So, as someone who is trying to advance in lock mastery, I find that I keep getting tasked with audience reps, which require four audience members to complete. I've recently run into the problem where people don't like me picking in front of them. Couple this with the lack of people in the normal picking locations, and I have begun having issues with people attacking me for lockpicking. For lack of a better place to find 4 people together, I've been forced to lockpick in TSC. Sometimes, even TSC doesnt have enough people. Obviously, I'd prefer not to do this, and I may very well have attacked people in the past for doing this very thing.

Tonight, I spent approximately 10-15 minutes bound due to another player binding me every time I unlocked a box. I'm curious what everyone else does to cope with this problem... I do not wish to be labelled as some sort of hooligan, and I understand TSC is generally for healing, but it is unfortunately becoming one of the last few places to find a crowd in the landing at certain times.

I'm unsure how wise it is to have audience reps for lockpicking, to begin with... unlocking a box is dangerous, and obviously people are going to be uncomfortable with unwanted (possibly lethal) danger. The rogues guild is essentially asking me to find a crowd and endanger them while I unlock so many boxes, and I can understand why some people don't like this.

The key points I learned from my assist about the unwanted PVP I endured this evening (for those of you who may have similar issues) are:
1) its not against any policy to lockpick in TSC
2) if someone binds/whatevers you repeatedly and interrupts your gameplay, and simple ooc whispering doesnt solve the problem, we should WARN HARASS them.
3) if this person continues to grief you in this way, we should assist and report regarding the WARN so that it can be documented.
4) there is possibly currently no real solution to the problem of audience reps for lock mastery

The things I took away from the experience itself in TSC:
1) it is exceptionally upsetting to have unwanted pvp thrust upon you while you are trying to advance in the guild. Especially when you understand where they are coming from.
2) The patrons of TSC generally seem to feel it is ok to attack people for lockpicking there. The person who attacked me was definitely well backed and considered to be "in the right"

Ideally, I would like to have the audience reps changed to remove this from being a problem in the future. Failing that, I think some might find it helpful to have a news article created to instruct people that it is actually ok to lockpick in TSC.

Being abused by someone who you generally respect for reasons you somewhat agree with is very hard to deal with. I don't know how many more nights like tonight I can handle before I would just hang up my rogue forever.

Anyone have any suggestions or comments on how they have managed to avoid this problem?

My turn to chime in here.

I was the one who was doing the binding. After roleplaying out a very clear, albeit humorous warning, he did so again. I then point blank warned him, at which point he did it again and I bound him. He came back again, after being trite (RPing), so I did so another time. We then had a good discussion both IC and OOC in whispers to which I promised to not use bind any longer, but would continue to berate him instead. It was a challenging RP situation, to be fair. I couldn't NOT do anything, but on the flip side I see the concern. Keep in mind all these interactions were completely RP for me as Tk is rather old school and used to do this very thing in TSC eons ago when people were getting blown up left and right.

While TK did have the backing of the majority there, I can also appreciate the frustration outlined here. There's no cause for a faulty mechanic to impede RP and yet given the horrid state of the lands in terms of population, reps that require an audience that can only be found in TSC (and not the guild, east tower, even the niche) is unfair to the players involved.

Societal and safety norms no longer apply it seems after this assist, and I must say I'm disappointed. Mechanics should not imped RP, bottom line, and yet these do. Perhaps the audience tasks can be dropped down to 1 member, so that rogues can couple up to do these reps rather than endangering the public.

Warrior guild audiences never have the chance to injure other players and are harmless background noise. Forcing a rogue to open a box, which in and of itself is a task to find, seems unfair all around.

In hindsight, I do apologize. I should have used Web to make my point at which point I could have untrammeled after making it. I can't say I wouldn't make the point again, but I certainly didn't intend it to be "griefing" which seems a completely foreign term in GS. Apparently not in today's day and age though.

Bottom line, mechanics need to be looked at.

Best,

Jim/Tk

You gesture.
An unseen force envelopes you, restricting all movement.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.
(Forcing stance down to guarded)
>
>whisp <friend> Does this work?
You are unable to move in close enough to whisper.
>
You feel more refreshed.
>
>whisp ooc <friend> Does this work?
You are unable to move in close enough to whisper.

One thing to remember, the 4 people audience rep requirement can be reduced if you find rogues as your audience. I believe rogue members (active) count as two people, while guildmasters count as 3. I used to attempt to do my audience tasks in the rogue guild, that way I was available to help as well.

Lochiven

I know not everyone is interested in doing something like this every time (and I don't either), but if there's a bunch of people I plan on disturbing with LM audience reps, I'll usually just say something to them in case anyone was planning on taking offense. I usually dominate them with bull about what I'm doing and never give them a chance to object. Put on a show, as it were.

You can fool people pretty easily, too. There've been a few times where I'd just started talking to some random person about whatever came to mind, and what that does is make it look like what you're doing in acceptable because other people are paying attention to you and not to what you're doing. It's like forcing others to unwittingly put peer pressure on people.

Making people laugh always works, also.

In the rare case that people do insist on objecting, I'll just humiliate them and rob them.

I guess what I'm saying is, find ways to have fun with it. Most everybody will play along.

~Brian, Sepher's player, not a fan of Bind either.

Nice. Sounds like you guys handled it really well, to me.

I have to admit, when I was mastering LFM I had to do a few reps in TSC.... which really irked the old fella in me. But, mostly I got lucky being in River's Rest since everyone rests where the pickers are anyhow.

It isn't sancted (unless a resident cleric/empath sancts it)

Get in there and steal stuff!

TSC used to be sancted, I believe a storyline changed it somewhere during an invasion. (Kenstrom probably?) and it was never changed back.

That said, I use TSC for lock mastery audience reps all the time when playing my rogue and have never had an issue. It is NOT against policy. I do try to be considerate and take the time to disarm my boxes away from TSC, but that isn't full proof of course.

I'd be upset too if someone was harassing me with binds. It is tough enough to get LM reps without being bound for 5 minutes between reps. There is already a natural justice system set up for people who set of traps in public. There's absolutely no need for this type of vigilante 'justice' in TSC when there are many other places you can rest afk without worry of being hit by a random trap.

That was you it hit with that? I lost it with the screen scroll of death that followed, that was some serious splash, I walked away unharmed some how.

>>Various dead people are bitterly moaning about their state of affairs while some capped characters have a go at getting a turkey into their profile.

Sadly, no turkey for me.