From what we've seen, NPCs will react accordingly to how their disposition is towards you. However, what concerns me is how individuals and guards will react to you as well by either intentional theft (eg robbing someone of an item) or accidental (eg interacting with an object via moving or knocking it). In Oblivion crimes followed you everywhere, and even the smallest of crimes could send you straight to the cells. However, someone brought up a really good idea (surprisingly enough from /v/, I take no credit for this idea) and with his blessing I'm posting it here for more feedback and ideas.

"Alright, here's how you fix theft/crimes:

Let's say you walk into a house and pick up a fork. I'm not saying you take it, you just use the grab button. First, the game checks to see who owns it. In this case, John Doe owns it. Then John Doe has a list attatched to him of all his possessions, which are rated on a scale of 0 - 100 in terms of how much he treasures it. The higher the rating, the bigger the chance he'll approach you and ask you to put the fork down. There is more leniency for a low rated item, but if you pick up his treasured family shield you have about half a second to put it down before he calls the guards.

Now let's say you add the fork to your inventory. If it's a low ranked item he might take it back from you, or even just say keep it if the value and ranking are low enough. However the the higher the rating + value of the item, the greater likely hood he will either attack or summon the guards.

Now then, let's say you stole John Doe's fork. It has a value of 1, but a treasure rating of 85 (it's a prized family fork). John might hunt you down to the ends of the earth looking for his fork, but the guards really don't give a [censored]: it's a fork. Maybe they'll aproach you if you're in the area. Now on the other hand let's say you steal his jeweled amulet. it only has a treasure rating of 60, but a value of 1500 gold. He reports it to the guards and goes back home, but the guards will be looking for you everywhere because you took something of value.

The amount of guards that come after you, how far they're willing to pursue you, and how quickly you're recognized in town depends on the severity of the crime, and the size of the bounty on your head. The NPC you stole from, or even the family/friends of an NPC your murder, will hunt you based on the "treasure value" of the item, or how much they like the NPC you murdered."

To further iterate, you could also have the developers set up common prices among objects in general and only have unique items have the according "treasure value". Pair that with the already existing disposition system, and you've got a good idea of how the world could work.

Also, polled since we all love big, shiny polls.

I would actually like to examine a piece of equipment before they suspect me of theft, I hated how in Morrowind, they just went from full on murder mode just for accidentally picking something up, a real shop owner isn't gonna stab me in the neck for picking up some bubblegum.

Bumping.

I like your idea a lot.

Well from what I pieced together from the hub update, it seems like if someone likes you they most likely won't call the guards if you take something, they will probably ask you to put it back. I mean they no longer get angry at you for breaking in, they will most likely give you lodging for the night if they like you.

I never commit crimes in this game. But this idea should be implemented nonetheless, it is a great idea.

As Sleign above stated, plus a NPC that is friendly toward you, will let you eat his food in his house. It sounds to me that a system is in place that may do pretty much what you are suggesting :shrug:

When you go into a shop a touch a spoon guards suddenly burst into the store and before you know it your surrounded by 100 guards (inside the store 50 and 50 outside) and you get tackled. You then see your character getting arrested and pushed into a prisoner wagon while http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KadYZJzQEBw song plays.

I think in terms of shops, we should be able to pick up something and add it to our inventory without triggering 'crime.' We should even be able to try equipment on and see how it works for us. If we try to walk out of the store, the shopkeeper might give us a friendly reminder that we still have his items (assuming you're wearing it and he saw you take it/took it while not in sneak). We should also be able to buy items this way, simply by picking it up and going to the NPC and a dialog option should be available to buy it directly. Or if you decide not to buy them, the NPC could then take them back and they would automatically be placed back to their original positions. Guards and bounty shouldn't come into the picture until we walk out the door with the item, something turns up missing later, or we refuse to pay or put the items back.

I think your idea is great.

I like that on top of the system described in the OP. I would add one thing though. As a customer if I'm going to wander around looking at stuff with my hands it's customary to let the shopkeep know i'm shopping around and at the same time as a shopkeeper if my potential customer is holding something he might be interested in buying it and i should try and tell him something about it that might convince him of it's value.

Example: I enter shop full of goods and immediately approach the shop keep and start a dialog. I take the option to look around. While doing so the shop keep is watching me and commenting on the items I examine.

well said.

Actually yes that's another good idea. Perhaps a certain range limit on picking up and object within a store can stop you from abusing a possible theft via positioning, but also still allows you to interact with the object without guards ambushing you in the store.

EDIT: And again, the original post isn't entirely my idea, the quoted stuff is from an anonymous member of /v/ on [censored] surprisingly enough.

Yes that would work. Also for shops the system they've had in place for past games wasn't very immersive or even slightly believable. I think you should find the item on a shelf and the pick up the item with, going by pc version, "z" and walk over to the counter place it down and he'll scan the items and charge you according, at that point you can pick it up into your inventory.

On a side note, kinda off topic but it makes the above system more realistic... the physics should be affected by the weight of an item. If you pick up a small item with "z" and quickly swing the camera around the item shouldn't flop around wildly. It should be in your hands firmly. A larger item, like a dead body, might have some movement to it, but a dagger shouldn't(you'll poke an eye out if you do that!)

I also say they should go back to a "common sense" theft system. If it's not personally yours than it should be considered stealing(doesn't matter if it's green or red, it's stealing) Now hear me out... this of course would require a better AI system, that Skyrim should have. But just because you pick something up doesn't make it stealing unless you walk away with it. As an example: the owner of the item should ask you to put it down. If you don't put it down, they'll warn you after enough warnings or if you walk out with it than they run and go tell a guard(no telepathic bounties either, they must speak to the guard before you have a bounty) or they may chase you down and attack you depending on the item or if the owner is/is not living in a town with guards. As far as the green or red text or symbol telling you if it's stealing or not goes, I say get rid of it. With the statement I made and a good AI system, it shouldn't be needed(that and I don't like when one of the swords in my home collection of valuables forever has stolen in red text written down on it)

I'm sure there will be some sort of flaw somewhere, but from what I've heard this is a huge improvement - I'm a happy bunny! Now let's just hope there's something worth stealing this time... :wink_smile:

I really think this is the way to go. Much better than this example of OB crime system: http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2008/159/4/9/49022fddbbb5214f815f1c90d083f7d2.jpg

I think it's a decent alternative. It has been far too black and white in past games. I think if your bounty is low and you resist arrest, rather than killing you the guards should seek to knock you out and incarcerate you. I'd like to see bounties regionalised too.


You'd be surprised...

Great idea, I'd love to see it implemented like this - if not in the vanilla game, then at least in a mod.

Bravo!

:goodjob:

I would imagine if you stole something by mistake, a small item in a house or a shop, the owner will remove it from your inventory like in Fallout: New Vegas.

Just to add to thievery.

I think masks should hide our identity (I've said this alot, sorry) - If your wearing a mask in public or what not gaurds might get suspicious of you and follow you around and keep an eye on you or ask questions and have low disosition of you.

If you are caught in the act of a crime their is a % chance you will not be recognized. You will still be hunted down depending on the item but only while wearing the same type of mask. If you were caught stealing while wearing a mask during the heist and the shop keeper/gaurd couldn't recognize you there will be no bounty against you. But if you walk into public with the mask on be prepared to get hunted down etc.

Thats the basis of the idea.

I would love to have the OP's idea be implemented one day into TES.


Also we should discuss also on how news travels of Treasured items. Treasured items might take a few days to reach the ears of other gaurds and of the bounty.
While the fork would just be very local. very local indeed.

Hahah, this is precious! Who made this? You?

It's a great idea, especially since we already know NPCs will consider how well they like you before pursuing your behavior with any actions.

However, as was mentioned, I think it's really important that you have more than a second or so if you just grab something without taking it--not many people are going to attack if you pick stuff up at their house to just look at it. As long as there isn't an exploit where you can grab things and then throw them into another room to steal or just walk out of a door still holding them, then the player character should be able to hold stuff for an unlimited amount of time. Most people lock away their precious and valued items.

Yes, while the locked items do particularly come into play, the problem is unless you directly approach the item movement to take it undetected issue, people will abuse it one way or another. Having a "leash" range is a good idea so rather than time limit based, it's based on how far the object leaves its original location. Too far and they'll consider you trying to manipulate it for theft and will be acted on accordingly.

No matter how many times I click on that link and see the comic strip, I still laugh.

Yeah, that does make more sense and mostly take care of exploits. This makes me think of Future Problem Solvers of America fun.