A Request to the Playerbase

[Cenghiz]

When someone's a distance away from you, it's quite possible that you'll contact the wrong person with the same cloak, sometimes NPCs. It is allowed and normal, as once Halaster mentioned, but I'd totally ignore the sdesc - just contact to say something if no very very distinguishable features are present.

Tall muscular man: You remember nothing

Three eyed dwarf: You remember the third eye.

[Ktavialt]

I sometimes do this and I sometimes do not.  One reason I
-might- do it is when I am looking at a person, trying to figure
out an actual -keyword- for the person and their mdesc doesn't
give that many good clues (often always a word like sanguine,
malevolent, some elf awhile back that had a crazy m-word in his
name which I still don't know the meaning for.)

As to the original poster's point, it wasn't decided to be code
abuse. I just figure that you see a person, and even if you don't
know what they look like, you think of that person you saw, and
then you will be able to find their mind and get a mental image
of them.

Think about it like a grocery store scanner and when your eyes
pan about they all end up clicking in your character's head and
you can find the mind, even if you don't know exactly what they
look like underneath.

- Ktavialt

[Quirk]

To Quirk:  A thousand people in Allanak may be named Amos, I'll give you that.  But what about more unique names?  Where do we draw the line on what is and isn't appropriate?

There are a *lot* of people in 'Nak. Assuming for one moment that they do the thing humans do of reusing names of relatives, fashionable names, names that mean something, etc, and don't just pull them out of their ass as players tend to do, the namespace pollution is going to be heavy. Okay, there may be a few unique people around, but I suspect they'll be the exception. It would be a bit much even to expect that the names players use ICly came to them out of a vacuum; there must be some reason their parents named them they way they did.

I'd also say that though some people may agree with you that doesn't make you right.

No, the reason I think I'm right is because I've got a logical, VNPC-based argument. My ending line was simply a response to your "who says it's twinky?".

And I know from IC experience that plenty of people would agree with me since my characters have frequently been contacted by people who only knew my name.  And I've also contacted people as such and will continue to do so until an Imm tells me it's wrong.

How about thinking for yourself? You're surely capable of discerning whether it makes IC sense without an imm having to tell you?

I'd also point out it's an issue of playability.  Bob the Byn Sarge posts on the IC boards that he's recruiting, something that would ICly get spread around by some in the NPC and VNPC realm.  So are you saying I'm a twink if I contact Bob and ask if he's the right Byn Sergeant?

Well, back before everyone hung out in the Barrel (which is a rant for another day), the Gaj used to be the standard Byn haunt. If you wanted to meet Bob the Byn Sarge, you went to the Gaj at night-time and met him when he was relaxing. And as long as the Bynners or any other clan consistently head to a particular place come night-time, you can still do the same thing. There's no need to Way the sergeant in advance, and there are excellent reasons for not doing so.

If you play that way more power to you but I have yet to see any staff posting or documentation to say that's wrong.

Yeah, the only answer I've found from a GDB search is here, and that's an undecided one:

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11988&highlight=contact+met

Halaster has said quite plainly it is NOT code abuse to contact someone by a name or an alias.

You'll note from that link that he left open the possibility that it was poor RP.

I don't like contact pinging and I don't like contacting people in cloaks JUST to get their sdesc.  This is an impossible argument to speak of realistically because obviously no one has psychic abilities on earth.  I guess we'll have to agree to disagree unless staff weighs in on this one.

Or, you know, you could always reason it through. Waving your hands and saying "well, we don't know how psychic powers work" doesn't mystically present us with an explanation as to how you can always get Amos the florist just because someone's told you Amos exists. What we do know is that it's easy to make mistakes with the Way and get the wrong person even when you know the person well.

I do see a potential argument for the other side: if someone specifically shows you, through the Way, how they find a path through the Way to Amos' mind, it would seem reasonable for you to do the same. But this ain't going to excuse contacting someone you've only ever overheard rumours of.

[Larrath]

I have no problem with people contacting people they have only heard of, as long as they use a name.
I also have no problem with people contacting hooded figures/shadows/whatnots, as long as both players are in the same room.

I do have a problem with characters that contact hooded or somehow hidden characters without being in the same room.
I also have a problem with people describing characters with exact keywords simply so they can be contacted.

I'll only expand on my first statement - the problem is informants.
When I was a new player, I was playing a Borsail aide.  Repeatedly, my noble told me to find the mind of someone I assume was a Guilder.  But my character never met this character to his knowledge (it's possible he did and never realized it) and therefore I never contacted him.  Not for two RL months, and eventually my character died.
All this really did was put my character at a disadvantage, and a major one at that since I couldn't quite stroll through the 'rinth to find me a Guilder to talk to.
Byn Sergeants can be found in the Gaj some of the times, and sometimes they can't.  What about Noble House Sergeants, and nobles and merchants?  What about 'rinthis that, at times, can be quite impossible to find?

I say, if you get a name, using contact is fair game.  Otherwise it's going to be roleplaying your characters' arms getting tired, sore and immovable after one game hour of combat - it's great roleplay, but nobody does it and you'll just put yourself at a major disadvantage.

[Halaster]

Without knowing the situation it is also possible someone contacted you by mistake, and upon seeing your sdesc, stopped the contact because they realized it was the wrong person.

[rishenko]

Without knowing the situation it is also possible someone contacted you by mistake, and upon seeing your sdesc, stopped the contact because they realized it was the wrong person.

Agreed, and the more generic your sdesc, the more often you will get false positives - tall, athletic, willowy, dark, et cetera.

However, I do recall this one time I was going down the North Road wearing a dusty desert greatcloak, early morning real life, say 9 AM EST.  Seen not a soul, had scan on, which was pretty much maxed out.  A little while later I get a contact.  It  holds for about two minutes, then I get a single way, "dusty?", and they quickly withdraw their mind.

The problem I have with the cloaked figure contact bit is that unless you really catch their features from standing NEAR them, looking AT them, I don't see how you could mentally distinguish them from the thousands upon thousands of other cloaked figures.  I mean, if you see a hundred people wearing white pullovers that cover their faces and have pointy hats, are you going to be able to pick out JoeBob #5679?

[Vesperas]

I should say that in this particular instance, the PC in question was very new (2 hours in-game time, approximately) and had not yet interacted with ANYONE.  I also don't think the sdesc is/was particularly common, since I've starting taking great care in avoiding mundane sdescs (the tall, muscular man).

On top of this, it was a very, very early morning hour -- there may have been from 5 to 10 people on, if that.  

Yes, it may have been a mistake, and I'm willing to accept it as such.  However, this sort of thing has become more and more excessive over the past couple of weeks.  I recently had a PC who I had a very IC reason to keep the hood up for, and I would have preferred that if anyone took any notice of the PC, it would have been for the contents of her main-desc and not her sdesc.  Nevertheless, she was repeatitively pinged whenever in a tavern with people (even when there were no other 'cloaked figures' available).

My beef is NOT with how the Way works or players decide to use it -- I personally RP it as a type of mental strain to explain the suck-ass newbie skill, and as a compilation of common-shared emotions, imagery, and sensations (to explain why 'words' simply are not used).  But other players may like to do it differently, and that's fine.  

My beef is that this sort of thing is starting to look like an OOC practice so that the player can have a full list of desc-sdesc-names to reference, regardless of whether or not that player's PC has ever met or had any reason to remember my PC.  

I can look at someone while walking down the street, maybe even think something interesting about them -- "Hey, I like his shirt."  "His eyes are really pretty." -- But that would be the end of it.  15 minutes later, they'd be out of my life and beyond reasonable recollection.

[Vesperas]

Yeah, I'm going to send out this request again.


If you see someone in a cloak....

DO NOT CONTACT THEM JUST TO GET AN SDESC.

Jesus Christ.

[EonBlueApocalypse]

Mmmm, I want one of these cloaks with a psionic barrier for a hood.

J/k.



AFC - Almost anyone could agree this is abuse of the code if it is repeatedly happening, assumably by the same player(s).

[Vesperas]

Mmmm, I want one of these cloaks with a psionic barrier for a hood.

J/k.



AFC - Almost anyone could agree this is abuse of the code if it is repeatedly happening, assumably by the same player(s).

Hehe, it just... aggravates me.  You know, like a pet peeve.

[Ayashah]

It might not have been that person doing it but a random occurance after someone walked in and out. I had a pc that loathed the hell out of two people whom had hurt her mate in the past. When the mate was slaughtered vast pleasure was taken in harassing the hell out of the mind of two pcs by contact, cease, contact, cease for oooooooooooh about a real life month whenever she missed her mate. She just kept *poking* their mind to make them paranoid.

*cackles*

[Majikal]

Ayashah.. that is awesome.I now want my character to get angered at someone and do thi.

[Forty Winks]

That said, if someone has common keywords, you may find multiple people waying
you, Vesperas.  I've accidentally contacted two people I didn't mean to just in the
past 48 hours of play.  There really isn't much to say to them, so I cease contact and
continue on my merry way.

Heh, this quoted from the first page of the thread, but I"m surprised noone has mentioned it before. You can contact people using their entire sdesc.

Syntax:


contact <keyword> [keyword+]
-or-
contact #.keyword

psi <message>
cease

Examples:


> contact plain brown human

I've never contacted the wrong person in this method, and also ensures that I know the person well enough (by remembering their sdesc) to contact them. So, I can't say that having a keyword similar to multiple people and getting them mixed up is an actual excuse, but I'm sure several people weren't around when the update went in.

[Intrepid]

I've still succeeded in somehow contacting the wrong person, even with three keywords.  I have no idea how I do it.

[Blue_Static]

I may have a solution to this problem if in fact you need to (know someones mind to contact) then why not restrict the contact skill to names only?

[Angela Christine]

I may have a solution to this problem if in fact you need to (know someones mind to contact) then why not restrict the contact skill to names only?

Because then if they won't give you their correct name you can't contact them no matter how well you know them.

[Forty Winks]

I may have a solution to this problem if in fact you need to (know someones mind to contact) then why not restrict the contact skill to names only?

Because then if they won't give you their correct name you can't contact them no matter how well you know them.

That, and the instances where there are a million and one Amos' running around. Though, I think the Amos time has come and gone. Wonder what the new popular name is...

[ibusoe]

I agree with the original post.

[Barzalene]

I agree that contact should not be used abusively. I don't believe you need to stress yourself out with coming up wiht a lot of hard fast rules about how to contact someone. You know when you're being a twink. Don't be a twink.

[rishenko]

Mmmm, I want one of these cloaks with a psionic barrier for a hood.

J/k.



AFC - Almost anyone could agree this is abuse of the code if it is repeatedly happening, assumably by the same player(s).

You mean like the helmet used by the black robe templar on the right?

[EonBlueApocalypse]

You mean like the helmet used by the black robe templar on the right?

Does it come in green?

[rishenko]

You mean like the helmet used by the black robe templar on the right?

Does it come in green?

It comes in both rainbow and Hello Kitty colors.

And to add to the subject, I will once again reiterate that contacting somebody based solely on a cloak that you seen only in swift passing or from a distance in order to grab an sdesc is utter crap.  Because if you see a wavering image of them in your head, and it's not hooded like they currently are, then you get to see them in the nude because obviously clothing doesn't matter.

[Briarfox]

HELLO KITTY!   :shock:

[spawnloser]

Wow, this thread is WAY derailed.

[Ktavialt]

Yeah, I'm going to send out this request again.


If you see someone in a cloak....

DO NOT CONTACT THEM JUST TO GET AN SDESC.

Jesus Christ.

Roger roger... I do have a request of my own however...

Include the words of your sdesc in your main description.  I have
been a sneaky sort and would look at a cloaked person, would have the
time to insert every word in their mdesc and everything I can imagine as
I look at them.  Then, after 15 minutes of watching a person trying every
possible combination including 'eyed' and 'haired' and whatever prefixes
that could possibly go with it, then I might just sit there and 'contact tall'
or 'contact greatcloak'.  If your sdesc includes the word 'sanguine' or
'pretentious' or 'melancholy' (I swear I've seen that one) THEN THROW IT
IN YOUR MDESC.

Otherwise, I normally agree.  If the above happens again, and absent any
disagreement with the staff (I don't think their viewpoint was really
expressed yet on this), I will contact to figure out what you look like in
the situation I just described.