News 2 48 - Changes to graves and graverobbing

NEWS article 2-48:

Dateline 10/20/2015: CHANGES TO GRAVES AND GRAVEROBBING

Damaris has grown rather cranky, as would-be graverobbers continue to sully the name of "Thief." It seems it has become common to take items and then flee to a safe area, or hide for long periods of time until the trail has cooled down. He has made it his business to see that these cowardly acts are punished, so as to once again bring some honor and fair play to the game of theft. Those who have directly disobeyed him have found themselves to be swiftly struck down, their spirit sundered by his wrath.

What this means is: Graverobbing mechanics have been changed.

Under the old mechanics, when a "hot" item (an item from a grave, or an item that was in hands and dropped at the moment of death) was picked up by someone other than the owner upon their death, the person who picked it up could not log out of the game for 15 minutes. If they did, the item would be teleported back to the owner's grave site. Under the new mechanics, this period of time has been changed from 15 minutes to a minimum of one hour, with the random capacity to last longer so that there is no certain time. By default, this extends the time you have to SEARCH a graverobber and get your item back to the same length of time. Logging out with a graverobbed item will also now send the item to the Lost and Found location, rather than back to the grave site.

So, if you plan to be graverobbing, you need to make sure that you're going to have time to play for at least the next hour. The owner of the item deserves the right to try and get their item back, including a fair amount of time to attempt to do so.

Also, graverobbed items will now cause spirit drain if any of the following conditions are true for a lengthy period of time:

- The graverobber is hidden or invisible.

- The graverobber is in a safehaven room where attacks are not permitted.

- The graverobber is in a room where locates are prohibited, or familiars are barred from entering.

Note that all of the above activities are permissible -- they're just not permissible for long periods of consecutive time after you've taken an item from a grave. This mechanic is designed to force graverobbers out 'on the lam' where such a person would logically be.

This mechanic, coupled with the janitor fixes made early this year, are in response to everyone's desires to see the odds evened out on the graverobbing front. Graverobbing will always be a part of the game -- we do not discourage it -- but we are taking steps to make sure that the victim gets a fair shot at getting their items back, as departing has become (and will continue to be, even after Resurrection is back) a commonplace event in Dragonrealms.

As a footnote, when this feature was originally released, it was not properly checking consent. This has been fixed, and if you have been given consent by the player whose grave the items were taken from, the above spirit draining and item teleportation changes will not affect you.