Whisper

[Raona]

Using "tell" without an amulet to send out "secret messages" to people who are in the same room is completely not consistent with the way amulets work now.

Also, the fact that you can do so without triggering the message by removing your amulet of communication is clearly a dirty "trick".

I really do not like that.

I know when I first arrived I asked about whispering, and was told that TELL in the same room was the way to do so, but that you also should emote appropriately. Should this be made a strict requirement, or the use of TELL without an amulet forbidden outright? (That would take a while to propagate...there are a lot of folks out there who currently do, responsibly, SMOTE whispers something to $Fred; TELL FRED Where's Dino?) In other words, should the help be changed?

[Dalvyn]

Bunch of answers:

Re: increase cost in move points

I'm not saying whether it's good or not to do it, but there's a way to increase the cost without penalizing the low level character : instead of having a cost expressed as an amount of move points, express it as a percentage of the max move points (i.e., 2% move points). Alternatively, the cost could be modified by your mental (Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma) stats.

Re: Balek's ideas, Larethiel's comment

Interesting take on it.

Why do we have amulets of communication? When you think a bit about it, it really makes no sense. Magical +1 swords are rare; magical +2 daggers are very very very rare, but artefacts that enable you to mindspeak over huge distances are as common as horse dung?!? The reason why amulets of communication were unICly introduced in the first place, the OOC justification behind it, is that we want players to interact and gather up ... and amulets of communication work fine as tools to help people gather up, plan up venturing parties, and so on. That is, I think, the only "thoroughly valid" use of amulets of communication.

Yet, they are used in other ways ... Amulets of communication are not seen as tools to set up meetings and adventuring parties, but as tools to chat over a distance, as tools to call for help [I'm not talking about the situations where you are dead here... since, when you are dead, you do not need an amulet of communication], or as super-magical devices that let you chat with others without letting it show.

I would tend to think that those three uses are bad (actually going from bad to worse to terribly bad):

• Chatting over amulets of communication. I would like this use to be replaced with spells, as Balek suggested... the main problem is that it's very difficult to distinguish between communications that are meant to help people gather up, and communications that are just chatting over a long distance. That use is, I think, bad, because it's really not why we made the amulets of communication so easy to get in the first place, but that's not too bad... that is still some form of interaction, and I can see that you might want to chat with other people while travelling, or while waiting for someone, and so on.
• Calling for help. That's a bit worse... because it often means (1) that you are inciting people to cross the wilderness in a few seconds while it's not realistic, and (2) that the amulet is there as a life insurance and thus, that you are free to go do things on your own and take risks without really having to face the consequences.
  • Point (1) first ... the typical example is when a Pkill is about to start and you call friends through your amulet of communication (this is actually forbidden by one of the many PK rules). A similar situation is when you are drowning in a river... can you imagine yourself drowning and using your cell phone from under the surface to call for help?
  • Point (2) now ... If you couldn't rely on your amulet of communication to call for help, you would be more likely to gather up a group and be more cautious I think.
• And finally ... secret communication. That's the one use I really hate [as mentioned above], because you are forcing roleplay on other people. I would tend to think that, if you are concentrating to send a mind message, there should be at least a small chance for the people around you to notice what you are doing. That is the reason why the whispering echo was added; it could also have been a "concentrates on his amulet of communication" echo. Removing the amulet of communication and using tell to "whisper" to someone in the same room is, in my opinion, a blatant code abuse, because you give people around you NO chance to notice what you are doing/saying.

Re: Mariela

I personally think it's BS that the echo was taken away for when you are in the same room with someone. Mostly because, even if you have your tongue up someone's ear, the only way -I- in real life don't notice that sort of close contact is when it is pitch dark. I am sorry, you see two people sitting THAT close together, sure.. youc ant hear anything. but you can figure out two things... they are either talking or doing -other- things.. which makes this game slightly higher rating .... (see other post for rating nonsense.)

Actually, it isn't a planned decision that the echo does not appear when you are in the same room and when you use "tell". The echo is produced by the amulet itself, when the command "tell" is used. Take away the amulet and it does not produce the echo anymore. I would think that the best solution in this case would be (1) to make it so that you have to wear an amulet to use 'tell' [unless you are dead, in which case you do not need an amulet], and (2) later, when time allows, introduce a "whisper" command that can be overheard.

Re: Sairaven

Pattern: * whispers into an amulet of communication (Or whatever the echo is. Use * to replace the name)
Commands: #GAG

That's fine, if you do not want to notice when people use their amulets of communication. Removing echoes produced by others is all fine : you are not forcing roleplay onto anybody; you are just deciding that your character will never notice when other people around him use their amulet.

What would NOT be fine though would be to remove the echoes produced by YOUR own use of the amulet, because, by doing that, you would force other people to be oblivious to your use of the amulet.

Re: Raona

SMOTE whispers something to $Fred; TELL FRED Where's Dino?

The smote is already a step in the good direction, but it's still forcing others to not understand what you whisper. The best way "whisper" can be done currently is:

Code: Select all

smote whispers to $Fred, 'The guard already had to remind him about sheathing his sword yesterday.'

because that allows other people to roleplay whether they overheard the whisper or not, and thus does not force any roleplay on them.

All this is just my opinion though, and not a common decision by the imms, so there's no strict rule. Though I would think that most imms would agree that removing the amulet so you can use "tell" with no echo is something that players should not do.

[Selveem]

While I can certainly understand not wanting people to cross great distances to aid other players who are drowning, I would suggest that in times of grave (and near-futile to live) conditions people _have_ used cell phones to call for help (though talking about an amulet of communication in comparison makes me wince). When you send a tell through the amulet of communication, you have to remember that this MUD is not just populated by PCs. Realistically if I am in Feebov's mansion I could call out to an NPC in Berdusk who has access to fast travelling spells and the like.

I really don't think it would be a good idea to criminalize players who do use the amulets in dire situations (though I am not stating you or anyone else is). I can think of a number of instances where they have been used to get help that furthers interaction with other players.

Also, please remember that crossing wilderness has been updated to allow more lag per room. Each 1/2 second (or second - I don't know the exact response time) of lag = lots of minutes IC. Time flies very fast in consideration on this MUD. I feel that travelling in general on this MUD is painful enough when I really need to get somewhere and have limited playing time.

I really don't feel that amulets are an effective way to 'bail you out' so that you don't need to take a party. Generally if you are stuck somewhere, another single person going in to help you is probably going to get pwned on his/her way there. Especially if your character is high level and in a place they shouldn't be alone to begin with.

[Mariela]

Amulets & PKill Situations

I don't have any problem being in an PKill interaction and having someone I am trying to kill calling for help with their amulet.

As much as we are like, "Don't force RP on people" people tend to do that while playing their characters. I have been involved in many situations I would have much preferred to have just skilled due to limited time on my end or the fact I spend so much time and work getting my group together and some other player decided that RIGHT NOW is the time to make his beef known. (If this sounds familiar, I wasn't actually mad about it. It was actually kinda cool.. however. if you want to get technical...)

I love interactions between characters, but when you go to do XYZ to a character, you are forcing that rant of yours upon them. Wether they deserve it or not, it's irrelevant. You are still deciding and a lot of times without prior warning it woudl happen, that this was going to occur. So... to be fair, I always let people call in for their back up. If they want it, so be it. And I ask oocly if it is alright if I call in my back up when I'm the viticim of the PKill. Or when I am coming into to the "rescuse" I try to otell the two participants of the smackaround and see if anyone objects to my joining in. If they object, I back up a square and wait.

It's supposed to be a fun game. If everyone is having fun, I see no problem with people crossing the wilderness on a break neck pace to come to the rescue or to the destruction. But you gotta realize that at the end of the day, you will probably die anyways. Tee hee. And probably take your friends with you. Ect.

Area OH MY STARS I"M IN OVER MY HEAD!
It's a terrible shame you can't do ANYTHING without a priest, a warrior and a band of twenty. Yes yes. I know ther eare quests you can do without a gang, but some of them you do not have a prayer in the dark. And since we can't talk about what quests are super group ridden, sometimes you wander into a ? and go.. "ooooo no no no no" and try to hide long enough to get some help. And that is when those amulets come in handy! I've been trapped hiding in hills from hill giants and trying to bury dead horses cause I accidently wandered off the path before. I take my licks when I die.. and I don't go out of my wayt o try to do quests I know are too dangerous by the sounds of them.. but sometimes you just don't know what is going to happen.

Heck, i've had characters die in the "starting quest" before. Sometimes you just have bad bad bad luck. And sometimes after having your butt dragged through themud that's when you call up a buddy and say, "Bring two friends and meet me at the Fountain. I found a demon..."

IC "Chatting" over the Amulets
I do a lot of "Hello!"
That is because I am trying to find out where those characters are in an IC fashion rather than spend my entire evening wandering around Waterdeep only to find they are in Shadowdale. It's ten times easier to start and initiate RP when you psuedo chat on the amulet and kinda tlak them around to what they are doing.

Sure, and why not use the amulet to talk to someone about nothing? It's still taxing you with stamina.. and I'm with that one guy about low level characters. Sometimes you are going ten minutes before you respond back due to the fact you are exhausted!

Sure, the amulets probably shouldnt' be as common as they are, however, they are increadibly handy in gathering up the posse and going to tackle down those demons, ect. I really think that if you took away the abillity to get them, it would destroy most of the RP. I mean, we'd have rangers lounging around in the Market Square, Evil Priests would demand their own bench at the Market and ... drow would be painting themselves white to try to sneak in. (Not a bad plan.. I wonder if that would work.... )

[Kregor]

We already DO have some rangers lounging around in Market Square, and we have the amulets.

I do, however, wish we had the whisper command for the same room, and that tells didn't work in such proximity. Per the D20, it should have a chance for people around using their listen skill to overhear it. Then it would make people think twice about what they say behind someone's back to another person in the room, because there would be the chance of consequence in the end.

[Raona]

I do, however, wish we had the whisper command for the same room, and that tells didn't work in such proximity. Per the D20, it should have a chance for people around using their listen skill to overhear it. Then it would make people think twice about what they say behind someone's back to another person in the room, because there would be the chance of consequence in the end.

Since the amulets are somatic, shouldn't that risk apply to any whispering done, be it into an amulet or into another person's ear? I'm just saying that I don't think TELLs should be immune to eavesdropping either!