Hm....

[Twisted Minstrel]

Is it perfectly acceptable to walk over to the person who played that character who miraculously found your character's mind even though he was wearing a mask and hood with out even looking at his face's house and punch him/her in the throat?

(Mind you there was no possible way this other character could've known my character in -any- way)

[Coat of Arms]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Gimfalisette]

You can do it. It still might be a very bad idea to do.

Staff says that "contact figure" etc is a-ok.

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22720&highlight=contact+figure

[Mr.B]

Perfectly acceptable if you like to keep your secrecy. I've made it a point to murder those nosy bastards myself, before. Red Storm has it right, Rule #1: Mind your own fucking business.

[Gimfalisette]

Extra bonus points if you're punching a templar or another person with a serious ability to fuck you up. Also, please do this somewhere near me so I can watch the aftermath.

[psionic fungus]

In all seriousness, I wish sdesc sniffing like this were considered abuse, so I could start reporting people that do it.  It seems -absurd- to me that any old character can, using their pyschic powers, find the mind of any hooded/masked person they happen to have seen once on the street.

It would be really nice if contact et al only worked with names, set keywords, and keywords derived from sdescs (not cloaks/masks, etc), also.  I just can't understand why this type of OOC snooping is considered acceptable.

[Twisted Minstrel]

In all seriousness, I wish sdesc sniffing like this were considered abuse, so I could start reporting people that do it.  It seems -absurd- to me that any old character can, using their pyschic powers, find the mind of any hooded/masked person they happen to have seen once on the street.

It would be really nice if contact et al only worked with names, set keywords, and keywords derived from sdescs (not cloaks/masks, etc), also.  I just can't understand why this type of OOC snooping is considered acceptable.

[WarriorPoet]

I'm all for slicing the Way altogether. Until then, this is just something we'll have to deal with.

-WP

[Twisted Minstrel]

I'm pretty sure official staff position on this is that it's legit. Halaster once commented that it would have been coded out by now if it weren't.

Correct.  We added the ability to "contact dark hooded cloak" when you couldn't before.

If someone gets stolen from and does contact veil cloak, you can just laugh at them and say it wasn't you.  They've go NO way to prove it was, legally.

>_< Yeah, it's pretty legit until someone calls a figure of the law to search through all your shit. There aren't any laws against that in 'Nak.

[Troicha]

In 'nak, if someone calls the law over to search through someone's shit for suspected thievery, that someone had better have a really good reason, or else they're both liable to end up out a few small for wasting a templar's time.

On that note, I don't really see that there's anything wrong with 'contact figure', because, as was said, there's no way to prove that such and such figure was the one you mean. Unless, that is, you plan on taking the law into your own hands.

The big difficulty is that we all trust each other too much.

[a strange shadow]

Who says you'd waste a templar's time?

That soldier you buy drinks for all the time might be plenty willing to rough up some dirty half-breed for you.

Allanak = Corrupt
Tuluk = Subtly Corrupt?

Also... I find it makes the game a lot more enjoyable when you do your best to assume that everything has some sort of IC explanation. Maybe you should wonder why they were able to find you despite your concealment, or maybe they got a glimpse of something they recognized about you from spying on you at some previous point, or maybe they just got lucky.

Roll with that, instead of going "oh that's so lame" OOCly, you'll have more fun.

[Alberic]

Unless of course the person uses your sdesc to lie and claim that they saw you stealing and then it is your word versus theirs and chances are you have something naughty on you if you are a thief. The person who does this doesn't even have to worry their conscience as they know for a fact that you are the thief OOC and that knowledge influences their actions IC. There is never any real proof of theft unless you get caught in the act, it always comes down to their word versus yours. All that allowing people to contact each other by hooded or masked does is ensure that the right thief always gets fingered.

Edited to add: It's hard to roll with it when one command allows someone to ruin your character's life. From now on that person will tell everyone that you are a thief, watch you whenever you go anywhere that they are, and will make sure they have everything on total lockdown when you are around.

IMHO the best bet is to improve your combat skills a little bit before you start robbing players and if someone contacts you just go back and kill them. It'll have more motive than most PK and is just as legit as using contact to sniff for sdescs.

[a strange shadow]

http://www.armageddon.org/cgi-bin/help_index/show_help?barrier

http://www.armageddon.org/cgi-bin/help_index/show_help?hide

http://www.armageddon.org/cgi-bin/help_index/show_help?sneak

Use 'em, love 'em.

If you got caught being a thief, then you're a bad thief.

(I don't do sdesc sniffing, I think it's cheap, but there are ways to play smarter and avoid it.)

[Lizzie]

Having read several of your posts in a few threads Alberic, I am hearing some hostility, and anger, and a sense of "unfairness" coming from your posts. I have no idea who you've played, but you imply that at least one was a thief who was caught, and you've had experience with your characters being killed by the same player of one or more other characters.

First, to address the latter: if that is so, you should definitely report it to the staff in case it really is a matter of twinkery, and not merely a matter of coincidence. I know from experience in other games, in a game where you interact with only around 20 people in a 3-hour stretch, it's pretty possible that you'll find your characters all being killed by someone played by the same guy who played the guy who killed your last character too. It -could- be twinkery. But it could also just be the roll of the dice. Or maybe your tend to play characters so obnoxious that everyone wants to kill them, and only a few manage to get the blow in each time? Assuming any of those is true though isn't fair to anyone.

As for the thief thing, and using hooded cloaks to mask yourself, remember those cloaks don't mask you at all. If you're female and your main desc says you have a bust, then people will notice a bit of a bump sticking out of your cloaked chest. If your have long hair, it's a good chance people will see some of that hair sticking out of your hood and falling down and around your neck and face. If you have eyes, a nose, and a mouth, odds are people will see all of those things, even with your hood up. And cloaks don't cover hands or necks, most of them don't even go much past the knee, or down past the shoulders on arms.

So when you're hooded, you are -not- hidden. And if I'm looking for "the hooded guy who just passed me who is definitely male, definitely saw me noticing him, who was running rather than walking, was so much taller than me that he had to have been an elf, and who is probably gloating about the fact that he now owns my waterpouch - then I'd say I have enough information to tap into the guy's mind and find it.

Especially when I can be looking intentionally for the guy whose name I don't know, but who JUST wayed me looking for my boss, and I have absolutely no idea who he is, haven't ever met him, or seen him, no idea even where he is, within the world - and I can find this guy without any effort at all. If I can do that - then finding the mind of the hooded guy who just stole my waterskin at point blank should be a walk in the park.

[psionic fungus]

If you have eyes, a nose, and a mouth, odds are people will see all of those things, even with your hood up

Bullshit.  This is what hoods are for, the protection and concealment of the head and FACE.  -Many- of the hoods are described specifically as obscuring facial features.

It simply does not make sense that as my character rushes past another character, fully swaddled in a set of generic gear, a facewrap, and a hood, this other character can than somehow SEND THEIR MIND OUT INTO THE WAY AND SEEK OUT ANOTHER MIND 'WEARING' A SPECIFIC SET OF -CLOTHING-.  Does your mind travel through the streets, looking around as if with eyes, to find these people?  Why does everyone not have some more advanced psi skills that do this, if this is how it works?  Does contact simply find the -mind- of a person you are close with?  How would your mind know the mind of someone you have never talked to, and in fact only ever seen the clothing-shrouded figure of?

The fact is that people who aren't even able to look at your main description can still identify you 90% of the time (yes, using barrier 'smartly' will decrease the ability of people to sdesc sniff you, but yes, barriers are usually easy to break), simply by using an OOC (IMO) method.  It makes no sense.  The character did not see my character.  The character does not know my character.  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of VNPCs wearing the same damn thing in the city, and yet this player chooses to find my character's mind, read their sdesc, say -nothing-, and proceed to tell all their friends, without even paraphrasing the sdesc, -exactly- who is shady and shouldn't be trusted, etc.

It's absurd.

Where is the trouble with -not- being able to contact characters based on their temporary (object set) sdescs?  Anyone your character actually -knows- would still be easily contactable through their normal sdescs or names... Why -should- it be possible to psychically contact people that you have had no previous interaction with?

Personally, I wouldn't mind if you had to use the name or nickname of characters in order to contact them.

[Southie]

fungus, could you please edit skills that not everyone gets out of your post?

The reason "contact figure" works is so that you can hit the mind of someone who's standing right beside you at the bar, but is hooded and obscuring their keywords, I think. That seems fine to me. If you can see a guy, you should be able to target them with your mind.

Maybe the solution is not to allow contacting of cloaked/veiled people if they're not in the same room, and require keywords/names otherwise?

[brytta.leofa]

I think the staff are telling us that sdesc-sniffing with the Way is a deliberately-introduced IC ability, not an OOC feature.  If you see someone, you can contact them.  If you contact them, you *will* get an impression of what they look like, even if their physical form is disguised.  Barrier is the only thing that prevents this.  Not saying I'm in favor of it...more crime is good, in my book. But it is, as far as our Player Critters know, how the Way has always worked.

Thus, if you insist on doing this and are reporting a crime, you don't say,
"Lord Templar, I, uh, his hood slipped and I saw his wobbly chin!"
You say,
"Lord Templar, I touched him with the Way and could tell his chin was a bit odd."

[Dresan]

I one time remember playing  character somewhere and spotting smoeone hiding somewhere they shouldn't have been once. And i pointed them out without violence, it wasn't a big deal. I remember though getting shit from someone on how i should have used the way to figure out who they were first before i pointed them out since they were his/her friend. Besides the fact that they were hidden, didn't know their name and cloaked i just rolled my eyes at the forceful suggestion to do something i consider twinkish myself.

Anyways at times you figure out someone sdesc by the way. Usually its happened when i meet them, they give me their name, we chat and talk for a while and they they tell me to contact them but they never lower their hood once. Eventually i contact them to chat and poof i figure it out.

But most of the time, i consider it very twinkish to use the way figure out someone's sdesc who i haven't met, who's name i don't know, who's badly hidden/invisisble or who's two or three rooms away in the wilderness. I'm with other who think it should be considered abuse however since the staff doesn't think so i can't complain against people who use it.  :cry:

[psionic fungus]

The reason "contact figure" works is so that you can hit the mind of someone who's standing right beside you at the bar, but is hooded and obscuring their keywords, I think. That seems fine to me. If you can see a guy, you should be able to target them with your mind.

If contacting hooded/obscured figures only worked on a 'line-of-sight' basis, I would agree.  However, it does not.

I think the staff are telling us that sdesc-sniffing with the Way is a deliberately-introduced IC ability, not an OOC feature. If you see someone, you can contact them. If you contact them, you *will* get an impression of what they look like, even if their physical form is disguised. Barrier is the only thing that prevents this. Not saying I'm in favor of it...more crime is good, in my book. But it is, as far as our Player Critters know, how the Way has always worked.

I understand they are saying it is IC, but I disagree that it -should- be.  I simply see no IC way for my character, while sitting at a bar in Freil's Rest,  to contact some hooded figure he has never met who is hiding in an apartment in the Warrens.

I simply would like to see some 'fair' restrictions, and some detail put into the background of how the Way functions.  If it is possible to find the mind of someone you've never met from 25 leagues away, -how- is it possible? I personally just don't think it should be.  Use names, nicknames, possibly permenant sdescs....  Line of sight, if we must.

[James de Monet]

I think a lot of your are assuming quite a bit about how the Way works.  You can try to contact someone and fail.  You can be unable to "find" their mind.  Find implies search.  If you are doing some sort of mental 'search' for people, what's to keep you from latching onto anyone's mind?  Obviously their minds bear some reflection of themselves, otherwise you couldn't find them with their names or with their keywords.  If it's a matter of focusing on the way a person looks or feels, why should you not be able to contact a cloaked figure?  I don't agree with sdesc sniffing, but the Way is not a telephone.  You don't have to know someone's number to call them.

[psionic fungus]

On the other hand, if the way is searching for a mind and "Obviously their minds bear some reflection of themselves, otherwise you couldn't find them with their names or with their keywords." then why -should- you be able to find their CLOAK?  'Obviously', their mind does not bear the reflection of their cloak, because when you contact them you receive their sdesc without the cloak (hence the sdesc sniffing), yet you could not be contacting the cloak because it doesn't have a MIND.

So... Again, if you don't know what they look like, or their name, how do you find their mind?  Their 'mental persona', or whatever, -does not- reflect if they are hooded or what-have-you, so how could you locate it based on that criteria?

[Lizzie]

Well then, a simple solution: Hooded and cloak should be dropped off the list of possible keywords that allow people to target each other in the game, unless they is actually part of that person's main desc (such as, her eyes are constantly shrouded by a cloak of darkness/surrounding his penis is a thick, floppy hood of skin) or their name. Since all people ARE figures, by definition, you would have no problem with anyone trying to target anyone with that word.

[psionic fungus]

Ha ha!

Yeah... Right.  As long as it is one of their regular keywords... Or it applied to everyone.

What logic!

[Lizzie]

It was the penis hood that got you, wasn't it? Confess!

[psionic fungus]

Yes...

But everyone in my character's tribe is circumsized, so what does that mean?

[Twisted Minstrel]

If you have eyes, a nose, and a mouth, odds are people will see all of those things, even with your hood up

I had a hood -and- a mask. And I wasn't exactly caught stealing, no theft was involved. I just rushed past a place I shouldn't have, and had a certain item on me I shouldn't have had. The person who sniffed my mind out using my clothing was some sort of official, who didn't even get a chance to look at my character as he rushed by. Now, if she were to chase him down and shout something like, "Guards! Stop him!" instead of contacting me and saying something along the lines of, "It'd be in your best interest to get back here." I wouldn't be complaining.

[Gimfalisette]

I just rushed past a place I shouldn't have, and had a certain item on me I shouldn't have had.

Maybe you need to re-think. Is what you did in that situation really realistic?

[spawnloser]

You should be able to find their cloak because it is how they are thinking of themselves at that moment.  "Oooh, I'm so sneaky in my cloak with the hood up, noone can tell who I am by looking at me because my dark hooded cloak is so cool."  Yeah.

[Twisted Minstrel]

I just rushed past a place I shouldn't have, and had a certain item on me I shouldn't have had.

Maybe you need to re-think. Is what you did in that situation really realistic?

I don't want to give away anything IC, buy yeah, it was.

[James de Monet]

What I was suggesting before you got all snippy, pf, is that maybe people in Zalanthas have a presence.  A cloak would reflect on this presence in the same way that scars would, or sadness, because they represent a state of mind, a mental weight.  So, if you are searching for the mind of someone you don't know, you reach out and try to latch onto those ideas, those feelings, and then, when you find their mind, you feel the 'real' them.  You get a sense of them.  To wit, their sdesc.  It would be different, reaching out for someone you know versus someone you don't.  With someone you know you could just reach out for that one specific feeling that defines them, with someone you don't, you latch onto something peripheral.  

Now obviously, all this means nothing because I'm just postulating the way that things might be.  We don't really know how the Way works, so I just think people should have a hard time saying 'This is dumb and twinkish and shouldn't be possible' when the staff have explicitly stated that it's okay.  I still don't agree with the practice, but that doesn't make it wrong.  Maybe you should just be glad people can't do 'contact thief' or 'contact feeling:triumphant feeling:sneaky'.  Catch my drift?

[Dalmeth]

Now obviously, all this means nothing because I'm just postulating the way that things might be.  We don't really know how the Way works, so I just think people should have a hard time saying 'This is dumb and twinkish and shouldn't be possible' when the staff have explicitly stated that it's okay.  I still don't agree with the practice, but that doesn't make it wrong.  Maybe you should just be glad people can't do 'contact thief' or 'contact feeling:triumphant feeling:sneaky'.  Catch my drift?

Actually, we do know how the Way works.  Finding someone through peripheral details is an accepted fact of the Way.  So the theory you presented does have some weight.

[Ashes]

One thing I haven't seen suggested is to still allow contacting a figure, but simply block the message you get about their short description.

Code Select Expand


You suffer from use of the Way.
You contact the figure in a drab, weathered stormcloak with the Way.


Granted, I'm not completely familiar with this at all.  Maybe this could be a sort of medium that would allow you to contact and speak with somebody, maybe to deliver a threat or warning that you're going to bend them over a dead scrab and do horrible things with that mekillot-bone javelin of yours, and they would have the option of getting away and dropping some coin on a new cloak.

Sounds like this might've been the way it was before they coded it differently.

[James de Monet]

Actually, we do know how the Way works.  Finding someone through peripheral details is an accepted fact of the Way.

Okay, yeah, we know how the Way works codedly   I meant we don't know how the Way really works theoretically.

[Zalanthan]

I agree entirely with James's thoughts on the subject - contact figure ... is the coded solution to whatever is actually happening.  The documentation says all sentient beings developed psionics long ago so it's safe to say everyone would be pretty good with it by now.

I just rushed past a place I shouldn't have, and had a certain item on me I shouldn't have had.

So... why exactly did you not have a psionic barrier up?  I hope everyone whining about sdesc-sniffing are just unaware of the second half of their psionic abilities, but I realize it's most likely a bunch of people who always forget to use barrier when it matters most.  It seems silly to complain about a problem you can easily fix yourself.

[Lizzie]

Barrier doesn't work all the time. You can have it up and get it broken down, and some people just plain aren't that good at it and even when it's up, EVERYONE can break through without much effort.

And even if you -are- good with it, some people are simply better at breaking through than you are at putting it up.