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The astral abilities announced today sound very exciting!

That said, I respectfully suggest the need for etiquette, and honestly the ability to just say no.

I play lone wolf characters. TBH I find interacting with other players stressful, and, full disclosure, I don't like sharing secrets. There's something special in being the only one who knows certain things. I'd resent having magic users secretly follow my characters learning their ways.

I suggest that magic users never astral travel to any human player without asking permission.

But I'd really like a flag I can set which prevents astral travel to my location. I'd probably leave it set all the time, unless I'm injured or exhausted and some friendly Healer offers to help.

I think - well I don't want to totally put words in the mouths of others. But sometimes people just want to be left alone to figure things out. I know that everyone means well and are just being welcoming. But sometimes the advice and offers to help are just too much. I've felt that way when I've started a new character and people didn't know it was me, and I've heard noobs complain of feeling stifled by attention. Adding this new ability to secretly monitor one's actions is off-putting.

Sorry to be a downer. I know the intent is that magic users remotely help their friends. My point is that it's open to abuse.

Thanks for listening.

Also I keep getting logged out while I'm writing. Just FYI.

+1 to Lisa's suggestion/request.

This post has many interesting threads that are important to discuss, I think.

First, yes, I completely agree about having etiquette for astral projection as well as other in-game interactions. The general TC etiquette makes it very clear, I think, not to misuse astral projection powers or other skills. And, yes, most of us do want to have some privacy. Gwene has spent a great many hours exploring the city on her own.

One of my questions is: what if I have astral projected somewhere and you walk into the room with your shield/flag/repellent? Will my game-play be interrupted and my astral connection fail? And how is this really different from using other skills (see, hide, sneak, peek)? What I would really need to have is Astral Rescue skill, so that I could help players in trouble with spiders or other critters.

What has always attracted me in TC, is the word-based game world with a strong premise for cooperation (as opposed to competitive gaming, like P2P violence and fighting, stealing from low-level players etc.). Cooperative interaction focus makes open communication an important part of gameplay, because we learn from each other - IMHO that is the best way of learning.

Which brings me to the second point: If you don't want help, isn't the easiest way to state politely that you would like to figure things out on your own? The concept of helpfulness in TC etiquette makes me reach out to new players with a twofold objective: to establish communications and to help them move forward (like next level, so that they will have more energy and more choices).

I have hard time believing that anyone would have a malicious intent of spoilingl a newcomer's joy of discovery. Which then leads me to wonder: how explicit information do we want to put on the lore posts?

Obviously, nobody is forced to read the lore postings.

But, my thinking goes as follows: I'd be happy to share the general location of some herbs like tea (increase max energy) or agrimony (immediate sleep when you drink it) or Goat's Rue (dex), or items (like Dagger of Furina or Liberators' Flag) or people (Casca, teaches Backstab, Consider and Flee lvl 20, Master), or take you to a tour in Capitoline, given appropriate level and gear. I probably would not share my map. Then again, if I had a cartographer character, they might do that.

Nina

You make a very good point about thief skills. I don't think I've ever peek'd a player. It just seems rude.

But, the game prevents us from stealing from players, and I suppose I'm asking for something like that for astral powers. How about a setting which makes us invisible to astral projections?

I'm not concerned about astral magicians snooping on noobs. I doubt they are interesting enough. I want to prevent my high-level characters being followed to places only they know.

I don't want to hijack, maybe there should be another thread. We've been asked to post the locations of skill teachers, role masters, herbs, tattoos, and hard to find items. I think it's great. I really like how Meghan is doing it for Midgaard.

There are a small number of things I'm keeping to myself. (Those are the things I don't want to be followed to.) Nearly everything else: happy to share.

(Also P.S., why do I keep getting logged out when I post? Is it just me?)

No, I too get logged off often. So, mostly I compose my post elsewhere and just copy-paste it here.

Nina

Well that sucks.

SOMEBODY FIX IT! Rotfl.

Lisa Chau wrote:Well that sucks.

SOMEBODY FIX IT! Rotfl.

Message received.

> How about a setting which makes us invisible to astral projections?

Tinfoil hats.

Nina Smith wrote:No, I too get logged off often. So, mostly I compose my post elsewhere and just copy-paste it here.

Nina

I think this is either fixed, or anyway a lot better. After working on it this morning I posted about 40 Code Warrior updates and other messages without being logged out, except the normal login timeout - I think. Fingers crossed.

This BTW is related to the way web traffic is handled "elastically" in the cloud (AWS). When traffic spikes, new servers are automatically added to the pool; then removed when traffic diminishes. So we need to write everything so that shared info, like your login, is properly distributed to all the servers in the pool. I found some errors in the way we'd been doing that. Hoping this takes care of it.

Not so much. Sorry! 🤷‍♀️

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