When thieving was added they didnt have to be anything but persistent. A naked Veela risked nothing, and that was the issue with thievery in MO1. Where were you shoving the things you stole? In your prison wallet?
Ah, come on, Hodo, you know it was fun. For the thief it was exciting and for the "prey" it was thrilling, you had to be smart to avoid thieves, and felt good when you sucessfully avoided them.
Also, the punishment was severe. After death, you had to wait 5 minutes for going blue to be able to ress... Very boring !! 5 minutes of no gameplay !
AND, once the thief became famous, everybody would keep pushing him anywhere he went, hoping that he had hidden criminal flag...and that was pretty annoying for us thieves.... sometimes we were just returning to bank after a normal farming, and while we were banking we forgot that we had a hidden criminal flag active...so, people would push us, revealing criminal status, and we died with a lot of well earned loot !
Bah. you guys think it was easy and no risk for thieves, but you have no idea how miserable and tough was a thiefs life ! Only those who really enjoyed that playstyle would remain playing as a thief... All other thief wannabes would give up stealing in a couple weeks !
Devs, bring back thieving, DAMNIT