Finders, keepers: RuneScape vs. real world ethics

[Numer0_un0]

1. I would keep it. If they were really nice i might give some of it back.

 

2. If it's money, i'd keep it. If it's a wallet or w/e I would see if i could return it, but if there were no cameras or anything I'd take a big finder's fee :P

[shivers21]

well... [before T.L.] I found several 'death piles' I would normally sell the item back for about a quarter of the actual price to the original owner, so he was happy to get his item back for not alot, and I was happy to get some money. EX. Banana whipmade up items are funny cost: 400k, I would sell back for 100k or so.

[Serpent Eye]

Hm...

 

 

 

I'm on the fence for the first question!

 

 

 

I do admit that I did mule stuff to my other characters from my main. I think pretty much everyone with multiple accounts did it at one point or another. So, I would definently be annoyed if someone were to "hang out" my drop-spot, and try to Telegrab my items, or stand under me.

 

 

 

However, if an item appears on the ground, it's up for grabs. It doesn't matter if you died a horrible death and couldn't return to your loot-pile in time. I never "saved" items for people who died, unless it was one of my in-game friends. Whenever we went to more dangerous monsters, we would always pick up each other's piles, and return them to each other.

 

 

 

For the second scenario... it just kind of depends on the amount of money found. If I find $1 to 20 on the ground, I would definently keep it. No one is going to miss $1.

 

 

 

If it was around $100 or more, I would turn it in though. It's just kind! That's actually happened to me before a few times. I was at a grocery store, and I walked up to the ATM machine to withdraw money. When I walked up to it, there was $60 sticking out of the machine from the last customer. I returned it (secretly hoping that the grocery store would say, "Oh! Keep it for being such a gentleman!" -- They didn't give it to me.)

 

 

 

But yes... like someone said earlier, you can't compare in-game ethics to real-life ethics.

[The Observer]

The reason why this doesn't happen in RuneScape is because most likely the other person is at least several hundred kilometers away from you. Therefore you can get away with it rather than people asking questions.

[Jeffwilson99]

Senario 1; Unless they were a friend, or I had been chatting/training with the person etc for a while, then I take the money

 

 

 

Senario 2; I would hand in the money, I think.

 

 

 

Why? I guess I live by a set of morale standards, and I "treat other how I would like to like to be treated myself".

 

So I lost 10 mil and no-one saw me die, I wouldn't think that anyone would have picked up my gold, so i would expect to get it back. But if someone did see me die, I would hope that they would return it.

[psvstef]

Senario 1; Unless they were a friend, or I had been chatting/training with the person etc for a while, then I take the money

 

 

 

Senario 2; I would hand in the money, I think.

 

 

 

Why? I guess I live by a set of morale standards, and I "treat other how I would like to like to be treated myself".

 

So I lost 10 mil and no-one saw me die, I wouldn't think that anyone would have picked up my gold, so i would expect to get it back. But if someone did see me die, I would hope that they would return it.

 

 

 

nice thought,but it doesn't work like that anymore,not in runescape and in real life.

[Gravy]

If it's free, you take it.

[Jeffwilson99]

Senario 1; Unless they were a friend, or I had been chatting/training with the person etc for a while, then I take the money

 

 

 

Senario 2; I would hand in the money, I think.

 

 

 

Why? I guess I live by a set of morale standards, and I "treat other how I would like to like to be treated myself".

 

So I lost 10 mil and no-one saw me die, I wouldn't think that anyone would have picked up my gold, so i would expect to get it back. But if someone did see me die, I would hope that they would return it.

 

 

 

nice thought,but it doesn't work like that anymore,not in runescape and in real life.

 

 

 

Well I mean I hope they would be kind enough to return it :pray:

[bronzewarrior]

i firmly believe in karma (i am a buddhist) and i have some evidence of karma.

 

 

 

a while ago, a time i regret, i would lend my bgs (before the lending tweak) for 70k an hour? (i tried to get rid of 400k junk) i'd accept the cash and not lend. yes i know it was a noob thing to do. afterwars i felt really bad for doing it because i just betrayed people's trust and made them lose a somewhat significant sum of cash.

 

 

 

Before i left for band camp, I put my bgs at lowest in the ge, no buy! and i had to leave to band camp with my bgs still in exchange. i come back and its worth a lot less, then i just took it out and put it again at lowest and left the game for a good 2 months. i come back and its at 17m and not sold.

 

 

 

so i was out around 12m cash!

 

 

 

karma always finds a way to kick you in the [donkey :D ].

 

 

 

yes i apply real world ethics, people worked hard for their money, i don't like seeing people suffer from such a loss. Even though this entire game will lead to suffering (the event in which we have to relinquish the game). or if you are lucky, lose interest in the game.

[Ixindor]

Scenario 1: Put in Inventory. Leave the area.

 

 

 

Scenario 2: Put in Pocket. Leave the area.

[Death]

1. It depends. If I saw them die and saw their name, I'd pick it up and wait for around 10 minutes to see if they cared enough to come back. If they came back I'd give it to them. If I didn't see them die but just found it, I'd do the same thing, but ask for what items were lost/ exact amount of money.

 

 

 

2. As most other people said, I would try my hardest to return it if there was identification. I'm not sure what I'd do if there wasn't any i.d. though :?

[belfordrocks]

1. Depends on who it is. Most likely if the person can prove it, I will give them a fraction back. If they're a PKer, they get 0 back.

 

2. With ID hand in, no ID keep.

[FooK-A-Ji]

id sell the gold on ebay and send the money to free a gold farmer...................... so wrong yet so right :

[Hydra_55555]

1. Finders keepers indeed. Whether the original owner made it back to his 'death pile' or not, I would probably keep the money for myself. As despicable as it sounds, I think it's important to remember that HE/SHE's the one that lost the big pile of cash in the first place.

 

 

 

2. This depends; if the money was in a wallet then yes I would return it to the owner if I could (or just drop it off in the Lost & Found, whether or not the original owner claimed the money back isn't my problem). In terms of it being just money 'floating in the breeze', it would depend on the amount. If it were £100 I'd still try to find the owner if I could (obviously not trying to draw too much attention to myself, I don't want to be mugged after all), but if it were £20 or so then erm, yeh... it's mine now.

[Sly_Wizard]

Before the trade limit if someone died and they came back for their stuff, I'd always give it to them regardless of what the item was. If they never came back or messaged me then I'd keep it. I never cared about drop traders, so I wouldn't go out of my way to try to intercept their trades, either.

[Ginger_Warrior]

I was quite sympathetic to people who 'died' around me in standard monster combat. I always held on to their possessions, and tried to get in contact so they could reclaim them. They always thanked me like I'd just given them a spare kidney or something. :?

 

 

 

PKers... that's where my ethics got a little bit blurred. Typically, if someone was attacked in the Wilderness, whether they were in PKing gear or not, I would hold on to the stuff for them to reclaim. If someone attacked someone else, and got killed though, I had no sympathy at all. I let the defender take the loot, had a laugh, and went on with my business.

 

 

 

As well as my personal convictions to promote fairness, I also did it because of an experience I had. I was mining coal in the Skeletons' Pit, just north-west of Edgeville. When making the return journey, somebody maged me. I had a poor ranged level, so I was in metal armour, and unsurprisingly died. The PKer had an attack of conscious and PMed me to meet up and return my stuff. He believed that his attack on me was unjust and needless, since I was no threat to him and was carrying a weapon he couldn't even loot. I got everything back, except the coal for that run and the Red CW sword which couldn't be returned for obvious reasons. Since then, I tried to maintain fairness with other RSers. I gave antipoisons when somebody needed it, cakes when someone was dying, a weapon when a bank was ages away and a random came knocking. Cooperation helps the world go round. Well, it did until Jagex removed unbalanced trading...

[Andy]

I'd take any death pile, I dont care about what people loose in video games, if it means I benefit from their stupidity/ bad connection, thats great.

 

 

 

If I found money on the floor i'd take it, and it'd make my day better :)

[NJE03]

I have told the story many times, but once I saw someone die and I picked up their red partyhat. I returned the item to them. Money is not everything in life, or in Runescape.

[Plugpoint]

#1, I'd give them most of it back, but only if they pm me and ask

 

#2, report it. Sometimes you get to keep it for being honest if nobody claims it :P

[BloodArgon]

If I found 7,000 dollars on the floor of a goodwill store, that money woulda been in my pocket before you even realized it was there.

 

 

 

If I found 10 million GP, Id be running to the nearest bank to make it welcome in my bank.

 

 

 

The chances of running across someone who would do the opposite of me is slim to none, so why even bother trying to repay people when they would just take yours if they had the chance?

 

 

 

Remember the two key steps.

 

 

 

1 - ????

 

2 - PROFIT!

[Kazel]

Keep the pixels, return the cash.

 

 

 

Seriously, my community has about 5k people max, and they will actually be looking around and asking around for the money. In Runescape, there are millions of players that change worlds every day, and normally accept their losses (painful as it may be.) With so many players, the chances of finding the owner of the items would be pretty hard. So in RS, it really comes down to "should I let this money disappear into the ether, so that nobody will gain from it, or should I keep it so that at least ONE person will gain from it?"

[Tijger2099]

I may be greedy but I'd keep it in both situations.

 

 

 

Finding something way over the $100 value is different, if I find someone's car keys and succeed in finding the car it works on too I'm definitely not going to take it off course, same story if I'd find $1000 on the floor in a spot where it's easy to find the respectful owner, in case this is a lot harder (in a football stadium) I'd probably keep it, but with double feeling.

 

 

 

In RS I'm very greedy tbh as ingame luck (that's luck from killing NPC's for example) has never sided with me, when DK'ing or GWD'ing before the update I even hoped that at some point one or more of my team members died so I could loot their corpses to find a nice g spear, fury and probably ranger set/berserker ring (only with total strangers! I would not do it with any of my friends, even though in an ethical way that should make a difference).

 

 

 

I know many arguments can easily be made to say the way I think is very unright, such as knowing how painful it is to be unlucky, why would I make someone feel the same "pain" by keeping their items if they lost it rather then returning it. But still this is the way I think and even though at some points I feel like returning something, I'm quiet sure that if anything of this would happen I'd keep it anyways.