I think it should be possible to steal all of someones money if they're sleeping/logged off, without having to type the command fifty times.
Anyway, on the subjuct, I agree, typing the command 37 times and still not having all the cash that you could get is a bit frustrating... And I think it promotes people taking the easy way out and just breaking a few necks for whatever measly chyen someone sleeping wherever has on them.
But this is such a simple detail to correct... And surely it has been noticed before by those with the means to correct it... Is there a reason that it is that way? Is it to increase the likelihood that someone is going to wander by while you take that SHI wageslave sleeping on the sidewalk for all his 46 chyen's worth?
He pages, "in real life, somebody would probably wake up if you were rummaging through their pockets."
xhelp Depends, but good point. However, one can strip clothes of a sleeping person in game, and you could definetly not do that IRL!
He pages, "true. very true. We try to balance the game as best we can…give here take there."
- It seems to be about game balance.
What I don't understand is, why don't we have more robots *chuckles*
I mean NPC's can't be fully treated in the same way as PC's, as they don't respond very sophisticatedly, even if one's initiative is the same. I know this will change with bable-on showing it's power soon....but it would explain why they don't respond much.
Then if human NPC's can be made to respond to socials, taking in consideration the environment and other factors, that would prevent all PC-NPC interaction being "to" based.....
and destinguish them from the robot NPC's that don't respond to anything but commands, and verbal queries etc.
Then for the fun stuff. I don't know if there is a stat check with Old Man Thompson and asking him for your cube number etc, but if there was I could imagine it being Charisma. Robots could be seen as being totally unempathic though, and so not responsive to manipulations, getting them in a happy mood to comply etc, but maybe they can be manipluated through inteligence as the humans are more intelligent than the NPC Robots, providing they have enough Int stat points of course.
Sorry that should really be in another topic, but I don't think that we're going to get much further with the absense of a take chyen command, unless Johnny or other admins want to give further input.
Sure, I understand the balance argument, but, in real terms, if to rob someone of thier money once you knock them out, you have to stand there slowly liberating them of it in small denominations, then, well, the temptation to set myself @fatal is certainly a lot higher.
But what would I know? :)
However, I don't know whether unconsciousness from combat is programatically differentiated from unsonsciousness due to sleeping. �Any admin's or GMs wanna chime in?
In the interim, you could always just pop them again when they come to.
I've seen a scenario something like this play out before.
Note: �All events portrayed in this log approximation are purely fictonal. �Any resemblence to events, people or places in the past, present and/or future are purely coincidental. �;)
Bob slumps down in an uncoscious heap
You relieve Bob of 64 Chyen
You relieve Bob of 63 Chyen
You'll have to wait a moment before doing that again
Bob stands up and shakes his head groggily
. o O (Shit …)
You swing your aluminum bat at Bob and connect solidly with his head, making a somewhat hollow ringing sound.
Bob slumps down in an unconscious heap
You relieve Bob of 62 Chyen
You relive Bob of 61 Chyen
. o O (Now stay down)
Bob stands up and shakes his head groggily
. o O (*sigh*)
Bob to You "What the hell is this about?"
You to Bob "Shut up fucktard"
You swing your aluminim bat at Bob and connect solidly in the chest. �You hear more than feel the crunch of bones
Bob slumps down in an unconscious heap
You relieve Bob of 60 Chyen
You relieve Bob of ...
It was kind of funny to me when an event like this occured, and had to suck -really- bad for Bob. �I'm sure he'd of rather be cold cocked, robbed blind and left, as opposed to be repeatedly cold cocked and robbed.
(Edited by Max at 1:46 pm on April 25, 2003)
Thoes who make a career out of pickpocketing people are not affected by this in the slightest.
And no, I'm afraid unconcious from combat and unconcious for any other reason has no distinction code wise, other than the presence of a 'wakeup call' at some time in the future when they're knocked out from combat.
On an unrelated note, mostly dead and dead are different (as anyone who's been resuscitated can tell you), and you can just take everything off a corpse, no pickpocketing involved.
-Kevlar
(Edited by Kevlar at 12:14 pm on April 26, 2003)
And yes, while I know this only affects people with shitty pickpocketing skills..I never claimed my character was a pickpocket, or, he'd pick your pocket, not smash you over the head with a blunt object first.
:)
All I think most people are trying to say, is that it'd be nice to seperate looting the money from a prone person, and skillfully picking someone's pocket while they're awake.
Since someone asked, here's (ex-)admin insight into the balancing issue. Personally I was all for the idea of being able to take every penny from a sleeping/KO'd person, for realism reasons and for the also stated reason that by preventing it you encourage the PK route where-by you can just "get all" from the corpse.
Pickpocket has been around for a long time, but until around 18 months ago you simply couldn't pickpocket sleeping players. That was the original game balance ruling, there was no way to get money from a "sleeping" player, wether it was because they were disconnected or you'd just beat them into a coma.
While I was in the process of upgrading the old pickpocket code (streamlining checks to be more logical, taking into account ambient population, whether or not the pickpocket was hiding and how well, etc), we debated the logic and game balancing of not being able to pickpocket sleepers at all. I forget who stood where on what, but there were two distinct sides, allow players to take all the money, or leave it completely disallowed. The end result fell in the middle ground, which neither side particularly liked, but was the only possible compromise.
Stuff may have changed, or my memory may not serve too well, but I don't think people with thievery skill have any real advantage over those without against sleepers, basically we just allowed players to pickpocket sleepers the same as any other walking talking char.
A spate of idiots with zero thievery spamming the pickpocket command like loons did force us to put some restrictions in place on players without the necessary skills, I forget what tho.
Personally, I didn't like the solution then and I don't like it any more than I did now. I -do- think it should be possible to take all the money from a sleeping/KO'd player, but I also agree that if Bob loses connection for 3 seconds, Bill shouldn't be able to liberate 12 million chyen in loose change from his pockets like Data on speed.
Vague solution concept from back then: Take the amount of money a target has and divide it by a value generated from the thief's appropriate stats/skills to give a figure that would represent the time it would take for the thief to take -all- of the targets chyen. Run the pickpocket code and suspend the task for a period of time equal to the time generated. If that time elapses uninterrupted, move all of the money to the thief. If the thief walks away or otherwise does something to interrupt the pickpocket process before it completes, use the amount of time he spent pickpocketing to give him a percentage of the targets wealth reletive to the time he spent performing the task. If the target wakes up, same as above but pass a message to the target along the lines of "You wake to find Bill pilfering through your pockets."
Alternative solution: "kill bob", "get all"
Of course it's not entirely believable, but it does make sense in some ways. Note that if someone keeps all their money in a wallet (safer against pickpocketing) then it is all in one place and you can take it right off their sleeping form. This, to me, makes sense like it would in real life. And that's all the light I can shed on that.
I have to say that I completely agree with TAF. But let's take it one step further and go as far as to say, that once you get Chyen == time spent pilfering, you get another time factor based on ability to hide, pickpocket, agility ect. for how much time it's going to take you to be able to pickpocket the same sleeping person again.
That way those loons just can't spam the pickpocket command, AND it adds some realisim.
I know if I were to walk around down town, and there's a guy sleeping on the sidewalk, I walk up, go for his wallet and bail. Maybe come back in a couple minutes, but hell, I don't wanna be cought be pretty stupid for me to stand there taking watch, wallet, ring, necklace, camera ect. What happens if a cop drives by while I'm digging around looting from this guy? �And I'm Certinly not going to kill the bastard. Why? becuase I'm not a killer that's why.
Yes, I think that kill bob, get all is perfectly acceptable for a PC that's a psycho and just loots and kills people. But for just a thief, that's really out of character.
That being said, I don't think that balance should be left entirely up to staff. I think that players should have a concept of "Would I really be able to pilfer through this guys pockets for 3 hours and him not wake up?"
That's all
(Edited by TheFinn at 4:33 pm on May 2, 2003)
Anyway, yeah.. with the current system, there's definately some temptation to kill the person and just get everything the easy way. But that is usually frowned upon by the admin, and with good reason. If say, GenericNewb was in the wrong place at the wrong time and GenericGanger beat the living horse manure out of them, it wouldn't be good to kill the newb for several reasons: 1) Good RP is more likely to come from NOT killing him/her. and 2) If they're a new player, they may reconsider coming back and creating a new character if they just got killed right after stepping outta their coffin.
Sure it may be a bit more realistic for them to be killed.. But as most everyone else has noted, this is about realism VS. game balance. And the players want more player to stay here and interact with them. So killing them all out even if you're playing a ganger-type character is not a good thing to do.. The player-base is small enough as it is.
On to the topic, I don't think theivery shuold have -anything- to do with stealing money from a sleeping person. You can frisk a sleeping person, strip off there shoulder holster, and walk away with an MP11, with -no- thievery at all. I know theres a stat/skill tie in with frisk, but that doesn't stop you from -seeing- the shoulder holster when you -look- at the person. (I personaly think that frisk should always show the clothes a person is wearing, but thats another topic).
If the person wakes up, the person wakes up. It's just like that. But I've been told, and heard numerous times that spamming pick whoever, is -bad-, $void style. But there is just no other IC way of getting the money, aside from breaking the persons damn neck. I have had to restrain myself numerous times from taking that dark, and easier road. It's just bad for the game. I dislike PK'ing that doesn't involve RP of some sort.
I would say, one solution to the problem, would be, that during 'frisk' 'a pile of chyen' shows up, if they have chyen on them. Then, you can simply 'get pile from sleeper'. or, get pile from cuffed/unconcious/dead but not corpse, person. It would be a generaly easier way to go about it. Just make it not possible to 'steal pile from whoever'.
However, I do agree with Nemisis here *and alot of other people it seems like) when I say that most (if not all) of the chyen on someone who's unconcious should be easily obtainable. �I like Nemisis's idea here as well.. �With the "Pile of Chyen" method, it would give the thief the ability to not -have- to kill the poor shmuck in order to get his chyen, and it gives the shmuck the possibility of those already-coded stealing dreams in which they could posibly get a description of the thief.
It seems fair to me. �If you can rape someone of their 6 MP11s, 4 conciliators, and 37 Seburo 6mms, then you should be able to turn them upside down and dump out the 50k chyen that's in their pockets without much trouble.
Arr.
(Edited by Aikao at 4:30 pm on Oct. 12, 2004)
