UO:Renaissance - Thieving perfected (ongoing thread)

Funny you say that...

Hi!

I recently GM'ed my thief skills and decided to try them out, which brought out a few questions.

You can't remain hidden while stealing here, is hiding/stealth only to find and set a last target for a runby, or are there other uses?

It seems like you go grey after every steal, but players can't guard you? So you steal and then run for your life, is that it?

Stealing from horseback apparently works here, are most thieves warrior thieves, rather than bank thieves? Running around dungeons to steal.

Everything works different here from what I'm used to, is there a comprehensive guide somewhere?

Thanks!

Hiding/stealth is for stealthy approaches (people are jumpy when not afk) and for easier escapes as thief. For example, escaping a mage as thief with hiding is pretty easy. Turn a corner, hide, as soon as he starts casting reveal, run again with a big lead or hide and repeat. You also need it for house looting.

Turning grey: This has been on the complain list for a long time. On this shard, you turn most of the time grey. Plus, the victim is also most of the time able to call guards succesfully on the thief in guard zone. The guardwhack might just not work for some players, when they use wrong designed guard macros triggering other commands first instead of the guard call.

Stealing from horseback works, yes. And there are warrior (I call them mugger) thieves here. But there are also alot stealther types. Many dedicade several chars for these different playstyles. You can check out this entire thread for hints of what thieves do here and which templates they probably use. (for example, my classical thief can be seen here)

There is no comprehensive guide. The knowledge is all in the community. I have thought about writing detailed guides, but so far decided against it. It seems like people who find out stuff for themselves are much more dedicated thieves, while others just aren't persistent enough and give up too fast. Plus, nobody wants to share tricks that have been learned by trial and error over the course of years with the whole community (to see stuff patched out for more Trammel, have people start defending against your methods or just create fodder for their anti-thief rants/whines). There are MANY MANY tricks that you only learn by doing and trying out or by talking with other thieves. By the way, you are welcome to join the local thieves guild 5D anytime you meet me in IRC. This holds true for any thief that wants to join a cool community free of duties and rules.

Oh and I once wrote a short mini-guide for newly GM'd thieves that ask themselves what to do: http://uorforum.com/threads/for-all-new-and-old-thieves-what-to-do-after-being-a-gm-thief.16147/

Thank your for that thought out reply. I'd love to join, seems like a good way to learn. I'll try to catch you on IRC sometime later.

@BlackEye - you know what's good about you 5D thieves? You also teach the rest of the community how to use existing mechanics to protect themselves.

I will have to rework that macro... thank you

Some SOB thief got me drunk in Moonglow and stole my sword... And my bloody house rune of all things... But at least he got me drunk... I thought of it more as a trade than a robbery. That's my story contribution lol

This was the only thread I followed during my absence from UO because it was fun and it persevered through the 2 years I didn't play without losing quality. Great job everyone who has contributed to this thread. It has been fun reading it

.

Making my rounds earlier this week, I followed the trail of a group of adventurers hoping to slay an Elder Wyrm. I originally had my eyes set on a weapon that one of them was wielding. Discovering their ever growing pile of cash on the ground had me thinking of greater treasures.



As we all waited for the Elder to spawn, their stash continued to grow while I tried to devise an escape plan. Eventually, the Elder spawned but yielded nothing more valuable than the gold coins. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to grab their pile of loot before they hopped through their gate… But luck would have it that we weren't headed to the Bank as expected… I found myself in the courtyard of a Fortress! Hiding in the corner, I waited a few minutes for them to depart before making off with their gold. In the end, I decided against marking any courtyard runes as a safe courtyard is sacred these days (until the moat patch at least).

Well reported Warden.

I'm impressed both by your story and the adventurer's prowess to store their gold on the ground while farming. Although I could recommend a few basic safety precautions to prevent a second Warden inspection...

A Warden's work can get rather tedious at times but no one said it would be easy. While patrolling the lands near Skara Brae, I caught a sour smell in the air… the smell of rotting flesh! Following my nose, I eventually arrived at a rather large brick home… one that was Unlocked at that. I made my way to the location of the odor and was horrified to discover a display of heads in one of the back rooms. As I met each of their eyes, I couldn't help but feel like I had seen a familiar face. There it was… in the second row… the head of my twin brother, most likely slain while farming monsters by the owner of this house. At that point I knew what had to be done. Methodically I removed everything of value from the home and destroyed this mans sickening flesh portfolio. When all is said and done I left with a few thousand of each reg, a few nice weapons, 20+ t-maps, chests for my new home, and a plethora of PK restock bags. Though not much, hopefully it will be a sufficient death offering to my brother.

@The Crooked Warden - How you get away with being a thief wearing all that shiny clothing is beyond me!

You can see a lot when you travel around collecting taxes. Today while doing my rounds I came across 3 wizards executing a lonely tamer.



This was the same tamer I was about to ask for taxes. Hunting without a permit is a crime! But who were these men to ask no questions and just execute? I decided to follow them back to their home!



I watched these three men for a bit while they sorted through the items of the dead tamer. You could see it in their eyes that they were happy! "Ahh good kill". Good kill? That was terrible! Just running up on someone without cause or reason? What kind of world do we live in? I decided to take things in my own hands.



I decided to rob their home!





Don't kill innocent Sosaria Citizens and Pay your Taxes!

With Love

Jerome Jackson - Head RRG Tax Collector

Looks like someone will be selling novelty trophies

PS, most of the proceeds will be going to tax paying citizens... so... Pay Your Taxes...

Great work Jerome! What other goodies did you score?

Nice one! Bring justice to the world!

Trophies, Tmaps, regs, kegs, & armor, typical Mage restock items. Nothing of extreme value. Going to donate it all to a friendly new player guild. You can say Jerome Jackson is a little like Robin Hood.

Having been plagued by a series of failures this past week (Killed by dragons while stealthing a log cabin, days later missed a lvl. 5 t-map steal and then was banned from the same players Tower), I set out to Skara Brae to see what sort of adventures awaited me. Numerous marks were running around the bank so I took my time observing and snooping them, hoping for some sort of treasure to drop into their packs. I hadn't been trolling long when a curious tamer appeared on a jet black nightmare. She withdrew her packhorse and opened a gate to some foreign land (of course I followed… why would a tamer have a packy with them?). I appeared below a mountainside marble occupied by a Slayer wielding battle miner. Assessing the situation, I buckled down for the long haul as I was never proficient at disarming my marks in order to steal their weapons. While sifting through chests on the first floor, this miner unequipped the weapon and I saw an opportunity to redeem this weeks failures. I snuck right up beside her and quickly reached into her belongings, grabbing the axe, and running for dear life. When I had enough distance between myself and the home, I mounted my trusty llama and made for home. I was later able to sell this Axe of Earth Shatter back to its owner at a discounted cost.

A sad lonely thieves tale + sending my regards to @amfeKk by hugging his silver axe of power:



The vile murderer Bart approaching:






Well, then half a dozen tracker pvp toons appeared and something like this happened:



The result:



120 seconds later:



In retrospect:
- Why didnt I mount before?
- Why didnt I cast a gate for easy escape?

I guess, I wasnt really keen on getting the axe.

I like Forts. They are huge, and it's usually like Candyland for thieves - you want to open every chest and grab what's in there as fast as possible until your stomach turns and you get dizzy. Plus, one is robbing established veterans. They should know it better, and hopefully won't rage too much when pixels are lost.

Yesterday two forts have been looted as far as I know. One by me, done the classic gentleman stealthed house looting way. The other one with much more nefarious methods, but that one's tale is not to be told here and not by me as I wasn't involved.

So, this is how my tale begins: A fishing tournament started today and people were out on the oceans. I was like:



But while preparing I saw a gate appearing in Nu'Jelm... and had to hop it.

[UO]Watermelon was three-boxing lvl6 maps. He was pretty reckless against these ancient wyrms, but had no valuable items like platin or further lvl6 maps on him. Thus, when he seemed busy I took the 10k out of the chest, and stealthed away. He didn't see me. I thought he would realize that his gold was missing and I kept a safe distance to observe further.



Well, instead of reveals and/or the typical name-calling, he opened a gate. I thought I will end up at a bank, the adventure would be over and I could finally hunt some fisherman. Au contraire! It just started.



I did end up in a stuffed Fort! I quickly stealthed away to the east, where I couldnt be seen anymore even when revealed.



Well the detection never happened. I started to relax and checked out the Candyshop.



Obviously, basic security was up. The real juicy stuff was in secure containers, locked down or behind closed doors. However many valuable items, mainly usable ressources were in my reach.

Meanwhile, he gated in and out several times, probably doing more treasure maps. Gates from tmap spots that went directly into the fort, not the CY. There were plenty chances to detect me and much reason to start using Detect Hidden. At one point, I expected fellow thieves to appear with that gating habbit...



Finally, I started transporting the valuable loot out of the fort into safer vaults.



It took me roughly 1 hour to collect and gate all the items of interest out. Although the real interesting items were secure, the result is still noteworthy and roughly worth 3mil.




As mentioned in the beginning, it is fun to loot massive buildings. Once you are in, you get a massive adrenaline rush. Unlimited possibilities await you in each container. And will you be able to gate everything you want out before the inevitable detection happens? Basic security concepts of strategically placed secure containers and locked doors were in place and prevented the worst for our fellow player. I think a loss of ~3mil in value is a good price for a security check on a massive house and a friendly reminder to reconsider the obvious flaws.

Disclaimer: No fishers were harmed this day by me.