could someone explain

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Pip
To my mind if someone is having a conversation in /tell, it is a private conversation. In RL if I was having a conversation with someone in the street and you came along and butted in, without even greeting us, I would think you were very rude indeed. I would never have the audacity to go up to people I didn\'t know and butt into their conversation even if something they said interested me.

No, a private conversation cannot be held in /tells, because that would exclude eavesdropping or random overhearing. A private conversation should be done in a private place, and then you can, when someone RPing wants to join, OOC-ly clarify that it is meant to be not easily overheared. A RPer will know whether or not their own char would have overheared it or not.

Yes, the example situation lacks some formalities, like a greeting and such. However, that is besides the point. The point is that these formalities can easily be added and the situation would then become a possibility, whereas with /tells it would never be.
Furthermore, even if it would happen like that and you would find me rude, you would still talk to me to tell me to get lost, no? Also, asume that RPer3 is someone you care about, and you are likely to join the conversation.

Originally posted by Pip

Originally posted by Seytra
For people who have proven themselves as RPers, this could be extended to infinite /tells like it is now by default.

And how would one prove oneself as a roleplayer?

By good roleplaying, obviously. Other RPers will notice it. Maybe not within the first week, but eventually.
Yes, this includes the human factor, and with it favourism, feelings and other subjective things.

Originally posted by Pip
In RL if someone claimed they were telepathic, would you refute their claim because it is not normal? In a world where people have a natural tendency towards magic I find it quite believable that many would be telepathic.

Yes, I would do so immediately unless they can prove it. And the \"it\'s a world of magic\" argument is just another form of the \"It\'s fantasy, so anything goes!\" pseudo argument that completely fails to address the point:
Even though there is magic, it works in a certain way. This way is defined very well by the settings. And this means that telepathy requires a spell to be cast using one or likely many more glyphs. This requirement can of course be lessened by special circumstances like extreme specialisation or being highly advanced in the azure way. Still, this is something that is by far not common.

Originally posted by Pip
I don\'t believe that Planeshift is full of PLs, I think there are many who look like PLs because of the way the game is currently structured, and because people who are new to RP find the communications difficult at first, especially when they see OOC chat going on unchecked. If more people like you talked to them they could learn by example. I can\'t see that this game has any attraction for PLs and if they do join surely they must soon leave (especially if lots of people keep trying to talk to them when they are trying to PL ).

Sadly, to PL you don\'t need to talk. In fact, the talk will be drowned out by the battle messages, nayway, so a PL will not need to care about RPers trying to talk to them. Also, there are PLs in PS, as they are wverywhere where things can be maxed.

Originally posted by Pip
PLs would just create a character with minimum stats and build it up to their hearts content. If anything that would encourage them even more.

That\'s not how I think a PL works, but I may have no idea. AFAICS, they want to brag about their stats and items, possibly using them in PvP to get the feeling they \"pwn\" someone. Now if anyone can just have the same stats as them, there is nothing to brag about. Sure, you can say \"Hey, I started with 1 in every stat and zero skills and maxed everything\", but AFAICS only very few would actually do that.

Originally posted by Pip
Better to have a hidden points system to automatically build your character while he/she engaged in various activities. No fun in that for a PL.

How would that not be fun for a PL? The purpose of the training system is to keep levelling at bay. With an automatic advancement, a PL won\'t even need to go to a trainer anymore, and instead just keep bashing MOB upon MOB. Also, hidden or not, stats always have effects, and these are noticable. If nowhere else, then in PvP, so they\'ll still find a way to measure their \"lvl\".
Though I, too, think that indeed the numbers should be made less prominent.

Edit:

Originally posted by r.guppy
I would like to add my thoughts to the No`s on tells , if that was how you suggest\" 3 in 5 mins \"hello 1 gone: 2 how are you: two gone 3 good bye three gone:
 So i see , something like this happening, 1 hello/how are you/well thank you/did you see what happened in the tavern last night/to do with Janner and Pipra Janner, as i crashed and need to no what happened so i can finish my report for the guild log. The reply hello/ how are you/ i am well thank you/ow sorry to hear that at what point did you crash.
this alone would kill five mins so if this was the case for a long period players would be oblivious to what is going on around them every time a player they knew joined game.

I agree. There would be the possibility to meet and then use /say (though that would force more OOC in public channels = not good), and also the limit can be way less strict (like 20 /tells per 5 minutes, or even a limit based on length). But I would not be fond of such a system either.

Originally posted by r.guppy
 Third point your suggestion to allow PL to set own limit is in my opinion not how they see it at all, to a true PL it is the challenge to get from worst to best that appeals to them.

Hmm, if that was the case, they would not be purchasing better weapons and instead aim to loot them themselves, no?

[r.guppy]

Just a small point again, I think the reason for buying more powerful swords is to 1: so they achieve their aim quicker; ergo bye bye to them quicker.
2: for some they do it for Symbol status

[grayFalcon]

Seytra, I think we can drop the /tell-RPing-acceptable vs /tell-RPing-non-acceptable thing - from what I\'ve seen we\'re building on two approaches so different that we\'ve reached a dead end. While I compare the loss I have from people /tell-RPing to the loss I\'d have if they were not there at all, reaching the conclusion that I\'m taking no greater loss from them /tell-RPing and that they may go on then, you compare your loss from /tell-RP with the optimum case, which is /say-RP - and thus you reach the conclusion that you do have a loss in RP. Both conclusions are fully correct, the difference just being that I take the worst case and you take the best case as point of comparison. I\'m not one to judge which approach is better, so I guess we should just walk away with the other\'s arguments in mind and out own position kept.

There is, though, one thing that comes into mind: Why do we have /tell at all? The MMORPGs I remember most fondly are such without this feature, and I don\'t remember ever using it (except for ooc stuff in PS). Or is there anything I missed that would be hurt by taking away /tell? By the way, this might well hurt PLs, as it\'s probobaly more boring to bash NPCs while having noone to talk to than bashing NPCs and chatting with your friends.

As for your suggestion with setting your attributes/skills yourself - I dunno. Why don\'t we just go to IRC and do some pseudo-P&P-roleplay there? I mean, part of the fun in such an MMORPG is, imho, the fact that there are skills, that not everybody is equal, but that some have more skills and some less. And the fact that, if you don\'t do some work on your skills, you\'ll just stay weak. If you do work on your skills though, you can be proud of being the warrior who saves his comrades in need. Personally, I never had a highly-skilled char (though I was in most cases believed to be powerful), I preferred spending my time with RP. And I greatly enjoyed the fact that there were people with lots of hard-earned battle skills.

Now what you suggest would pretty much destroy all this. Most people would just set their skills to max and say \"Oh, well, but I don\'t use them, it\'s just in case...\". There\'s a reason why practically all RPGs have a ruleset that limits your skills and doesn\'t let you start with them maxed out, and that reason is... human nature.


I hope at least some of this made sense, as I\'m horribly tired.

[Karyuu]

Hm... A discussion on /tell removal took place sometime, I think. I was against it at the time, but leaning towards agreeing a little now.

Originally posted by Karyuu in another discussion:
We will always need the /tell command because we need easy ways of contacting individuals OOC, either to ask questions about RP, or to get help, or to give warnings. I don\'t think /tell will disappear, nor should it. It\'s incredibly useful for coordinating between characters: \"/tell someone I\'m at the city gates now, we left off our RP session here last night. Want to meet here once more, or should I \'stumble\' upon your character again somewhere else?\" Or \"/tell someone I\'m playing a character that has a tiny bit of limited telepathy. Can you give me a small trivial piece of information about your own character, so that mine may give it back to yours IC as roleplay \'proof\'?\" RP whispering to someone close to you is another problem. How would you go about doing this if the /tell command is removed?

Eh :/

[Valbrandr]

Well, I do like having the ability to /tell someone.  But if we were not going to have it... then take away the buddy list too because it would drive me nuts to know a friend is on and not be able to find them .  It is as realistic as the Guild Chat and Group chat.  I was just saying for me, I dont think it really has anything to do with RP.. just lets us communicate with the people we want to talk with over long distances.  Which I do believe is very helpful and im not sure if I understand why we need to get rid of it.  Though I can see why people want the /shout command and maybe even the /auction command gone :/.

[r.guppy]

I have to say that to remove tells completely would not go down well imagine in say two years time vastly more ares to cover, running around or tele-porting or flying all over the place to meet up. oops mist him/her/it were did they go, here we go again.
 Sorry if a bit small in content not one for long explanations or quotes.

[grayFalcon]

Well, r.guppy, keeping it short and meaningful is even more of a high art than writing pages over pages of text that could be condensated into a few lines anyway

I\'m not sure if /tells are really a bad thing - I have no experience whatsoever using them. I only know that I didn\'t miss them in other games. There is a certain flair in going around and shouting for somebody you know must be somewhere in the area, instead of just /telling him to come to the tavern, please. On the other hand it can get annoying at times.

Maybe a solution would be saying that, well, telepathy is simply common in this world. It doesn\'t even have to get mixed up with magic, it can be seen as a mental power that has nothing to do at all with magical power and is just something that most thinking creatures share. The drawback to this would be that, if /tell started to replace /say, finding suitable RP partners might become hard. But I am sure that this could also be taken care of (e.g. by making telepathy stop working at /say-able range).

As I already said, I have no problem whatsoever with /tell and /tell-RP existing, and I seem not to be alone with that opinion. On the other hand, neither is Seytra with her opposition of /tell-RP. So, perhaps it would be best to find some solution that would seem logical from an RP point of view and that would still encourage /say-RP (to satisfy the Seytra-like-thinking group) but that would also allow those who like /tell-RP and who generally don\'t want to give up the freedom of communicating around the world to continue using /tell as they are used to doing. Keeping the sheep healthy and the wolf satiated, so to say

There has been a brief discussion on this in the wishlist forum, but it didn\'t go far.

If there\'s nothing to say against this, I\'d just condensate all the arguments for/against /tell into a short post and put it on the wishlist forum, too.

[Karyuu]

Telepathy doesn\'t mean that individuals have the ability to speak to each other over great distances alone, though. It implies the ability to read minds. Unless the \"telepathy\" concept is refined to such a degree that it no longer bears the implications it has as we know it, the idea is very messy. Also, I know several characters that like to avoid magic, or are \"immune\" to being able to possess it (mine included), so any magical attachment to /tells without another mana source (e.g., other object), would be \"bleh\" :P

Not only that, but any conversations still require concentration, any carrying on five conversations while fighting, again, is absolutely insane.

[grayFalcon]

I think those are not matters that can\'t be resolved.

First, telepathy tends to get confused with magic, but it doesn\'t need to be. It doesn\'t imply the ability to read the opposite\'s mind, either (though the two are often confused with each other - the ability to read somebody else\'s feelings is called empathy). Telepathy is seen as the ability to simply convey a message or a feeling over a great distance to somebody you are mentally close to. It can be seen as a property of the soul/mind, as different from magic as the ability to command your body to move.

Perhaps you could read up on ESP (Extra-sensory perception). It is a group of phenomena in our real world, including, but not limited to, forms of telepathy, that bear no resmeblence whatsoever to the kind of magic presented in PS or other RPGs. (Side note: if somebody is going to attack me for bringing up such \"nonsense\", be prepared that I won\'t claim that ESP does exist - I don\'t know if it does - but I can show that claiming that it definitely doesn\'t exist has no scientific grounds).

Concentration is a point, but what stops the devs from blocking /tells whithin, say, 15 seconds of the last hit taken/dealt?

(edit: inserted wiki-link to telepathy and added empathy)

[Seytra]

Well, I, too, use /tell quite often for various purposes, so a complete removal would not be good I think.

grayFalcon, I know perfectly well why there are those rules in all PnP RPGs.  But this would make it easy to distinguish between PLs and RPers: those who for some reason stick with maxed stats would obviously not make good RPers, and I still think it would discourage those PLs whose aim is to break the system.

Anyway, telepathy is incorporated into PS as part of the azure way. Therefore, if there was another way of doing that, it would have to be stated in the settings to exist, because it is a big modification to the world. Also I know of no PnP RPG that has telepathy without magic or a separate but well defined system for PSI of which ESP is a subset.

I am completely aware of the differences between telepathy and empathy, and there even is an empathy skill, which is possible since you don\'t need ESP for empathy.

I even think that /tell should be allowed during waiting for the transision to the DR, as it is OOC anyway. A decent RPer will not use it in this case even if they could when alive.

I see no way of justifying /tell \"RP\" given the current setting. So either there will be a major change to the settings, or /tell \"RP\" remains unacceptable. I also see no way of having /tell \"RP\" while still encouraging /say RP.

Also, people who ignore the features that actually are ingame and work, like distance and physical location, obviously ignore one of the most important apects of the system. And I think I may very well assume pure laziness and unwillingness to accept the rules (and it sould really be common sense that people who aren\'t close can\'t communicate unless they have very special ways to do so. I seriously wonder why in MMO\"RP\"Gs these things get ignored and outright disregarded).

In summary: anyone who uses /tell to \"RP\" is not an RPer, as it violates the settings, and the settings must be adhered to. /tell \"RP\" is just as bad as pretending there are vampires or dragons or spaceships in PS. :tdown: several times


Edit:

Originally posted by Karyuu
Not only that, but any conversations still require concentration, any carrying on five conversations while fighting, again, is absolutely insane.

Absolutely. Even more so if you also need to concentrate on maintaining these nonexistant telepathic links. Try to have five seperate conversations over telephone IRL, even without fighting (which realistically would take all concentration or you\'ll die pretty fast), some time to test it\'s viability.

This whole \"telepathy\" business is just like maxing skills or having invincible \"chars\" in ruleless RPGs. :tdown: another time

[TheMinority]

for an RP /tell form, some kind of postal system might be implemented. that way, it could be written as a letter and it wouldn\'t be an \"instant thing\" (perhaps the notification of a new message might be, but the going to the post office to retrieve it wouldn\'t)

and /tell will remain as a way to annoy your friends with useless and random facts about mahogany wood and why ducks quack

[Esserfin]

Sorry for the late reply but i was playing

Originally posted by Karyuu PL speaks with you and explains how to kill monsters and raise stats and nothing else - this is not what PlaneShift is for, again. Powerlevelers may be found here, but the game was not intended for them, will not concentrate on them, and will try hard to make any powerleveling not worth the effort, again. For example, it has been discussed that quests may give a lot more in the future than any mindless monster slaughter, and monster slaughter would give so little as to be nearly insignificant. PlaneShift is a roleplaying game, no matter what. If you\'re looking for something with more \"kill,\" this isn\'t the game for you...

Well, i have understand that....but how about being a little more constructive?
Want my opinion on how you can destroy PL? Make things easier not harder
There are some PLers that are trying to became RP...but most of them after a good character levelling. Give them (us maybe) a chance.
The game *now* seems build and calibrate for fighters/hunters/warriors...are they RP? Or we have to consider most of them (us) PLers?
This is something i\'d like to undestand (i\'m serious)

Originally posted by Karyuu Wipes are a necessary step in development, and as Seytra stated in a previous post, this game isn\'t commercial and thus the development team is under no pressure at all to attract the largest playerbase - but the most fitting one.

I\'m not really sure.
As i said the game (pre-alpha i know) now make things easier for PL and really hard for RP. Or, better, if we want to RP with something else than imagination.
And this attract people who want to fight
Let me know that i\'m really proud (proud as part of the humanity) of what PS team is doing, i started to play here because of the non-commercial open nature of the project (and not because is free like a beer)

Originally posted by Karyuu People are teaching all the time. There is a guide in Hydlaa Plaza on roleplay, for example, and if you come up to some people in-game and say that you are a beginner in this whole RP business, I have no doubts whatsoever that there will be plenty of people to help you out. But if all you are doing is running around killing things that spawn every other minute, you\'re not going to find any teachers, right? You have to look a little, extend a bit more effort

I have done both in PS..i killed and i passed my time in the plaza (or in the tavern too). Not too much after the last wipe ( ) but be sure i\'ve done it.
I\'ll try again because things changes (fortunately) and maybe this time i\'ll find the characters you are speaking about.

Originally posted by Karyuu Again, sad but unfixable. PlaneShift is an English roleplaying game.

Again, i understand that

Originally posted by Karyuu [/IYou definitely misunderstood. In the first post of mine that you addressed, I was simply saying that there is no place for powerleveling without any roleplay in PlaneShift. I never made any insinuation that there is no possibility to learn.

Nice to hear this

P.S. Seems to me that you are taking this discussion as a battle.... be sure that i just want to clarify things that i don\'t understand. We both win at the end.

[Karyuu]

In some ways it is a battle, in others it isn\'t. I\'m dropping the discussion now because it\'s just eaten too much out of me, and others are capable of carrying on just as well, for as long as this thread is allowed to continue.

[r.guppy]

Now theirs a thought mail could be a good work around in place of tells and no need to inform you of new mail as you only have to go to post office to receive mail, i like that idea.

[Seytra]

Hmm, the mail idea has been brought up in the wishlist forum in another context, and it by itself is something I am in favor of.
However, the only real benefit of /tell is the ability to co-ordinate things OOC-ly so that RP can run smoother, like arranging to \"happen to\" stumble accross oeach other (compensating for having to log off etc.) or clarifying things that may be unclear but relevant for the own char\'s reaction without spoiling it by an OOC say. It may be that a player requires additional information about another player\'s char to ensure that the own RP isn\'t flawed, etc.. For these the postage system wouldn\'t work nearly as well or at all.

@ Esserfin:
The degree to which the killing is RP or OOC is quite a touchy subject. I have come to the conclusion that for a great many chars, the amount of killing they do is much more than would be realistic for RP. And even if the amount os fitting, the targets almost never are. Let\'s face it: everyone camps the MOB that they can kill without having to make long regeneration breaks or take potions while still gaining the most PP and if possible good loot.
Like the very popular rogue in the forest or some of the mercs / gladiators in the arena while realistically they would be hunting animals, but since these animals are either not available or the closest thing (rats) doesn\'t provide the desired loot and PP gains, hunters instead \"hunt\" for mercenaries in the arena.

Therefore AFAICS ~80% of all killing done ingame is OOC. As I said, since the wipe my actual skill levels are far off what I RP (And I RP by far not maxed skills or stats!), so when there is no RP going on etc. I spend a bit of time camping as well (usually I get fed up with it pretty quickly), in order to get my stats to match up with my RP. IMO, both must align if possible, since stats are supplemental to RP so that no super chars get RP\'d. Still RP takes precedence. Therefore, I consider almost 100% of the killing I do to be completely OOC. IOW, from an IC POV, I am not even in the arena or at whatever spawn point unless in very rare circumstances. Once an RP opportunity announces itself (usually via /tell), I stop the camping and go to RP.