Not really an 'era accurate' post but... Situation: a thief stole a decoy item out of my bag at the bank. Said thief seemed to have a horse powered by dilithium crystals and was able to escape my noble llama. Upon his return to the bank, I attacked. Thief ran to the moongate near the bank and was gone. I was not able to "flee" to try and follow him. Anyone else think this should be changed?
Hmm... If this is how things work, perhaps thieves that are perma shouldn't be able to use moongates either.
I think that when a thief uses the stealing skill on an item in another players backpack, it should open a gump on that players screen "Do you wish to engage in non-consensual PvP with this player?". If the target agrees, then the stealing check should begin, and if successful the item should be transported to the center of a duel pit and locked down. Both players involved in the incident should be transported to the dueling pit and battle to the death in a standard 5x (or 7x red pots only) duel. The item that was "stolen" could be unlocked down when one of the parties dies, so the winner could go claim it before being teleported directly to the bank, and having their belongings all set unstealable for a few minutes so they have time to re-think their backpack layout before another stealing attempt can occur.
Snap! That text was an astonishing anti-Trammel masterpiece! It was as though I was dragged down into the darkness itself, where I heard the screams of the long lost and forgotten souls of My Little Pony Online, but then I got cast back up, out of the darkness, luckily with only a cold shiver sent down my back.
On live, if the person you attacked left the area (went through a moongate) you wouldn't get the fleeing message after he was gone. It only triggered if the person was within a specific range. The range was pretty big but any moongate jump was too far. If you happened to guess the right moongate and he was close enough then you would get the fleeing message again. You could try the different moongate locations and if you found one that gave you the flee message then you knew he had gotten out there. You could also see if someone you attacked was still in the area by casting recall. If it allowed you to recall, you knew he was gone. If you got the fleeing message then you knew he was still nearby. This was important to know for my disarm thief because I typically engaged the attack and if I was hidden trying to recall would only reveal me if he was gone (or the no-fleeing timer had run out).
If the thief stole from you, he can not use a moongate, a recall, a gate, or bank for 2 minutes past that point in time. After 2 minutes, he turns "blue" again for display reasons, however, now he is Perma Grey -- and can use a moongate/recall/gate/bank. Even if you attack him past this 2 minute point, he's able to do whatever.
you could use the public gate at any time though *remember hidden gate hopping thieves?* that was when bucs was hopping, and people would be super cheese with the server lines.
That was fixed due to the rampant abuse, but I can't remember when. I do know it was so abused and rampant that any dick and jane thought they were the best thief of it, and I welcomed the changed. Too many thieves led to too many people learning how to protect themself ><