Staff did mention in another topic that community guidelines are forthcoming. Please bring them into the game sooner than later, please.
Yesterday, I accidentally hit the max to buy beer (I meant to buy 3) so that i could make seasoned beans for some patches I was making for someone who needed to hoe. So, I think that was 999 beers I ended up buying by mistake. I thought it was 9999 at first in my panic, but overnight I think it was just 999. Either way, my bags filled up with unintended beers (some hundreds of them filling every slot I had) and I was, well, feh.
But there was a party, so I just decided to suck it up and bring the 900 or so beers to the party. The party was in a villa and the house itself was full o crap, so I set the beers out in a line to the door of the house in the public villa area. Now, I've attended a lot of parties, some in public streets. We all set a ton of crap out, people come along and take what they like in small quantities. Everyone shares, yay, party.
It was not bound to last, right?! I'm the first to say that if it's on a public street, it's fair game for another player. I've not been an advocate of drop/lock for anything but machines. But last night, I really got upset by what happened with the beers.
A low level player came along, entered the villa (since the party was being talked up in global), and took as many beers as they could carry, running off with them. A quick check of their profile at that time showed they got the money bags magoo badge (so, they sold the beer at the nearest vendor)... then they returned to get the rest of the beer. We are talking hundreds of beers. We were speaking to the player in local chat with no response from them and they were busy refilling and running away. We chased them. I opened a local IM to them, politely stating why we wanted the beer back (so, being reasonable) while using hairball to catch up to them as they went from street to street to evade us. Others were asking staff to intervene, which did happen.
Staff got the beers back from the player (and the player got another badge for philanthropy), returned them to me, and the player showed up not very remorseful at all while issuing what may have been a mandated apology. In fact, if anything they seemed amused by the whole thing and waited to enter the party.
So, whatever, it worked out, but I have some concerns.
First, I am not at all happy that one player could just snarf up everything meant to be shared by everyone at a party. Yes, it was in a public area and I know better.... but parties generally work out without one person snarfing everything up. I'm *really* sick of the selfish behavior evident in recent tests (hoarding, price gouging, market manipulation, herb garden selfishness) and I see no way for a player to counter it without having to run crying to staff.
I could not get the player to talk to me (he claims he didn't see the messages) and he could have blocked me anyway. Now that we get messages saying what street a player has left to visit, we can follow them... but then we can just... splank them? I tried and was fumbling around too much while in pursuit. But consider that griefing someone back is also anti-social. So, our only resource when we encounter a jerk is to talk to staff.
I was, frankly, surprised that staff intervened to give me back the beer. Especially since staff did not talk to me about the 'theft' of my items but relied on other people's testimony solely.
Staff did not intervene when those blockmakers got 'stolen' - I'm using quotes because since the game allows it, it's difficult to call it theft. At what point does behavior cross the line? We don't know.
If the problem was that this player picked up things meant to be shared by all, was it that they picked up all of them? What if it had been half of them? I only got half back because they converted the rest to currants. What if they just picked up 10 of them, but I got bent of shape about it (I wouldn't, but some have). We have no boundaries except for what staff decides is ok/not ok nor do we have anyway to handle problems ourselves other than to suck it up and take the loss, turn into jerks ourselves, stop playing, or ask staff to intervene. And staff decisions may change depending on who is working.
And staff intervention may turn into a game in and of itself because the 'thief' here really liked the interrogation room and wanted to go back to it!
So. Yea, I will probably never put anything out in a public area again, and I'm pretty much done contributing to parties since I've seen an escalation in the amount of things a given player picks up at them. There is more selfish play entering the game (whoopie - we all get to choose how to play!) and it really got to me last night, especially since the player was not really contrite at all. It really seemed they only apologized because they were asked to do so and since they wanted to attend the party.
But I am more concerned that we just don't have guidelines for community play at all. It leaves the door open for varying responses from staff based on who is on duty at the time. It also leaves the door open for players to call foul on anything and everything - I dropped a bag at a shrine and someone swooped it up - OK or not OK? Someone mined my rock - OK or not OK? I waited 3 hours for this herb which someone came along and swiped - OK or not OK? I left 900 beers at a party and someone grabbed all of them, knowing that what they were doing was wrong because they actively tried to elude us - OK or not OK?
We've heard staff say that some will be jerks, deal with it, but we also see staff intervene to return a few hundred beers that were actually left in a public area.
So, I'm frustrated, confused and discouraged. Thoughts?