[Command] unhitch

[Alitar]

Can 'hitch' and the related commands be adjusted to make a check for ownership of the pet? It's a bit irksome that someone can unhitch a mount they don't own and ride it off across Faerun to leave it hidden somewhere. I feel like this is a potential issue we should resolve as hitching posts are becoming more and more popular.

[Hrosskell]

I can see both sides of the argument here. My middle ground would be for local law enforcement to make an alert, at least.

[Grenwyn]

I can see both sides of the argument here. My middle ground would be for local law enforcement to make an alert, at least.

It seems it'd be too easy to trigger by accident, if there were a couple horses hitched to the same post. I'd pass on the law enforcement.

[Gwain]

I found that animals made to sit can't be ridden or controlled by anyone other than the owner, I would just hitch them and make them sit or rest, its realistic because the room desc shows them resting and not sitting.

[Alitar]

If you make a pet rest, no one can mess with it short of /actually/ messing with it (attacking etc.). If you hitch a pet, anyone can come along and unhitch it. It's an excellent tool of convenience but I feel it's begging for abuse. I guess that's all I'm really trying to say. Would there be a way to make a safeguard for that?

[Gwain]

I was not aware that you can't do both (I don't have a pet that can be hitched) I agree hitch needs to be made to work like rest.

[Raona]

Confirmed.

Most hitching posts work by intercepting the HITCH keyword and forcing the pet to sit. However, they do not check that the PC issuing the command is the owner of the pet. That could be coded in, I think. (It's the isowner[] command, I believe, but I'm no area code guru.) If worth doing, it may also make sense to add a check for someone not specifying a valid target for their hitch command. (Right now that yields no echo.)

[Harroghty]

I did not add a check to the unhitch command because anyone could realistically unhitch any horse there in real life. There are stables in some places where there are hitching posts and, in their absence, it's a place small enough where one cannot accept what is a very small risk.

Secondly, I do not believe that this small risk is worth the effort involved in making a new "if check" to verify ownership and then modifying all the existing programs.

ownsmark($n) refers to marked objects; I have not seen is owner($n) before, I think?