I am mostly curious what sort of looting systems people prefer. On the mud I run, we are discussing some ways to redo our looting system. As it stands we are an rp encouraged mud with rp enforced player killing with no limits on looting of any sort. It has been pointed out by many of our playerbase that more people would join into the system (religiously oriented pk for the most part) if the risk of losing absolutely everything that a character possesses was not a risk.  Please post any looting system ideas that you have, I am interested to hear what works and doesn't works with the systems employed on all of your muds (ones you play on or otherwise).

Ytrewtsu,
Adventures Unlimited

PS It seems I missed a couple options bleh!

That's probably true - just take a look at permadeath muds, in which you really can lose everything. Generally, such muds do not attract so many players, because many players aren't willing to gamble (potentially) hundreds of hours work.

However, with no risk at all, PK becomes fairly meaningless.

Personally I prefer full PK, limited loot.

I have to agree with KaVir on this one for the most part.

I have played on a variety of muds most were limited pk (rp and level oriented) with limited looting for instance a maximum of 5 items. I have to say being on the losing end of a full looting is quite disheartening even for experienced players. I had one character that lost all her equipment several times during a clan war but managed to re-outfit with help from my clan mates and a few neutral parties. I don't mind risking everything but be sure you have a back up system in place in the event that you do loose all.

I'd prefer limited PK, no corpse looting and limited stealing in a MUD.

I personally think even in muds that have banks, lockers, and equipment constinently reset so requiping is not all that difficult, having full looting is a deterant to pk or at least to "full-power" pk.  What I mean by full-power is that when players know that either they are about to pk someone or be attacked by someone they will tend to store away those items which they consider irreplacable.  Quest items, restrings, anything the player figures they cannot turn around  and grab again quickly in the event they do end up on the losing end of a pk battle will get squirreled away.  Only things absolutely essential to the battle will be kept.  I consider it a way for the players to implement their own form of limited looting policy.  The major pkers have to not only wait for the right time and place for a kill, but also for the opponent to be unsuspecting in order to get the full spoils.

As far as actual code limitations the only one I have currently in place is a ritual to bind a weapon or staff to the player, where they forfeit what amounts to 2 levels worth of hit points in order to have the piece stay with them upon death.  They can have as many pieces as they want bound, but due to the cost its usually only done once with a quest weapon.

Hrmm... I can see from the poll results that I hold the minority opinion here.  I agree with Emit, that full looting by another player is totally discouraging, and one is only made to feel worse if it is the policy on the mud itself.

On our mud their is no pkilling or plooting at all (by players).  This does not mean a totally risk-free environment.  There IS limited looting from mobs (who DON'T grab your goods and then suddenly log out), and we do make use of infamous equipment-munching death traps.

We find that players take these types of losses in stride; but once they learn where a death trap is, they are not likely to be surprised if they choose to repeat the experience! (You cannot say the same thing if you play on a mud which allows the same higher level obnoxious player to keep pkilling you).

Often other players will offer consolation gifts to the victim; this helps to promote the 'we (players) together against the game' type of cameraderie which we believe attracts and retains the types of players we like to see.

Let the pkill-addicts play elsewhere, there are no shortage of muds out there for them!

Just my two bits...

This is a player opinional thing. As you see, from the few poll votes, that it's pretty even, nothing is "MAJORLY" ahead. I'm all for full everything, it's the realistic part of gaming. Take D&D table top, you died, you lost everything you owned, even after putting MONTHS of effort and experience into the character. It happens, but it does make you not rush into everything with no knowledge of what may happen. I feel this same thing should happen with muds.

This is my opinion though. But i feel, what is the fun of playing a game that is technically non-winnable, with no difficulty. PK muds, it's a battle of who's on top keeping everyone else down. BUt who cares if you die, you just come right back to life, MAYBE with a lil exp loss, which doesn't matter you'll get that back easily anyways. Most muds don't have the looting cause of the "not wanting to deal with whining players". SO you end up dying, and just coming back to life keeping everything you own. So what does death matter? It doesn't, this is what fosters most twinks and power mongers. They get all that they can, and then just bash everyone else, because they can't lose, if they die they keep everything and just lose a little experience that they can take out on someone else later.

I believe in open gaming. I have lost characters i've put years into. That's part of the downfall of gaming, but whatever it was that killed that character, your next one will be born a little wiser, kinda like the gaming laws of evolution.

Well that's my little mixed up rant on the subject.

In the interests of realism, I would have to agree that full looting should be possible, but with certain restrictions in place.  Not restrictions on what can be done, but restrictions on how it is done.  I am strongly opposed to level limited PvP.  It makes absolutely no sense in a roleplay world.  I am going to assume, having tried out your game, Ytrewtsu, that you are seeking an RP-oriented way of making PvP work.  So I’ll approach my answer from that point of view.

Attacking should carry consequences.  If you attack in a city, no only should the guards recognize you attacked at the time of the attack, but there should be long term consequences.  If you attack on public roads, similar consequences should exist.  I would think that most types of areas, at least of those I saw on your game, would have some measure of consequences.  If you implement an invisible “flag” on players where mobs can check and see how often that character has attacked someone in that area, you can have long term consequences that may only gradually wear off.  For example, in the centaur area on your game, you could have the guards attack on sight if the person is a repeat killer and the other mobs flee.  In areas that aren’t designed as organized populations, there could still be wandering vigilante mobs.  This would make choosing to PvP someone, of any level, dangerous for the long term health of the character.  If that doesn’t serve as enough of a deterrent (I can imagine high level PvPers killing lower level PvPers in weak areas that will never hurt them), generated mobs of appropriate strength that have descriptions fitting the area could be created instead of only the existing mobs attacking killers.

As far as looting goes, I would suggest implementing a time delay loot.  Not the same for each item.  If the person has an item in their inventory, the weight of the item would determine the time delay.  So if you go after a full sack of gold coins, you may be standing there trying to get it free of the body for 10 seconds.  If you try and remove an item the person is wearing, the time delay gets even higher.  Perhaps taking off the cloak from a dead body is a full 20-30 seconds.  During which time you are at risk from others attacking you.  On the other hand, if you just grab for a scroll in the inventory of the person, that may only require 1-2 seconds.  This would encourage strategic looting, instead of full looting.  What the killer wants most and the killed needs most.

I have seen similar policies implemented on other games and they appear to work quite well.  Consent to PvP and roleplay enforced PvP are additional tools, though I think the first one tends to kill off most PvP situations rather quickly and the second one risks concerns about favoritism, depending on how strong it is enforced and who is doing the enforcing.

Good luck in finding a nice balance in your PvP policy and getting your players to join the system more.  : )  PvP does not need to be as much of a headache for admin or a roller-coaster of emotions for players as it often is.  Well implemented, it can be a ton of fun.

Sapphar

At the moment, our world is !PK and !loot and it really hurts IMHO for player interaction especially since "good vs evil" is such a large part of a hack-n-slash.

I/we have been toying with ways to open up with a limited PK and the one single thing we can agree on is it should be self-policing and not need Immortal involvement. We allow a two multie log-in which makes it tougher.

My premise is buy a 'can_PK' flag for 5k coins, sell for 50k, set up some 'can_PK' only zones where you need the flag to enter and limit the ability to fight within 10 levels up or down. No mortal with half a brain would enter there with full eq on and I wouldn't care who looted what because they CHOSE it for for themselves. I think this really reflects both full realism and fear of losing hundreds of hours of eq hunting and collecting for mortals.

I do like the delay tactics mentioned by Sapphir though but I wonder how they apply Pv(linkdead)P. I'm looking for a neat way to enable PC thieves to steal from other PCs too but I've not yet heard of any limiting factors that can be enabled. By that I mean there is nothing I know of to stop a thief from stealing 50 items from one targeted player of his/her choice and what could the penalty be if caught in a !PK world?