From a legal standpoint, malicious intent is too high of a standard, IMO. It both requires clear and convincing proof as a element of proving the crime, AND it puts the burden of proof on the victim. I see this a unfair for a few reasons:
1) LWC are expensive, and stating that people should use LWCs to cover all their stuff is indeed promoting "pay to win" tactics - something that Kainzo has expressly said is not what this server is about. I don't know how many chests you guys have, but I'd be broke if I LWC'd all my chests, even with tier 9 status; I couldn't imagine the cost of running a town at 500s a pop for town supply chests (let alone two towns).
2) Herocraft has a progressive disciplinary action system. This should be more consistently incorporated, and if someone steals from their own town, the "malicious intent" should be a factor in the severity of the discipline, not an element of whether there should be discipline at all.
3) Stealing from a town, region, or plot should be illegal when that person has perms to those protected regions and takes from another. In short, stealing from another within a protected region should be considered malicious intent per se.
3) The victim just got jacked of all their stuff, and now they have to prove malicious intent when they are not allowed to know (unless they are the mayor and it was a townfolk...I don't know about noble/royal plots) who stole from them. How is one to prove such intent, especially given such limited information? Even if a person know who did it, it turns into a "he said, she said" situation, of which the one who was stole from will generally lose due to such a high (clear and convincing) burden of proof.
4) This sort of thing does not promote noble/royal plot purchases or usage...this sort of ruling will fall on the side of "maybe it *isn't* a good idea to purchase that 8000s plot."
On the other side: "know they friends well...but know thy enemies better." Sucks that you got ripped off by someone you once trusted...but wasn't there way to remove that person's perms so that they couldn't get into the plot? Ravenhold had town theft happen last map, and we were able to prove malicious intent. The person hasn't been back on HC since (and HC is better for it, for that behavior is a drag for this server), but it still doesn't make up for the negative impact the inside-job theft had on the town.
Best of luck, kenster, on getting your stuff back, or on getting justice served.
