My character's 4th death tonight came from "graverobbing".

I saw a player had been backstabbed by thugs, and saw a slim black dagger on the ground, so I picked it up. Later, after someone had removed the other two, I picked those up as well. Getting bored, I decided to go to a quiet place, hide, and run an antilog script so my experience drained. Thank God I checked back before going to sleep, because I found myself in the afterlife ocean, wondering what the hell happened. I scrolled up and realized that one of the daggers I'd picked up was considered a graverobbed item, and so I suffered fatal spirit damage while I was AFK, died, and autodeparted.

Needless to say, I rushed back and thankfully got to my grave just as it vanished and spit up all my items. If I had lost them all over this, I think I probably would have quit the game, and here's why:

news 2 48 gives you the policy information concerning graverobbing:

Dateline 4/24/2005: CHANGES TO GRAVES AND GRAVEROBBING

Damaris has grown rather cranky, as would-be graverobbers continue to sully the name of "Thief." It seems it has become common to take items and then flee to a safe area, or hide for long periods of time until the trail has cooled down. He has made it his business to see that these cowardly acts are punished, so as to once again bring some honor and fair play to the game of theft. Those who have directly disobeyed him have found themselves to be swiftly struck down, their spirit sundered by his wrath.

What this means is: Graverobbing mechanics have been changed.

Under the old mechanics, when a "hot" item (an item from a grave, or an item that was in hands and dropped at the moment of death) was picked up by someone other than the owner upon their death, the person who picked it up could not log out of the game for 15 minutes. If they did, the item would be teleported back to the owner's grave site. Under the new mechanics, this period of time has been changed from 15 minutes to a minimum of one hour, with the random capacity to last longer so that there is no certain time. By default, this extends the time you have to SEARCH a graverobber and get your item back to the same length of time.

So, if you plan to be graverobbing, you need to make sure that you're going to have time to play for at least the next hour. The owner of the item deserves the right to try and get their item back, including a fair amount of time to attempt to do so.

Also, graverobbed items will now cause spirit drain if any of the following conditions are true for a lengthy period of time:

- The graverobber is hidden or invisible.
- The graverobber is in a safehaven room where attacks are not permitted.
- The graverobber is in a room where locates are prohibited, or familiars are barred from entering.

Note that all of the above activities are permissible -- they're just not permissible for long periods of consecutive time after you've taken an item from a grave. This mechanic is designed to force graverobbers out 'on the lam' where such a person would logically be.

This mechanic, coupled with the janitor fixes made early this year, are in response to everyone's desires to see the odds evened out on the graverobbing front. Graverobbing will always be a part of the game -- we do not discourage it -- but we are taking steps to make sure that the victim gets a fair shot at getting their items back, as departing has become (and will continue to be, even after Resurrection is back) a commonplace event in Dragonrealms.

As a footnote, when this feature was originally released, it was not properly checking consent. This has been fixed, and if you have been given consent by the player whose grave the items were taken from, the above spirit draining and item teleportation changes will not affect you.

GM Skralthaen


I have never really had any problem with policy before, but this really pissed me off. The news item, which is our only real source for in-game policy, defines a "hot" ( that is, graverobbed item) as "an item from a grave, or an item that was in hands and dropped at the moment of death". The slim black daggers I picked up fit neither of those descriptions, so I assisted to figure out why I died from "graverobbing" if I hadn't graverobbed anything.

Here is the information I received:

XXX says "You might try thinking of it along these lines: In news 2 48, it says that a hot item is an item from a grave. An item from a grave is just an item that was worn at the time of death, and a blade is more or less worn when it is embedded in the body"
XXX says "The dagger might be thought of along the same lines as an item spit from the grave"

XXX says ""The policy itself is that items embedded in a body are considered property of the body upon death"


He also answered my question about killing somebody with arrows or bolts that if you take your arrows back from their body, they are considered graverobbed items as well.

XXX says " "By firing the bolts at them, you are in effect giving them the bolts."

Now, am I just an idiot or does the policy NOT say this at all? It's completely counter-intuitive to assume that an item lodged in someone's body becomes their item, and is subject to these graverobbing mechanics; I would hate for someone else to die because they removed an arrow from a corpse and unknowingly kept it.

Thankfully I only lost a favor and a bunch of experience; I might have lost all my items and been given no reimbursement at all. Does this strike anybody else as ridiculous?

A very basic way to make this system not retarded would be to inform a player AS SOON AS THEY PICK AN ITEM UP that it is a 'graverobbed' item, since apparently graverobbed items don't need to be robbed from graves.

I know it is my fault for not being at the keyboard to react to the graverobbing spirit damage messages, but honestly, why should I have assumed I had graverobbed anything? If I WAS a graverobber, I certainly wouldn't have hidden and gone AFK, being aware of the policy as I am.

I would really like an explanation on why this is; I feel like I've been punished for no good reason, since as far as what the policy SAYS, the daggers should not have been considered graverobbed items. If, as the Gamehost informed me, lodged items are considered graverobbed items, then that should be explicitly stated in the policy, which it is not.

I thought it was a bug, and fully expected to be reimbursed; now I'm just grateful I didn't lose anything irreplaceable.

That's an extremely good idea to add to my antilog script.

They really ought to provide some notification of what is graverobbed and what is not--dying three times from picking up a lockpick on the ground is absurd.

<<If I had lost them all over this, I think I probably would have quit the game>>

wow

:oP Ragran

Yeah, you big jerk. If you want the daggers that I graverobbed from you back, you can't have 'em! I think I earned them.

"I wonder what the the percentage breakdown is of GR mech death between well-intentioned or unknowing people who then go AFK (within policy) vs. actual graverobbers."

I'd like to know the same; I think in theory the system is a good idea (maybe), but it's far too easy to end up dying for no good reason. I'm sure others have ended up dying because they were trying to return a dead player's weapon to them.

That tusk death is ridiculous, too. There should be some way to code it so it follows common sense instead of these arguable cases where the GR mechanic is so heavy handed that innocent people end up dying.

I've always had warning...coupled with an obnoxiously long RT, too.


J'Lo, no that other one
The Manipulation List -- http://symphaena.com/index.html

before grabbing any piece of equipment from the ground a dead person dropped all you have to do is have them <consent> you. No soul drain, no death, no losing items from logging or getting booted.

<consent> it's there to help you


Yamcer

---

"You know, while I understand the importance of seeing the (personal) validity in other's arguments, it's impossible for me to believe fully that others are correct. If their argument was correct, I'd change mine." - My GF

"I've always had warning...coupled with an obnoxiously long RT, too."

Under what circumstances did you get a warning and a roundtime? I can't imagine you would only get a warning and roundtime inconsistently, and I certainly didn't get any, and in any similar non GR situation, getting such a warning would have immediately allowed the player to figure out what was up.

"before grabbing any piece of equipment from the ground a dead person dropped all you have to do is have them <consent> you. No soul drain, no death, no losing items from logging or getting booted.

<consent> it's there to help you


Yamcer"

As Wighten said, that doesn't really apply to this situation. In a normal situation, the consent verb would have probably taken care of any problems. But in my and other's situations, there was no intention or even cause to suspect that we were graverobbing, and I think that needs to be fixed.

I don't understand why, if there are warnings and RTs in game when you pick up a GR'ed item, none of us received them. From what the Gamehost told me, and reading the policy on Graverobbing, I think at the least they should be consistent in terms of defining what a 'hot' item is, and putting the warning and RT on all such items. This would prevent most of these random undeserved deaths.

<< The current Grave mechanics apparently only hinder those who wish to help as those who are grave robbers are knowledgable on how to side step the mechanics. >>

No.

The current mechanics don't make a difference. All you need to do is report and a GM will make a grave robber wait around 25 mins while they find some stupid loop hole for mech abuse.

I've "lost" 3 items so far to the lamest excuses for mech abuse ever.

Point of this post? Grave robbing mechanics are pointless. Calling a GM will pretty much always get you your item back.

- Galren "Better than You" Moonskin

Under what circumstances did you get a warning and a roundtime?

Low circled characters (I'm not sure what the threshold is) get a message about the stench of death being too strong to bear, in addition to a long RT.

I'd like to see a 1 second RT and an even more clear message added in for everyone - "You sense that this item belongs to someone recently killed. Perhaps you should think twice about taking it. Type NEWS 2 48 for more information."

>>And a way to identify those items once they are in your inventory via some inventory command.<<

And a removal of graverobbing mechanics until something better gets dreamed up that actually works. I've lost a lot of stuff due to graverobbing mechanics as well. Someone that's afk in a safe room shouldn't die from spirit death.

-Wighten

>I think someone AFK in a safe room with a GR'd item should suffer a spirit death. <-Opinion.
>Verbal

Yes, I agree. Spirit death is completely avoidable; the rules are well known, as is the messaging if you are watching. The delay between picking up an item and the green glow/death stench messaging is the real issue, I've had it take upto 15 minutes to start. Secondly, its far too easy to skirt the mechanics if you are intent on keeping the items. Solution, if it's a GR item, it should be known immediately, without spirit loss for at least one pulse.

I'm not a big fan of every single tusk, skin, gem causing spirit death, and the real GR's aren't getting thier due process of mechanics from these items, so that aspect is rather pointless. Solution: easily replacable, creature drops should not apply.

I, for one, am not going to consent all my junk to just any 'helpful' person who walks by; and consent is not intuitive to newer, non-bbs, non-conflicty players. Neither is search. Solution: GR item messaging with a toggle on/off (default=on) from the get go. No delay.