Release Note discussion!

[Delirium]

does unhitch all?  Unhitch all the players following you too?  Please oh please?

I don't see why it wouldn't.

[lairos]

does unhitch all?  Unhitch all the players following you too?  Please oh please?

I don't see why it wouldn't.

How does this amazing blanket command affect those who are "shadowing" someone or does it?

[Riev]

Probably still can't unhitch what you can't see?

[nessalin]

Unhitch all only affects mounts that are hitched to your character.

Doesn't affect non-mounts, visible or not.

[Delirium]

Drat.

Still awesome!

... but, drat.

[chrisdcoulombe]

I would rather unhitch people.

[TheGoose]

Sometimes I try to go up to lose the group. Works.

[nessalin]

My concern is that people that only want to unhitch their mounts would keep unhitching people following them, who then have to re-follow.

Which is the more common scenario, unhitching mounts or people following?

How often is unhitch used to stop characters from following?

How effective is it when they can just re-follow?

Would a different command be better than 'unhitch'?

Maybe with different arguments?

• "unhitch mounts"
• "unhitch followers"
• "unhitch all"

[nauta]

Situations where unhitch followers is useful:

1) A leader of a clan needs to go into a meeting with some noble and leave all the minions in the hallways -- especially if the minions are all hoodsup.

2) You've forgotten who followed you into the room and want to logout or leave on your own.

3) A battle erupts, and you need to split quick, e.g., to position yourself as a flank or whatever.

I like unhitch all|mounts|followers.  (I assume it won't unhitch shadows just as regular unhitch won't; you still have to flee self to shake a shadow.)

[whitt]

Which is the more common scenario, unhitching mounts or people following?

How effective is it when they can just re-follow?

Would a different command be better than 'unhitch'?

Only one class, to the best of my knowledge, can hitch multiple mounts in the first place.  So certainly, I'd say, it's more common for someone to be Pied Pipering a group of people, especially during RPTs and not necessarily know who all is following them.  Thereby resulting in folks yo-yoing rooms as the leader leaves and three people that were in the middle of a conversation or something leaves without knowing they're still being followed.

I don't think re-follow is the problem.  I think the problem is greater trying to unhitch everyone in the room before you, say, go to the estate gates to usher in the next batch of guests.

Disband would seem like a reasonable command word for a command that would unhitch all followers, but not mounts.  But then you'd have the awkwardness of still needing to use unhitch Amos for individuals if you didn't want to ditch everyone.  So maybe go with your argument list?  And let folks alias the unhitch all followers command if they like?

[Synthesis]

I don't think you should be able to issue a command to stop people from following you, unless that person has been legitimately identified as linkdead--especially not if you can't even see them.

If someone is following you and you don't want them to, you already have a range of mundane options:  1) you can ask them to stop; 2) you can "flee self;" 3) you can start running and try to outrun them; or 4) you can initiate some kind of combat.

The fact you can unhitch followers one by one is already pretty sketchy, and absolutely gets abused when you're aggressively following someone.

[nauta]

I don't think you should be able to issue a command to stop people from following you, unless that person has been legitimately identified as linkdead--especially not if you can't even see them.

If someone is following you and you don't want them to, you already have a range of mundane options:  1) you can ask them to stop; 2) you can "flee self;" 3) you can start running and try to outrun them; or 4) you can initiate some kind of combat.

The fact you can unhitch followers one by one is already pretty sketchy, and absolutely gets abused when you're aggressively following someone.

unhitch <target> currently allows you to "stop leading another visible character."  The proposal, I take it, is to just extend this to stop leading all visible characters (unhitch followers).  If we didn't have this ability (to unhitch individuals), then things would be pretty irritating: a lot of PCs go on breaks, afk, etc., without going link dead while hitched.  Being able to unhitch everyone visible following you would be a convenience to save typing.

[Synthesis]

I don't think you should be able to issue a command to stop people from following you, unless that person has been legitimately identified as linkdead--especially not if you can't even see them.

If someone is following you and you don't want them to, you already have a range of mundane options:  1) you can ask them to stop; 2) you can "flee self;" 3) you can start running and try to outrun them; or 4) you can initiate some kind of combat.

The fact you can unhitch followers one by one is already pretty sketchy, and absolutely gets abused when you're aggressively following someone.

unhitch <target> currently allows you to "stop leading another visible character."  The proposal, I take it, is to just extend this to stop leading all visible characters (unhitch followers).

I'm aware of that.  I'm saying that "unhitch target" is already kind of a bad idea that is probably only there for convenience, since the code apparently can't tell very well when someone goes linkdead.  Doubling down on it is a terrible idea.

If three raiders are following you, there's absolutely no reason why you should be able to "unhitch all" and then spam movement commands, knowing that reaction time and latency will be on your side.

I suppose it could be usable if they recoded "shadow" to be a parallel command to "follow," such that if you are "shadowing" someone, they cannot lose you by simply using the unhitch command, even if you are visible.  This would rework "shadow" into a command for "intentionally and aggressively following" someone, and would force the followed person to react via one of the aforementioned methods.

[roughneck]

If someone is following you and you don't want them to, you already have a range of mundane options:  1) you can ask them to stop; 2) you can "flee self;" 3) you can start running and try to outrun them; or 4) you can initiate some kind of combat.

The fact you can unhitch followers one by one is already pretty sketchy, and absolutely gets abused when you're aggressively following someone.

Chase command please.

[nauta]

Ah, that's a good point.  One idea I had might go along with this:

nosave unhitch
nosave follow
follow <target> <self>

follow <target> <self> would allow you to force target to follow you, if they have nosave follow on. (Useful when some Runner goes AFK in the desert.)

If you have nosave unhitch on, you will allow someone to unhitch you (i.e. stop leading you).

[whitt]

[moving to Code Related Questions]

[Delirium]

Maybe with different arguments?

• "unhitch mounts"
• "unhitch followers"
• "unhitch all"

I like this, it keeps things simple. The RPT scenario is the biggest one, say you're leading 5+ people and they all emote obeying your command to remain behind but a few of them forgot to type "follow self"....

Things get awkward. As for "aggressive following" uh.... this doesn't stop that, and it's... kind of a silly concern IMO.

[WanderingOoze]

Or when you havent seen someone for IG days and forgot
they were following you before and you happen to walk through the tavern or something and drag them along on accident.

[Black]

I like all the bug fixes. Unhitch all sounds pretty awesome too if you travel a lot with groups and need to hitch more than one, or are taming a lot of them.

[TheGoose]

Yeah, the follow thing is pretty annoying. I drag/get dragged by people a lot. Conversely, I've never had a need to unhitch all my mounts at once. Besides, if I leave a mount behind, I drop the reins automatically. Not so with people.

If it was a one or the other scenario, I would say make 'unhitch all' affect visible followers, not mounts.

[chrisdcoulombe]

Yeah, the follow thing is pretty annoying. I drag/get dragged by people a lot. Conversely, I've never had a need to unhitch all my mounts at once. Besides, if I leave a mount behind, I drop the reins automatically. Not so with people.

If it was a one or the other scenario, I would say make 'unhitch all' affect visible followers, not mounts.

+1

[Tisiphone]

Yeah, the follow thing is pretty annoying. I drag/get dragged by people a lot. Conversely, I've never had a need to unhitch all my mounts at once. Besides, if I leave a mount behind, I drop the reins automatically. Not so with people.

Not sure I like this idea, but how about, if you are ever out of the same room as someone, you stop following them? It seems potentially inconvenient for those 'we all got separated in the desert' moments, but then again I imagine many people are like me - I compulsively type 'follow <leader>' once I'm back in the same room again, despite the fact that it's technically unnecessary, so I wouldn't notice much disadvantage.

That way, if someone manages to escape your shadow*, or goes over a cliff, or is done having a meeting with you and goes away only to walk past an RL hour and a half later when you forgot to 'follow self', you won't just pick them back up automatically.

*In this case you probably should, I think. Oh well.

[Lizzie]

This is why I prefer to lead, and not follow. In most cases - I'll remember to unhitch, or ask everyone else to stop following, if I plan on doing something other than whatever it was that made them follow me in the first place. But SO MANY TIMES I follow the leader of the group, and they start wandering for who the hell knows what reason, when we were following for some completely different reason. If they're too fast for me to type "follow self" I might just type SOUTH... so that I stop following them while they keep moving west or whatever. But it doesn't always work out that way.  Or worse - I'll be following Amos - who then forgets I'm following him, and he hooks up with and starts following Malik, who has plans that have nothing to do with me, and while I'm waying someone because Amos asked me to - Malik starts dragging us all over creation and the command delay prevents me from giving the way message OR stop following, til we're halfway across the city.

[Harmless]

I can flee self to escape a shadow? Interesting, didnt know that, and I have played for years.

Flee self always seemed like a command useful mostly for getting yo ass killed in a situation full of danger to me; run off a cliff, bump into the line of sight of an aggressive beast, etc.

And I agree that a command to ditch all followers would be a handy addition and doesn't seem like it would be prone to much abuse. Anything that saves headaches and typing struggles is a good thing.

[Vox]

http://armageddon.org/help/view/chase

This is AWESOME!