I hope you don\'t think that automaps will be available, as they won\'t. All maps will be player/charactere created, thus the Cartography skill. To see the locations of \"mindstones,\" the maps will have to be drawn with magic along with the usual materials
Thats what i am thinking of. You create a map by using cartography. You can only see the landscape on it.
But later on you can upgrade your map by magic. I dont think at an automap, it`s more like a radar. For locating a single person you need perhaps 5 mana. To use your magic for locate all users of mindstones in a specific range AND write in the map, you need 50 (?) mana. The locations of the people in the map could be written there till the user deletes them (like a screenshot of an automap) or is updating the map with another burst.
To me it seems but a plan for the player to do less work moving the character around, instead typing mindless commands to automatically find the correct person or give the correct item to a person miles and miles and miles away. I\'m against that, personally, because it eliminates the need to actually travel and explore. You must admit that.
Naturally such combinations of spells should be very expensive in mana. Thats an argument against \"typing mindless commands\" because you have to be carefull what you do and when.
And naturally such long-range spells have to be cast really long plus they need a long time to effect.
I think about a hunting snake - spell: The caster have to combine nature magic+animal training+locating magic > a snake which \"search and destroy\" over a long distance. Beeing cast, it`s like a creature which is perhaps twice as fast as a player. The snake will use the mindstone of the victim to find it. Having found it, it will unleash a very nasty venom.
Such a spell is easily interrupted when the victim deactivates (most probably not knowing it is beeing chased) the mindstone, there could be a warning to the victim at a range of ~50m \"You hear people yelling and screaming about a big snake moving\". Then the victim could have enough time to prepare a defense-spell, and so on...
Thats only one idea about combining different ways. With every spell of this category (good and bad for the target) comes the probability that the spell is somehow interrupted (by deactivating the mindstone, other players, a coincident produced by the game)...
I dont think thats a plan for beeing generally lazy. I think, these spells could bring much movement into the game, as the usage of the stones has its pros and cons...
Bye,
amogorkon
Edit: The messenger bird - idea could be combined with the idea of mine. As it is not necessary to deliever messages (because of /tell), there could be a bird to deliever packages of items. The bird also needs something to orientate (the stone). And the delievery could also be interrupted like the snake, all the same...
With this, people have to be really carefull what and when to send...