This week the crew sits down to talk about why Pickpocketing in ESO is a BAD idea and exactly what Matt Firor had to say about it in a recent interview, including some surprise pieces of information no one else is talking about at the moment! Other headlines discussed in the show include: Dragonborn DLC passing Sony certification, TESIII, IV, and V soundtracks now available in iTunes, and Dragonborn DLC preorder available on Steam! Lou presents “The Great Houses of Morrowind” in “The Elder Scroll” and Evarwyn presents “Dwemer Mining Facility by SSSI4Yer in the Steam Workshop, for you modders! In-game discussion includes Skyrim, this week, plus YOUR emails and our announcement of our guild “ESOTR” posting on Tamriel Foundry’s website!
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My thoughts about pickpocketing: they could allow pickpocketing of hostile NPCs only, with the possible item list being the same as the possible loot list. If the NPC were then subsequently killed by the player that pickpocketed them, the loot list on their corpse could be reduced based on the success of the pickpocket. This way, pickpocketing would not introduce additional items into the game world, nor would it pose any threat to other players. The advantage for a sneaky thief type character is that it would be possible to gain loot from enemies without killing them, and would enable the creation of quests that included “no killing” as a primary objective without robbing the player of possible loot.
This is pretty much how I feel about pickpocketing. In most MMOs this is how it works. Or you can get two of an item. Usually lower end. In Ragnarok Online, this system works really well, and it’s one of my favorite play styles.
FYI: On Stitcher this episode is the same as #52, as of 8 pm EST on Feb. 1.
I think that pick pocketing should be included as one of the main Elder Scrolls mechanics all this time. I do think it would be best to limit it to NPCs and not to players. This would limit how much was being pick pocketed as NPCs usually do not have huge amounts of gold or items but would allow for sneaky people to base a “craft” around heir abilities. I disagree about flooding the economy if pick pocketing is limited to NPCs. It becomes just another way to make gold, usually small amounts per pick pocket, the same as crafting, etc. If people decide to use pick pocketing as their “craft” that would be their choice. I do not think you would have any more issues with gold farming from such a mechanic than for any others.