So,

I spent some time reading the battlefield posts, and the like. And, I find that a lot of strife/complaining tends to revolve around looting. Who full loots/who doesn't seems to mirror who is a douchebag and who isn't.

I'll be the first to admit, I have full looted. However, for every time I've actually full looted, there are at least 10 times that I have been blamed for it when I actually haven't.

There are primarily two schools of thought regarding the good ol' full loot/sac.

"Don't do it, its evil"

and, "suck it up and deal"

I am curious, since the mud has evolved to the point where a lot of people hold the idea that combat should be "honorable" less ganging etc, which hasn't been my observation at all, I'd say the mud tends to lean towards ganging in its current implementation. Regardless, how do people feel about looting?

Should anyone above lvl 11 be able to loot a corpse?

Should only the person landing the KB be able to loot the corpse?

Should corpseguard exist at all?

Should people only be able to loot limited items?

I mean, the staff has repeatedly taken the stance that they want to allow looting, however they have implemented tools to impede lower lvl looters etc. I've also seen several nasty titles (sisawat for example).

I am just curious as to how everyone feels about this topic. I myself don't mind looting, however I will admit that if I repeatedly make it a point not to loot someone, and then they land a kill on me and I get hit with the full loot, I do get my panties in a twist.

Thoughts/comments/suggestions?

-S

... I approve to 100% of full looting. It should defenatly be possible and low lvls SHOULD be able to loot (At least a little.)

BUT, when it happens to me, I get aggrevated, pissed of, and ussually say a few pretty less well thought out comments with lacking RP before I calm down.

The reason to me acting like that is usually that I RARELY loot ANY corpses. (Hell, I even played a char had that flaw so that she couldn't loot any corpses.)
So, I rarely loot, and for some reason I expect people to remember that and not loot the #### out of me. ^^

Today, I got killed for the first time in a while, and got 2 pieces looted from me... Hell, that's NOTHING, since 1 of the pieces is SO easily obtained again, the other though is REALLY hard to obtain. But still, nothing to complain about at all. What did I do? I ####ing WHINED like a little girl about it. Still within my RP boundries, but man, was I close to those boundries...

Now, to skip the ranting... The reason to why I think there should be LESS looting (As I said before, I approve of looting and full looting) is that we need MORE players in the game. And frankly, it is NEVER fun to be full looted. And I can't think of a better way to disencourage new players than to full loot them.

But as things are right now, it's quite alright. Lowbies have a harder time looting hero corpses. Heroes rarely full loot etc...

Not long ago I fell to 4 heroes, all whom could make use of my gear. (I was decked out real bad) and yet I found myself still wearing half of my gear! Now THAT is classy, I even got 2 things returned to me 5 mins later. (For once I didn't whine though, as all 4 coulse make use of my ####.)

'I am curious, since the mud has evolved to the point where a lot of people hold the idea that combat should be "honorable" less ganging etc, which hasn't been my observation at all, I'd say the mud tends to lean towards ganging in its current implementation.'

I'm all for challenging yourself. I'm all for not being a douchebag. However, I'm also all for actually RP'ing instead of playing yourself in a fire giant suit and tossing in a few emotes for ambiance.

With my most recent Maran, you could not believe the amount of trash talk I would hear from Elite members of EVIL cabals that would just fly off the handle if I brought someone else to kill them and looted two (FAMOUS) items from their corpse. WTF people?!?!? We are mortal enemies. Why wouldn't I do nearly everything in my right mind to try and take you out? And if that means looting your broadsword of infinite might or your staff of super assbeastery, then sac up, get some ####, and do the same to me.

I blame people getting older and thinking that looting took away from their enjoyment. So the thought continued to prevail until ANYTHING that took away from enjoyment meant '#### THIS #### THIS IS #### YOUR A TWAT'. You know what? CF sucks some times. But that's what makes the highs so HIGH. If the lows didn't blow chunks, then killing that badass mofo and looting his set of crazy badass gear and getting titled and IMM interaction wouldn't make you feel like you just banged a group of vegas showgirls.

A couple years ago we seemed to take a hit in the playerbase with some of the senior players. I'm talking folks who'd joined up and been around since the jump until around 2000ish. I myself started in I think '97. For a while, when I was REALLY learning the ropes myself (2002-2005) we consistently had around 100 players or so online. At least that's what it felt like to me, someone could check stats on that. Then, around the time Cyradia and a bunch of other imms left, including quite a few morts, we had a big hit in the playerbase. Also, life happens, people have kids, get real jobs, etc. etc. Again, this is my perception, I could be off. It was then that CF went pussified on us. As a result of that, we've gotten a TON of great things, way friendlier to newbies, a lot of player feedback to the imms has been implemented, balance, all sorts of things, have become better. Part of that is of course, due to longevity and us being a bunch of smart folks who can generally see when something is broke and fix it. But we also became a bunch of pussies who want to have nice and meaningful conversations with our enemies and generally be cordial about murdering eachother in some thousand odd different ways. Side note: How many ways is it possible to be murdered in CF? And I would say the major factor is the shift in player base. I also think it's a reflection of our culture in general, everyone expects things to be fair all the time and feel they are entitled to all the little goodies they get in their life, as opposed to actually being grateful for the breaks they get, or recognizing the hard work that went in to getting what they have now. PSA: Life is not fair, neither is CF, ####ing deal with it.

I think that is the reason behind the change. As for the change itself, meh. Things don't generally get to me, so I just play the game my way and have fun. I do get a little pissed sometimes when I lose a badass sword, or some leet newbie breadz, but whatever. If you really let this game, as badass and addictive and enjoyable as it is, get to you, then maybe you need to do some soul searching. Maybe go take a walk, drink a beer, holler at some shorties, jerk off, just go do something else for a while. I'd say I'm in the suck it up and deal camp for the most part. I will say that I get way more pissed and am less likely to interact with folks who let their OOC persona bleed through when they feel they've been wronged than I do when someone full loots me clean. I will say that I always feel a small victory when someone tries to get me back with the snide "How does it feel when you lose?" and I can just say, "Whatever" right back and walk off, totally happy with my experience. Anyway, I know it's rambly but that's my style, thanks for reading. Now go loot someone's newbie breadz.

I think looting is a KEY element to the game. And I don't mean a minor part, I mean one of the single largest most important things CF has going for it.

Why? Because of the element of risk. I hate games with no risk, which is why I never got in to WoW. You can't loose your equipment, so what's the risk in fighting? Loosing 1/3rd of a con isn't enough to count. I used to (don't really have time to play it anymore) love playing Eve Online for the same reason - you loose a battle, you not only loose your expensive ship, your enemy gets to loot whatever survived from the wreck. Likewise, when you win a fight, you actually win something tangible, in the form of getting to loot your enemy. Both in Eve and in CF, there are few things more satisfying than taking down an enemy, and finding uber loot in the wreck/corpse.

Without looting, CF would be hugely changed, with a completely different player base.

Things like corpseguard don't harm this, because they don't prevent looting. Quite the opposite, corpseguard just make it so the victor gets first dibs on the spoils, which actually reinforces looting (and my preceding point).

If almost nothing bad happened to you from loosing a battle, where's the excitement in getting in to a battle in the first place? It doesn't mean that you have to get full-looted every time you die, or that you should make it your duty to go around looting all your kills. Simply the fact that the POSSIBILITY exists creates the excitement.

Anyway, this is why I feel so strongly that the current attitude of whining the playerbase has adopted toward looting is bad. No one LIKES being looted, but you should recognize what its presence does for the game.

Aarn

The simplest way to fix an all loot situation is this. If the immortals were willing to implement it, it would eliminate the option to "get all corpse", and it would make it that you have to be specific.

for example it would be possible to do get all.midnight corpse
etc, but specific towards the items would allow only a few things in the span of the time of returning to the corpse.