To all it may concern,

I have been considering item registration and believe that we need a formal process by which an item that is in a player's possession can be submitted to have the registration of another player removed.

In my opinion the primary purpose of item registration really is to aid in returning lost items back to their owner in the event the game misbehaves, or to help return an item when the owner had a legitimate 'oopsie' moment. In many cases it would seem that people interested in changing current policy regarding item registration would be people that were gifted or purchased an item and did not notice the item was registered to the prior owner until much later and that original owner is no longer available to unregister the item. In cases where the original owner is not available, there needs to be a formal process by which a player can associate their item with their character after some period of time so they can benefit from knowing they have all their items registered. In cases of graverobbing, I also think that after a more extended period of time it would also be appropriate to extend the same benefit as graverobbing is part of the game.

Registration of an item does not guarantee that the item will be returned if lost. It simply is a record of some item, in someone's possession, at some time. I believe players should have an easier time with managing their inventory registration beginning with an update of this system and policy.

Sincerely,

Khohan

Registered items leave their owners hands in many ways, from the perfectly innocent "I'm leaving forever, have this item to remember me by" to "I stole this item and chose to not give the owner a chance to get it back and therefore I can't unregister it, so buyer beware." and countless other potential iterations in between.

There are almost no situations in which we will be able to review the hundreds or thousands of lines of logs after a registered item leaves its registered owner's hands and clearly determine from them whether or not this was legitimately gifted and therefore eligible for the registration status to be considered for a change. While cases of graverobbing would be clear (and a clear "no"), and cases where the item was stolen and the victim of the theft had questions about the policy status would also be clear (and also clearly "no"), there are too many other potential stories that don't have the additional documentation to support a clear gifting or theft of the item in question.

We've changed the game for graverobbing, but there are still hundreds (or thousands) of graverobbed items out there in various places, and people still come up with ways of stealing things. (I was going to write a list of ways I've seen people do this since the changes to graverobbing, but I decided not to give anyone who hadn't already thought of those things any ideas!)

I do encourage anyone who is in possession of an item registered to someone else to go to the registry office and pay the 5 silver to find out who the registered owner was and try to contact them, either on the forums or via whatever other means you're using to make contact with others. If they're still around and able to speak with staff, we'll generally be willing to help if it is just a matter of that character being retired.

Iocanthe
Doing stuff

What about a check when an item is barter that if it's registered, the owner is reminded to unregister it? Or if the registered owner is bartering it, just have it automatically become unregistered?