"Legal" Unauthorized Lot Access

Only thing I see is the problem is the fact they can prey on afk pvp flags. This isn't UO where before the lockdown feature I can just steal your key, and that weird rune you have marked "home" and loot you dry..

 

I can't tell you why you might care or not care. If you don't care, that's fine.

I can tell you why I care. I have a desire to be alone. I don't want uninvited guests showing up periodically to annoy, steal from me, or kill me. I'm silly that way.

Now I happen to live in an open PVP town. So it may work slightly different for me than it does for you. I don't know. But there are often times when I would just like to rest while doing other stuff. For example, I like to write in-game books and one of the ways that I like to do that is to actually have my character sit at a writing desk while I alt-tab to another screen to write on a word processor. Sometimes I move around my town or elsewhere in the game to seek inspiration. If I'm in a Shardfall, my expectation is never that I will be "safe" not even "relatively safe" because I know this is a pvp zone where there are no walls and no locked doors. Where as when I'm actually in my house I feel like I deserve some level of comfort beyond what I might find in a Shardfall. Again, I'm silly that way.

Otherwise, why have walls or a home at all when you live in a pvp area? If the walls and the locks don't work, well then it's just a big arena and your home is not really yours is it? That's how I feel, that just because I live in a pvp area it doesn't mean that the only thing I want to do there is kill whatever moves, and because I can't count on my fellow players to control their actions, my expectation is that we have mechanics in place that make them control their actions. I'm really looking forward to when we have NPC guards for this same reason because it means we'll have less areas where people can spawn camp (like the entrance to owl's head) and we'll have more areas that are dangerous and support meaningful pvp (like Rats Nest) but make it difficult (not impossible) to just blindly gank everyone that isn't you.

 

I am firmly in the camp, that if the game implementation allows it and there is reasonable doubt of it being an exploit, it is by definition "legal".

It is simply not possible to argue the ethics of using mechanics that allow undesirable behavior. Sad but true.

 

Sure, reasonable doubt. That's reasonable.

Do you think for example, if someone were to use Chaotic Step to break into a bank and steal everything out of your bank inventory it would be reasonable?

Before you answer, please consider that the spell definition of Chaotic Step doesn't say anything about "you shouldn't steal the inventory of other players from a bank". It just says that its use will "Quickly teleport the user somewhere else." So clearly you can see where a player using Chaotic Step should be allowed to steal all the money from a bank because that's how we would define reasonable. The game in this scenario allowed the player to do that and since it was not otherwise stated anywhere that they should not do that, then they're now in possession of all your stuff. Do I understand your position clearly?

 

So this is how a-lot of situations work.

You guys have all your doors locked, but then you are on top of your house which is OUTSIDE, DESIGNATED by the game. Outside of your house, whether it be on your property or not is Outside of your house. That means you have outside decorations and all that jazz. That is how the system works.

Now lets say us thief's see you outside of your house on top or any level of the house. They can night-step to that location of the property. That is Game design. Your house has locked doors for a reason, so if you feel threatened then stay in them. This is just as lazy game play as people who go AFK and then blame a thief.

 

That's a very interesting point. However I've heard from people where this wasn't at all how it worked for them.

I think if I had the choice of making a home 100% break in proof vs. having a less than 100% chance of someone breaking in, I would pick the former.

 

I'm not sure of other instances. This is just the one i can think of. There are so many skills that i need to just learn them and test test test and test some more

 

Were you aware that if you type /bug it helps you file a bug report? Testing really doesn't help anyone unless a bug report gets filed. The more you know!

 

Yah but I search everything in the forums and this has been pointed out already. No need to spam bug reports, that just creates more time for the team when its already known.

Thanks for singling me out Again Baron like i dont do what i should.

 

Oh, I was asking you a question. I'm glad you corrected me and told me you already knew about the /bug command. I'll go look up some of your bug reports now so I can educate myself on areas of the game that need improvement.

 

do people no see why there is a group of players that are getting banned from each and every place the show up? And then they come back here and whine about how unfair life is to them.

There are players that are willing to circumvent and abuse any and all loophole to the detriment of the normal players. They also ask for clarification as to if their actions (even though clearly wrong) are fair and allowed because of ambiguous wording.

And they are left to fester in the game and on the forums?

Really a sad state when things like this are not only allowed but left to continue.

 

I'm not sure that will be allowed to continue Weins. I think that Portalarium is well aware of the problems our community faces and I believe they will take action at a time of their choosing.

We can only report and provide feedback, and the good thing is that players are doing that. Even if it's not always public it's still happening.

I know I for one will be recording all of my flagged pvp activity and if something is not right I will be reporting it appropriately. There are two things that I can promise anyone in multiplayer that see's my name. 1. You will always get a straight fight from me. 2. I will expect the same from you.

 

Seeming you have replied to dozens of my posts in the past and I have talked about bugs and reports, then lets just evaluate this situation.

 

My opinion is that it is legal, even though probably not intended. The victim does not have a defendable case against the perpetrator, but has a justifiable grievance with the developer. If I was the victim, I would be sending a support request and based on the response might chose another game.

 

Really? Wait, so are you trying to use actual "legal" logic here, like in the court of law? Because I don't see where that has any relevance to what we're talking about.

We're not trying to punish someone under the legal system for how they use the gaming mechanics, we're trying to moderate our gaming community for the good of the game. That's a completely different goal than what you appear to be using as a threshold.

But back to the scenario I just laid out, you would really show up at the bank, find it completely empty and your only beef would be with the developers? You think the player that took all your stuff should just walk around with it? Are you kidding me?

I suppose you also believe that if someone hacks into the customer database and removes all the names and addresses of Portalarium customers that they're fine to do that because they were able to? Or is that where the law comes back into play and if there's a specific law that says don't do that then ok they need to be punished? These are rhetorical questions, I just can't figure out how you might justify what it appears you're saying. That people can do bad things but if they claim they didn't know they were bad, then just ignore it and let them be in a perfect position to do it over again. I'm sorry, I don't think that's a reasonable way to approach this at all.

 

Thank you for reporting these occurrences to us (privately). We are well aware of what is going on, who is participating, and are taking appropriate actions to stop them now, and prevent future occurrences. It's not quite as easy as a quick day-patch, but it will be corrected.

 

Man you look at things completly different then I do.

Guy basically says * I dont think this really counts as exploiting or abuse* and you really.. really went out there focusing on the legal system lol.

I also don't think its a ban able offense. I wouldnt call it exploiting or abuse.
And im still not really seeing the fuss. Way i see it you setup in a PVP town, knowing full well any and all rules of the current pvp are going to effect you. If someone finds a bypass to get into a house and kill you when your.. AFK? That seems like something that being part of a PVP town you should have expected.
I wouldnt call it ilegal, although i would be asking for them to come up with a solution to prevent it.
If anything .. yea i would blame the dev. Its one of those * someone found a loop around that shouldnt be there. They arnt breaking any rules.. buuuut..
Same reason they couldnt ban for people using skills for getting more then the intended amount of EXP, its their responsibility to fix the skill itself.

*shrug*
This doesnt seem like it could possibly be that big of an issue though. Or was this one of those 1 time situations, and someone was REAAallly unhappy about it?

(Dont like yet, i was elaborating at just how i see it so differently lol )

 

That's what a lot of people say when they read this story by Richard Garriott.

I'm reposting it here in full because it's relatively short and I've linked to the original above.

So this is a classic tale from the past being relived right here, right now in our game today. But what many people focus on is that the thief in the story did not get banned. That Richard says that he "began to think more carefully about the rules we ourselves put in the game, and the inevitable play styles that would come of it" and to some people this suggests that the thief was right and therefore his actions were correct and most importantly they were not bannable. He's just roleplaying a thief!

Well I suggest to you that the moral of the story is not that whatever the developer puts into the game is the developers fault and players are free to do whatever they want. I suggest to you that the moral of the story is that developers should be thinking about the consequences of their design choices and build better games that will have better outcomes. Because that thief surely did "drive away potential new players", and UO was famous for that. So as we move into a new chapter of development many years later, it's not that we should be allowing bad behavior, it's that we should be developing to prevent it. That's consistent with what Berek wrote above, and it's also consistent with banning players that consistently don't understand that's the goal.

 

I think the thief skills should first be balanced on the classic lockpicking, hide , sneak and pickpocket moves. If the mechanics of how these work in PvE & PvP aren't balanced then adding magic to the mix won't help make the situation better.

Magic shouldn't be a crutch to be used in place of good thief mechanics. A really good thief should be able to accomplish his mission without it.

 

No magic helps us except mesmerize, but we dont use that because devs say so. Fact is No magic helps us except for Subterfuge.

take it from the top "thiefs" - more than 1 - who promote truth