[CF-Devel] Stealing Idea + simple patch

[crossfire-devel-admin at archives.real-time.com]

>
     
      > If your a thief, do you care about reputation?  I'm thinking if you are
     
     a
>
     
      > thief character you are stealing from the store to gain experience for
     
     your
>
     
      > stealing skill.  Plus make some cash.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
        Thieves may not care about reputation.  But at the same time, if they
     
     have a
>
     
      poor reputation, costs would probably be higher.
     
     >
     
     
     
I would like to see some sort of store cost modifier for all players by way
of player forces to enable things like guild membership and citizenship,
this could also be used to produce a similar effect for thieves.  I see
making a field in the store arch (in object actually) for 'location' (a
string such as 'Scorn' or 'Mike's Shop' or 'WalMart') which can be checked
against entries in a player force (shopping force?) when calculating prices.
If there is no matching entry in the player force for that location field,
the cost is slightly higher (and selling price lower).  This would allow
stuff like stores which provide a discount for guild members or a home-town
discount if you are a citizen.  It could even allow for some sort of price
club type stores...  pay a fee (complete a quest)to get their discount
card...  Existing stores would be either upgraded with a location or
increase prices so it wouldn't hurt the economy much.  Newbies can be Scorn
citizens by default and the shops could be redone pretty quickly.
Getting back to the point here, there could be another player force
(shoplift force) which works the reverse for thief 'reputation' in that if
the location is matched (by previous theft attempts in that store) then the
prices are jacked up and selling price dropped.  This would also encourage
thiefs not to steal and sell in the same stores.

>
     
     
     >
     
        Really, players should be able to steal from anyone, just some monsters
     
     may be
>
     
      very difficult to steal against.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
        Likewise, if there are NPC's in towns that give items necessary to
     
     finish a
>
     
      quest, being able to steal those items also makes sense to me.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
      > Will this reset when the map resets?  I don't think stores should be
     
     cleaned
>
     
      > out by thiefs.  Maybe just a stealing limit instead of difficulty?
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
        Depends - it can reset/not reset, depends on how it is set up.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
        Arguably, a store getting cleared out by thieves is no different than a
     
     store
>
     
      getting cleared out by a player with lots of money.
     
     >
     
     
     >
     
        I'm not sure how to do it, but arguably, one shouldn't be able to sell
     
     stuff
>
     
      stolen back to the same shop.  OTOH, if stealing is balanced right, it
     
     seems
>
     
      unlikely a store would be cleared out.
     
     >
     
     
      stealing for resale would be fine since there is a risk involved in getting
caught and you would
be loosing a lot in the exchange.  I don't even think it would be much of a
problem selling it back to the same store as long as you had to leave the
store first.  I think that leaving the store should be conditional to
getting away with the theft.  Perhaps marking the item as 'lifted' (chance
of failure/detection here) and at the shop mat doing a final check based on
number of 'lifted' items and if it fails they loose the stuff, drop a random
item, insert an entry into the 'shoplifter force',  and send them to the
alley to get a beaten (a random map - shoplift style - with final exit equal
to the shop map exit).

>
     
     
     >
     
        If something like the jail is used, which locks away the players for X
     
     minutes
>
     
      of real time, this starts to be self limiting.  Shops reset after 2 hours,
     
     so if
>
     
      the characters are tossed in jail for several minutes for getting caught,
     
     this
>
     
      sort of limits how often the player could steal/how much stuff.
     
     
I don't think jail or time penalties are really a good penalty.  I would
just go get a sandwich or something if I ripped of something nice.  You
mentioned dropping your loot and random item(s) while fleeing - that sounds
better, plus maybe some xp loss or being teleported into an 'alley' full of
'guards' for a beating would be better.  Maybe you could multiply the
dificulty by number of items stolden at once (getting two items out of the
store would be twice as hard as one...)  xp or item loss is really the only
true 'penalty' that means anything to players, even death (non-permadeath)
is only bad cause you loose xp (and in some cases items).

That's what I think anyway.


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