Goblin Squad Member
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Now, something that appeals to some people is being able to go into other people's in-game structures and either take everything or cherry-pick what they need.
Obviously in NPC Controlled Lands, Thieves have the potential to end up being chased down by Warden NPCs if caught and forced to defend themselves from angry store-owners (who might just be able to take an Ogre down with their bare hands ...), and the PC who just had his stuff taken should be able to recover the items in X amount of time, after the Guards confiscate the loot, process it to make sure the Thief is correctly charged for the crime and then restored to the owner.
Now I'll leave the 'how to get the stuff back'/'how to make thieving fun' discussion to you guys, because right now I have a fever and am not thinking too clearly.
But what about defences? Barring the Windows and having multiple locks on the door will keep the Casual Thief out, but what about the Career Thief? Brute Thieves will just simply pry the bars off your windows or smash their way through the door, Magical Thieves will just turn into mist and seep down your chimney or just use Knock to get inside, Subtle Thieves might even pose as friends who have been mistakenly locked out to Guild-Members of the Owner to gain access.
Hopefully Players will be able to use Traps within their own homes, to a certain extent, but it is my hope that Players and 'Guests' will not be able to set off the traps without actually trying to. For example, the owner and another player he has listed as a 'Guest' can enter the building without a care in the world, but another player trying to sneak in before the door is shut would have no such protection, although I fear this becomes a little too cheesy.
I still put my hand up to be able to trap my own house if I so desire, but I also hope that we can pull off the 'Traps' in such a manner that they are more deterants to would-be thieves, and actual challenges for Career Thieves to overcome, than something cumbersome players end up having to spend more money than Solomon Mines can provide just to keep their stash of +1 Beer getting raided every time another Player gets thirsty.
Having a long list of traps to choose should help... maybe customizable.
like a minigame, or a oblivion-like block.
And a difference between a cheaper traps and a costly traps should be the time needed to disarm them...
some traps maybe are so simple to build that everyone could build one of them, like a pit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Damn, yet more things I had totally forgotten to consider, since other MMO's wouldn't touch this issue with a fifty-foot-pole.
As for how to allow thieves to be thieves while still allowing players to be able to secure their stuff...
I'm not even sure if most player's houses should be able to be burgled; at the very least, every player should be able to have some bank vault, or preferably house, that no thief can ever get into. Maybe personal homes can't be robbed, but storage warehouses/businesses can. Something like that.
Speaking as a wussy carebear again, I'm already nervous about nothing in my inventory being safe... if nothing I stored was safe either, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone went low-magic just to save on costs after they lost everything in their house for the fourth time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, I could fully see NPC Banks being all but inviolate .... but also expensive and highly regulated.
And taxes. Dear GODS the taxes ....
So players decide they're going to hold a little bit back, or invest it in material goods that can be traded back for the coin value to other players or traded for other goods down the track.
Maybe the players will have locked chests hidden under the floorboards or a secret room (alright, cubicle) in the house to hold their excess funds, magical items or reagents, which might be 'taxed' by the bank or held in lieu of a debt.
For example, a bank charges a flat fee of 5 gold per strongbox, which can hold up to 30 lbs of item (hand-waving due to online here) for as many strongboxes as the player wants (Think of it like the WoW Banking system). These Strongboxes are held nearly involate, only accessible to the player who owns the Strongbox and only vulnerable to high-level NPCs or PCs, whom cannot target a specific person, and only recieve a random (but huge!) reward such as massive amounts of gold or a potent rare item. Players whose bank was robbed take a small % of wealth loss from those Strongboxes, but otherwise the 99% of the customers lose only a small amount.
And for the Thieves, let's just say this should be an EPIC (Mythic?) Undertaking in and of itself. Finding a time when other PCs aren't going to run around going "OI!" with the fireballs, pitch-forks and enraged gerbils projectiles. Yes they can take some of the loot, but it is going to be on par with raiding a Dragon or a hostile PC Village.
It's my hope that players can create one or two 'cubby holes' in their houses, or more in a structure larger than a three room building, in which they can leave a chest or a small hidden room in which to store their items.
Personally, my previously mentioned cannon on the other side of the door is now in second place, to an uncontrolled pack of Zombies on the other side of a blatant 'hidden' secret room, just to teach the Thieves a lesson in Light Fingered Karma.
Why not just allow thieves to break in and get 1 random item or 1 Item stack from your personal vault, then a X minutes cooldown timer kicks in, so no thief can get to your vault for the next 5 minutes while the last thief needs to wait 10 mins?
Of of course, how well you disarmed the traps etc. can play a role here, like say, you disarmed them all perfectly then you get 2 random items or more from his vault, and the cooldown timer is reduced. If you set of the traps you get nothing and the timer is increased ?
and make the thief a target in the minimap for one or two day
By what they said you won't be able to put bounties on thieves either.
ok, welcome vow of poverty.
Which is what a lot of GMs have done anyway. They ignore treasure text in Adventure Paths, say that specific magic items aren't "available" in major cities, and most captured treasure is either A.) cursed, or B.) hostile-aligned. WBL? What's that? GMs bemoaning their players getting a Ring of Protection +2 or Handy Haversack "breaking" their homebrew game. GMs forcing players to get the entire Crafting feat tree to make a single magic item (only using spells they can already cast, no scrolls or "recycling" old wands allowed).
So I would expect in this hypothetical instance that yes, players would become homeless people who wear their entire wealth in weapons, armor, and clothing, and treat "homes" like one-night hotels.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Either there is some storage that nobody can break into, or there is somebody who can break into each method of storage. I'd rather have a building that could be assaulted and taken over, with the inventory (or a percentage of the inventory) intact, than one that allowed no defense against theft.
What about Making secure storage expensive, but allowing for cheaper chests and/or doors which might be pickable? My remote camp is going to hold only a day's worth of stuff at a time, and anybody who can find it, pick the locks, and risk me coming back while they're messing with my stuff has earned it. Once I've brought it back to my stronghold, however, you need to take over the stronghold to get to the goods. There's no fun in losing stuff without any recourse, or with needing somebody online 24/7 to stop thefts.
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I say the npc banks are so difficult you need to be a high lvl thief to even glance in their direction but still allowed.
Build my home as a maze with traps and secret rooms not all in the walls but the floors and ceilings too. The difficulty of finding and bypassing these are skills opposed by the skill with which they are made meaning I could be a renowned trapsmith that all theives fear.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Keep in mind that anything a 'high-level thief' can do, about five thousand people will be able to do at roughly the same time that the first one can. Once they start learning how to break into the bank, there's going to be a lot of 'bank jobs' done at once. If the loot they get comes out of the stuff that other players have, that's a huge sudden effect on wealth balance, followed by a backlash effect where the ultra-secure bank vault stores mostly cabbage.
In City of Heroes/City of Villains, home bases have "destroyable" items and "non-destroyable" items. Personal safes to keep recipe items are "non-destroyable". Inventory racks to keep things to make stuff to improve the base, potions, one-time enhancements, etc are "destroyable". These also have "security levels" to prevent just-invited noobs from stealing all your high-level goodies and then logging off.
To keep the spirit of the game, I would say yes, your character when logged in can be robbed. Yes, a bank could be robbed. But personal home bases could not be robbed, and people could "pay" banks to be more secure. Like charging 5 gp a week to up the DC by 5 on the Disable Device check on robbing the bank.
Keep in mind that anything a 'high-level thief' can do, about five thousand people will be able to do at roughly the same time that the first one can. Once they start learning how to break into the bank, there's going to be a lot of 'bank jobs' done at once. If the loot they get comes out of the stuff that other players have, that's a huge sudden effect on wealth balance, followed by a backlash effect where the ultra-secure bank vault stores mostly cabbage.
True. If can be done, it will be done. If only the highest level rogues can do it, in 2.5 years the game will be full of them. So, only a 20° rogue WITH an artifact key +999? someone will have that.
so 2.5 years from the beginning of the beta, a rogue has waited for his moment. When his moment came, the game's economy will fail. After 2 hours, an admin will turn the banks unbreakables. after this,however, the 95% of the population has lost their goods.
the 4% is the percentage of unlucky thieves.
and the 1% is the percentage of swift thieves wich has looted everything.
after 2.5 years, 2 hours and one minute, the game is abandoned by the 99% of the players.
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the should be unbreakable but houses shouldnt, so players would build traps and mazes to keep their stuff safe or pay in game fees to keep a safety deposit box. probably both if each safety deposit box costs more gold. this means player keep safe the very precious but the less precious like mats are kept where daring thieves can try a caper.
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Goblin Squad Member
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so 2.5 years from the beginning of the beta, a rogue has waited for his moment. When his moment came, the game's economy will fail. After 2 hours, an admin will turn the banks unbreakables.
Agreed wholeheartedly. This is my major problem with bank robberies/house burglaries; it's not so much the impact on me as a single player, it's how quickly the whole economy could shift by the actions of a small group of thieves. (Mind you, PvP can make the economy shift quite a bit as well, but you'll notice that, so far, the dev team is planning several efforts to make PvP not nearly as profitable as what is being planned here.)
I like what jhpace1 mentioned:
In City of Heroes/City of Villains, home bases have "destroyable" items and "non-destroyable" items.
Now there's an idea! Maybe the larger chests/cupboards/closets could be lootable, but most smaller containers couldn't. And/or, include one PvP idea, which is that only a of loot is obtainable.
I understand that the risk of losing everything you own, not just what you're holding or wearing, would make the game much more exciting, but there needs to be some mechanics in place to not make burglary the most profitable activity in Golarion, and it has to be more than just "also make it the riskiest". That's one hell of a gamble; most will fail, but the one guy who succeeds is now set for life. Until someone else robs his house... but that's not the kind of economic cycle I'd want to have to keep tabs on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Keep in mind that anything a 'high-level thief' can do, about five thousand people will be able to do at roughly the same time that the first one can. Once they start learning how to break into the bank, there's going to be a lot of 'bank jobs' done at once. If the loot they get comes out of the stuff that other players have, that's a huge sudden effect on wealth balance, followed by a backlash effect where the ultra-secure bank vault stores mostly cabbage.True. If can be done, it will be done. If only the highest level rogues can do it, in 2.5 years the game will be full of them. So, only a 20° rogue WITH an artifact key +999? someone will have that.
so 2.5 years from the beginning of the beta, a rogue has waited for his moment. When his moment came, the game's economy will fail. After 2 hours, an admin will turn the banks unbreakables. after this,however, the 95% of the population has lost their goods.
the 4% is the percentage of unlucky thieves.
and the 1% is the percentage of swift thieves wich has looted everything.after 2.5 years, 2 hours and one minute, the game is abandoned by the 99% of the players.
Absolutely agreed, in player vs player, it's an arms race, as the thieves are scaling up, players defenses can also be scaling up, an arms race works, same rules for both defending from attacks as well as stealing.
Player vs NPC on the other hand is exactly the opposite. The bar is set and once someone or some group can surpass it, they can always surpass it. Just like in WoW with the raids. It may take your group 2 years to be able to beat boss X, after the second time you beat boss X, you are now doing it every time consistently as fast and frequently as the game mechanics will allow you to, it is no longer a rare thing for your group to do, it means the contents items boss X are all yours now and forever. In terms of a bank essentially it is now a paper bag left out in the open for your group.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sounds like your banks have some serious design flaws...just because you can pick a lock, does not mean you can fight your way past the guards to get to the locks...just because you can sneak past the guards does not mean you can sneak past the dogs that are also guarding...and just because you can sneak past both the guards and the dogs does not mean you can break the magical wards binding the vault...just because you can break the magical wards does not mean you can escape the towns militia on the way out...besides, I thought we were going to have encumbrance in this game...so you broke into the uber vaults of god-doom...and you can carry exactly 40 lbs of shinyness because your character is all DEX-INT based and because you needed to bring all your specialized theft gear to get in...and you are not going to leave the stuff behind, it is you money maker.
How is 40 lbs of gear/valuables going to smash the economy?
Just because you make something technically possible, does not mean every person is going to do it...if so, you have made your game to easy for those who are looking for a challenge by catering to the every-person. I am not saying there should not be stuff for the every-person too, but not everything needs to be for everyone, in a sandbox, not everyone needs to save the world, or be able to...besides, if this is also the case, you have made your skill trees way too narrow if every rogue is a highly specialized thief designed for breaking and entering...what happened to assassins and other types of rogues?
Maybe I have the wrong idea but I imagine the skill trees...tree-like, continually branching as it extends upward...as opposed to WoW trees, which offer less choices as you progress.
EDIT: Besides, that is the point of a sandbox, if thieves break into my towns bank...it is now our job to build a more secure bank (which they in turn will again try to get into)...all content should be player driven. This sounds like fun dynamic play to me...why do all contests have to warfare?
I can only imagine a power gamer who spend his time only doing it.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The most valuable 40 pounds of stuff will indeed break the economy.
Take the real-world example, and a person hostile to one of the permanent members of the UN security council steals the most valuable 40 pounds from one of those countries.
That would be a man-portable nuclear artillery system, with a black market value greater than the liquid assets available in the black market.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How is 40 lbs of gear/valuables going to smash the economy?
That's actually 80 pounds of gear you're talking about: The 40 pounds the thief now has, and the 40 pounds that the homeowner no longer has. And as for how damaging 40 pounds can be, look at real-life thieves. What do they mainly take? Electronics and jewellery, and maybe some secure documents. Replace "electronics" with "magic equipment and rare reagents", and I can imagine that 40 pounds coming out to quite a bit of cash. And once again, the cash would count double: Not only is our thief richer, but the robbed character is now poorer. I understand that PvP carries similar economic results, but at least you know when you're getting ganked, and you can only be ganked when you're online (I assume; the recent blog post suggested as much). Burglary? That could happen at any time, whether you're logged in or not. I understand you want to make robberies part of the game; I do too. I just can't see a reasonable way to implement it.
Most tellingly for me, I can just imagine some player logging back in after 2 years to find that some thieves over the years robbed most of his decent items and equipment. Not sure if he'd be so eager to try the game again after that.
EDIT: This is going a bit off-topic, but I have to say, the fact that this thread exists is heartening. I hate the idea of rogues just being this "Assassinate" video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JdK-TD7V-s
(Giving that the creator of this video posted it on Youtube, does that make it copyright infringement? I don't want to rub the SOPA delay in anyone's face. But that's getting REALLY off-topic.)
When it's possible to play a rogue more like Aladdin, or even Bilbo Baggins. (I still have Aladdin's "One Jump Ahead" running through my head while reading this thread. Hey, internal rhyming! Damnit, off-topic again.)
So, yes, glad to hear about rogues being discussed as rogues, rather than just The Guy Who Dishes Out Dps.
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It is a simple solution, npc banks cost in game currency for a limited amount of space that is untouchable by theives, next make trap and dungeoncrafters to craft places that a theif would find difficult to break into( this pits human on human, the crafter of the traps skill and creativity vs the thief's skill)
I think the whole thief v. security conflict has to be scaled. Obviously a highly skilled thief has to be given the opportunity to practice his skills, otherwise he wouldn't bother; at the same time, I believe players should be given a margin, however small, of absolute security for certain items. Making everything potentially thievable is the equivalent of having nowhere at all safe from player attacks: the result would be virtual anarchy, with life for most players becoming nasty, brutal and short.
Make settlements dungeon keeper style (with more complex traps/structures), and you can always store something unworthy of high level thief's time. Imagine the frustration from some master rogue spending hours disarming traps/hiding from enemies/finding the correct path and only got a slice of bread in the end.
Thieves should also lose items if they die during theft, otherwise they can always keep breaking into the same settlement without penalty.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like a "protected" feature in towns. This would be in the more developed areas, and purchasable for player created towns.
What it would be, is pretty much a town wide magic ward that detects thieves in action and immediately dispatches militia to go take them to jail and make them pay a fine to both the person they rob and the city. In the case of a player run city, the fine paid to the city will reduce the next upkeep of "protected" payments. (yes these mechanics are the same as not allowing "protected" storage to be opened, but putting this stuff in helps the immersion)
Things like storage in un-"protected" towns/cities/kingdoms, camps, and caravans should be susceptible to theft, with penalties if you are "caught". the penalty would be, if you are caught thieving goods you are immediately flagged for combat by the person(s) that caught you. They now can kill you at any time and loot your corpse once, or you can "trade" to have the combat flag removed(using a grief-proof popup window, put money/items in, game acts as middle man giving the gifts to the damaged party and removing the flag from the thief). If a thief is attacked by a player that caught them, their only choice is to run or die, killing the attacking player would result in a bounty flag. Very obvious warnings will be shown when someone is lawfully attacking you, something like red=lawful attacker, pink=unlawful attacker.
The only instance where a player could lose "protected" items is if the town they call home goes to war and get's taken over. But I feel war in this game should be a long drawn out process, not a 3am organized zerg rush(Warhammer Online), so players should have plenty of warning to move their precious items to a safer location.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valkenr, I think it's probably going to be better if the main NPC Settlements are "absolutely protected", while all PC Settlements are protected only to the extent the players there can protect them. This seems to be in line with what Ryan has described.
Imho player private houses/properties shouldn't be lootable/accessible for any uninvited thief in any way. BUT, provided that we have "town buildings" like tavern, city hall, bank, granary or whatever - I would make them accessible for burglars. Hard and rewarding thing.
Just imagine new possibilities in the city vs. city warfare. Poisoning or looting their granary stocks? Sure, provided that burglars actually can get behind all protecting mechanisms undetected/unharmed. It will also make cities built more "strategically" where public buildings are under constant observation.
It shouldn't really hurt casuals and individuals who are worried about their own stuff. At the same time it makes intrigue and city/kingdom elements deeper.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem here is: Time spent online
You can't expect players to protect their stuff 24/7 and you cant expect player organizations to protect stuff. In real life you would have shifts covering security 24/7, that is not possible and should never be an expectation in a video game.
We aren't plugging into the matrix and creating a permanent life in the game. If a person is offline for 95% of the up-time that is a huge time gap where their stuff is at risk.
You can't make NPC cities the only safe-havens or you will have over-population or exclusion. And players shouldn't be expected to spend half an hour throwing up wards, traps and such every time they log off.
The moment you make a system that gives a great advantage to people that are online for a large portion of the up-time, you lose all the people that don't have the free time to make such a commitment.
There needs to be secure safe storage outside of NPC settlements, and if the security is compromised there needs to be a way for the player to be notified and given ample time to move their stuff(and moving their stuff shouldn't require them to log on for 4 hours in the middle of their vacation). And compromising the security needs to be a massive undertaking that takes days or weeks to accomplish.
A player should never go log off, go to bed, wake up, and find all their stuff gone and their house burnt down. The only way to accomplish this is through purchasable NPC protection, or making player structures require permission to enter(SWG).
Career thieves would have to resort to robbing NPCs and underdeveloped player settlements. The reward is low until you get lucky and someone makes an error of judgement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem here is: Time spent online
You can't expect players to protect their stuff 24/7 and you cant expect player organizations to protect stuff. In real life you would have shifts covering security 24/7, that is not possible and should never be an expectation in a video game.
Why could you not expect player organizations to cover things 24/7. I certainly can expect no one person to be on 24/7, but in a group of 200-400, you can expect a good amount of them to be online at any given time. Throw in NPCs, traps, walls or other defenses that allow the defenders to be at an advantage even with less numbers, and it becomes perfectly reasonable to expect the home territory to be covered 24/7.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There needs to be secure safe storage outside of NPC settlements, and if the security is compromised there needs to be a way for the player to be notified and given ample time to move their stuff(and moving their stuff shouldn't require them to log on for 4 hours in the middle of their vacation). And compromising the security needs to be a massive undertaking that takes days or weeks to accomplish.
This seems to be key to me. You acknowledge that there are reasonable terms under which the PC Settlements can be less secure than NPC Settlements. I expect PFO will function somewhat along these lines. I will be shocked if it's possible to sack a Settlement in a matter of hours, unless that Settlement has already become so obviously decrepit from mismanagement that everyone in it already knows its days are numbered.
When attacking a Settlement, I expect there will be something like Siege Events at scheduled times where attackers and defenders work to move the balance of power in their favor, and that a Settlement that was thriving, even if it's only poorly defended, will still take several stages of Siege Events before it falls. I would like to see something on the order of daily Siege Events, each only able to move the Settlements status roughly 25% maximum, so even an undefended (by Players!) Settlement would last 4 days before it fell, assuming it started at maximum "health". The Siege of a well-defended Settlement might last for many real-life weeks, and there should be significant costs for both sides to attempt to repair the defenses or siegeworks that were damaged in the prior Siege Event.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I dont see why there cannot be craftable safes that are coded to one person via a magical ward. Offers absolute security (short of acts of god(s)) and provides another opportunity for crafters.
Different makes of safes would have different volumes/capacities.
Alternately, guild safes could be keyed to x guild members. Since it is a magic ward that reads your biometrics...there is no way to break in. This actually allows for the creation of player run banks...buy a huge guild bank and allow anyone to store stuff there...but they have to hand it to a guild member first.
I would however, make these safes, especially the big ones, non trivial to craft. It takes a lot of metal to craft a 10 ft cube with 2 inch walls...and then magical enchants for the wards and reinforcement.
This would probably be a multiple crafter effort, each with their own craft speciality.
Short of having one of these safes, there should be locks and doors and windows...with DC ratings.
The problem here is: Time spent online
You can't expect players to protect their stuff 24/7 and you cant expect player organizations to protect stuff. A player should never go log off, go to bed, wake up, and find all their stuff gone and their house burnt down. The only way to accomplish this is through purchasable NPC protection, or making player structures require permission to enter(SWG).
Agreed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Agreed.The problem here is: Time spent online
You can't expect players to protect their stuff 24/7 and you cant expect player organizations to protect stuff. A player should never go log off, go to bed, wake up, and find all their stuff gone and their house burnt down. The only way to accomplish this is through purchasable NPC protection, or making player structures require permission to enter(SWG).
Also agreed, I work 4 days a week during those 4 days the extent I can be online is all of an hour a day while I eat and drink and prepare for sleep. I cannot afford to be online during the other 23 hours
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why could you not expect player organizations to cover things 24/7. I certainly can expect no one person to be on 24/7, but in a group of 200-400, you can expect a good amount of them to be online at any given time. Throw in NPCs, traps, walls or other defenses that allow the defenders to be at an advantage even with less numbers, and it becomes perfectly reasonable to expect the home territory to be covered 24/7.The problem here is: Time spent online
You can't expect players to protect their stuff 24/7 and you cant expect player organizations to protect stuff. In real life you would have shifts covering security 24/7, that is not possible and should never be an expectation in a video game.
You can't expect a good amount of them to be online at any given time. My bet is 95% of the group plays 5/7 days of the week and no one is usually online between the hours of 1-10am. You can't expect the late shift to spend all of their time protecting stuff that belongs to people they hardly/never play with.
If you want to make a successful game it needs to be just as enjoyable for the person that plays 10 hours a week as it is for the person that plays 40 hours a week.
And i'm not really into fulfilling some adolescent-adult's control fantasies just so my stuff can be marginally safe.
Hopefully they handle settlements/cities/kingdoms kind of like cities in SWG, where a group runs the city, and other people can pay to have their house protected(npc uuber guard outside the door) in that city.
This is the one area where i really don't care about immersion. I'm not looking to always be on edge while i'm playing the game. I'm not looking for another source of stress. If there is no protection system in place and i lost 6 months worth of work, I would quit. If i lost it because i was stupid and didn't use the proper storage, i would stay.
I would be completely fine if they shafted career thieves and made it a PvE only function. I don't find it fun to feed someones sadism.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Tying security of ones belongings to the size of their player organization as well as to the security level of their settlement strongly discourages people from forming small guilds, going without a guild, or from forming new settlements. Any such guilds or settlements that do appear would be automatic targets for vultures.
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re: above, no, you are just motivated to locate in safer areas.
large groups buying/providing their own security for their own territory
should be happy to let you locate within their security umbrella and run your own independent guild without joining theirs,
if you contribute towards costs of the security, price TBD by the market.
so I see the solution as theft insurance...
pay for better responce time/range/strength of wardens...
better yet, the NPC factions are just the base offering,
any guild can also set up warden contracts with monthly/weekly fees, and offer better security than NPC factions...
easy enough for public data like effectiveness ratings to influence prices,
NPC factions also adjusting their prices (or effectiveness) to maintain a certain middle-of-the-road standing.
the game self adjusts so X 'level' characters can afford Y amount of insurance trivially...
if your guild is trying to manipulate market prices they may need massive storage, which will have costs to insure adequately...
ideally the game just needs to support transparent info about outcomes of contracts, success rates, to help compare costs/effectiveness. guilds just starting off in warden/theft protection contracts may well need to negotiate special terms since they dont have a track record yet....
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not completely against the idea of housing thievery, but let me list a few thoughts.
Given the idea that a player would be able to infiltrate another player's home and remove items that would be permanently lost to the home owner.
Given this can be viewed as a form of PvP aggression.
Therefore if allowed:
There should be methods of protecting a structure against the thieving "attack". (Traps, pets, guards, etc.)
Since there is a risk of the homeowner losing items and currency permanently, there should also be a risk of the would-be thief losing items and currency. If the thief should flee or die within the structure, they would leave a corpse for the owner to find upon return to their home.
The idea of encumberance should play a part in how much loot a thief could potentially remove from a home.
The activity should be considered for prohibition on servers marked NON-PvP, if such should exist.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The activity should be considered for prohibition on servers marked NON-PvP, if such should exist.
It is about 99% certain that there will not be non-pvp servers. It is improbable that there will be multiple servers, and the general ideas of the game, pretty much all require PVP to exist for the game to have any meaning or much depth.
A player should never go log off, go to bed, wake up, and find all their stuff gone and their house burnt down. The only way to accomplish this is through purchasable NPC protection, or making player structures require permission to enter(SWG).
And this is what happens in City of Heroes/Villians, Everquest, etc. Heck, there's even cartoons of players who have had this happen to them. They log off, have a three-day weekend or a particularly tough week on the job, and when they log in again somebody else is living in their house/fortress and all their stuff has been sold on the black market. A bunch of teenagers from South Korea or Seattle has cleaned them out in a matter of hours because the player just happened to have a Real Life situation called sleep, a job, a date, etc. All because the player happened to have an exclusive item because they joined the game in the first month or paid Paypal bucks for it from a professional gamer. Or had a nice location for the 200-400 person gaming team.
Balderdash.
This is a problem going on right now with City of Heroes/Villians, who charge "rent" for fortresses, even if you're the only person in it, and it's in an extradimensional space nobody else can access.
Games who want to cater to "uber-thieves" need to keep it to the PvP zones and let players build houses/fortresses in non-PvP zones. The same for public banks, auction houses, etc. I'm arguing that if we have thieves stealing stuff (and houses) in the game, then the city guard needs to post "Wanted" posters, and perhaps the thieves' houses (and stuff) get involuntarily moved from the non-PvP zone to the PvP zone in the game.