This could have been avoided with a currency system. :(
(By the way, I also bought a bunch of food which didn't show up in my inventory. There's something wrong with the current IOU system.)
My rampage ended with stumbling upon an army gathered in the town hall, where I was savagely ripped to pieces.
I am forever remembered as Kado Growermirrored the Violent Devourer of Seizing.
[ November 01, 2007: Message edited by: Kintak ]
Still, you should be able to steal things without suffering from side-effects besides for being a wanted man. If it's too easy, maybe there should be more guards. If the consequences still aren't enough, maybe towns should hold communications with each other so if you're wanted in a certain town, you might also become wanted in another certain town.
In fact, speaking of that, it would be cool if there was a public wanted list and you could hunt down criminals if you so chose.
[ November 01, 2007: Message edited by: Kintak ]
quote:
When you buy something, it becomes yours. You just have to pick it up (at least in the previous version you did, so I assume it's still the same). So that armor you bought shouldn't just show up in your inventory. It should be on a table in the shop, most likely.
Alas, my poor human maceman inadvertently became an outlaw because of the confusing merchant system. I had bought an iron helm from a merchant, and went over to pick it up... but there were two, and apparently I picked up the wrong one. Guards instantly began to treat me as hostile.
Frustratingly enough, even after I killed every single human in the entire town, I still couldn't travel :(
quote:
Originally posted by Havlock:
<STRONG>Items and buildings that are owned by others have the character used for coinage (monies) on the front and back of their names.</STRONG>
What is one unit of DF currency called, and how much is the equivalent of one U.S. dollar?
The whole buying-selling process isn't very realistic at all, though.
I'm willing to bet the last time you went shopping you weren't cut to peices the moment you picked up a shop item you hadn't already bought. :P
If you *did* pick up something that wasn't yours, you'd only be apprehended if caught putting it in your bag or leaving the shop without paying for it- and at most you'd be told to give it back, or maybe grabbed forcefully if you did a runner.
Maybe dwarf fortress should take a leaf out of Oblivion's book in this case- with guards stopping you and giving you the choice to return the goods or put up a fight (if you were known to be a bit of a baddun, or if your two nations were at war (looking forward to the armies arc), they might give you less of a chance!).
I know that, obviously, merchants in DF are more like most computer game merchants- aping some kind of hypothetical medieval street stall-cum-pawn broker who sells things *and* buys useless random junk (I've tried flogging stuff to the lady behind the counter at my local newsagents; she's not having any of it), but it still strikes me a little odd that when they give you money you have to go over to their safe and pick the cash up yourself. The lady at the newsagents started screaming when I tried to get my change out of the till. :(
It's even stranger that, in all these backwater rural towns, they have armed guards ready to cut your head off at the slightest mistake- yet the villagers constantly put you in incredibly precarious positions where so much as putting a foot down in the wrong direction is a death sentence. Maybe that's the *real* economy in the dwarf fortress universe? Luring tourists into their towns, framing them for some kind of petty, made up crime, then murdering them and stealing all their worldly possessions. A very dwarven take on tourism!
(Yeah, I know all these systems are such because Toady's only had time to put in a basic prototype before rushing off to do something else, but that doesn't mean I can't grumpily complain about it. :P)
So, I eventually ended up doing a rather good black knight impression with my last breath. No limbs left, so I "pushed" the piker in the leg. And then I lost my head.
Couldn't see a thing though, the entire house was absolutely choked with smoke from the burning food barrel. I don't see how the pikeman could breathe in all that...
Reminds me of the time I wandered inside a swordsman's room while he was eating his fish supper and I stood on his table, grabbed the dish, and ate it. Then walked back out. A pity there's no alcohol in the world outside of your fortress though.