Thieves

Nonel

The challenges of having thieves on NL were brought up by Kryonix on the general forum during beta. He had good points, I suppose, regarding grief. As of now has there been any changes to this? Is it worth having a discussion about? Maybe figuring out a way to get us involved? Or were we, the endangered yet noblest profession of old UO, finally thrown out?

Blind_Otto

If no coding has taken place yet, I suspect we're in for a long wait.
However, some suggestions that might avoid the griefing:

1. Bomb Squad. A specific type of mob places a curse on you. This takes the form of an item in your backpack. While carrying it, it has a negative effect on you. Let's take stat loss as a possible example of this. You cannot remove the item yourself. You need the services of a "skilled professional". A thief snoops you, takes the item, puts it into a crafter-created deactivation container. What you do with it after that - well, there's potential. It's a complex way to get a rare ingredient, if you want one. 
As a fail-safe, if not removed, the cursed item expires after a given period - perhaps an hour? 

2. Town spies, much like the faction / sigil thieves. We've already established that the politics in NL are not the same as other shards - no king, towns govern themselves. So, turn that to our advantage. Boost loyalty - and your house refresh - by stealing secrets from other towns. 

3. Bosses. Right now, the tamer is supreme. Why not introduce some bosses that require different skills to take down? A boss that becomes more vulnerable after some key item is stolen from it wouldn't greatly upset anyone - or it shouldn't. 

4. Areas. "Warning: Thieves operate in this area. Please keep a close eye on your valuables".  
Then make it highly lucrative to actually GO into that area. Risk vs reward. 

Or, come up with something completely new and innovative. 
As said, I'm aware that ANY change requires dev time.

Nonel

I like option 4. Let's us operate how we should while putting in a limit to the grief, since we can only operate in that region. I like the idea of 2 but not without PvP stealing implemented alongside it. I loved being a faction thief but pickpocketing is the pure expression of the skill.

DM_Wyvern

Blind_Otto said:

4. Areas. "Warning: Thieves operate in this area. Please keep a close eye on your valuables".  
Then make it highly lucrative to actually GO into that area. Risk vs reward.

I like this too. Nothing better promotes consensual PvP more than Risk versus Reward. In fact, Champion Spawns could absolutely make great thieving zones too.

Kyronix

There are some interesting storylines coming up in 2025 for New Legacy where option 4 would probably make the most sense.  The profession is definitely still on the radar.  Early on we concepted some ideas where thieves would be able to steal items but they would have to go through a fencing period where the victim would be able to hunt the thief and reclaim their item.  Were some early ideas and the further down the rabbit hole we went the more it became clear we didn't have the bandwidth (at the time) to really do it justice.

Nonel

I love the fencing period idea! I never met a thief that didn't want more of a challenge. As long as the challenges aren't hampering the thief's abilities but rather providing more opportunities for people to kill them. I'd be a big supporter of a sort of perma-grey system (on production, too!). Make us attackable all the time!

It should be a hard life