Should Theft Be Allowed

[Clatius 455]

Dunno, seems like there's lots of opinions on this. Let's see what the community says. I remember when a few people wanted no decay on weapon enchants Rolf said ok and gave in to them citing 'overwhelming' support. Maybe with 'overwhelming support' there can be stronger rules about theft which could be considered griefing. 

[squirrels 32]

Need to define theft first.

 

If not on a deed or locked that to me it isn't theft.  People abused the enclosure rule so we cant go back to that.  

[Outlaw 697]

Voted yes, because good luck enforcing it if its against the rules.

Determining ownership in many cases can be tricky enough. Who owns that plateset that is in the armor stand? If it's in a communal area, there's no right answer. If it's locked away, it cannot be stolen in the first place.

 

GM's would just be flooded with every case of theft and likely wouldn't be able to solve most of the cases even if they had the time to do so.

 

Of course, abusing bugs / intentional griefing / scamming should still be against the rules however. (Such as the old mailbox scam)

Edited June 29, 2015 by Outlaw

[Chiqa 742]

It is allowed. Perhaps the game mechanics do not support the newbie that wanders onto a deed pulling his cart as well as the deed owner?

 

Theft can be griefing, context is everything.

[Tipper 260]

Voted yes and no but feel the second answer is really "depends." On what, I'm not sure. But that's my story.

[Cista 428]

First, the OP did not define theft, so anyone that votes "no" to theft under that pretext, is voting in favor of chaos and drama. For example, the OP may wish to be able to ban someone for not giving back the pickaxe he let them borrow a week ago. Or he wants to ban people for bashing his offdeed enclosure and steal his cow. Who knows.

 

Second, an action that is done for personal gain is the opposite of griefing. Griefing is defined as harassment for the sake of harassment. 

Edited June 29, 2015 by Cista

[Torgrim 403]

Should game mechanics allow theft? NO

 

In case they do anyway.. YES, unless there is an explicitly named exploit that makes it possible. 

 

Is theft griefing?  It depends on the definition of theft. Naming something griefing might not do much good anyway since it might not be disallowed just because someone got sad.  There needs to be rules around this, and there are some, but it will always be hard to enforce the rules.

 

No point in voting since the options are not well defined.

[Ecrir 887]

Game mechanics should not allow theft on the PvE servers. But what they do allow should never be considered theft as that would just create to much extra workload for the GMs, so keep the rules as they are and improve the mechanics.

[Miretta 1,415]

practically theft is not allowed on PVE servers currently, what IS allowed though, is "salvaging", which I think is very important for wurm, since players leave stuff behind when they leave the game...or just wander around, trying to find a place of their own, not caring what mess they leave behind.

 

So....the current problem is not actually theft, it is abuse of gaps within the game mechanics that allow salvaging of stuff that is not supposed to be salvaged.

Which results in it being the real world definition of theft "taking stuff which is owned by another person".

Problem is here, that the treshhold in which the game defines at what point something is "ownership" is not really that clearly defined, so one way of solving this is defining those rules better.

 

But then again....most things can be locked...and secured from unintentional grabbing...when thinking about the latest case of "unintended salvaging" the fuzzyness of game mechanics seems to be in deed permissions and how it interacts with the world and other players who don't belong to a deed. ownership of a cart as example, what is the "ownership" even mentioned for, if it only leads to confusion and broken hearts because someone didn't know that locking a cart from someone else activates all it's predecessors adjusted settings? Or that ownership of a cart that is on your deed is not meaning anything? etc.

[Amadee 1,543]

My opinion, for what it's worth...

 

1. Theft is theft, no matter how much anyone dances around the bottom line like lawyers and politicians.

 

2.  Theft (player stealing from player) is in it's very essence, PvP, which has no place on a PvE server where the majority who play there do so because they expressly do not want PvP.

 

3. Theft on a PvE server (forced PvP, imo) is griefing because we have PvP servers where that is part of the gameplay, yet the thief chooses to do so on PvE where they can do it with no risk of the repercussions they would face on the PvP servers, and they can do it to people who want no part of that style gameplay. 

 

Arguing that it should be allowed on PvE is like arguing that movie theaters should have a dance floor in front of the screen.  Nothing wrong with dancing, but it doesn't belong in front of a movie screen where people have paid to watch a movie.

 

4. The old, tired, rallying cry of "The game mechanics allow it so it's ok," has been overdone to death since the early days of UO before Trammel and before there was anywhere else for people to go.  We now have choices.   And Wurm has choices. 

 

Theft does not belong on servers where people have chosen no PvP.  And smart game companies realize that people who are forced to deal with PvP when they have chosen to have no part of it, will eventually choose to go elsewhere just to get away from it.

 

Edit:

5. Most people are able to use their heads, and are perfectly well aware whether something belongs to someone else or not.  People can see if something is obviously abandoned or not.  Granted, in rare circumstances it's conceivable someone could mistakenly think something was abandoned when it's not.  Those are not the cases that are generally at issue and the defenders of theft are well aware of that, I believe.

 

I think with the new permissions system, there is a chance to finally settle this debate once and for all.  We can hope so anyway.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Amadee

[Muzzy 43]

Theft does not belong on servers where people have chosen no PvP.  And smart game companies realize that people who are forced to deal with PvP when they have chosen to have no part of it, will eventually choose to go elsewhere just to get away from it.

And yet the GMs refuse to write rules that explicitly state that stealing is griefing. The GMs don't want the definitions to be discussed lest someone think the GMs aren't allowed to interfere with everything whatsoever, it's intentionally vague so that GMs have the maximum amount of freedom to do anything whatsoever. Due to the ambiguity, people who get griefed sometimes refuse to make support tickets because they blame themselves for what happened, not realizing the offender actually broke the game rules.

 

GMs want to have a feeling of ultimate power that cannot be challenged. It's inconvenient for them if clear rules actually exist and they'd have to argue with the players about whether the rules were actually broken or not. It's so much simpler when the GMs can just do whatever they feel like doing, so much simpler when they can just punish whoever they don't like, no matter what's actually written in the rules.

 

The best part of it all: If you don't have a deed, theft of your property is never griefing and it's always the player's own fault. Well, with the obvious caveat that GMs can always consider it griefing if they want to interfere for some reason. It reeks of protection money and racketeering...

[rixk 830]

And yet the GMs refuse to write rules that explicitly state that stealing is griefing. The GMs don't want the definitions to be discussed lest someone think the GMs aren't allowed to interfere with everything whatsoever, it's intentionally vague so that GMs have the maximum amount of freedom to do anything whatsoever. Due to the ambiguity, people who get griefed sometimes refuse to make support tickets because they blame themselves for what happened, not realizing the offender actually broke the game rules.

 

GMs want to have a feeling of ultimate power that cannot be challenged. It's inconvenient for them if clear rules actually exist and they'd have to argue with the players about whether the rules were actually broken or not. It's so much simpler when the GMs can just do whatever they feel like doing, so much simpler when they can just punish whoever they don't like, no matter what's actually written in the rules.

 

The best part of it all: If you don't have a deed, theft of your property is never griefing and it's always the player's own fault. Well, with the obvious caveat that GMs can always consider it griefing if they want to interfere for some reason. It reeks of protection money and racketeering...

That is one thing that is wrong with Wurm.. The rules aren't being made/removed with focus on players, but they are focused to make GMs lives more comfortable.. Removal of the enclosure rule is good example for that. Same problems still arise, people still have disputes/conflicts, only thing that has been improved, the GMs can now say, "It is not our business, we won't help you". In reality it is like putting wolves and sheep living under the same roof and say to them, that it is your own business to keep law and order. I think we all know the result.

As for the poll, voted of course no, but I don't consider theft griefing.

[Outlaw 697]

For those voting that theft should be against the rules...

How do you propose we set ownership on our items? I cannot think of any easy way of proving an item is yours, without restricting trade of items.

[Ayes 3,715]

The game mechanics are sufficient to prevent "theft" of items on the PvE servers. A lack of understanding them or putting them into practice is more the problem, as I see it.

 

The Dev's are also adding even more permissions to deeds and possibly off deed items. The GM's handle the grey areas, so seems to me the "theft" situation is already well addressed by these measures.

 

Better to accept personal responsibility in these types of situations, learn from mistakes of oneself and others and not repeat them again.

 

Happy Trails

=Ayes=

[Alyeska 2,621]

Scenario;

 

I'm walking around the forest looking around for some pheasants to kill. I find a pile of foraged stuff, including some acorns and woad. I really like making dye so I pick them up and take them home. I use these to make dye with and I paint my walls. Technically, those acorns and woad weren't mine, so in theory, this would be theft. It wasn't locked down, just in a pile where anyone can walk by and take it. Does that make it griefing? No, I didn't do this to annoy someone, I just wanted to paint my walls and saw a pile of stuff someone had left out in the open that had just the right items in it.

 

 

Griefing is doing something intentionally to cause grief to another person with no benefit to oneself. Taking a cart, boat, or item pile with stuff that is useful for you is not griefing, that is trying to get something for yourself. Regardless of the emotional state it might cause to the former owner of said items, it's not done purely to annoy someone.

 

 

Define theft; I think you're free to pick up whatever the hell people leave laying about. There's a fine system with locks and houses that make things completely in-accessible. This system can be adjusted if necessary like I suggested to include locks into the creation process of items that require them so people can not forget to lock their stuff, but I do not believe the game rules should be adjusted for it. You have everything you need to help yourself, BUT if somehow someone finds a way past that, such as by the abuse of a bug, deed permission or by scamming, then yes, theft should be bannable. The rules are also not written to make GM life easier, it's to provide a clear image of what is and what isn't allowed, with no grey areas that people can become lawyers and advocates as to why they should or shouldn't get away with something. This is important for the sake of keeping things orderly; it would really suck and cause a big fit if someone were to get banned for picking up a pile of acorns in the forest. I know I wouldn't want to be part of a game where the rules are made up on the spot and you have no idea if there will be, and what will be the consequences for what you do.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Alyeska

[GoldFever 299]

Agree not well defined, but yeah, theft should not be allowed and yes it is griefing.   

 

However, it is not the point of this thread to define it, but to poll the high level concept. 

[rixk 830]

Scenario;

 

I'm walking around the forest looking around for some pheasants to kill. I find a pile of foraged stuff, including some acorns and woad. I really like making dye so I pick them up and take them home. I use these to make dye with and I paint my walls. Technically, those acorns and woad weren't mine, so in theory, this would be theft. It wasn't locked down, just in a pile where anyone can walk by and take it. Does that make it griefing? No, I didn't do this to annoy someone, I just wanted to paint my walls and saw a pile of stuff someone had left out in the open that had just the right items in it.

 

 ..

But if those acorns were on someones deed, would you go there for example and use the BSB "trick", which was described in other topic, to get your walls dyed? Would it still be "acorns just in pile"?

[Alyeska 2,621]

But if those acorns were on someones deed, would you go there for example and use the BSB "trick", which was described in other topic, to get your walls dyed? Would it still be "acorns just in pile"?

 

If you have to use a "trick" to get the items, then it's probably safe to assume that it's unintended and I described that in the last paragraph. That would be theft, but I still wouldn't consider it griefing, since the intent is not to cause distress to the owner.

 

There used to be a public trello board that showed the existing reported bugs and their status but it got turned private. It would be good if that got be opened up again so it can be viewed by all, measures can be taken to prevent thefts and GMs can view if something was taken by a bug or not.

[rixk 830]

I don't consider stealing as griefing either.. it is entertainment at someone elses expense. The question is, why should this be allowed.

[Amadee 1,543]

Hopefully the new permissions system will clear up a lot of grey areas.  I could be wrong, but I don't believe that a pile of acorns or pile of anything off-deed, with no one standing nearby obviously gathering more, has ever been an issue. 

 

In the case of a pile on the ground off of any deed, granted that would be next to impossible to control with game mechanics.  That doesn't apply to a cart or boat with a named owner nor anything on a deed.

 

And I don't believe I've seen many, if any, issues of disputed ownership.  The issues I've seen have been clear cases with clear ownership  and always goes back someone's loud protestations that just because he/she "can" take something from someone else, that somehow makes it ok.

 

Common sense.  If something is on a deed, it belongs to someone.  If something is in a cart or boat, it belongs to someone (especially when it's on a deed).  If a cart has massive decay and is not on a deed, or if a pile of something is out away from any deed with no one about, it's fairly safe to assume that person doesn't want it anymore.  But that assumption should never be made with something on a paid up deed.

 

As I said before, 'most' people are capable of discerning whether something belongs to someone else and whether they are in fact stealing, no matter how they try to dance around that fact.  The rest is all just smoke and mirrors....making excuses for their behavior. 

 

With a proper permissions system in place, these would all be non-issues.

[Kegan 3,926]

you should have made the poll so we could see who voted for what 

[Muzzy 43]

BUT if somehow someone finds a way past that, such as by the abuse of a bug, deed permission or by scamming, then yes, theft should be bannable.

Technically, scamming is also just a method to gain something for oneself at expense of another. If the motivation is personal gain and not to hurt another, then why would scamming be any different from any other kind of theft?

There used to be a code of conduct for PvE but it was removed along with the enclosure rule, with the explanation that the code of conduct "interferes with the intended sandbox aspect of activities in Wurm Online". I am interpreting this to mean that as a sandbox, Wurm doesn't enforce honorable behavior of players even on PvE servers and players are responsible for consequences when they decide to trust someone, with some notable exceptions (such stealing an entire deed from the mayor) specifically listed in the game rules.

Since scamming is not mentioned in the rules and the code of conduct was intentionally removed for interfering with the gameplay, why do you consider scamming (for personal gain) to be a form of griefing in Wurm?

 

The rules are also not written to make GM life easier, it's to provide a clear image of what is and what isn't allowed, with no grey areas that people can become lawyers and advocates as to why they should or shouldn't get away with something. This is important for the sake of keeping things orderly; it would really suck and cause a big fit if someone were to get banned for picking up a pile of acorns in the forest. I know I wouldn't want to be part of a game where the rules are made up on the spot and you have no idea if there will be, and what will be the consequences for what you do.

I once tried to make a thread to gather people's experiences about what exactly is allowed and what is not, how the rules are interpreted in practice. For example, lockpicking someone's off-deed fence gate is a bannable but destroying it with a catapult is OK, things like that. A GM locked the thread and explained that he doesn't want anyone to get any ideas that the players won't get into trouble for doing something that GMs earlier didn't punish someone else for... Notably, the GM didn't give corrections to any of my examples, he stressed that everything is decided on a case by case, i.e. rules are indeed made up on the spot and reflecting on past GM decisions in similar cases would only hurt GM team's ability to function in the future.

[Clatius 455]

Didn't really care. But I'd bet dollars to donuts there are a lot of PvPers voting yes. 

 

While I voted no to question 1 I think it would be ok to allow theft off deed. But getting your crap stolen while it's on deed is just screwed up. 

[Outlaw 697]

Common sense.  If something is on a deed, it belongs to someone.  If something is in a cart or boat, it belongs to someone (especially when it's on a deed).  If a cart has massive decay and is not on a deed, or if a pile of something is out away from any deed with no one about, it's fairly safe to assume that person doesn't want it anymore.  But that assumption should never be made with something on a paid up deed.

 

This 'common sense' does not work in all cases.

What if there is a deed with 20 villagers. Someone in the deed leaves their drake set in a chest outside the leatherworkers house to be imped. Another villager comes along and takes the drake set then leaves the village.

 

How do you prove who owns that drake set, to the point that a GM who doesn't know any of the parties involved can come and rectify the situation?

It would open a whole range of scams involving selling an item then claiming it back via a GM ticket claiming it was stolen etc.

 

Theft is an issue for players to resolve within the game, not for GM intervention.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Outlaw

[Bachus 462]

Scenario;

 

I'm walking around the forest looking around for some pheasants to kill. I find a pile of foraged stuff, including some acorns and woad. I really like making dye so I pick them up and take them home. I use these to make dye with and I paint my walls. Technically, those acorns and woad weren't mine, so in theory, this would be theft. It wasn't locked down, just in a pile where anyone can walk by and take it. Does that make it griefing? No, I didn't do this to annoy someone, I just wanted to paint my walls and saw a pile of stuff someone had left out in the open that had just the right items in it.

 

 

Griefing is doing something intentionally to cause grief to another person with no benefit to oneself. Taking a cart, boat, or item pile with stuff that is useful for you is not griefing, that is trying to get something for yourself. Regardless of the emotional state it might cause to the former owner of said items, it's not done purely to annoy someone.

 

 

Define theft; I think you're free to pick up whatever the hell people leave laying about. There's a fine system with locks and houses that make things completely in-accessible. This system can be adjusted if necessary like I suggested to include locks into the creation process of items that require them so people can not forget to lock their stuff, but I do not believe the game rules should be adjusted for it. You have everything you need to help yourself, BUT if somehow someone finds a way past that, such as by the abuse of a bug, deed permission or by scamming, then yes, theft should be bannable. The rules are also not written to make GM life easier, it's to provide a clear image of what is and what isn't allowed, with no grey areas that people can become lawyers and advocates as to why they should or shouldn't get away with something. This is important for the sake of keeping things orderly; it would really suck and cause a big fit if someone were to get banned for picking up a pile of acorns in the forest. I know I wouldn't want to be part of a game where the rules are made up on the spot and you have no idea if there will be, and what will be the consequences for what you do.

 

To pick up a pile of stuff off deed is not stealing because someone had to intentionally drop those items out of their inventory onto the ground.  But if those acorns were in a small cart (the one that cannot be locked) then it is stealing because the person intentionally put them in a cart for transport meaning to keep them.  

99% of the people in the world realize the difference there and the other 1% are in jail to protect the functionality of society.

 

In Wurm if you see a large cart with animals attached to it and realize it is unlocked you can unhitch the animals and clear the cart of all valuables then ride away with the items and animals and this is not considered stealing by the current rules.

In real life you come upon a car running with the keys in it and you take off in it, you will be pulled over and taken to jail.  The excuse of 'but it wasn't locked' will not work in court because you still knew you were stealing and if they allowed such behavior society would crumble into a 'Wild West' vigilante justice system.  That is why this needs to change in Wurm as well; because it leads to frustration and anger of those wishing to play on PVE servers under more civilized rules.

I suggest instead of banning thieves and griefers they are re-spawned on a random pvp server with only what they would have coming out of the tutorial.  Then they can learn repercussions of stealing the hard way on a server where if they steal from the wrong person their life there would be useless.