Thieving and Calling Guards?

I have a question.

While in a guard zone, when someone steals from me, and they turn grey immediately to me, I assume that means I "noticed" them. On more than one occasion, I have immediately called guards, and nothing happens.

Why is this? I thought guards could be called on a thief player if they steal from you and they would get guard whacked.

Thanks

I would like to see this perfected though. If I physically "notice" the thief steals from me, i.e. not by a message that pops up and a razor macro could then just call guards, but if I see a person next to me, and then an item disappears from my bag, why could i not call guards on that person and have them guard whacked 100% of the time? I mean...i saw the guy steal from me! Are the guards only loyal to NPCs and not citizens?

By the testimony of two should somebody be convicted. If none else but you saw it how could others know where the truth lay?

(yes I know you are going to retort with the game mechanic, but the thief skill is one that makes most sense to mimic as much as possible real world. I don't like thieves one bit, so please don't take this as defense for their actions. However for the thief skill to even be taken seriously it has to be given the feel of a real thief and we can't condemn a man (or woman) on the testimony of one person.

to help ease your mind on the matter, let's make an anecdotal comparison to assassin's creed. despite whether you like the game or not we can all agree that it would be AWESOME to just disappear in a crowd. in order for the thief class to be viable it must hold to that illusion.

its time jupiter... a law abiding legal force must be raised

http://www.uorenaissance.com/?page=m_player&id=37984

Behold, victor magnus

My point is, if i see someone steal something from me, I should be able to call guards on them.

my point is:

In order to make the thief skill even somewhat viable there has to at least be a chance that they can make a 'clean' swipe. Listen Red, i agree with you here. I have a thief hunter (points up two posts). You have to keep in mind, they don't ALWAYS get clean swipe, and if they don't you can call guards. If not, well then strap on your Paws Swamp Boots(R) and chase them down!

And I agree they can make a clean swipe too....but when I SEE them take the item....how can you argue against that? I SEE them take it! To me, a real life human seeing them take it should trump a computer "seeing" it.

If you "see" them take it, but the "guards/computer" doesn't, you are freely welcome to chase them down and kill them.

have you been to New York? " police! stop that man stole my purse!"

nope.....

Yes, that's fine to do, I understand, and I agree. But that really wasn't the question here. The question was why don't they get guard whacked when they are caught stealing? Why aren't the guards loyal to their citizens?

They don't? You mean, if I'm in New York, and there is a police officer next to me, and I yell "stop! that man stole my purse/wallet!", that police officer will not try to catch him? (and if you want to say something about a guard "trying" to catch a thief, ok...but I'd like to see the guard chasing said thief)

Now remember, I can make the assumption that a police officer (guard) is next to me. Why you ask? Because if I'm on the VERY FAR outskirts of a city, where I'm just barely in the guard zone, and there are NO NPCs around, if a murderer (red) walks into the guard zone, I can yell "Guards!" and he will IMMEDIATELY be killed by a guard, hence, a guard right next to me to protect me.

Now, if we'd like to go down the road of "there were no police officers (guards) around you to help you", I'm fine with that, but we'll need to make a sweeping change to handle all nefarious activity. i.e. Someone attacks your pack horse while mining in a guard zone, too bad, there are no guards around to help you, call guards all you want.

Red, I disagree with you, this is clear but I respect your right to your opinion. Where I believe our main difference lies is with our perception of this fantasy world. You see it as a world where there is a guard at every tile and justify this perception with the one case example of a guard appearing instantly to attack a red at the outskirts of town.

Whereas I, (and you may find a vast majority of the population here) do not view this land under this lens of flawed justice and an impractical Police State. We see the cities as protected by a magical border created by Lord British to prevent outright EVIL forces from penetrating any cities in his kingdom. Thus, if a murderer crosses the threshold of his magical border, the guards can instantly be alerted to expel the evil force. Also, if you take the time to travel around any city, you will find there are in fact a limited number of guards, therefore, it is a flawed expectation to assume that the guards can be everywhere to see everything.

While I appreciate your dedication to defend your point of view, your arguments are just not compelling enough to convince me that steps towards this kind of police state would be more tolerable than the current system where you can easily protect yourself from a thief, and not have to wade through a city full of guards who are always watching you, always stalking, always regulating. Imagine the tax burden that would fall on the poor working class of Britania to support this world of a guard on every cobblestone.

/debate

You can continue if you wish, but I shan't add anymore to the discussion unless you can provide some compelling reason to convince me why a police state imposed on everyone is a necessary and appropriate solution to remedy your personal grievances.

* Jupiter returns to whatever it was he was doing before he tried to enter a debate with Red_Rover *

Red: Can you give details about the system you would like to see in place? I don't quite understand what you mean when you say you saw them stealing from you. You got the message "You notice XXX stealing from you" or you just saw an item in your pack disappear while they were standing next to you?



Right now, thieves always go gray when they steal an item. There is zero chance for a 'clean swipe'. Whether the guards can be called or not depends on if they were detected.

Prior to the patch, there was a chance (and a pretty good one too) for a 'clean swipe', where they could successfully steal and remain blue.

Under both systems, there are situations where you could be stolen from and the guards would not respond, so I don't think either one is more intuitive than the other. The current system at least allows you and others to retaliate 100% of the time, though.

Here's the situation that happened to me. I was macro mining. My toon recalled into a mining location within a guard zone. As my toon was mining, I noticed a person come near me, then, right next to me. I checked, and it was not an NPC, so I made sure I could see the contents of my backpack really good. I brought up their status bar. I continued to let my macro mine away. I then SAW WITH MY OWN EYES (aka noticed them) my ingots disappear from my backpack and their status bar immediately turned grey. I then immediately hit my "Vendor Buy Bank Guards" macro....and nothing happened. I NOTICED them with my own eyes stealing from me. They then stole my Black Pearl. That was covered by ore, so I noticed that cause my Razor count in my title bar went to zero. I again, called guards with nothing happening.

Like I've said countless times in this post. I SAW (NOTICED) them stealing from me!

I guess I was just unaware that they removed the option to call guards on thieves. I'm assuming you can only call guards on a thief if an NPC notices a theft take place.

NOTE: I understand they turn grey and I can freely attack them. That is not the topic of discussion here.

Just looking for consistency. If a guard can be immediately summoned when a murderer crosses the magical border, there is no reason a guard can't be immediately summoned when a person notices someone stealing from them.

Your explanation brought to mind a question I have then regarding the guards. You've said there is a limited number of guards. So...when a murderer DOES cross that threshold, and someone calls guards on them, does the programming code simply create a guard there and expel the evil force? Or does the programming code move a guard from another part of the city to the location of the evil force?

I also feel it is rather silly that we're not considered worthy of summoning guards after bearing clear witness to a crime ourselves. I understand the way flagging works now, giving us the option to attack them freely. However, this does not account for the innocent non-combatants in the world who are operating their business or what have you, in the protection of guarded zones.

I fully agree there should be a window of opportunity to call in the guard whack on a criminal action, despite no NPCs witnessing it.

They will teleport (recall?) from other parts of the same city. If you hang around guards for an extended period of time (or need to call them in an area where they normally don't "hang out") you will notice that after a period of time they will poof and vanish, presumably to either go back to their "post" or to whack some criminal.

FWIW, I like that the game decides when a crime is noticed and when it is not. Under a scenario in which one can always call guards, there's absolutely no reason not to just spam it whenever someone steps within a tile of you. You wouldn't even have to "notice" it yourself, IRL. Just spam "vendor buy bank guards!" and you'll see the thief gwhacked if they did dare try to use their 100 skill points in Stealing.

Now, if the guards fined you every time you called them for a false alarm, maybe this proposed solution would make sense. But being able to blindly call the guards, risk-free, is quite T-word.

Well shouldn't the same logic apply for a murder?