Insight for DEVS!

[niqeo]

Theifs are a neusense yes. During this time era theifs strived just the same as PKers. In fact, I went from PKing to stealing during this era as my brother had found a bug where you could AUTO-steal everthing from someone's pack without delay. I watched him type something in, got a cursor, and Wala! 30 stealing in 1 second. He insisted we log out as to prevent banning and the usual OSI daily patching...Fixed! Thus starting my career as theif. I had already played the tank/mage and found many not to be challenging. I remember being one of the 'few' that actualy had GM stealing. The main focus of my gameplay at this point was terrorizing the road from minoc/vesper to Xroads. The thing I loved the most was how I could rob someone running around naked and when they went to blast me throw on a katana and commense raping. Usually I stole their root so that took out the greatr heals and recall and it became a matter of outrunning me, but town never mattered as they were flagged to me. My family (The Smurf Family, Daddyman {dad}) got rich during this time on Nappa Valley, between my brother PKing and my theif ganking They owned almost every house from the gaurdshack by covetous to the Xroads. Eventually I quit and went to Catskills when they nerfed theifs, Not allowing them to fight back, and dropping from the theifs guild for getting a murdercount. Thus ending the days of flip-n-fool and creating Vantto on cats (former member of COP), I still have access to my ICQ vantto_COP id.

Oh also, in town. I had GM stealing during this era and even at GM, the 'getting caught' rate was great and I found myself quickly booking out of screen to prevent whackage. In fact, stealin in town was almost not worth the time as you got whacked most of the time. But out of the guard limits theifs would dominate a tank/mage if you stole their weapons and regs.

[Flash Hardstar]

Precisley, I almost never saw thiefs clean out an entire persons bag at Wbrit bank and then proceed to kill them (happened to me a few weeks ago, surprisngly, and i'm a gm'ed out dexer wit gm parry and full armor, the guy was a naked thief with a q staff) was pretty sad to be honest. especially considering my one war fork hit did as much damage to a naked thief as he did to me with 43 ar and gm parry with one of his q-staff hits.

[Faust]

Oh also, in town. I had GM stealing during this era and even at GM, the 'getting caught' rate was great and I found myself quickly booking out of screen to prevent whackage. In fact, stealin in town was almost not worth the time as you got whacked most of the time.

Perhaps, this is why I always assumed you got guard whacked when stealing. I don't ever remember it being so easy getting away without getting whacked.

[kill drizitz]

my thief was in the 90's on osi during the era. the only reason i remember getting caught in guards was becasue there were soo many people around. i remember using tubs at wbb because i was told the more people notice, the quicker the skill went up. this also applied when you were trying to steal. the more people in the area, the lower chance of success. the least amount of players around was almost always succesfull even in guards. thats why i stole at the brit gate (which is in guards) because i would rarely fail or be noticed.

[Faust]

i can say with 99% confidence this was not the case. i remember some vendors on OSI you wouldnt even have to be in the building with them to get their menu to pop up (one in particular was the blacksmith in britain just below the graveyard). if you were standing outside within i assume a set number of tiles (dont know how many exactly) you could get the menu. if there were multiple vendor NPCS in range it would give you the menu of the one who you are standing the closest to.

im pretty confident that is the way it worked back then.

I was slightly wrong in this case. I've confirmed on the UO Demo that vendor buy works at a max distance of 3 tiles, however the only time the npc reacts to you in that distance amount is if you have their focus. So vendor buy does work within the 3 tile range, but only if you alread have their focus. Other than that it is 1 tile until you obtain their focus point.

[niqeo]

Yes, stealing in town was more difficult as you got guardwhacked A LOT, but stealing out of town was always a benefit as most people would attack you, get flagged, get dropped.

[Hemperor]

I think the gentlemen from Europa is a little fibber. If thiefs could succesfulyl steal and never be guard whacked, they would have been a serious problem for OSI, not a nuisance - what they were meant to be. The link post by Derrick (second one) claiming people CAN'T seperate themselves from their characters it isn't fair to let them watch something be stolen from their bag and no retribution. I was a thief, and no matter 1 stealing skill or 100, if i stole, i had a 15 second window for a guard whack, it's why I would steal and BOOK IT. It made stealing a real skillful art, not a go to brit bank on slow times and clean somebody out, and if they attacked them, they are a 7X gm and they kill them. Never seen that happen till I came here... also from the first link post by Derrick

"What actions will summon guards in town?
Any action that flags a character as a Criminal. The guards must be called within 15 seconds after the crime is committed. Note that NPCs can call guards so sometimes it may seem that no one witnessed your crime but there is probably an NPC nearby. "

u sound ridiculous. the reason it was never so serious on osi was because stealing was soo hard to GM making it much harder to successfully steal. this is a freeshard were people make every template available with 3 accounts to work with. like derrick said, go to occlo to get away from thiefs and stop complaining!

EDIT: yes thiefs COULD be guard wacked. u make it seem like i said they will never be wacked, just not if they went unoticed. go to brit bank and check out all the thief corpses...

also, welcome to freeshards.

I did not bother reading the replies after this one, but whether you or him are right, you hit it spot on by saying that. People here (like with every other character) do not step out of their small houses until their character is finished, their thief is not used until he is GM. You can all bullshit all you want, but this is so out of era it is not even funny.

Derrick has put together a great shard here, yet this whole macroing 3 accounts bullshit really does remove any sort of era feel to it. GM thieves left and right is NOT accurate, especially ones that are 7x and there is no spell damage in town, so you're only way of fighting them off is to stay in range for them to steal the rest of your shit.

[platy]

I knew a theif on Catskills named Jackal: he was a GM/Counselor on Baja or Napa.. i actually caught up with him recently as he's in the Darkfall testing
He was a close friend to my guild and owned the house next to us, he was a theif with macing and he killed ANYONE who attacked him while he was grey (due to stealing). i don't ever remember him going red or being able to give counts

[Faust]

All I could find on this issue was a patch removing the function of reporting a thief for killing someone they stole from in July 23rd, 2002.

Publish 16 - PvP and Felucca enhancements Jul 23 2002 11:37AM CST
Changes to the consequences/conditions of being a “Thief”
Stealing will no longer be considered an aggressive act, although it will continue to be a criminal act (players will not be able to report a thief for murder if they attack the thief but lose the fight). This applies to all of Felucca.

There was no patch note anywhere else for it being implemented. I played UO until the UOR publish, and I had a combat thief up until it was removed sometime during t2a. The only logical sense for the removal of a thief killing someone that attacked them was the patch during February 24th, 1999.

February 24th, 1999
Stealing
The more armor you are wearing, the harder it will be to steal.
You will not be able to steal from other players unless you join the NPC Thieves Guild, or unless the target is an opponent in a guild war.
You can join the Thieves' Guild the usual way, by finding a Guildmaster and asking him to join. It will cost you an entrance fee.
You cannot join unless your character has existed for at least one week.
The character may not have any murders to his name.
Being reported for murder whilst a member of the Thieves Guild will result in summary expulsion, and you will not be able to rejoin for at least one week.
You cannot join the Thieves Guild unless you have at least a 60 in the Stealing skill.
Members of the Thieves Guild have access to a special item, the disguise kit.
The disguise kit looks like a wig stand.
You can get one by asking the guildmaster about 'disguise.'
It will cost you 700 gold.
He'll only sell them to Thieves Guild members.
When used:
You can elect to change your hairstyle.
If you are a male character, you can also change your facial hair.
The hair will come out gray, but you can use hairdye on it as usual.
It will also randomly generate a name for you.
All changes will last for 2 hours.
The disguise kit will only work for Thieves Guild members.
Members of the Thieves Guild do not display professional titles on the paperdoll to anyone except themselves, regardless of skill level or fame.
Members of the Thieves Guild can be attacked with impunity, because they are not allowed to report anyone for murder.
In towns, it is still illegal to start fights, so Thieves Guild members are still safe from attack, as they can call the guards (unless of course, they just committed a crime).
Just as with any guild, you can leave the guild by finding the Guildmaster and tellng him you quit. However, the Guild does not let go easily--it will take one week for leaving the guild to take effect.
Victims of thieves can feel free to attack them, as they will not go gray for attacking a thief who has stolen from them in the last two minutes.
There will be four possible outcomes to stealing:
True success: you get the item and are not noticed.
Partial success: you get the item, but are noticed.
Partial failure: you do not get the item, but are not noticed.
Total failure: you do not get the item, and your attempt is noticed.
The professional title for this skill is now "pickpocket."

This would make sense, because I have always portrayed combat thieves mostly as a pre-t2a feature.

[Flash Hardstar]

As Derrick said, Bank sitting and guard whacking thiefs was t2a era accurate. Whatever outcomes the shard allowed to do such a macroing quite possibly have changed it. You don't see much bank sitting because a 7Xgm thief will clean you out. As I believe it was, and making them able to have guards called on them, fixes this entire thread of a problem.

[Hemperor]

I would love to see counting thieves implemented at the very least

[Red]

Yeah, IMO, if stealing would be considered an aggressive act, everything would be okay.

[Slade]

Hemperor is just bitter because he had his house key and rune on him when he attacked my thief in town. I killed him, his blue healing buddy Ronald McDonald, and then looted his house.

[Hemperor]

slade, not sure what you have against me. you got my shit fair and square, ive offered to more than replace the poitns they are worth, profit for you and you ignore me.

[Flash Hardstar]

Move slades post to trash talk section?