Way sniffing

[nauta]

How do people RP what I will call 'way sniffing' and 'mindtapping'?

Way sniffing: when you are hunting for someone (friend or foe) and you do a quick 'contact Amos' to see if they are online or not (maybe a few in case it doesn't work).

Mindtapping: the same thing except as viewed from the side of the sniffed, that is, when a foreign presence contacts your mind and then just leaves (or worse lingers there).

I can see a couple answers here, including: way sniffing - that's cheating, don't do it.  

IG I've noticed people who way sniff say (when unable to contact the person):  Oh, he must be asleep, or on wall, or whatever.  However, this doesn't make sense, granted that the Way is supposed to be unreliable and mysterious - see the discussion here (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,48385.msg855460.html).  Just because you can't reach someone's mind, doesn't mean they are asleep or on wall or dead.

And when it happens to you, you almost always know that -someone- is out to kill you -- but does your PC know that?

[Marauder Moe]

Way sniffing: don't do it.

Mindtapping: there are several reasons for this to happen besides Way sniffing, some of which are not nefarious.  Wrong mind, shared name/keyword.  Wanted to talk, but got nervous and jozhalled out or otherwise distracted.

[whitt]

Way sniffing: when you are hunting for someone (friend or foe) and you do a quick 'contact Amos' to see if they are online or not (maybe a few in case it doesn't work).

I'm with Moe.  Don't do it.  Contact someone via the Way if you want to have a conversation.

Mindtapping: the same thing except as viewed from the side of the sniffed, that is, when a foreign presence contacts your mind and then just leaves (or worse lingers there).

And when it happens to you, you almost always know that -someone- is out to kill you -- but does your PC know that?

Not at all true.  Not all players know/track everyone they've encountered by name or you might share a keyword (nickname or even a name).  I usually assume this for most cases.  Unannounced lingering is a little more odd.  Oh, that's not who I meant to find, but I'll sit here anyway?  I am pretty fond of Expel as a solution for unsolicited pokers that just linger about without announcing themselves.  Can't say it's happened more than once.

[HavokBlue]

I'm guilty of using contact to check if leaders or minions were online and then ceasing to go to find them in person.

My big pet peeve is people who use the way to snoop sdescs from hooded/masked PCs. If, for whatever reason, you doubt this, walk into a bar and sit at a lone table with a mask on.

[williamson]

There is nothing wrong with trying to contact people to try and figure out if they are alive, dead, or awake (aka online). Just be aware that your attempts may or may not be successful and could lead to incorrect assumptions.

[nauta]

I'm guilty of using contact to check if leaders or minions were online and then ceasing to go to find them in person.

My big pet peeve is people who use the way to snoop sdescs from hooded/masked PCs. If, for whatever reason, you doubt this, walk into a bar and sit at a lone table with a mask on.

Oh yeah, happens all the time, but I thought that was a legit move in the whole lore of how the way works... and not an ooc cheat.

[williamson]

I'm guilty of using contact to check if leaders or minions were online and then ceasing to go to find them in person.

My big pet peeve is people who use the way to snoop sdescs from hooded/masked PCs. If, for whatever reason, you doubt this, walk into a bar and sit at a lone table with a mask on.

Oh yeah, happens all the time, but I thought that was a legit move in the whole lore of how the way works... and not an ooc cheat.

Using the Way is not cheating.

[HavokBlue]

Using the way to snoop descriptions is pretty shitty imo and it invalidates not only the effort a PC might go to to conceal their identity but also the entire function of identity-concealing items when it comes to people in the same room.

[williamson]

Using the way to snoop descriptions is pretty shitty imo and it invalidates not only the effort a PC might go to to conceal their identity but also the entire function of identity-concealing items when it comes to people in the same room.

Putting up a barrier and a hood can help reduce this from happening.

[nauta]

Using the way to snoop descriptions is pretty shitty imo and it invalidates not only the effort a PC might go to to conceal their identity but also the entire function of identity-concealing items when it comes to people in the same room.

My thought on it when it happened was something like this: when not in the same room or hidden, I'm obscured.  That's super useful (all those cloaked figures in the rinth, e.g.)  But when in the same room, and not hidden, then it seems like one could use psionics way stuff to sniff out my mental fingerprint or whatever.  Just my view on it, which is why I thought it wasn't as cheaty feeling as way sniffing (as defined above).

[Harmless]

This example isn't cheating, but it's bad form and style:

>look figure
>contact figure
>cease

..No roleplay, no emotes, nothing that hints that it was you doing what you did to get their sdesc.

The below example, is, in my opinion, better, and excuses it more.

>look figure [spending a few moments intently staring at the shadow under ^figure hood]
>feel an image of the figure slowly coming to mind, as you concentrate on the way.
>contact figure (however many times)
hemote For a moment, @ seems to quirk a slight smile, while staring ~figure down from afar.
>cease
stand (abruptly) [casting a knowing grin towards ~figure as she exits.]
think Fits the description I had.

I have done basically the second example, submitted a report about it, and received pretty positive feedback from staff, so I am quite sure that there is nothing "against the rules" about this at all.

[whitt]

This example isn't cheating, but it's bad form and style:


The below example, is, in my opinion, better, and excuses it more.

Still... just... no.

Sniffing an sdesc via contact is poor form.  Even if someone who is wrapped up and cloaked contacts -me- via the way.  I'd still RP I didn't recognize them on sight without their hoods and wraps, I've never seen them except in my minds eye.

Perhaps the "You make contact with a tall, dark stranger" message needs to be changed to "You make contact with a foreign mind".  Why should the person making contact receive more information then the person being contacted?  Once a message is passed, only then would the image of the messenger present itself.  No message sent?  No idea who contacted you and no idea who you actually contacted.

[nauta]

Sniffing an sdesc via contact is poor form.  Even if someone who is wrapped up and cloaked contacts -me- via the way.  I'd still RP I didn't recognize them on sight without their hoods and wraps, I've never seen them except in my minds eye.

I dunno, when drunk you get an echo about someone's mind flickering in your head, and it gives the sdesc.  I take the coded echos at their word, and have assumed that if I've got that mental fingerprint sdesc from the way, I'd recognize them on the street, very easily in fact.  I could be wrong, and that's part of the quesiton I have about RP on this.

Perhaps the "You make contact with a tall, dark stranger" message needs to be changed to "You make contact with a foreign mind".  Why should the person making contact receive more information then the person being contacted?  Once a message is passed, only then would the image of the messenger present itself.  No message sent?  No idea who contacted you and no idea who you actually contacted.

Again, I've just taken this to be part of the spooky process of the Way: when you contact someone you get an image of them - like a mental image of some sort, of their relevant features.  I've even had other PCs way me with: *sending a mental image of the tall, dark handsome man* when trying to describe someone over the way.  Was that legit?

[CodeMaster]

Again, I've just taken this to be part of the spooky process of the Way: when you contact someone you get an image of them - like a mental image of some sort, of their relevant features.  I've even had other PCs way me with: *sending a mental image of the tall, dark handsome man* when trying to describe someone over the way.  Was that legit?

I'm super leery of adding stuff in asterisks, but I use it and I feel like it's a cool roleplay element.  It would probably be better if we didn't have to put borderline emoticons in the Way though -- something like this would be cool:

Code Select Expand


psi -anger What are you doing under there?
Feeling anger, you send a telepathic message to the short little elf:
   "What are you doing under there!?"

The short little elf sends you an telepathic message over the Way, tinged with amusement:
    "underwear?"


Sending other people's sdescs seems kinda dodgy to me.  And lazy... if you read someone's description and equipment lists, you can come up with a much more immersive description of someone than their sdesc, and it becomes a fun puzzle for the other player to try to fit the pieces to determine who you mean.

[RogueGunslinger]

I think ya'll are just looking for things to gripe about. If your criminal hinges on their identity not being found out, you're going to have a bad time in Arm. That said, if you don't want someone getting your sdesc via the way, don't sit around in the same room as them.

It's not "bad form." It not "looked down upon." It's how the game works, so you best get used to it.

[Harmless]

RGS is right and again, when I filed a report basically describing using the way like I said staff didn't even begin to hint what I did was "bad form."

Also, I would never call a player who spends a lot of time hidden or with a barrier and a hood or mask on, avoiding being near others bad form at all either.

[valeria]

I don't see anything wrong with finding someone's mind and leaving it without saying anything.  Half the time I do it, it's because it was the wrong mind.  Sometimes, it's because I wanted to say something to that person and then forgot what it was or I got too busy.  And sometimes, it's because I just wanted to know if they're around.  And I don't see anything wrong with that.

The way I see it, people whose minds you can't contact aren't open for hanging out for whatever reason.  They've got their barrier up and you can't find them.  When you can find their mind, it's because they're around and available.  I think it's perfectly IC to want to know whether a person is available to interact with you, as opposed to being busy with something else.

[Malifaxis]

I have found that when this happens to me the best thing that I can possibly do is start killing anybody that I think may be valeria.  Because even if they aren't, I get new boots.

On a serious note, no its not "illegal" but does feel douchey when you are the recipient of a sniff.  I view it much the same as if somebody was trying to text me and because I was busy and couldn't answer, they decided to *67 call me to see if I would pick up.

(No it isnt the same thing but it feels douchey like that.)

[Lizzie]

1. Checking to see if someone's around or not only works if your skill-check succeeds. If it fails, you have no way of knowing that it was an actual fail (meaning, the person was logged in and you failed to find them) or if the person wasn't logged in. It's not a flawless method of identification.

2. Any other type of "sniffing" doesn't really bother me all that much. If I'm already using the Way to talk to someone else, it might even be a favor, to not know who just popped in and out, because I won't feel obligated ICly or OOCly to break contact with whoever I'm talking to and respond to the mystery way-er.

3. Not knowing who just contacted me can add to the mystery. It means, to me ICly, that "someone out there" has targetted me, whether on purpose or by mistake, and the circumstances I'm in at that particular moment will dictate which of the two my character chooses as her personal truth. If she's been stalked a lot by people on the street and suddenly gets an anonymous contact, maybe it'll contribute to her paranoia. Maybe she'll try to find her VBFF's mind to get reassurance. Maybe she'll alert a templar that someone is trying to track her down. Who knows! It's just as much fun to let my character's imagination run rampant as it is to know that Amos the Assassin just found her mind.

[Majikal]

Nothing wrong with way sniffing, I simply handle it ic. As a raider, I've turned a casual hold up into a vengeful, murderous stabfest over a suspected way-sniff. Nothing about it can't be handled ic.

Working as intended imo.

[Armaddict]

Pretty much with Malifaxis.

No, it's not against rules.  I'm not sure I'd consider it in the bad form arena, either.

But it's douchey.

[Fujikoma]

Yeah, I just assume someone's trying to kill me and start taking defensive measures.

[Harmless]

Murder, Corruption, and Douchyness? Definitely part of the game then.

1. Checking to see if someone's around or not only works if your skill-check succeeds. If it fails, you have no way of knowing that it was an actual fail (meaning, the person was logged in and you failed to find them) or if the person wasn't logged in. It's not a flawless method of identification.

Maybe a "solution" to this would be some kind of hidden buff to the barrier ability. As it is now, if you fail an attempt to contact someone who has a barrier on, all that is stopping you from trying again is a few seconds delay until you can use contact again.

What if your attempt to contact them and break a barrier is rolled for once, then that roll is kept for the next 10-30+ seconds (barrier skill dependent) for all further attempts to contact? This could be totally hidden from the contacter, meaning that they would have no idea what's going on if they just want to see if someone is online. (As far as I know, this is the first time this particular idea has been suggested).

(In a far away place, Talia is hiding out from her enemies with a barrier on).

You think: "I am going to kill that skeet. She must be about, she usually is..."

>contact talia
You are unable to reach their mind. (talia's barrier won. Now, from this particular attacker's attempts to contact, she is "protected" for some period of time, dependent on his skill (10-30 seconds or so).

(5 seconds later)
>contact talia
You are unable to reach their mind. (This was an automatic fail -- since Talia already won a barrier check in the last few seconds, the attacker doesn't find her).

You think: "Damn, she must be sleeping or somewhere too far..."

You say, in sirihish, to your brainy elf friend: "Hey, Gaj-bait. Use your elfy-brain to find Talia's mind, or try to. She's gotta be around."

The brainy elf narrows his eyes briefly and nods. "Got her."

A system like this wouldn't make "way-sniffing" impossible, but would remove the problem of multiple attempts pretty much breaking a barrier every time. It also introduces a new mechanism of teamwork in using the Way, which is novel.

If you're a lone, masked dude, and you know you make damn good barriers, and you mug a single person, then when your victim tries and fails to break your barrier, you can be pretty sure you've got a window of 10-30+ seconds to do your evil deeds to them and escape, protecting your identity.

Edited to add: Although I didn't think that this issue was a problem at all before, it did occur to me that there are people likely spam-contacting someone they really want to kill. Because I know how the code for barrier/contact works, I have to agree that is kind of "meta." The suggestion here is to make each successful use of barrier to block a contact attempt more meaningful (rather than, you failed to contact, try again in 3 seconds please), and to discourage spam-contacting greatly.

[RogueGunslinger]

What if barrier... actually worked. Not just worked against people with lower skill and wisdom than you, but against people equal in skill most of the time.

And when you had it up you get this message:

It feels as if the tall, muscular man is trying to force their way into your mind.

And you lose a little stun.

[nauta]

Frankly, from the discussions of the last week about the Way, I'd be a big fan of doing one of two things:

1. Make the way a lot more flaky.  This would solve two problems with one stone:

a. the problem of (for me at least) how jarring it is to not be able to way someone who is merely offline (and alive) when, while online and alive, you can pretty much way them consistently.

b. the problem of way sniffing, since way sniffing actually wouldn't be super reliable, but it'd still be kind of reliable.

2. Make the way -work- when you contact people who are alive but offline, although it'd be as if they were alley/krathstruck.  Problems solved:

a. the jarring problem (see 1.a)

b. way sniffing (see 1.b) and this would be solved -completely-.  You simply could not way sniff, period.

c. the are-they-dead problem. 

(Some probably don't see 2.c as a problem.)

[Lizzie]

Harmless, that will only help people who have really good contact skill, and it will harm anyone with really bad/novice contact skill.

Especially those with lower wisdom, who have to expend anywhere up to 15 stun points just to TRY and contact someone - and whose stun points take forever to return to normal again.

I just don't see this as a problem. There's a mystery to the Way, and how it works. I'm fine with that. There SHOULD be a mystery to how it works. I think it's awesome that we DON'T know who is trying to find our minds until they actually say something. I'm very very happy at the change that was made to contact, from prior to the mid 2000's. It's a huge improvement over how it used to be. And then there was also another change made to the stun point drain, which has improved things since for all sides - especially people who do NOT have master contact and "very good" or better wisdom (or are half-giants or dwarves).

I also think you're either overly paranoid about assassins, or you play characters that are really good at pissing off the wrong people. I've had characters assassinated many times - and I don't recall more than three or four that were preceded by someone waying me and leaving my head without saying anything. If you really think it's an issue, I'm sure Nyr could come up with the actual data on how many assassinations took place as a result of the assassin being able to find their target's mind first. I'm guessing the answer would be very - very few.

[Harmless]

I also think you're either overly paranoid about assassins, or you play characters that are really good at pissing off the wrong people.

Pretty sure you're not talking to me with this part of your post, but instead talking to some of the other folks here. If you are talking to me, I have absolutely no idea why you'd think that. I made my suggestion in sympathy to others here.

The rest of your post I don't disagree with. I am completely neutral on this whole topic but think it is worth discussing changes and ideas.

[FantasyWriter]

A mundane in Tuluk should not be able to break a barrier in Allanak. EVER.
I don't even like that you can way that far with any consistency even without a barrier. You should get garbled messages similar to they way language code works when you first get the new language skill.
Want to make the world seem larger? Nerf non-psion psionics.

[RogueGunslinger]

Hmmm. Eh. I agree with the barrier part, but contacting across the know helped one of my character a lot when they were stuck somewhere they didn't want to be and needed to talk to people who weren't stuck in the same place. You have to remember the way is as much for OOC playability as it is for IC convenience.

[FantasyWriter]

Unless your OOC playability relies on remaining undiscovered.  Like escaped slaves, rogue magick users, raiders, etc.
OOCly, it is impossible to blend into a world of millions of virtual beings, many of which would have the same sdesc and even names as your PC.

[RogueGunslinger]

OOCly it's possible by just not logging in. 

ICly it SHOULD be possible by putting up a barrier and having that barrier be effective. I don't really see a need to make the way more finicky.

[Lizzie]

Hmmm. Eh. I agree with the barrier part, but contacting across the know helped one of my character a lot when they were stuck somewhere they didn't want to be and needed to talk to people who weren't stuck in the same place. You have to remember the way is as much for OOC playability as it is for IC convenience.

This, exactly. The whole point of the coded aspect of the Way is to communicate from a distance. It needs no adjustment, it does exactly what it's supposed to do. Also - knowing that I can find your mind doesn't mean I know where you are. If I want to kill you I'll have to do quite a bit more work than simply be capable of knowing that your character is logged into the game.

Sorry Harmless - it's that empathy I disagree with. It gets brought up how often? (Again - Nyr could find the data if it mattered enough or if he was curious enough to check) And it's the same arguments over and over again and the end result is - there really isn't anything wrong with the way it is, it's working as intended, and it is not against the rules, or even bad form, to contact someone, not emote or say anything or feel anything at all, and then break contact. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

[Armaddict]

Hmmm. Eh. I agree with the barrier part, but contacting across the know helped one of my character a lot when they were stuck somewhere they didn't want to be and needed to talk to people who weren't stuck in the same place. You have to remember the way is as much for OOC playability as it is for IC convenience.

This, exactly. The whole point of the coded aspect of the Way is to communicate from a distance. It needs no adjustment, it does exactly what it's supposed to do. Also - knowing that I can find your mind doesn't mean I know where you are. If I want to kill you I'll have to do quite a bit more work than simply be capable of knowing that your character is logged into the game.

Sorry Harmless - it's that empathy I disagree with. It gets brought up how often? (Again - Nyr could find the data if it mattered enough or if he was curious enough to check) And it's the same arguments over and over again and the end result is - there really isn't anything wrong with the way it is, it's working as intended, and it is not against the rules, or even bad form, to contact someone, not emote or say anything or feel anything at all, and then break contact. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Just wanted to point out the contradiction.  You've outlined what the Way is for, now.  In no place does it say to circumvent whether 'Who' tells you who's on or not.  Again, not against the rules.  Not cheating.  Just douchery.

There was another Way discussion recently by Desertman that I liked a great deal, as far as how things could be changed.

[Harmless]

People have playstyle differences. People on the GDB will come here and disagree with some of those playstyles, sometimes vehemently enough to call it "douchey," or "meta," and the bottom line is staff have final say in this stuff. If staff haven't said it's bad, then I don't think it's bad either, because they determine the rules of how to use code and how not to abuse it.

My own opinion is that being touched by the way isn't douchey. Being contacted for the sake of seeing how my character looks isn't meta or douchey either -- if it's in the game, it's in the game. It's perfectly IC to be paranoid and to respond negatively when it happens. It's also perfectly IC not to give a shit. I think players have their preferences of how they play or the personalities they play. My own preference is not to care when that happens, because it is pretty common.

[Kronibas]

Personally, I don't do this regularly, but I can see why people would.

Just think about the Way broadly for a moment.  Now, assume your character is in the presence of another character at a bar for say, four IC hours.

Would having a hood up prevent your character from becoming familiar enough with another character to make an attempt to contact them psionically later?


If my character had an encounter with a hooded figure in the desert, it's pretty likely that I might use contact to get a bead on them, especially if they ran away or were moving fast while I followed them unseen/undetected.


Short descs are weird when it comes to identifying people, especially with the Way, and this problem is exacerbated when a character tries to explain the appearance of another character using sdescs only, which does in fact tend to happen, especially when the IC stakes are high, to track/ID/communicate about another character.  Historically, iC/OOC disputes and other shennanigans have occured due to this type ID'ing, and I think that's why some veteran players are hesitant to really endorse it as a common practice.

[Case]

The majority of these issues would go away if people could pick an alias sdesc for the Way at chargen, unchangeable, and true sdescs were left to psionicists.

[Lizzie]

Way sniffing would also be a lot less prevalent if players would make sure their sdescs reflect their mdescs and that the most prominent features are actually featured in their sdesc, as it's supposed to be.

The staff looks like they often gloss over descriptions just to make sure there's nothing blaringly obviously "wrong" with them, but they can't possibly have time to take to really scrutinize. I typo descriptions all the time (including my own when I catch them after the fact) but to date, I have only witnessed two near-immediate changes (neither of which were my own).

Example so you know what I mean:

The tall, black-haired man.

And in their mdesc, the player has completely forgotten to mention his hair. It's like there's an entire line missing. So if I were to see the guy with his hood up, I'd see that he has brilliant blue eyes, he's tall, male, has scars peppered all over his skin, a crooked nose, he's kind of skinny but not emaciated.

And when the templar sees the tall, black-haired man, he will not even -think- that this -might- be the one I pointed out. He won't even give the guy a second look. Because the tall, black-haired man isn't the scar-peppered crook-nosed man or the tall, scarred blue-eyed man or anything else that he made an effort to describe in his mdesc.

I think this happens a lot more frequently than mystery assassins poking around in people's heads. Some of it is new players who might be overwhelmed with the chargen process, see that they've already told everyone what's prominent and don't realize those features still need to be in the mdesc. Some of them might be veterans who know this is a great way of avoiding getting pointed out. For me, THAT is cheating. But it happens often enough.

[Kronibas]

You're right Lizzie, but remember that those kind of omissions might be the resultt of player forgetfulness/flakiness and not necessarily an attempt to mislead.  I've caught myself getting so into writing parts of mdescs that I get carried away and actually forget to link it back to the short desc.

[Lizzie]

You're right Lizzie, but remember that those kind of omissions might be the resultt of player forgetfulness/flakiness and not necessarily an attempt to mislead.  I've caught myself getting so into writing parts of mdescs that I get carried away and actually forget to link it back to the short desc.

Absolutely. There's two different things going on with that: There's player forgetfulness/overwhelmed new players, and there's intentional omission. Regardless of WHY it happens - it happens, and if it's typoed, it's my opinion that ANY staff member who is available should have the authority and coded ability to change those descriptions on the fly (and of course [send] a message to the player letting them know what/why).

[FantasyWriter]

I've done this alot. My characters almost always start with a sdesc, then I write and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite the mdesc.
In my mind, the PC still looks the same, but the sdecs no longer accurately portray their most noticeable features (what I feel a sdesc should do).

[valeria]

What if barrier... actually worked. Not just worked against people with lower skill and wisdom than you, but against people equal in skill most of the time.

This is pretty much the only idea in this thread that I actually like.  It's too ridiculously easy to have your barrier broken by someone with master contact.  And all of my characters with about 5 days played have mastered contact.  It makes barrier feel pretty pointless to try to maintain a respectable level of privacy in your mind, if that's what you're trying to do.  I would love to see mastered contact fail against mastered barrier around 90% of the time or more.

[Chettaman]

What if barrier... actually worked. Not just worked against people with lower skill and wisdom than you, but against people equal in skill most of the time.

What if: When you ran into someone using barrier you lost an increased amount of stun because of it. You could even get an extra message like,
"You find yourself straining to reach this mind."

The majority of these issues would go away if people could pick an alias sdesc for the Way at chargen, unchangeable, and true sdescs were left to psionicists.

This is a pretty cool idea. Example:
> The deep, grumbly voice sends you: " 'Ey, Runner. Why ain't ya at trainin'?"

the only problem I see is all of the current documents, and history that has already happened where this wasn't the case.

[Lizzie]

What if barrier... actually worked. Not just worked against people with lower skill and wisdom than you, but against people equal in skill most of the time.

What if: When you ran into someone using barrier you lost an increased amount of stun because of it. You could even get an extra message like,
"You find yourself straining to reach this mind."

The majority of these issues would go away if people could pick an alias sdesc for the Way at chargen, unchangeable, and true sdescs were left to psionicists.

This is a pretty cool idea. Example:
> The deep, grumbly voice sends you: " 'Ey, Runner. Why ain't ya at trainin'?"

the only problem I see is all of the current documents, and history that has already happened where this wasn't the case.

There used to be a different echo to differentiate people who were around and your psi just couldn't reach them - and people who were either dead or logged out. That was changed (in part, at least) because it was abused. When you KNOW someone isn't logged in (because you aren't reaching a barrier or other "special echo") then you know it's safe to rob their apartment, or conspire to kill them, or conspire to do whatever else without their knowledge. You know there's no way they'll be able to catch you doing whatever it is you're doing, because the character isn't in the game at the moment.

[MeTekillot]

There should be a different echo for a dead person and an alive person, but perhaps that could be the only differentiation.

[catchall]

Giving people a "Check if this PC is dead" button seems even worse than "Check if this PC is online."

[Fujikoma]

Giving people a "Check if this PC is dead" button seems even worse than "Check if this PC is online."

Rack up massive, massive bounty...

Log out for three RL months. Sit back and laugh maniacally.

[Tetra]

Sorry, that's your opinion!

Waying someone and proceeding not to speak with them isn't cheating.  I haven't done this personally, as any time I use the way, I have a reason(speaking to them) for making contact.  Any action you take in the game(typing in a command) is considered IC.  If your PC can use the Way, and they want to sense for someone, it is far from cheating.

ICly, an assassin might want to sense out an individual's mind, but not make their presence aware.  The Way is a discipline, just like poisoning, stabbing others in the back, or hiding in the shadows.  It can be used in a strategic manner, with the right roleplay motivations, that are self-serving or otherwise clandestine.

Keyword here is roleplay.  Now, if someone were trying to Way a person they had never heard of or met before, just to interact with them, I'd consider that questionable.

[Malken]

Sorry, that's your opinion!

Waying someone and proceeding not to speak with them isn't cheating.  I haven't done this personally, as any time I use the way, I have a reason(speaking to them) for making contact.  Any action you take in the game(typing in a command) is considered IC.  If your PC can use the Way, and they want to sense for someone, it is far from cheating.

ICly, an assassin might want to sense out an individual's mind, but not make their presence aware.  The Way is a discipline, just like poisoning, stabbing others in the back, or hiding in the shadows.  It can be used in a strategic manner, with the right roleplay motivations, that are self-serving or otherwise clandestine.

Keyword here is roleplay.  Now, if someone were trying to Way a person they had never heard of or met before, just to interact with them, I'd consider that questionable.

Well, in theory, you should -always- find someone's mind because they are ICly in the game 24/7. I think that even when a PC is sleeping you can find their mind, you just can't way them or something, so saying that this person might be sleeping when you are logged off isn't really a good excuse. So saying that you use the way to feel if someone is around isn't really legit.. If you want to see if someone is around but sleeping you have, in theory, to actually send them a message and then it comes back to you, in game code, telling you if your message was received or not (so if you find out that someone is awake and around, in theory, that person should also know who sent that message - at least the description).

I don't know where I'm going with this but yeah.

[nauta]

Well, in theory, you should -always- find someone's mind because they are ICly in the game 24/7. I think that even when a PC is sleeping you can find their mind, you just can't way them or something, so saying that this person might be sleeping when you are logged off isn't really a good excuse. So saying that you use the way to feel if someone is around isn't really legit.. If you want to see if someone is around but sleeping you have, in theory, to actually send them a message and then it comes back to you, in game code, telling you if your message was received or not (so if you find out that someone is awake and around, in theory, that person should also know who sent that message - at least the description).

I don't know where I'm going with this but yeah.

This is what originally caused me to wonder how my PC should RP it.  I've learned a lot from the discussion, and I think that while the realism takes a hit from the current system, the playability issues involved in knowing when someone is dead would be worse.  So I'm going with Moe's answer: the way is just flaky and super mysterious.  When we are online, it seems to work pretty seamlessly, but that's just us getting lucky.

I still find it hard to RP a relationship with someone, since it'll be like: Oh, hey, I haven't seen you or found your mind for three weeks, and I know you weren't sleeping since way gives me different feels for that, so you totally had your barrier up and were with her weren't you MY MATE WITH WHOM I LIVE.  But hey, it's a harsh desert planet.  Screw intimacy.

EDITED TO ADD: "while MAGICAL realism takes a hit", rather.

[CodeMaster]

This is what originally caused me to wonder how my PC should RP it.  I've learned a lot from the discussion, and I think that while the realism takes a hit from the current system, the playability issues involved in knowing when someone is dead would be worse.  So I'm going with Moe's answer: the way is just flaky and super mysterious.  When we are online, it seems to work pretty seamlessly, but that's just us getting lucky.

I guess it's like being an extra in the Truman Show - you just have to act like these things are normal and avoid the topic when someone brings it up IC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9lBvg5clr0

And if I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!

[Qzzrbl]

Because I hate to lose an opportunity to plug this idea.... (http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,34854.msg436225.html#msg436225)

Would effectively remove the relatively common brain-checking and sdesc-sniffing of perfect strangers-- which would allow a little more leeway for criminals and other nasty folk we all want to see more of, as well as facilitating interaction between PCs.