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Aeris

Tragedy at Silent Hill

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Don't be petty about this. people. It's not a bad thing if the GMs take action here. Just because they failed to do so in the past isn't reason to not do so now, nor is it unfair to change their policies for the better. I for one want more involved and heavy handed moderation. I know I have nothing to fear because for some odd, crazy reason playing by the rules and getting along (or at least not openly squabbling) with my neighbors isn't that hard for me. 


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The thing is that Rolf is very interested in in-game items to have REAL VALUE on the real world. Yet things like this makes me think about if that the right thing to do.


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What? The mechanic clearly says you can bash houses. Not "house walls you own" You can ALWAYS bash your own house walls.I guess we're just making stuff up at this point. No point of making points to people who are just going to ignore them. 

 

Nowhere did I ever read that destroy would override a writ you had no permissions to build on. Why in hell would I think that allowing someone to build a house, which might require removing a wall to enlarge, would give them permission to level the entire deed? I would assume fences, signs, lamps, and their own writ or another writ they have build permission on. In fact, this is exactly what I assumed because that same writ off deed in the wilderness on Freedom is Fort Knox. No one can break that wall. Put it on a protected deed and it's a welcome mat that says "You can haz my stuffs?" Seriously? If a writ is Fort Knox off deed, it should be a titanium vault on deed.

 

They are looking into a rash of these happening over the past couple of days by a group of players and they didn't look into it happening to you. It sucks. No one here said it didn't. The thing is it seems most of us here want it to never happen again which could quite possibly benefit you.

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If you moved a villager into your deed...and said.."Hey...knock down that fence there...where I used to keep horses...and you can build your house there."  So you gave them that ability.  You come on deed the next day..and they knocked down a wall in every building on your deed...and stole everything.

 

Just have to say, all these arguments in the thread about thieving not being intended, are completely invalid. Of course thieving is not intended from the point of the person being robbed. No need to try to prove that.

 

If you have a house in Wurm, and put 5 of your villagers on the writ so they can take food from the forge, and one of them then runs off with 3 enchanted tools from the chest, you cannot go to the GMs saying "It was not my intention that he should steal from me". No, but you gave a crooked person permission to take your stuff. You have been robbed, but technically the thief did not commit a crime. 

The game or GMs simply cannot help you if your friends, or people you trusted, mess you over.

 

Same with your deed, if you give all your villagers permission to bash down all other villagers houses, including a complete stranger, you unfortunately set yourself up for tragedy. 

 

We can petition that the permission settings be overhauled as they seem too unclear...  (I am predicting they will be after this uproar). The issue is the settings were unclear to the OP, the issue should not be that we try and force our own morals onto everybody else, because that will never happen in an online game. 

Edited by Cista
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Cista, you got a point. But in this case, we are not talking about a villager who was a friend or part of your community that simply took your stuff and ran. We are talking about a player, or rather a group of players, who have been deliberately targeting a number of people over the last few weeks (don't forget Aeris is just one case) with the sole intent of taking stuff and leaving. In one case, they even managed to wrest the deed away from its owner. It's clear that those players have a much better understanding of how deed permissions work than most of us. But it's the case of fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you.


 


In this case, the community is simply fed up. We would like a system that protects from that type of event happening again. Are we dreaming? Perhaps. As you said earlier, there may always be a way to use rules to someone's advantage. I think we are aware of that. But we'd like to try anyways.


 


If someone drives over your beautiful lawn, because life mechanics allow that to happen, you won't like it. You will take steps necessary to protect it. Same thing is being attempted here. Just because something can be done, doesn't mean we have to like it.


 


In any case, the matter is now in the hands of the GMs. Too bad it had to happen over Christmas ;)


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Just have to say, all these arguments in the thread about thieving not being intended, are completely invalid. Of course thieving is not intended from the point of the person being robbed. No need to try to prove that.

 

If you have a house in Wurm, and put 5 of your villagers on the writ so they can take food from the forge, and one of them then runs off with 3 enchanted tools from the chest, you cannot go to the GMs saying "It was not my intention that he should steal from me". No, but you gave a crooked person permission to take your stuff. You have been robbed, but technically the thief did not commit a crime. 

The game or GMs simply cannot help you if your friends, or people you trusted, mess you over.

 

Same with your deed, if you give all your villagers permission to bash down all other villagers houses, including a complete stranger, you unfortunately set yourself up for tragedy. 

 

We can petition that the permission settings be overhauled as they seem too unclear...  (I am predicting they will be after this uproar). The issue is the settings were unclear to the OP, the issue should not be that we try and force our own morals onto everybody else, because that will never happen in an online game. 

 

None of that is the point at all.

 

They did not have it set so that a complete stranger could bash down walls.

 

Put simply...if you wanted to allow a villager, to be able to simply...pick up and move some lamps for you, or..for themselves.  You ALSO just gave them the ability to knock down walls on ANY building on your deed.

 

What adds insult to injury, is to blame the victim who had, what was quite possibly YEARS worth of work stolen, under the reasoning that "its just a game".

 

This is a community, and I dare to say that 'most' people are not okay with logging OUT of their morals as they log in.  Further, it most certainly IS the GMs and the Developers responsibility to enforce, either by management or by code, all of the many things that the community, in its 'majority' find the most enjoyable conditions in which to game in.  In the alternative, they should be clear about what those guidelines are.  Not simply because it is the right thing to do, but because its just good business.  

Edited by saraie
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As tragic as this whole situation is, I really hope the GM team either reimburses everyone who this has happened too. Or change the ruling for future things like this.

I have three close friends who had their accounts logged on and ha everything stolen. Considering the deed permissions were set to allow the player to bash we can assume they are te same circumstances.

As much as I would love to see this thief brought to his knees due to what he has done, I can't help but hope the GMs do not interfere, and rathe make a new ruling so that this cannot happen again. Premeditated stealing on freedom, either through accounts or deed permissions should be completely bannable, Infact I don't know how it's not classed the same as conning people (there is a ruling against that).

This anti social, barbaric, griefing, behaviour needs to be stopped. The Gm team needs to put their foot down on these obvious acts of griefing and stop it occurring in our community, because all the team are doing is saying that it is okay to play like this player has done.

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I wished people would concentrate more on the matter at hand, instead of discussing about it if it's "okay" for one of the victims, to receive "special treatment". 


She never asked for special treatment, she just wanted to make sure that everyone knows about this permission issue and about the things being stolen, which is in my opinion the best thing she could do.


 


So please, stop being upset about your own interpretations for what this thread is for or what Aeris intended with it, when she clearly told her intentions! Read what she wrote, not what you think!


 


Also, even if I am no victim of this specific case, this is a community matter, we should be standing together to prevent something like this from ever happening again! even more so, if you were a victim and GMs couldn't do anything about it! Don't forget that they are "just" players also, who decide in their best knowledge, but they are no developers.


 


In several rulechanges over the years for freedom servers it was clearly always stated that INTENTIONAL griefing (specially with abusing game mechanics) is not allowed or intended. 


Edited by Miretta
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For the spirit of xmas, instead of contributing my two cents to this matter, I just wish everyone Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! :)


Edited by Raybarg
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Hi Aeris, Pleasepm me the names of the players doing this, so i can avoid being tricked.


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Well, the deed form says "Destroy buildings". If this in unclear to someone they should assume the worst, that it works on all buildings and test it.

I know many announcements talked about "the mayor" when referring to destroying. I remember at least the "remove reinforcments" feature mentioned only the mayor but in fact it's tied to the destroy permission and can be done by any player with this permission. (At least that's how I remember it, I've not tested it recently).

I mean, what is this permission for otherwise? Even if you'd assume the writ overides the deed permission then it still allows a rogue villager to break into pens and take lamps. Nothing I'd allow any player but those I really trust.

After this has been said I've got to say I feel sorry for Silent Hill and anyone who fell victim to this guy. Even if the permissions are set wrong it still takes an <explicitive> to abuse that error and not report it.

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If I may expand on my original post, the problem with Wurm is that it created not so much a community as a market, where everyone is encouraged to try to make money off the game (even at Rolf's expense). It's only gotten somewhat better now that coins can be obtained by foraging, etc., but the idea that everyone should attempt to make a buck is still there.

 

At the time, it was the whole trader racket, which placed a few established players in a position where they could milk off their traders to reduce what they would normally have had to pay to keep on playing the way they did (and in some cases play for free despite being deeded and on premium).

 

Since coins couldn't readily be obtained from the game environment, it gave rise to all sorts of abuse on the part of players who did have coins. I remember that when GV existed, there was indented servitude (where established players would pay premium time to some unfortunate free player on their server in exchange for work). I'm not sure how widespread it was, but I've seen it being offered on this forum at the time. Then there was the entire "1000 clay for 1 silver" back-breaking work (I'm not sure about the current rate, but it's what it used to be), which was about the only way in which a non-premium member could make any money to buy what he needed from those same players who paid him. I'm pretty sure that drove out more players from the game than it brought in.

 

I remember when I was playing on Celeb when it opened. There were practically more personal merchants than there were players on the server. Everybody was looking to make a buck, and I was left wondering who was supposed to be their prospective buyer. (It was one of the reasons why this game was called a pyramid scheme by some people.) How much of that has changed?

 

I wouldn't think of selling my character in any game, and Wurm is the only one I play in which that this is approved by the company behind the game. Likewise, I'd never think of selling whatever coins I had. Yet Rolf approves of that even though it undermines his own sale of coins through the cash shop. He's even gone as far as to endorsing that shady trading site whose name I won't repeat here.

 

What Rolf and Code Club's design and business decisions have led to is a climate surrounding this game where attempting to cash out is seen as perfectly normal, and where everything created in game is consequently seen to have an (arbitrary, yet undeniable) real-life value. 1 Silver sells for X on private exchanges outside the game, and a QL 90 sword sells for Y silver inside the game.

 

Rolf and Code Club's design and business decisions have attracted the kind of people dedicated to taking full advantage of this. People who do not play this game as a game, but rather as a money-making venture for themselves. If I play, say, World of Warcraft (shudder), I do not expect this rare sword of mine to carry a value outside of the game. Perhaps it sells for a great deal of money in the game universe, but those gold coins it is worth do not translate legally into money outside of the game. Indeed, most games make it clear that private transactions in RL money for game items are a bannable offense. Wurm went in the opposite direction and allowed all of this.

 

The net result is that a large part of the player base of this game seems to play with dollar signs in their eyes. Maybe you, as an individual player, or your community, play Wurm because you like the game and couldn't care less about playing the market in real dollars. But it's a sure bet that someone else is here for the money, and he doesn't care what you play Wurm for, he knows that your QL 90 rare sword is worth something in real bucks. Is it then really surprising that there will inevitably be someone who doesn't care about how he acquires it, as long as he can make money off it?

 

And the OK for private transactions in Wurm allows his crime to be hidden by a forest of perfectly normal (by Wurm's standards) character and item transactions. It also means that there will also be a buyer who doesn't care where the goods come from, as long as they serve him.

 

If Wurm applied the rules that exist in other online games, every buyer and seller would automatically break the user agreement. And every transaction taking place that way would be easier to spot and ban.  And perhaps, just perhaps, the Wurm community would become something more appealing than a motley collection of people looking to make a buck.

 

You have fairly well outlined the systemic core of the problem within Wurm which bleeds out to corrupt other aspects of it. Certainly the culprit's and associates (fences) intention is to translate these items into real life monies by a series of sales that will eventually translate them into these proceeds. If within the concept of the game these types of sales were not endorsed, allowed and encouraged, the reasons for playing it would be on a whole other level of purely for enjoyment, as it is with most other highly popular online games.

 

Since this is not the case and Rolf has pursued the avenues that you have outlined with no intention to eliminate the play for profit angle (but rather encourage and endorse it), this must be accepted as the way the game functions. Now the results of situations like this must be dealt with as they exist, rather than pointing to their deeper origin as you have done above. I would say that all that is a topic for another thread and will do little to address this current situation.

 

=Ayes=

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Don't be petty about this. people. It's not a bad thing if the GMs take action here. Just because they failed to do so in the past isn't reason to not do so now, nor is it unfair to change their policies for the better. I for one want more involved and heavy handed moderation. I know I have nothing to fear because for some odd, crazy reason playing by the rules and getting along (or at least not openly squabbling) with my neighbors isn't that hard for me. 

"I don't want the problem to get fixed. Since I got shafted, everyone else should get shafted too because I wasn't compensated... wah wah wah wah wah :angry: "

That's what I got out of that person's posts.

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Sad to see this happen to such a friendly village, settings really should be more clear since some can overlap or confuse (none should, really). It seems that in this case the only sure way to find out is to test it yourself, which I don't think you should have to for all the different combinations of  deed/writ settings. It should be as clear as possible. It's kinda sad that this happens to people who actually promote helping players by giving them a good place to stay with very few requirements. If someone stole stuff of that value from me I'd be pissed whether in real life currency or virtual currency, in my eyes it's theft and criminal either way. There's a reason why people play on freedom and not on pvp servers...


 


The question of whether the players should get their stuff back through gm intervention is hard though, it would be really hard to keep track of and would possibly be a way to abuse the system by stealing from yourself or having a friend steal from you just to get the stuff back later. And of course dealing with the old situations which weren't as "famous" or involving as much currency as this one. If they have any decency in them the thief/thieves should give the stuff back at least and clear their conscience (if they have one, which is questionable).But yeah, that's pretty unlikely. Better to find a way to prevent these kind of things in the first place, because it's clearly a problem which needs to be dealt with.


Edited by ChapeChifte

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The guy pm'ed them and told them they could buy their own property back through Player Auctions.  Seems to me the intent was clearly to grief.  It was breaking and entering, for which someone would get arrested in real life.  The intent here was to do harm, and as such the mechanic was misused.


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Kinda curious but I tried to destroy abandon buildings set up by players that haven't played in years a long time ago and could not do it even as mayor. Reading about this incident I went and checked again and still can't destroy buildings I don't hold the writ to on deed. Is there something I'm missing in settings to let the mayor clean house or is this a fluke?

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Thanks all for the kind words and offers, it's helped with raising our spirits after this terrible event.


Merry Christmas to all of you!


WGNdfE1.jpg


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When changing deed settings, now there is a warning: "Please make sure you want that role to be allowed to destroy buildings since it enables theft." Not exactly a solution for the problem, but more than nothing.


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Been thinking about how hard it would be to determine what was stolen from a high level tech view.


 


All of our items, outside of BSB, FSB and crates seem to be unique. They have distinct ql, enchants and labels (rename).


 


There must be a database somewhere and likely Wurm is backed up at least daily.


 


The incident date and time is known. The victims are known. Assuming that the item owners were the last people to touch the items prior to theft.


 


Run a query against the database back up from the day before the theft for each victim - there is your list of owned items.


Run a query against the database back up from immediately after the thefts - there is your list of what's left


Run a diff showing what is no longer "owned" by the victims - there's the list of what was likely stolen


Run a query against those items and see who owns them now 


 


Gives you:


 


- List of what was taken (some potential error depending on back-up times and how active accounts were in between - not likely much)


- List of where the items ended up including who has them


 


Usually these types of queries are not difficult or time consuming to write. Depends on database in use and of course permissions to the database.

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Really sad to see such griefing happen. It does clearly show that the current deed setting system isn't clear enough, and that it could probably use more settings too. For example, this would likely never have happened if there were several destroy settings:


- Destroy fences


- Destroy furniture (lamps, etc)


- Destroy house walls - writ restricted


- Destroy house walls - all


- Lockpicking


 


Instead it's all been thrown into one setting. It's stuff like that where the current deed setting system leaves a lot of room for improvement.


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BTW:


 


Once the list of items and perpetrators are known you can them reset the ownership id and location back to original settings using another query or two.


 


It would be trickier to resolve return of items that have already been laundered/sold on to others although if we think about how it's handled in real life then the solution is there too.


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Really sad to see such griefing happen. It does clearly show that the current deed setting system isn't clear enough, and that it could probably use more settings too. For example, this would likely never have happened if there were several destroy settings:

- Destroy fences

- Destroy furniture (lamps, etc)

- Destroy house walls - writ restricted

- Destroy house walls - all

- Lockpicking

 

Instead it's all been thrown into one setting. It's stuff like that where the current deed setting system leaves a lot of room for improvement.

 

+10

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When changing deed settings, now there is a warning: "Please make sure you want that role to be allowed to destroy buildings since it enables theft." Not exactly a solution for the problem, but more than nothing.

Just a tiny bandage fix for a large wound bleeding out. Thanks Devs.

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Just shows how much some give no sh3t about Christmas and still go around spreading their toxins.


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