Scry Tool?

[*scattered ashes]

on a server called world of talernon they had a system in place which was exactly what were talking about here, it worked perfectly fine and was pretty simple in functionality

1) you would have a widget in your inventory
2) when used it would bring up a dialogue of different options
a)add/remove yourself from the list
b)find other players
c) i forgot

but the prime functions where there, meant you could have a privacy mode and not be followed or stalked.

when used it would only say what area the players that were visible to the list are in. it didnt say levels or anything like that which is fair.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

There will be no actual privacy mode... reason is because you're all anonymous in the system anyway. Player finding tool will not help you find specific players, it will tell you which areas have players...

Very Large Player Number Location: "Crowded in <area X>"
Large Player Number Location: "High traffic in <area X>"
Med Player Number Location: "Traffic in <area X"
Low Player Number Location: "Low traffic in <area X>"
One or two players in location: "A basher or two in <area X>"
No players: not reported

And not mention:
- exact levels (It will mention in way or another if all/some/none are 'within level range')
- classes
- exact player accounts/player characters
- exact number of people

It you will need to find Bob, you'll still need to send tell to Bob to find out where he is. Player finder will simply let you find location of other players to roleplay with, it is not a way to metagame, it will not be counted as IC. It will let you know amounts of players in other areas, that will tell of higher likely hood of finding roleplaying companions but no other specifics.


Just to reduce speculations of what it will be.

[*VanillaRose]

Overall I'm a proponent of the system, and I'll be glad to see it included. That said, there are two things I feel could be changed.

No Anonymous Setting

Yes, I understand that no logins / player names will be shown and that we're all "anonymous" in the system. But if I want to go to a private place with my IC sweetheart and not be disturbed, it is not possible. He and I would still show as "A basher or two are in Romantic Scenic Spot". Players looking for RP might decide to pay us a visit when we tried our best to pick a place we would not be found. Or someone might come just for the sole fact of being a jerk.

Evil characters or characters who need to flee would not be able to do so and have a chance of getting away from their pursuers. Say the Artificer does something sinister in town and flees through the Lady's Ward. If he went "Anonymous", then anyone chasing him would have to consider the Harmonium Barracks or the portals there as a possibility as well as him continuing to the next ward. Without it, all anyone has to do is pull up the scry tool and see which area has a person.

An "Anonymous" option has been included in all other scry systems I have encountered; I feel one needs to be included in Sigil's version as well.

Level Ranges

Why include this in a scry tool when the old Challenge Ratings did almost the same thing? I think level ranges could be too easily metagamed. If some higher level jerkface wanted to breeze through an area and saw that the trio of adventures already there were low enough level to where s/he could gank them... bad things might happen.

Challenge Ratings are an optional disable for the server, and Sigil chose to disable them. Please leave the discovery of whether or not someone can handle an area or another character to RP and/or tells.

~VR

[*Lost and not Found]

But on the otherhand, if people can go to anonymous it is actually more likely for others to accidentally bumb into people in their Romantically Scenic Locations.
I'd rather avoid facing the urge to say; Hey! That's not really how the human bodies work.




People can still log off.



Question: would the player list still be there?

[*cryptc]

Question: would the player list still be there?

Yes

[*Lost and not Found]

Would the option to Scry add a thingie to the screen which you couldn't hide?

[*Neli]

Id be in support of this system if there was a way to not be apart of it. Is it possible to "cloak" your character from the effects of the tool?

[*Lost and not Found]

And I hope you could throw that tool into a trash-can and it wouldn't respawn in the inventory.

[*Tildryn]

It would almost certainly be a part of the r-click menu, that's where I've seen it before.

Lost and Not Found, your utter hostility to the idea entertains me so. :P

[*Dedic8ed]

One of the things I'm sensing from this, and which I would agree on, is that people would be most hesitant to have this tool broadcasting their location when visiting one of the "private" areas, mostly because of the "hey, I saw you were in Elysium for six hours yesterday, what were ya doing? *nudge* " factor.

With that in mind, might it not be possible to have this tool ignore those areas?

As an addendum to this, would it also be possible to simply have the tool return the plane the players are on, and not the area detail? For instance, it might return "a commotion" from the Beastlands, but that would not tell if it's the grasslands, forest, waterfall, etc.

As for OOC abuse... there are two things that make me not worry as much about it as I might otherwise. Firstly, our server is not a PvP-happy server, so the potential for people using it to "hunt" other players is not very high, and even if it were, killing other players' characters without an IC reason is also against server rules. In addition, I'd have to say that we have a fantastic RP player base, and I don't think most would abuse this for "normal" abuse situations.