Eliminate Cube/Pad Lotto
Is stupid and gamey

If the core issue is the effect on housing options there are ways to tweak certain mechanics. I think the comparison to farming NPCs holds very little water.

It'd be just as logical to me, though, that when gone vacant any items are dumped into the markets (i.e., the landlord selling things off, if they can be arsed).

Someone on the staff took issue with the underlaying concept Slither, since there have been at various points shouts forbidding removing items from lapsed permapads, or removing stock furniture items from apartments.

This seems like subjective enforcement of borderline mechanics, where sometimes characters can openly loot to their hoarding contentment, and other times it's exploiting inactive properties. I think at a minimum this kind of activity should bring heat from property owners when players are bragging about robbing their mob-owned AirBnBs.

If this is supposed to represent the landlords coming in to empty places out, I don't think it makes a lot of sense for them to forget about tens or hundreds of kay of items, or to be unbothered by habitual daily renters making off with it.

I struggle to see the distinction between players farming inactive cubes and pads for unculled items, versus farming NPCs for excess chyen or extra items they accrue.

"First, the ratio at which you target NPCs vs PCs. In general, you should not be targeting NPCs for dipping/mugging/stealing/killing/whatever significantly more often than PCs. If we look at the source of your character's wealth and it mostly comes from your character taking things from NPCs, it's a problem."

Since pad lotto deliberately and exclusively involves targeting NPC-held properties without PC owners, then I don't think it is meaningfully different than farming inactive vehicles or farming NPCs or other kinds of prohibited exploit profiteering.

My suspicion that it is the latter case. Cube Lotto is not exactly a secret. It probably pays off less frequently than it results in a jackpot.

While writing this and putting some thought into it, it almost seems like exploiting ooc information for IC gain. The ooc knowledge that a whole bunch of players got banned and won't be coming back, then going around and looting the specific apartments of previously highly active characters.