points there, Zan and Niko. I would also add onto that that stolen items could not be sold through... official channels, and therefor be worth less. Shady folks never pay full price.

But, still, it would be nice to have certain occations that the items/objects simply could not be taken.