You know what we could do via code?

Make it so people's gear doesn't rot to pits, but back to their inventory. Make it so you can't loot after PK. Make it so you can't loot out of range. Make it so the entire game is just you logging on and typing 'EQ' repeatedly to look at your sexy set of armor that you never risk.

You know what we haven't done to this game? Any of that.


I'm so disheartened to see this bizarre 'nobody loots anything, and if you do, the CF player mafia will come get you in your sleep' barely-worded-to-not-quite-be-OOC-but-still-####ty-RP #### every time someone takes a piece of gear in some form. I'm especially sick of seeing it from entire cabal hero groups. Kill mages? Destroy evil? Whatever...we gotta all coordinate a way to get Jimbo's boots back from a rank 15 warrior instead!

What kind of wussified game do you people seriously want to play?

</end rant>

The thing about all the problems of looting stems from a small player base whom players do not login often or play more than one character...which make limited gears even more limited than it was designed for... if there's a way for the loot to better circulate, things might be more tolerable...

It's a great way to make someone log off, maybe take a break for a while. Maybe a long while. This feeds into the power swing game: who would want to fight the 6 active and well-geared Fortress every night as the lone evil if they got to look forward to getting ganked and fulled at every encounter?

Yay, PvE.

This game, as much as I enjoy it, benefits the sort that types co "word of recall" when they hit small wounds because gear does matter unless you are playing a class that has innate overwhelming offense (shapeshifter, invoker, assassinate come to mind) and you can catch someone with their pants down.

Being a gracious winner is as important as being a graceful loser, and both contribute to making this an enjoyable game, but moderation in word and deed is an essential component.

Like that time you offered me any 3 pieces in the entire game in character, but I said no.

WHAT WAS I THINKING.

Same thing I think now. Never disagree with Cyradia if you want to live!

It was significantly better than the plate of cookies the darkside usually offers to switch teams.

This post, however, has nothing to do with my public service announcement that looting is not against the rules and therefore doesn't need you to break character and bitch about it, in game. Of course, if your posts ever made sense or were on topic I'd probably have a heart attack. :P




>Like that time you offered me any 3 pieces in the entire game
>in character, but I said no.
>
>WHAT WAS I THINKING.
>
>Same thing I think now. Never disagree with Cyradia if you
>want to live!

I feel like my reading comprehension has taken a major drop lately.. If anything reading it again, I think I was making a bad segue to that last sentence

>Same thing I think now. Never disagree with Cyradia if you
>want to live!

but I chose a wierd way to get there.. :/

The WORST thing about this community is the bitching and whining about gangs, looting, and unbalanced/overpowered this or that.

nt

But when someone who can't even harm my character and did nothing other than follow others around loots me, that sucks. I think its bad for the game. I also think its pathetic to full someone down to the pies when you 4 on 1 them. I also hate people looting an item they can't use just to keep it from someone else.

Everything else I am pretty much ok with.

When people take things they don't need or things they can't use.

Warning: Following rant is only vaguely, peripherally related to Cyradia's soapbox

I can see why an imm might disagree on a macro level, but the feeling of having to rearm from scratch or near scratch is one of the worst in the game and has facilitated many, many deletions. It's a #### reward for being willing to take risks and give someone a decent fight.

I also believe the people who really benefit the most out of a super lame take everything looting culture are the generally the ones who need it the least. A free-looting culture also encourages powergaming, level-sitting, griefing, perma-ing, gear transfer, and a whole bunch of other undesirable behaviors, because people who don't engage in these behaviors can and probably will get screwed over by people who do.

I've had a couple of comments in PBFs about how well I have taken loots in the past.

That said, lowbie looting irks the crap out of me.

Lowbie looting where you never, ever see the lowbie again and have to wait for anti-hoarding code to strip them really gets my goat.

All in all, if you're going to loot or hold nice gear, can you at least play, please?

nt

I have a bad temper when it comes to looting. I just can't stand being looted unless I'm playing a super heavy RPing char. (My current char totally failed RP-wise.)

Anyways, there is this tendancy among many players. I'm prolly just the worst of them atm. At least I know about it and I am trying (Believe it or not) to get past this.

I don't know if one of the recent character observations I made was you or not. I make it a a point to never know anybody's IP address and I'm constantly on the IM channel going 'Who is this guy XYZ on the forums, anyway?' (often followed by...'and why does he hate me again?')



I had a char heavily involved with Ckath and have a lot of respect for what you're capable of. Hopefully you'll take this soapbox and not be the guy I'm rolling my eyes at in the future. :)

For whatever reason, I find the easiest way to avoid flipping out when I get looted to the pies is to *ALWAYS* have a basic regear list somewhere that I plan to run and get, and be back in the game.

A semi-corollary to this, is that I typically have no problem getting looted, but the nicer gear I happen to have finally attained (and hence further away from the set I'm about to replace it with), the more likely I'm about to throw my keyboard when I die.

In my case, I don't feel I ever have problems keeping in character when I get looted (I generally clamp down when I get angry, and am more likely NOT to interact with anyone than rant), but it does save me on new keyboard costs.

I usually come out of regears better geared than I was before, I seem to have a knack for hooking myself up with awesome gear. And I have no problem PKing with crappy gear either.

The thing is, if it's a good fight like 1vs1 or 5vs5 or whatever and the winner loots me, I don't get pissed of at all. Or if I screw up myself somehow or fall into some well planned trap.

It's when I get 5vs1 man ganged, killed when completly linkdead or when a lowbie loots me I tend to freak out totally. Or if someone loots stuff they have absolutely 0 use for.

Like an elf looting dark-elf only gear that ain't worth #### for bartering with either. heh

Sure, it happens that I discuss the circumstance of the loots a bit too much even in a 1vs1, but at least that's kept ICly and very calmly.

I agree with the letter of this.

That said, I think the game would be better served by folks not being as douchey as possible.

Basically follow the golden rule. Treat people the way you would ideally like to be treated. If someone kills me who has crappier gear than I do, I expect them to load up with whatever's in my corpse that's superior to what they're wearing.

I expect them to take all my gold. Possibly also return/teleport potions/talismans. I'd expect to lose a/b/s wands.

If I have any unique gear they can't use, but that is worth a buttload in trade, then I expect to lose that.

What I don't expect to lose is crap the guy can't use and that is unlikely to be worth much in trade. Am I entitled to that treatment? Certainly not. Should I bitch and whine if I'm not treated that way? Nope. But it's the way I want to be treated in defeat, so it's the way I treat other people until they give me a reason not to.

.

Your golden rule is lovely, and seems to be what most people are doing. I'm not suggesting people loot more. I'm suggesting they not flip-out when looting happens.

My observations and inspiration for this soapbox are specifically related to people that break character and throw a temper tantrum when this exact logic IS applied to looting their stuff. The most important thing you said is "Should I bitch and whine if I'm not treated that way? Nope."

And, as Nreykre succinctly said it....Just remember folks: It's not against the rules to loot. It is, however, against the rules to lose your #### as a player when it happens to you.

The melt-downs I've seen imply to me that some players seem to think it is against some unwritten rule to loot...at all...and always if out of range. If it were against the rules, we'd have code to back that up.

>Your golden rule is lovely, and seems to be what most people
>are doing. I'm not suggesting people loot more. I'm suggesting
>they not flip-out when looting happens.

Sure. And I totally agree with that. It seemed like you might be taking it a step further and saying that not only should folks refrain from flipping out when they're looted to the pies, they shouldn't even consider themselves to have been mistreated unless a rule was broken. That's what I'm not entirely on board with. There are "the rules" and then there's the way people "should" play. Know what I mean?

There's a wide variety of behaviors that don't technically violate any rules but are nevertheless #### moves. When someone treats me that way I feel totally justified in being angry at them in a way that surpasses the normal irritation at having lost a PvP encounter. Feeling mistreated doesn't give me license to break role, but it's also not the total equanimity you seem to expect in situations where there's no obvious rule-breaking.

>It seemed like you
>might be taking it a step further and saying that not only
>should folks refrain from flipping out when they're looted to
>the pies, they shouldn't even consider themselves to have been
>mistreated unless a rule was broken.

You're incorrectly inferring this. I don't really care or not if the player cognitively processes "I've been mistreated" or not. I do care if it comes out in game and I am going to start punishing for meltdowns and bad roleplay around legal looting.

Add to that, there are ways to rage about lost gear that are clearly IC but mostly what I see is commentary that could maybe be considered IC if I'm feeling generous.

Edit: And I'm saying I think the second might be worthy of a smack even if the first isn't.

Though, I must say, me saying that also makes me laugh at the irony of this post.

To the pies!!

To me the RP rule should be to loot what your character wants to keep, destroy or give away. Anything and everything is fair game. Looting beyond that is griefing.

Right or wrong the popular opinion of looting in CF has shifted. I believe a player that shows respect to other players will be given the same courtesy. Players that grief end up hurting themselves in the long run. No rules needed. It's a self-policing system.

But, there is still some bad behavior that should not be encouraged. Things like get 1. corpse;drop 1.;sac 1. There is the level 15 loitering around cabals to scrounge hero corpses.

I wouldn't mind seeing two changes...

- Lag on the sacrifice command.

- Lag on each item taken from a corpse you did not make.

The idea is to make sure there is some miniscule cost to doing these things.

I'm with you on most of what you said, except for this:

"No rules needed. It's a self-policing system."

Years ago I would been like "exactly, preach on!"...and I would have assumed this meant that people would gang the excessive looter and take their pies back. I would have also assumed that other people in his PK range (not related to the looted guy) would have naturally been attracted to his new shinies and killed him for them.

I'm afraid that now we're in a new culture where "self-policing system" means the looted throws a 20 minute temper tantrum to the looter via tells...that's an uncomfortable and OOC event that is dragging the game down.

Could you have a character that's RP is to obsess about gear more than anything else going on in the world and throw a temper tantrum when a piece is stolen? Yes, absolutely...but I'm pretty sure that's not the case 99% of the time given the race/class/sphere/cabal/religions of these characters. Unless I'm missing a key Lyceum story about svirf battleragers.

I'm also observing very, very little 'get all; drop 1.;sac 1.' behavior. I'm observing a lot more...'Hey, this guy has better neckgear than me, I'm taking it! or 'Hey, I'm a rank 20 evil/chaotic guy that just walked by a corpse or a full pit of hero gear...I'm taking these 6 pieces that aren't alignment or race restricted that I could use!' I *absolutely* do that as a mortal and I'm pretty confused as to what game you're playing if you're not.



In theory, I have no problem adding lag to looting corpses you didn't create. However, I also co-inspired corpseguard with Valg, and I think that might have unintentionally created part of the anti-looting culture. The primary motivation was there were so many rank 11 characters hiding in cabals and full looting kills that a winner couldn't even type 'examine corpse' to see if he wanted a piece of gear before someone had grabbed all of it. Ironically we mostly made it for the winner to get first dibs as the spoils...not to create some weird OOC honor system. The idea was to...

1) Make 'get all corpse' not an option for low ranked chars on hero kills.

2) Make it risky to loot...you stepped out of the shadows and got lagged on a failed corpse guard so YOUR pk range could jump you.

3) Make it so, even a guarded corpse, you could probably get 1-3 choice items if you were willing to risk the lag from the spam of trying, but you weren't going to cause the hero to spend the next 20 minutes regearing from scratch. (Note, I'm pretty sure someone came behind us and severely tightened down the screws on this...I think I've taken something off a guarded corpse exactly once in years and years of play.)


So, while I'd love to think that game changes to the mechanics correct things and make people assume looting within those bounds is still kosher, I'm afraid that the lag addition might further support the 'this is my gear!' mentality.

Unfortunately, I think things are actually a little TOO good. It seems as though the player base has become so sportsmanlike as a whole that more and more players are developing unrealistic expectations of what to expect regarding looting.

Just remember folks: It's not against the rules to loot. It is, however, against the rules to lose your #### as a player when it happens to you. Stay in-character.

PS: It's a lot easier for Immortals to tell that you're "in character, but a very mad character nonetheless" if you maintain your accent, mannerisms, punctuation, proper spelling, etc. If you go from normal to an incoherent streams of lowercase cussing with no punctuation whatsoever, it's easy to tell that it's an angry player NOT role-playing and not an angry player role-playing an angry character.

In general Villagers, people who die far more than anyone else, are the ones who tend to have the hardest time accepting looting when they die. One of the tablet's rules should say you're going to lose gear, but when it happens you either man the F*** up and go kick some ass and get it back or you go join a different cabal.

Given that a berserker and even a smart scout can in fact PK lots of people easily with pretty much nothing more than gear I could gather in 30 minutes, they are really the ones that should bitch the least because everyone in PK range is a potential regear source for the most part. I can see a defender having a little tougher go. I also see them dying far less often than berserkers though.

I'll say this, most characters who takes the Gates legacy should be stripped of all their gates pieces that are not easily replaced. Why should I let you have armor that enhances that legacy. If anything, you're giving me a reason to loot you. Your own damn fault for choosing a legacy that is 100% gear dependant, accept the damn trade off of it instead of whining. Really, certain people are extremely prone to just going off when they die, no matter what.

However, I really think it's actually a small group of players that just go off every single time they die and lose anything that make it seem more prevalent than it actually is. I can name quite a few characters that went off everytime they died and lost gear. But, I can also name a lot that never said a damn thing no matter what happened, even if they lost half their stuff or all of it.

I always found the unspoken looting rule was just this. You are supposed to shut up and take it when you die, it's a consequence, and I, as the killer, should not really care at all about anything the deceased has to say on it.

Especially if I know what someone has, I'll make sure I get it off the corpse. I was part of a group that killed Dupmasione for example. Soon as he died I took the troll amulet from his corpse because that was my job- everyone know what gear he had- everyone knew what they were to take from it and why, if we killed him. I had to make sure I got it, just so I could give it to Frismund. Course, I probably should have been doing get Defiance corpse- but mistakes were made and I was still pretty new at that time. Plus it would have killed me since he did whip my ass up to the part he died :)

I'm all for sportsmanship, but sportsmanship is a two way street. Gracious in victory, but damn, I much more prefer people who are gracious in defeat. You don't need to tell me great job whipping my ass, but you shouldn't sit there ranting about anything either.

Fact is, I lived, you died. Might not be that way next fight, but this fight it was. You have to just deal with the consequences and move along.

>In general Villagers, people who die far more than anyone
>else, are the ones who tend to have the hardest time accepting
>looting when they die. One of the tablet's rules should say
>you're going to lose gear, but when it happens you either man
>the F*** up and go kick some ass and get it back or you go
>join a different cabal.

That's a really useful point/reminder.



>However, I really think it's actually a small group of players
>that just go off every single time they die and lose anything
>that make it seem more prevalent than it actually is. I can
>name quite a few characters that went off everytime they died
>and lost gear. But, I can also name a lot that never said a
>damn thing no matter what happened, even if they lost half
>their stuff or all of it.


I think (and hope) that you're right. I haven't attempted to trace IP addresses between the cases I've seen, on purpose. I figured it was worth a community reminder.

Hear hear!

And to who??

I checked with someone to make sure that was one of your handles (I'm horrible to know who ANYBODY is)...and then cursed my fate at having to agree with Graatch. :P

So did somebody on the recent battlefield thread of nonsensical doom.

I just observed another amazingly bad case of it over 4 pieces of (not especially great) gear and wanted to say it somewhere more prominent and with my imm flag*.





*My views don't necessarily represent the entire staff's views.

i have lost it after losing gear due to RL or something happening before hand. I just cant see these things as black and white there is massive shades of gray.

.

GRREAAAT POSTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back in 2005, everyone got fulled in Fort vs Empire fight and people didn't complain. There was always someone wearing rags from previous full loot on both sides. One such incident was kind of funny. My invoker died and returned to the cabal, just to see his efficiently emptied corpse. However, one of the Imperial warriors happened to die there. I took my new set from the Imperial's corpse and went looking for gear more suitable for an invoker.

I learned not to complain about looting was something I learned while playing my first orc. My take was that he was an evil bastard, so logically he didn't deserve to have any gear when he died. It would only made sense that the opponent would choose to full loot/sac someone who clearly was his enemy.

The gear ceases to be yours after you die. CF even has limited gear so that people would compete over gear and pry it from the enemy's cold dead hands. Incentive to loot has been the whole selling point limited gear, so I don't really understand this pussification of CF that's been going on in recent times. People who go 'well done' after dying in PK just seem OOC to me. Dying should matter more than gear.