Has anyone written a guide or know of a guide or willing to write a guide on how to be a thief on a prodo shard?
I may post some smurfy templates. I disagree deeply with the suggestions provided almost everywhere on how to build an effective thief.
I posted a link to some templates. You responded that you "deeply disagree" with templates posted almost everywhere. My response is that, in my opinion, folks would learn more from reading Chad's stories (via my original link) than your stories (noting you still have not actually posted any templates...just attempted to discredit others). However, if you would like to take it personally, that is your prerogative.
Indeed, I disagree with many of the templates chad and others choose. I believe that they are best suited for siege. You'll note this is a thread about production shard thieves templates. I did say I may post some templates of mine but I pause to consider the full implications of doing so. You then go on to talk about stories teaching about templates. I disagree with that assertion as well. A thieves stories don't focus on the use of skills and shouldn't. They may focus on tactics out of the game but the stories become very limited in entertainment value if we speak about in game skills utilized. Teaching about the template and in game skills used is boring, it's not entertaining. In the past I have shared my templates. I don't always do so because it provides people a huge heads up on what to expect when in a fight with me. I doubt you're a pvper but disclosing certain facts about your templates tells pvpers what tactics to deploy in fighting me.
Apparently you haven't read many of Chad's stories. He began on prodo, not on Siege. He has advice for prodo thieves. Secondly, reading thief stories is one of the best methods for learning thieving techniques, which can then be practiced in game. Thought all thieves knew this. Thirdly, I find learning new templates engaging--not boring. I suspect that I'm not alone. Finally, my thief often kills folks, as do many thieves in UO THIEF. Reason I haven't played mine in a while is because I'm sick of burning counts. Nice try, though.
No offense, but if you were killing pvpers with a thief, you'd be well known among pvpers. This is a thread about templates. Not Syrus' off topic critiques about UO stories that could better be placed in any of the various story threads in this forum... Anyone that reads my stories knows I'm not trying to teach anyone tricks of my trade... I'm writing entertaining stories. Based on my web traffic, I can gather that it is almost all ex-uo players. The stories contain mostly dry humor, some off topic references and an emphasis on the story rather than UO. The goal is broad appeal rather than appeal to the few hundred people that still play UO. It seems that was clear to everyone but you.
Note: The first 4 sections of the FAQ were written by Crazy Joe, Chaotic Jelly, Neon Ninja, and Zole (2000-2003). I wrote parts 5 & 6 while I was on Napa and part 7 when I was on Siege (2006-2010). And yeah, whatever works. I still say go with this: uothief.com/faq/5pt1.html
This isn't really a template thread, it's how to be a successful thief on prodo shards with insurance in place. How to find marks, etc.
Ed, it depends on what you want to steal really. If you want to do home invasion, find rich players. Not ultra rich(super paranoid rares collectors), or middle to rich(likely higher end pvpers). Some happy medium is the best group for home invasion. If you want scrolls, spawning guilds are easy targets. they have few reds and as pvpers they're awful. If you want to persuasion theft people. Well, navigating that line is tricky.
theft by persuasion. It walks a fine line between theft and scamming. I don't promote it because scamming becomes a real life moral issue in many cases rather than a clean uo steal.
a bright line rule is if you communicate with folks outside of the game, ie: use of icq or these forums, you're engaging in scamming not theft. If you abuse a game mechanic in an entirely unintended way, you're scamming. If you're taking payment for something as part of a larger pre-arranged deal and then not fulfilling your end of the bargain, you're probably scamming.
You cease to be roleplaying a thief in a game and become just another scammer. Whether or not you went through the formality of using the skill in the end does not absolve you of the means deployed to get there.
Why does one have to role play to be a thief? To be a thief, you can use the "Stealing" skill.....I don't foresee any other requirements. I mean, do you constitute yourself being a thief by pick up items that people unlock from a house? I consider that "looting" --- not stealing.
Looting is a classic behavior of thieves in UO. However, it's more accurately called Burglary. By your definition, stealing items from the ground is theft, the ground can not be a mark. I assure you, this forum's more regular visitors will disagree with your assessment.
By you episodes you keep claiming that picking up items from the ground is theft, and I assure you most of this forum's more regular visitors disagree with your assessment. You should see my In Box.... Lets point a few things out. 1) The Majority of your Episodes take place in Trammel {This is FACT Gold mouse Icon doesn't lie} 2) You are calling yourself "The King of Thieves" {Fact You are mainly engaging in "Looting"} at least what you display to the public If you can consider it theft so can others. As long as he doesn't breech the games ToS or post content that violates the Stratics RoC it doesn't matter....
The only way that you could steal house keys or boat keys was from the skill....so I'm not sure where you are going with that comment. I don't think I mentioned anything about scamming, and if I recall, to be a thief, you should use the "Stealing" skill. Notice I say skill, because any character can just loot an item off the ground. I would recommend, as Nexus stated, that if you want to refer to yourself as the "King of Thieves" --- why don't you try stealing instead of looting? I think it would be more appropriate to call you the "King of Looters" because 2/3rd of your stories pertain to just that.
Thieves, loot, steal and sometimes kill... all traditional behaviors of thieves. Thieves have marks and they don't scam. Using the skill of stealing for part of a larger scam is still a scam. Suddenly using the skill doesn't wash away the taint of scamming.
If you arrange the trade out of game, it begins to become questionable. If its all done in game, it's just bad for business but it's still good for thievery.
I agree with Omnius on one on the issues, even though i do agree that picking stuff up in houses in trammel is NOT theft (though it is still hilarious). Note that the ingame title for a thief is "pickpocket" and that's where I personally draw the line for consideration of actual theft, it has to be a pickpocketing action directly against a player. Burglery or home invasion robbery would be more proper terms for taking items from a house. (And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, I do it as well, just saying it falls in a different category) Where i really do agree though is the dislike of scamming, I would personally consider it a black mark and cut all business relations + no longer consider the character a thief. (which reminds me, you two probably need to be accessed to my houses so you can use my thief rune libs and house teleporters). While i wouldn't consider stealing something back after trading it a scam, I would consider that bad for business, and personally think it's a bit low. I go to some lengths to assure that anyone who can see me, talk to me, and is currently or recently in a transaction with me is protected, but that's more of a personal extension of the code. I hope you enjoy bandages, potions, and ninja stars
Like Raptor, I see pickpocketing to be the line for true UO thieving. Nevertheless, burglary and piracy have always been great pastimes for thieves. Makes for fun stories. Scams? A fast tongue (or typing, as it were) to set up a mark is one thing; but guild PK'ing/thieving is for bums.
Yeah, I don't even mind guild pks/thieves so long as they aren't doing it specifically when the mark is already selling something. If you happen to join a guild and go on an immediate stealing or killing spree, that's fine. If you spend days making friends with people, that's not fine. A classic behavior of many Thug Thieves was always putting on a disguise kit, joining a local guild, and then going on the ultimate stealing/killing spree until the kit wore off or the guild had enough of you.
Thug thief = thief w/ fighting skills to attack people who attacked you when you went grey. It didn't matter what you stole. The point was to get people to attack a defenseless thief.
Yep. These were thieves that rarely had snooping and focused entirely on killing. Always a fun template.
mmm in the 90s, the thug thief was pretty popular on pacific. Back then there were only 2 reputable thief templates to even play. the thug and the disarm thief. The thug tended to be a killing machine, when trammel came out. Thugs made sport of joining guilds for killing sprees. My experience until about '06 was pacific limited with brief visits to siege.
Hehe, get some Trammy in full val plate to attack you, whip out your mace and bust it all up on him. Good times.
ROFL. Back in the day, setting up a character as a 5x mage with arms lore and stealing sure did give a few unwary dexxers a thing to think about after they attacked what they thought was a defenseless disarm thief. There was absolutely no need for snooping on that template since you would just target the nice weapon the dexxer had in their hands. Quick disarm steal, and presto...you were grey...the player thought you were just a disarm thief, and moments later...I would be looting the remainder of their stuff...la
