Professional Ninja Looter

[123]

Remember when ninja looting was a thing? I was so awful in EQ as a young teen. They probably have some enforced roll system now, but corpses used to be 100% free to loot as soon as the mob died. Players would all do /roll. Emergent gameplay vs. today's theme park hand holding.

Back after Velious launch I used to roll a lvl 1 dark elf rogue and make my way all the way through Lavastorm to Nagafen's Lair to sneak after the raid group. I knew there was a raid group because they always used the same chat channel names like /nagafen or /naggy - I even figured out how to join them across servers. Anyway, I'd catch up with the raid party of some 24 people by being super cautious and using sneak and watch them from around a corner until they killed Naggy. Then I'd immediately loot him and jump in the lava. Under level 5 or something you still respawned with your inventory, so I'd reappear w/ my new Cloak of Flames. GM's could track if though, and trade chat would already be blowing up. I'd go to a discreet spot, drop the loot on the ground, log off and delete the toon, log in w/ another lvl 1 dark elf i had waiting there, and pick it up. Then I'd run to East Commonlands Tunnel meet the buyer I had waiting from advertising the CoF for sale some hour or so earlier and get like 60k of sweet, sweet platinum.

GM's couldn't trace the currency itself, so id do the drop, delete, pickup process one more time so the remaining toon had never even touched the stolen cloak. Booya 60k plat easy! Never got caught on that one and did it 4 or 5 times iirc. Did it with Vox a couple times too with barbarian rogue. I'M SORRY! I was a kid!

[Halcyform]

You have loot rules that can be set via raid menu and you also have an advanced loot window that you use in groups to manage loot.

It's a bit much to try to explain via text, but you should be able to find some online tutorials for it.

And, yeah, I've been on more than a few early EQ raids where ninja looting happened.

Fortunately, during EQ's peak, EQ had very active devs. Not only were the devs active administratively, but many actively played the game. I knew my fair share. I've never had a raid where a ninja looter escaped. They were always caught. It didn't mean the items were recovered but no one ever escaped. I find it hard to believe you escaped unless the people you say you stole from were complete idiots.

[123]

Originally posted by Halcyform:

I've never had a raid where a ninja looter escaped. They were always caught. It didn't mean the items were recovered but no one ever escaped. I find it hard to believe you escaped unless the people you say you stole from were complete idiots.

The trick was deleting every character that touched the stolen item(s) like I mentioned above. The toon that looted the cloak was deleted less than 5 minutes later, and the toon that picked it up and traded it away was deleted some 15 minutes later. The GM's were definitely very responsive, and they would immediately try to trace the item. Whoever bought the item from me would be left holding the bag while I was left with untraceable platinum.

I definitely did get busted by GMs for other very shady business but not for this.

[Infinite Pudding]

Originally posted by 123:

Remember when ninja looting was a thing? I was so awful in EQ as a young teen. They probably have some enforced roll system now, but corpses used to be 100% free to loot as soon as the mob died. Players would all do /roll. Emergent gameplay vs. today's theme park hand holding.

Back after Velious launch I used to roll a lvl 1 dark elf rogue and make my way all the way through Lavastorm to Nagafen's Lair to sneak after the raid group. I knew there was a raid group because they always used the same chat channel names like /nagafen or /naggy - I even figured out how to join them across servers. Anyway, I'd catch up with the raid party of some 24 people by being super cautious and using sneak and watch them from around a corner until they killed Naggy. Then I'd immediately loot him and jump in the lava. Under level 5 or something you still respawned with your inventory, so I'd reappear w/ my new Cloak of Flames. GM's could track if though, and trade chat would already be blowing up. I'd go to a discreet spot, drop the loot on the ground, log off and delete the toon, log in w/ another lvl 1 dark elf i had waiting there, and pick it up. Then I'd run to East Commonlands Tunnel meet the buyer I had waiting from advertising the CoF for sale some hour or so earlier and get like 60k of sweet, sweet platinum.

GM's couldn't trace the currency itself, so id do the drop, delete, pickup process one more time so the remaining toon had never even touched the stolen cloak. Booya 60k plat easy! Never got caught on that one and did it 4 or 5 times iirc. Did it with Vox a couple times too with barbarian rogue. I'M SORRY! I was a kid!

You don't seem that sorry about it. You seem kind of proud with all the bragging. :/ Not really a nice thing to do.

[Dashurohem]

I'm kind of suspicious of this story since I don't think a level 1 could sneak all the way to Nagafen without being killed or without being noticed by a raiding guild.
That being said, I do remember ninja looting since when the game was first out, it wouldn't list items that were looted by players.
I remember that I ninja looted journeyman boots back when they only dropped from Drezla in the Najena dungeon. The group I was in were taking turns looting Drezla (whatever her name is) but we had agreed that the dwarf in the group would get the boots if they dropped. Drezla spawned, we killed her and it was my turn to loot, but when I saw those boots, I looted them and didn't say anything.
Somewhat soon after that they did add the feature where the groups received a message for each item looted from the mobs, which I assume was to counter ninja-looting.

[123]

level 1 thief from Neriak can sneak through Lavastorm for sure. It's real. I died once or twice I think as I was learning the route, but I learned to be very careful. There was only one or two mobs on the way that could see through sneak, but iirc they were wanderers somewhat which allowed me to sneak past if I waited.

Nobody in the raid party ever goes backwards, so I was able to always wait back around a corner and watch from behind a corner.

OK I guess I don't sound too sorry about it, but how sorry can I be about doing this when I was 15? It's not like I was out vandalizing buildings or bullying people.

[Dashurohem]

I guess it could happen. I just remember that the first Nagafen raid I was on, the people who won items sold them on ebay and I think got hundreds of dollars for those items.