Hello,


Does someone know why Snooping may not work (even in Felucca outside of guard zone)?
Actually in any facet, for any target (NPC, player), in any status (crim, murder, neutral, friend) it says the same: you cannot perform negative acts on your target
I even became member of thieves's guild and use disguise kit. I've tried to do this in hidden/stealth as well.
Is there special quest to unlock this skill?

no idea. I had same issue. joined thieves guild etc. Maybe you have to be grey/red. I have not tried with criminal status.
**edit** i just notice you said in any status. so you tried that already.

I think most people train it snooping guildmates. 

Make macro to double click guildmate's backpack and loop it without any pauses. Trained from around 30 to GM in 10 secs or so:)

  Snooping can be raised while in a house in Felucca, that belongs to the snooper.  Simply buy a pack animal, bring it to the-- inclosed-- home that you own and set up your macro/script for snooping the pack animal.

  Targeting the pack animal is like targeting its backpack. 

Also, I mention an inclosed house for protection from all the little  [Felions] running through the woods.


   --Sturger--
 

   P.S. I suggested a house in Felucca for the simplicity of going from snooping, straight into stealing from the same pack animal... Buy/get tons of band-aids and steal them from the pack animal to gain skill in stealing. 

1. In Felucca, Snooping skill must work on any Mobile entity which has a Backpack, doesn't matter who it is: guildmate or crim or packhorse...
2.  It is impossible to release horse in the house because it will be immediately kicked off. If you set up your house as Public, it will not kick off horse however the results are the same: you can't snoop .

I remember Snooping was disabled on monsters a while ago because folks would snoop their backpacks to check for quest items. If it had it, they'd fight if, if not, they'd just leave it be. There is probably a happy medium somewhere, so post your suggestions.

@Expo. Thank you for the insight. My reply to the original poster was in regards to putting the skill into practice. Not training it. This would explain the issue on NPC.

Thanks for reply.
It seems it was simply disabled in all facets, not only on NPCs.


Dreadwolf,


Did you try it on players recently? I don't care about it raising - does it allow to see their backpack content?


Expo,


Sorry, I can't believe in that. Probably something was changed, but I was one of RunUO developers long-long time ago.
Loot is generated based on your Luck upon NPCs death, not when it just spawned. When it spawned, it receives just a basic loot which doesn't depends on the Luck of his(her) "future killer".

Kane explained to me earlier, that Luck is taken into account right before the last hit, so loot can't be generated earlier.

Exactly.
At least it is default RunUO behaviour.
Anyway, this is not a reason to disable Snooping at all.
Thieves is the one of the aspects of the game.

I think it was active here earlier, cause i saw post with the advice to new players to insure their keys in a blessed blue bag as people can steal them. Maybe there were too many such cases and admins decided to turn it off. Although still not sure if it's really turned off as i'm not near the PC. Cheers.

For XMLSpawner items they appear in the backpack when snooped though. That was the issue.

If so, it's bug: disabling of Snooping is just workaround but not a fix

And that's why I said there's a happy medium somewhere. If it's a bug, it'll be added to the list.

Grats to Expo... for not lightning bolting those who need answers/fixes right now.  You are the best man. See you around.

@Sturger I'm not always violent... *evil grin*

But on the note of Snooping, what are some improvements that could be made to it as a skill. What is by UO standards?

By and large, Snooping is considered a prerequisite for the Stealing skill. A character only can steal random items from other characters, NPCs, or pack animals unless they possess the Snooping skill. Like the Hiding skill, Snooping can be practiced to its own end, i.e. just to be able to see what others are toting around Sosaria. However unlike Hiding, it is typically looked upon as aggressive act.

You cannot be Guard Whacked for Snooping nor will you be flagged as a criminal. Snooping will lower your karma. You might consider the use of the Stealth skill as most players will not let you get close to them if they suspect ill intentions.

There are no Power Scrolls for Snooping; the maximum skill for all players is Grand Master, or 100 points. And while there is only one item that has any Snooping skill points (i.e. Burglar's Bandana), there is no cool down timer for this skill's use, so the gains come that much quicker.

Snooping only allows you to see into other packs:
the backpack of another character
Pack Horses;
Pack Llamas; and
NPC backpacks.

While standing no more then a single tile away double click the pack. If successful, you will be able to see the contents in the same way as you see your own backpack.

Whether you succeed or not, there is a chance you will be noticed, wherein nearby players will receive a message concerning your action, and if hidden, a chance of being revealed. Your chances of success increase with higher levels of the Snooping skill, while your chances of being detected decreases.

Snooping is an essential skill for the aspiring thief in that once you can see into a pack you may target a specific item to Steal. Without the use of Snooping you can only blindly target the characters themselves and hope that the random item you grab will be of some value. Player owned characters or pets can not be Snooped outside of the Felucca facet unless they are in the same Guild as you. Be warned, snooping your own guildmates without permission may lead to your swift and sudden eviction!

So basically it's just to look into a target's backpack. How can we evolve this? Perhaps use Snooping in conjunction with other skills such as Lumberjacking or Mining to detect resources? I am just trying to get a discussion going to see what can be done. You should see the crazy notes we came up with for Camping...

Snoop!

  A quick and easy thought is to create a division of sorts when considering an Npc/Monsters backpack loot. One division is, already, granted upon death. The second division would be a static loot; built in just for the skills snooping/stealing. This would give a great reason for the EVO staff to create a functioning Thieves guild [run by NPC's] which would have its own contract [Mark] system. The Mark contract would come in two flavors: kill or procure.
  Assassination contracts are obvious, and the rewards should be similar to that of Monster contracts. However, the bonus loot tossed into your bank box should be useful to a rogue. Decoration that suggests rank, or accomplishment. Rare, usefull, dagger any one? Or most importantly, items which build on the whole. For instance the second kind of contract requires the thief to procure something. Simple contracts should be one or to items which are then handed in. Harder lists should mimic the Hag Quest, yet be rogue like in nature. Other types of contracts could require items only found on bosses, who have been snooped, and then stolen from. Perhaps even snooped after the boss was killed?  Anyways I think you get my point Expo. 

Add more fun and useless Deco, small amounts of extra gold, and Keys [think mundane commodities, to rare items; secreted away throughout the realms which require these keys in order to gain useful loot] These keys are found inside of a snooped NPC's/monsters backpack, then stolen, and used to open locked chests which are hidden everywhere and nowhere.    (remember this idea requires static loot to be place on a mob, prior to its death. [Think artifact system]

  My personal choice would be to allow stealing in Fel; thus reestablishing snooping as a needed skill. 


   Last, snooping could be the trigger mechanic for randomly filling static chests, and other containers, inside all of the dungeons we so love. Do not snoop if you are not able to defend yourself, however. Why you ask? Because a side effect of snooping static dungeon chests could be the spawning of random tough monsters/guardians. {think of the spawns for treasure map chests, only tougher versions: more hit points, a higher to hit ratio, and other pesky [fun] stuff like that.

 That's what I got for now, I'll think about it some more.


  --Sturger--


  P.S. 10 seconds to think up, 40 minutes to write, proof, and spell check... yesh. So much for a quick reply.

I truly enjoyed this read Sturger... lots of brilliant and viable ideas. I'll make sure to bookmark this for later =) I'd like to make a better reply, but that'll have to wait *chuckles* Great job.

Anyone else have input?

Oddly enough we are and have been in the process of moving in this direction, just a much larger scale project then simply.. "Division of loot".  That step has been on going as I get free moments I will clean up the ondeath and generateloot functions, then there is the moving special loot off the spawner and into a more secure location for creating it.  We are doing fairly well on this so far I think.

Now for the big stuff..We are going to need to recode how the guild works, snooping, stealing plus I want to rewrite hiding, stealth, tracking and detect hidden as well

We are getting there though

Now for the big stuff..We are going to need to recode how the guild works, snooping, stealing plus I want to rewrite hiding, stealth, tracking and detect hidden as well

We are getting there though

This does sound like some great idea's,it make's me want to play a thief again,which i havent done since siege a few years ago,fun time's.Look forward to what come's of Kane's work now

  We might not have a true PvP presence here. But who cares... we are to busy enjoying all that Kane, Dante, and Expo keep dishing out. Ha he... can't wait for the classic dungeon revamp to hit EVO.

 +1 Kane & Expo...

  Some times the fun part of the forums is getting lost in, and then, writing down the idea.


  --Sturger--