Keys

[Vesperas]

I recently had a conversation with someone that got me to thinking about a large number of things that fit into the game, and among them were the way keys and apartments work.

In the past, I've had no reason to have any problem with the way things currently work (it benefited me, of course), so I never stopped to think on it.  But this conversation drew my attention back to it:  why do apartments keep your keys?

In my imagination, I picture apartments and tenemants being much bigger, more numerous, and more populated than they actually are in the game.  How can the guard and key-keeper keep track of the identities of everyone who lives in that building, assuming they must also sleep and eat and take care of their own lives (something we must take for granted of them).  

What would keep someone from walking in and simply asking for a key to a room that didn't belong to them?  If they were identified as not belonging there, they could reason:  they're a mate, a child, a friend, a city official, a templar's aide, etc.  This is all on top of the fact that for several tenemant rooms, there are probably multiple families with numerous members.

It makes much more sense to me to dispense a real item key that the player would keep with them at all times.  New renters who share a room with another owner would simply get a copy of that key.  

When a renter returns, they should be required to present the key (in a hand or inventory) before being able to walk in and out of the apartments.  This way, passage is totally dependant on the current ownership of a KEY, and not the concept that the poor lady at the desk knows every face and voice in that building (she gets her money, she doesn't really give a shit).

This is much more realistic.  If you have your key stolen or confiscated, that's just part of the realism.  You'll have to purchase a new one (after virtually confirming you own the apartment).  From the viewpoint of the thief, you just did a really good job (but you still have to learn what the key goes to).

You will also be able to sell your key, pass on ownership, or send off a friend, help/servant, or grunt after something you forgot -- after all, why would you stalk all the way across the city just to unlock a door when that hired hand can do it?  If they take the liberty to relieve you a few things, that's just part of the risk -- of course, they should know that you know they're the only ones who had access.  ^.-

When your rent runs out, the locks change.  You're left with a useless key.  It's that simple, and sort of how it already works in game anyhow.

I would just like to see all of the roleplay opportunies that would come off this.  Wouldn't you like to see the assassin who slipped or bought a copy of a key off a disgruntled (or forced) house servant?  Or the problems that are created for that unlucky servant?

I, of course, realize that this codedly may not even be possible.  But I saw no reason not to throw it out and see how the rest of the playerbase, and possibly the staff, feel about it.

[Hymwen]

I agree, the only thing is that it might be troublesome to code it so that when the rent runs out, your key stops working.

[Cegar]

What happens if you die? They lose out on the key. What happens if a burglar rents out all the apartments in a building over the course of a few months, and then returns not having to pick locks? It doesn't work too well.

[Lazloth]

No thanks.

[Hymwen]

What happens if a burglar rents out all the apartments in a building over the course of a few months, and then returns not having to pick locks? It doesn't work too well.

It's already pretty easy to keep a key after renting a place. The above idea wouldn't change much in that aspect, and even though it's currently very possible to sneak out a key, I don't think people abuse that much.

[elvenchipmunk]

It used to be this way when apartments weren't automated. Not sure why they changed it, but I'm sure there was a good reason. If there wasn't a good reason, though, I'd like to see this.

It could create some neat plots and stuff. Whatever, it's fine the way it is now, doing this would also be fine.

[Vesperas]

What happens if you die? They lose out on the key. What happens if a burglar rents out all the apartments in a building over the course of a few months, and then returns not having to pick locks? It doesn't work too well.

I covered this in the post.

If you die, you leave a key in your corpse.  Someone could find it, realize that its in a building, and go steal all your shit, but this unlikely if you've died in the wilderness or in a random place.

You would STILL have to keep up rent -- if you died, and your rent went out, they key would be useless, because the locks would change (ICly, the building owners would realize they didn't get all the keys back).

This would stop burglars from renting all the buildings just to get keys.  They would have to keep up the rent -- when it went out, those keys would still no longer work.


All in all, the suggestion would not change the current system too much.  In fact, the only real difference is that entrance into a building would be based entirely on the presentation of a key, and NOT on a borderline-OOC identity, and make keys totable objects.

And yes, it IS entirely possible to get out of a building with an apartment key already.  It's just sort of needlessly dangerous to do so at the moment, and has no real purpose.



*** I can see the potential here for a rich PC to rent out all the rooms in all the buildings, and then try to charge other players for key-copies and access.  This is semi-possible now, but in both circumstances, would simply just be an abuse of code, and I imagine the person attempting it would be dealt with harshly  (its not exactly something that would go unnoticed in any case).

[Lazloth]

*** I see someone forgetting how much easier it became for players to rent an apartment with the advent of the automated landlords;  *** I see, assuming the keys were made this physical, dozens upon dozens of duplicates surfacing for "all of the roleplay opportunies that would come off this," not the single one in the isolated instance where some random thief manages to steal from that poor sap who keeps it in inventory or whathaveyou.

[Vesperas]

*** I see someone forgetting how much easier it became for players to rent an apartment with the advent of the automated landlords;  *** I see, assuming the keys were made this physical, dozens upon dozens of duplicates surfacing for "all of the roleplay opportunies that would come off this," not the single one in the isolated instance where some random thief manages to steal from that poor sap who keeps it in inventory or whathaveyou.

I wasn't actually active or concerned with apartments before they were automated -- it was just a little beyond me to own an apartment at that point, since I was either not even here or concerned with learning to play.

I would imagine that keys would be 'rotated' -- I.e, if the key for opening a door was a grey clay one, and the lock changed for whatever reason (like no rent), the next key may be a rose-colored stone one.  It would be completely random, and dependant to make sure no other keys with that description are already in use.  This would sort of keep down on the mass number of grey clay keys in the game at one time.  I also imagine that once someone figures out a key is useless, it would be junked.  Why carry around a key that you have no idea where the lock is?

I'm not sure how key code actually works, but I'm assuming here it has something to do with flags attached to the key and door, rather than the actual object being coded specifically for that door.

[Marc]

Putting in a new lock is not as easy as stopping down at the local hardware store, calling your brother-in-law and an hour later the door is re-keyed.  Locks, their design and their inner workings are highly coveted and guarded.  If you're talking about some cheap old tenement, the landlord isn't going to be able to AFFORD to re-key the doors everytime someone ends up on the wrong side of a scrab or gortok.  Taking a stab (totally hypothetical) I'd imagine it takes a few YEARS of rent just to pay for the lock on your door, and that's for the shitty ones.  Find a locksmith IC and ask how much for a good lock, one that would be on a upscale apartment or wagon and brace yourself to be blown away.

As far as finding a key and just heading to the apartment, you debunked this yourself.  There are THOUSANDS of apartments.  It's like finding a single key in a parking lot and running around a good sized city trying every lock until it works.  If you don't know where the owner lives you've a better chance of winning the lottery. [Edited] If you DO know where the owner lives, just wait for their rent to expire and get the apartment yourself.

In so far as the landlady remembering all her renters, you bet your ass (s)he does.  How else will she keep track of who owes rent?  She's not writing it down anywhere so either (s)hes got a good memory or (s)hes out of business.  If you can't swallow the realism of that, explain how magick works using real world mechanics  (ie it's to be taken with a grain of salt.  You DO NOT want the old system of tracking down a Nenyuk agent to rent a house)

[Vesperas]

Putting in a new lock is not as easy as stopping down at the local hardware store, calling your brother-in-law and an hour later the door is re-keyed.  Locks, their design and their inner workings are highly coveted and guarded.  If you're talking about some cheap old tenement, the landlord isn't going to be able to AFFORD to re-key the doors everytime someone ends up on the wrong side of a scrab or gortok.  Taking a stab (totally hypothetical) I'd imagine it takes a few YEARS of rent just to pay for the lock on your door, and that's for the shitty ones.  Find a locksmith IC and ask how much for a good lock, one that would be on a upscale apartment or wagon and brace yourself to be blown away.

I completely agree with you.

However, I brought it up because I knew someone would reply about the situation with burglars and all.  In-game, locks are already changed.  Have you ever let your rent go out?  Your key doesn't work anymore -- I simply make the assumption the lock was changed.

As far as finding a key and just heading to the apartment, you debunked this yourself.  There are THOUSANDS of apartments.  It's like finding a single key in a parking lot and running around a good sized city trying every lock until it works.  If you don't know where the owner lives you've a better chance of winning the lottery. [Edited] If you DO know where the owner lives, just wait for their rent to expire and get the apartment yourself.

Yeah, here I was sort of assuming that for most of the plots this would cause (maybe), you would already know the door the key belonged to.  

This is also supported by the randomization of keys -- right now, I can find a key and sort of guess where it goes (or atleast I think I can).  With random keys, you'll never really be able to figure out where it goes (if even in the same city!) without being truly twinky about it.

In so far as the landlady remembering all her renters, you bet your ass (s)he does.  How else will she keep track of who owes rent?  She's not writing it down anywhere so either (s)hes got a good memory or (s)hes out of business.  If you can't swallow the realism of that, explain how magick works using real world mechanics  (ie it's to be taken with a grain of salt.  You DO NOT want the old system of tracking down a Nenyuk agent to rent a house)

Yeah, okay, you got me with that.  Somewhat.

Right now, how do you pay your rent?

You walk up and give the landlord the money for a particular room.  You don't confirm your identity.  It's only because of code that the person paying for the room is incidentally also the owner of the room.

I imagine that, so long as she's getting the rent for the room, she couldn't give a shit who goes in and out of it.  All that she keeps track of is money, days of rent time, and the room being paid for.  One can assume she just gets paid extra by the templarate other others to watch a particular occupant's activities, if that was ever required.

If she ISN'T getting rent, you could probably bet she's knocking on someone's door.  No answer?

Screw 'im, change the keys.

[Marc]

You assume the lock was changed.  Unless someone in the know contradicts me, I'm going to garuntee as far as I am able that changing locks is not an option for 99% of the gameworld.  And yes, I've had my rent run out.  I can still get out of my apartment with the key, but I can't get past the door guard to go back in and unless I re-rent the room (if available) as soon as I leave the key is gone.

As far as guessing where the key goes that's because you only have to guess between the very finite number of apartments without worrying about the virtual ones.  Consider there to be a thousand or mort apartments for every actual coded one and your chances of finding the right lock grows REAL slim.  Unless you know where they live and I think I covered that above.

*shrug* *ping ping*

[spawnloser]

From what I understand, a key is an object that a door is coded to unlock too.  At one point in time, there was a clan that had 'armbands' that were the key to their barracks.

This would take some effort to overcome, I think, the fact that you would need to rotate the objects, as random virtually created objects would quite possibly be tricky to get past, possibly requiring code on how locks work in addition to updating the script currently governing how apartment rental and keys work.

All said, we'd still have keys that don't unlock anything left in game...and the database keeping the information on these keys would continue to grow until eventually half the game code was a bunch of useless keys.

Basically, I'm saying we probably have little need for this as it is presented now.  I think the idea needs to work out some problems first.

[Yokunama]

In my imagination, I picture apartments and tenemants being much bigger, more numerous, and more populated than they actually are in the game.  How can the guard and key-keeper keep track of the identities of everyone who lives in that building, assuming they must also sleep and eat and take care of their own lives (something we must take for granted of them).  

********

Its a game, let your imagination run free. There might be more than one guard and key-keeper to keep track of the identites.

********

This is much more realistic.  If you have your key stolen or confiscated, that's just part of the realism.  You'll have to purchase a new one (after virtually confirming you own the apartment).  From the viewpoint of the thief, you just did a really good job (but you still have to learn what the key goes to).

********

This kind of discourages me somewhat, because those very stealthy characters can continously enter a room without a problem. Also, the original owner of the house would be locked out of the room they are paying rent on. Yes, it is a part of realism, but there should always a few spares around somewheres. If people were required to keep their keys, there would be no spares.

********

You will also be able to sell your key, pass on ownership, or send off a friend, help/servant, or grunt after something you forgot -- after all, why would you stalk all the way across the city just to unlock a door when that hired hand can do it?  If they take the liberty to relieve you a few things, that's just part of the risk -- of course, they should know that you know they're the only ones who had access.  ^.-

********

I really wish there was some way to remove yourself from ownership, giving it to the next person (co-owner) on your list.

********

When your rent runs out, the locks change.  You're left with a useless key.  It's that simple, and sort of how it already works in game anyhow.

********

Sounds like a nice change to the code, but if the lock constantly change, what prevents one of those useless keys from ever being used again? Hmm?

********

[Vesperas]

 Well, guys, this is the point of discussion.  I'm after seeing something a bit more realistic, but everything needs tweaking.

A lot of ya'll have brought up some weak points, mainly the destruction of keys and ensuring they no longer work.  To this, I'm out of ideas for (atleast for tonight).