Tweankish Contact

[TripleX]

I just had an ecounter with another player which the result was a fight and then I fled.  My character was wearing a facewrap the whole time.

How come that approx 5 minutes after I fled I get: You sense a foreign presence withdraw from your mind.

Why people have to be so tweankish in using my sdesc keyword which is of course 'facewrap' to contact and find my real short description?

This is not the first time it happened, and I bet it will not be the last.  From now on, I am going to be tweankish myself and simply remove the facewrap and pull my hood on, instantly changing my sdesc keywords.

[Larrath]

Please don't post about these things.  It's IC information that we shouldn't, and don't really care to know.

If you think that someone was twinking or playing unfairly, email the MUD account and explain exactly what happened.

[Maybe42or54]

Sounds good to me.

Email the mud, maybe it was someone else trying to contact grey, when you had "Grey" in your sdesc with the facewrap, or something else like that.

If not, then they can comment the other player on that!

[Rhyden]

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12191

Here's a good thread for you, TripleX. I'd suggest reading it.

Edited to say: I had the same views as you when I wrote this thread, but once it was argued, my view changed.

[Gaare]

Here is another thread about it:

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11990

[TripleX]

Please don't post about these things.  It's IC information that we shouldn't, and don't really care to know.

If you think that someone was twinking or playing unfairly, email the MUD account and explain exactly what happened.

Huh? What's IC sensitive about what I wrote? Did I mention any names or sdesc? All I said was facewrap, what's IC sensitive with that?  

P.S. I wrote tweanking instead of twinking.. oh god

[Rhyden]

TripleX. IC information isn't exactly giving out names. Its situations that happened IC in which the rest of the player base should not or does not want to hear about. Especially those encounters that happened recently.

[TripleX]

Actually it never happened, I just wanted to hear your thoughts about it.

P.S. It really never happened.... really

[Larrath]

It's IC information because the attacker might know about your cloak, and other spectators might know who you are or where it happened.
With EVERY single tidbit of information, there is always at least one guy that can infer way, way more than you think.

Even giving away some PC sdesc that you've run across, which may seem like harmless information, can be bane to a spy, raider and a vast multitude of other people.


To discuss specific cases, always talk to the staff.  To refer to things more generally, you can use the GDB...preferably logging out if it directly involves your PC somehow.

[Cuusardo]

Sometimes people will erroneously contact you if you have the same keyword as the person they are trying to contact.  *shrug*  It happens.

[joyofdiscord]

And an erroneous contact seems at least as likely as them successfully snagging you based on "facewrap," considering that there are probably a few other facewrapped PCs in the world at any given time.  Note that the twink in question wouldn't even know for sure if he got the right "dude in a facewrap", not until he reads this thread, at least.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

I can think of a couple very, very, very good IC reasons as to why you'd contact some one, hooded or not, you randomly bumped into in the desert.

[Kalden]

There is one thing I would really like clarified. Do you get the image of the person that you're contacting in your head, or is it just a strange voice/thought?

[fearwig]

This could be fixed with a simple bit of code. Make it so that when contacting someone, you recieve the same sdesc throughout the session that you use to contact them with. It's as simple as setting up a variable and referring to it instead of another.

There's absolutely no defense for using this intentionally to see someone's sdesc. *Look* at the person, and say "hey, they were wearing the same damned things!", or something else that can possibly be IC. Don't deface yourself with this "when you contact someone you ACTUALLY SEE them" crap. It's rather clear that contact involves a verbal sort of sense (hence no emotes--the sdesc included is obviously intended to differentiate between senders, kind of like a recognizable voice).

[Kalden]

Don't deface yourself with this "when you contact someone you ACTUALLY SEE them" crap. It's rather clear that contact involves a verbal sort of sense (hence no emotes--the sdesc included is obviously intended to differentiate between senders, kind of like a recognizable voice).

I don't exactly follow you. Your mind has a distinctive voice separate from your actual voice and your appearance, hmm? Impossible to judge the person simply from the mind-voice, is it?

I may periodically drop creepy little comments in random people's minds, then, and then periodically refer them to the staff when they start accusing me of being a creep? That's very interesting. It has some fun implication for RPing and harassing people.

*runs off to contact nobles and send them erotic moans*

[Larrath]

As far as my understanding goes, the reason why the successful contact message is You contact the big bad wolf with the Way and not You contact him is because you DO get a mental image.
It would also be more sensible for you to recieve one's name instead of sdesc when they messaged you in this case.

The Way shows people sdescs because it's intentional, for whatever reason.  It's completely unclear that the Way is strictly verbal; I've occasionally been sent crude images over the Way, and I never found them to be wrong.  The helpfile doesn't say that the Way is verbal only.
In other words, "when you contact someone you can see them" is not crap.


With all of this said, however, it IS very twinkish to use contact in order to find a former attacker/attackee by their clothes.  Just think about it like this - how would your PC realistically be able to tell that it's the same person?
More importantly, also, this leads to the old sdesc abuse issue, which is separate and far more comprehensive than just this issue.

[Kalden]

With all of this said, however, it IS very twinkish to use contact in order to find a former attacker/attackee by their clothes. Just think about it like this - how would your PC realistically be able to tell that it's the same person?

If they are cloaked and standing right in front of you, however, is it twinkish to contact them and then say you know what they look like?

I honestly have no idea. I haven't used an sdesc gained like this yet, but I would be inclined to.

By sdesc abuse you mean reporting people just on their sdescs?

[Larrath]

If they're cloaked and standing in front of you, you can just look at them to get a very good picture of what they look like.  Try to peek under that hood, you have a whole mdesc to work with.
On the other hand, if this is "the short figure in the voluminous-sleeved thobe and a tembo's ass mask" then yes, the Way will give you a little more information about them.

I think that if you contact a person, you will be able to recognize them later if you saw them in person.  Unless you know who it is that you've contacted, though, this might not help you a lot.


And by sdesc abuse, I mean any instance where a PC's sdesc is used as their name.  "He's got broad shoulders, and vivid eyes" refers to "the broad-shouldered, vivid-eyed man".  This is worst when it is used in rumors and when reporting someone to an opposing force, but this is just as bad when it's used to descrie anyone for any other purpose.  I'mt not even going to bring up the fact that NOBODY IRL describes people like that, ever.
Just ask yourself this:
How many times have you seen people actually try to describe people (he's about ye tall with so and so many scars on his face, and he's always got a pink hat on his head) and how many times have you seen people use this name system?

[Linedel]

Plenty of times...  I know exactly who people in the lab are talking about when they discuss the thin half asian girl that works upstairs...  Yep, and I've described someone as "that guy that looks kinda like the babbling engineer from Office Space," and they knew who I was talking about.  There's always "that intern," though that one isn't so much physical, unless you take into account that implies someone comparatively younger.

(Or, for the high school crowd - what about that skater with the faded green mohawk?  Yeah.  That one.)

Brief, mostly physical descriptions really are quite realistic, and occur in the real world all the time... for people you see regularly.  It's only ridiculous in Armageddon where you can successfully identify someone the first time you've seen them...


The "obvious" solution that pops into my mind (without any deep thought as to other things this would affect) is to restrict contact on characters not in the same room to only allow words in the character's actual namelist, not appended from clothing.

[fearwig]

EDIT: zapped. Sorry, thought you were responding to my post and not the one before yours. Silly me.

[fearwig]

The "obvious" solution that pops into my mind (without any deep thought as to other things this would affect) is to restrict contact on characters not in the same room to only allow words in the character's actual namelist, not appended from clothing.

I suggested that your contact echo only produce the same sdesc you contact the individual with (being that that's the only way you'd 'know' them to differentiate). So, if you contact the tall figure wearing a black etched hood, you would only see that in your echo. Either way seems to work, but I'm inclined to agree with your method as being more realistic, all in all. It isn't, after all, realistic to "think" at someone who you would only recognize by their clothing. You'd really have to know something about them, at least to concentrate on them. Or not, who knows?

[Larrath]

Just how many thin half-asian girls do you have in this lab of yours, Liendel?
Or people with green mohawks in your school?

Schools, labs, whatevers, are very small groups.  Try to go to the police and tell them that a thin half-asian girl stole your wallet when you were walking down the street, and see just how unhelpful that description is to them.

If you're talking about very small groups (like a clan of 50-100 people) then using vague descriptions can work.  Zalanthan cities are pretty freaking big; saying that a swarthy man with a fuzzy chin tried to mug you is going to bring up at least eighty people that would match this description.


If you tried to describe someone as "that thin guy with the black hair", unless people deducted from your tone that you're referring to a weirdo or something (which is providing far more information), it's very doubtful they'll figure out who you're talking about without some further explaination.


P.s. I'm generally in favor of fearwig's suggestion.

[Cenghiz]

I usually think if you've never seen that person, the image is blurry. So you must really change the sdesc's keywords if you want to use that information. "All I can remember is a blue gleam in his eyes, mi'lord Templar, but I guess he was an elf." for azure-eyed, bald elf for example.
My characters also reject to contact people only via the Way, insisting the target would probably be wrong. They ask for crucial additional information (eye color, hair color, tattooes, scars) before believing they can contact.
But it's me.. You have the right to contact to keywords, the staff responded before.

Note: And in a hand to hand fight, I don't think most of the sdesc would be invisible for him anyway. I'm telling it for the 237th time, your cloaks are not D&D elven cloaks, everybody still can see your face if they look carefully. Your veils/masks are not covering your eyes. Or you wouldn't see.

[moab]

Just to add my two cents, I don't see the original post as IC sensitive.  You guys are way to reactionary.

That said, there is no way to prove that the person who encountered you was the person who contacted you (from your perspective) so your complaint borders on paranoia, which is the norm in zalanthas, I guess.

Further, since you were in a face-to-face with this other person, there is no doubt they noticed many things about you besides your facewrap and could use those things to find your mind.  

Mental contact is not just about knowing what someone looks like - it's about them in some otherwordly way.  Who they are, what they smell like, who they know...etc.

It is reasonable to visualize something like this:

A templar gives you an order to contact Lord soAndSo.  You've never met the Lord and certainly don't want to upset the templar.  So using this mysterious and purposely undefined Way, you could visualize a web of interconnected thoughts - the interconnected links being the minds holding it all together.  By following these strands from you, to the templar, to the shmoe guard sitting outside the Lord's estate you wend your way into the Lord's mind if it is as whorishly open as the Tuluki gates.

I don't see anything wrong with that at all.

[Pantoufle]

Even if the scenario described did happen, TripleX has no way of knowing if the person who broke contact was the assailant or someone completely unrelated.

Maybe the assailant knew TripleX's sdesc because they met a long time ago in a tavern.  Maybe a mindbender was in his character's head doing ... whatever it is mindbenders do.  Or maybe someone coincidentally contacted him right then, realized they had reached the wrong mind, and broke link.

The fact of the matter is most of us have no way of knowing if the person who contacted us simply contacted '3.dusty sweat-stained stained bloodied used new sandcloth facewrap' or if they somehow knew our name/sdesc to make contact.  When shit like this happens in game (and you don't know the answer for sure), I say just roll with the punches and take what comes at you.  You can go bitch to the staff and see if they can find out whether the player in question legitimately made contact or not but ... is it really that big of a deal?