Shattered Kingdoms

Patrisaurus' suggestion of item instance hashes is probably one of the most efficient ways to accomplish this, particularly if you add quest bits for tracking to player accounts rather than player characters... but only half of the issue is handled. What keeps a storage alt from selectively junking an item when a friend wants a copy of it under this system?

This proposed system also makes it risky to not have everyone reveal who they are playing, and that's uncouth.

Anti-hoarding and anti-transfer systems require an agility that any single, automated solution is not going to be able to maintain. For regulation, you need definitions and information. Help files for players and log files for immortals. To our knowledge, neither are currently implemented. Start there. Build some information radiators for the staff or something.

Keep in mind that if this were a policy, it would apply to specific instances of items. As a few examples:

Example 1:
- Character A and C are played by the same player.
- Item 1 is a unique item limited to one instance at a time within the world (ex: 'The Sai of Wind and Rain')
- Character A acquires Item 1 from it's world spawn location.
- Character A gives Item 1 to Character B.
- Character B gives Item 1 to Character C.

This would be considered an illegal item transfer.

Example 2:
- Character A and C are played by the same player.
- Item 1 is a unique item limited to one instance at a time within the world (ex: 'The Sai of Wind and Rain')
- Character A acquires Item 1 from it's world spawn location.
- Character A gives Item 1 to Character B.
- Character B is killed in battle and all their items are junked.
- Character C acquires Item 1 from it's world spawn location.

This would NOT be considered an illegal item transfer, because it is a new instance of the item.

As a further clarification of whether an item is the same instance, consider the process of enchanting an item. Once you enchant an item with a specific set of enchantments, it is easy to differentiate it from an item of the same type.

Example 3:
- Character A and C are played by the same player.
- Item 2a and 2b are both the same item which is limited but not unique (ex: '(2) a stained mithril breastplate' )
- Character A acquires Item 2a from it's world spawn location.
- Item 2a receives an enchantment to slightly increase dexterity.
- Character B acquires Item 2b from it's world spawn location.
- Item 2b receives an enchantment to slightly increase strength.
- Character A gives Item 2a to Character B.
- Character B is killed in battle and looted by Character C.

Character C can legitimately keep Item 2b (+str) because he never owned it. Keeping Item 2a (+dex) would be item transfer.

Hopefully this illustrates the difference between same types of item and same instances of item. It probably also illustrates the complexity of keeping these distinctions clear within the game.

And in all of those examples, if none of the players ever went OOC to identify themselves, they could all be punished without having intended to do a single thing other than be immersed in the game without OOC drama... playing the game as it is meant to be played would involve taking significant risks. The wrong people experience behavior modification.

Wrong. The player who owns both Characters A and C knows what they did and should expect punishment for it. Character B is not punished unless it is clear that they were knowingly aiding and abetting.

The method you posted seems needlessly complicated, since junking an item and then acquiring it when it spawns again will become the new "transfer" method. Transfers don't matter, if the characters involved are forced into public settings, like an inn, where the loot has an opportunity for "redistribution".

Pretty sure you stated in another thread that you wanted to reduce the number of start cities to make the game feel more populated - my idea helps to kill two birds with one code change.

I just don't see how such a short-sided system would be worth implementing.

Example 1:
Character A sells an item to a merchant. Character C buys it. What then?

Example 2:
Character C locates an item previously owned by Character A and murderates Character B to respawn it. All that's happened is that Character B has been made to suffer so that Character C isn't breaking the rules.

Example 3:
Character B faded both items 2a and 2b. How does Character C know what to keep and what not to keep, and how is this explained in-character?

All the while, hoarding still isn't defined, so none of these players actually know how to follow the rules.

Would there be logs for Imms? Sounds pretty solid if so. Marking players under certain conditions would probably go a long way.

Laundering gear is probably just a small portion of the hoarding problem though. The problem probably lies with alts. If there was a distinction and requirement for a main/alt system it would probably hurt a lot of hoarders and their storage characters. Mains would have better gear than alts, as it should be.

What happens when it's not intentional? Maybe add a asterisk if possible?

What about keeping the key to a nasty scroll's spawning container so that other players can't use it against you? Is that hoarding?

CRS acknowledges that keeping items from other players is a point of the game, but I've seen players called hoarders for doing it.

I've always been a fan of drastically neutering container functionality in this context. It's the best idea I can think of, for what I like - which is a granted minority opinion.

When I say drastic, I mean drastic. Make a character physically incapable of holding onto that many items - make their dex item limit include whatever is inside of container containers (or cause containers to add a very modest reductive multiplier, items in container = 0.8x what they are outside of the container), and tool armor and weapon pieces to take up a larger portion of said limit.

I don't think I can overstate how drastic this would be, and I understand it pretty well, so debunk it as you will - just please do not do so on the idea I don't understand how "much it would change." I know, I'm just okay with it. I like its limitations on consumables, I like its limitation on what you can hold for scripts, for charms, etc.

That's one way of looking at it. I don't know what you call keeping various orbs and griffon weapons out of the game, only to log off when people come to your HQ to dehoard you, but I guess that just depends on how you look at it.

I like finneys idea. Require that people spend time in general pop so we actually have a chance to shank em.