Why do I as an assassin, have to step outta the shadows to communicate telepathicly...IT MAKES NO SENSE


*Jerry the 51st level assassin*

tell carl "Hey Yo"

*Jerry the master of the shadows steps out of the shadows for using his mind*



Where.......is the logic??




Whispering Voices..Summoning screams...

Personally, I never thot that the God Tell was all that realistic either. So, here, I'll propose my alternative.

Pigeons!

Now think about this for a moment. Pigeons are actually much more realistic. You'd go to the Pigeon store, buy your Pigeons and strap your message to their legs, send them off into the nether reaches of Thera and wait patiently for a reply (though it may take days).

Of course, this method is much more realistic, it does have some minor drawbacks. Naturally, you'd have to be able to write, which means the pen skill and you'd have to have paper, vellium optional. However, if you fall into the practice trap, you could forgo the paper mess, get your pen skill to 100% and just write directly on the pigeon! You'd have to buy and keep a supply of pigeons (naturally), along with your 5 canoes (woah, imagine 5 pigeons in your hand!). You'd have to have miniature pigeon coops to pack them around in, pigeon feed, some grit (pigeons don't have teeth, they grind their food with rocks they swallow), water and a container deep enough for them to drink (pigeons dunk their entire beak in the water and suck it up rather than the scooping method used by most birds) which means along with your chubby dwarf canteen, you'd need a dish. You'd also need leg bands and banding equipment, that way the recipient would know who the pigeon was from. Then there's the entirely separate problem of pigeon droppings. Periodically having to clean this mess off your armor would be somewhat tedious. Or, if you're an Orc, you just ignore it and enjoy the -3 charisma.

Although I don't suppose there's much of a chance you could stay hidden when you release a pigeon, the whooping noise they make on takeoff would probably draw a good bit of attention, not to mention their ceasless cooing, you WOULD have the benefit of some wild RP! For example, if you were an AP, you could sit at Market Square me

Speaking of RP, just think of the confusion and mass chaos in the realms if there were suddenly a freak magnetic storm (pigeons have iron in their brains which they use like a compass). You'd have pigeons flying in circles, delivering messages to the wrong recipients, the possibilities utterly are endless.

I CAN think of one huge benefit. If you manage to get a breeding pair, you'd always have pleanty of fresh squab to eat.

Now all of this circles around one minor technicality... the fact that pigeons could deliver person-to-person messages on a simple word command. Anyone who's ever seen a pigeon knows that they're not exactly that smart so what we'll do is just ummm... well... Oh hell, there goes the realism.

Famous last words: "Dragon? What dragon?"

I've always found it amusing that people who complain about game mechanics not mimicing real life seem to overlook the most basic problem with all MUDS:
Every try to hold 15 items at once? Especially if half of them a large pieces of armor, a few being full plate male, and the other half are bladed weapons without scabbards? Every time I look at my characters inventory, I get the image of a little creature standing there, surrounded by a huge aura of floating items - then my aura mixes with someone next to me, and a few pieces travel from him to me, and I run away. Or better yet, after using get all corpse during a battle, I imagine my character with a smirk on his face and both arms wrapped around a stack of items. It's no wonder he can continue to fight and parry 10 times - he's holding 10 swords!

-L

All those weapons and things are strapped to your body and or in pockets.

The fact that you can have like 5 kayaks is on the other hand kinda of weird, especially when you put two in your knapsack also.

Yup. That's always been my interpretation as well. Your inventory consists of things you have close at hand instead of buried in a backpack. While I agree that we push matters a bit, if you look at all the stuff a modern soldier carries, it's easier to imagine things if the guy is probably using sheaths, bandoleers, etc. to help out.

The boat thing is something of a running joke on staff. There's even one warped Immortal who has coded a command to mock it. One day, we'll implement our ideas for doing something cooler with boats in general.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Darn it, who deleted this thing on me.

I love the echo "Someone tries to give you something but your hands are too full"


Well I should think so ...I have 10 pies, 7 steaks, a canteen, 3 weapons, several items of clothing, 2 return potions, 5 jiggers of the good stuff, 4 water bottles filled with whiskey, a set of bagpipes, a cowhide knapsack, and a raft. And I'm holding a jeweled broadsword and a rosewoood inlaid cittern.

Yep my hands are REAL full! hehehehe

Ummm it seems to me that Assassins and thieves alike have a big advantage with their hide skill. It is undetectable by magical means (ie potions, herbs). So stepping out of it occassionally to talk makes it not so all-powerful and adds a bit of balance.

Want to cry about not being able to hide all the time? Try playing a bard. Now that can be a REAL challenge.

All CF Characters never got tired of that childhood trick where you tie two tin cans together with a string and talk through it. So whenever a child is born, the gods give him a can with strings attached to everyone else's can. But they're magical cans that grow and shrink upon command, and fit in your ear. They're also duo-dimensioned, which is why you can't affect them. But you can use them because.. umm well hold on.

Okay, so maybe they're all just highly trained stage actors who can project their voices across vast distances by focusing their words into narrow beams of sonic energy (the physics of which I will leave as an exercise for the reader). Nobody else can hear them because the beams are so narrow, and the sound waves don't expand the way they should because of this wierd ambient frequency output by the ground in thera that interferes with... Hmm, well maybe this isn't quite right.

No wait, I've got it. There's a god named Tell who's domain is to carry messages between people. So when someone wants to communicate they pray to Tell (using the tell command; reflecting the fact that Tell is so powerful that other Gods don't accidentally overhear prayers to him). Tell then listens to what they want to say, and then flies at top speed (which is pretty fast, since he's so powerful) to the intended recipient.

Or maybe, like everyone says, tell is neccesary for the game to be playable, and there isn't really any logical explanation for how it works. It's like the message system. Lots of characters can't write, but they can all send notes.

Next up: What is Group Tell?

So he is the Chuck Norris of communication?

you bumped up a 6 year old topic just so you could make a chuck norris reference?

No message

It's simply a matter of game balance. If an assassin did not step out when talking, it would be considerably easier to set up yourself for the best possible chances at assassinating without the drawbacks of stepping out.

Also, assassins trade off part of their stealthiness for their combat prowess which is superior in many ways to their thief-cousins. Thats were improved hide comes into play, allowing thieves to excel at the stealth aspect.

I mean, if assassins didn't step out when talking/cb, they would have 50% of the improved hide skill. The thing that irks me is that improved hide doesn't work for group tells, and it doesn't work for swapping small/light weapons (daggers etc).

Furthermore, many things don't make sense in CF. How does a mage cast his spells while wearing udgaard platemail? How does a thief sneak with said armour? Why does a warrior suddenly lose his specs if he has a change of heart? etc etc etc the list goes on, you just have to learn to deal with and accept these things and enjoy the game for its uniqueness and challenge.

Romanul. (Who thinks this is the most coherent/logical post he has ever posted)

> Why do I as an assassin, have to step outta the shadows to
>communicate telepathicly...IT MAKES NO SENSE

Stop making assumptions, who said anything about telepathy?

> Where.......is the logic??

If you want logic...the tell command wouldn't exist. This would in turn make the mud damn near unplayable. Suck it up.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

No, the tell command is an act of intellgences and telepathy..so if you can talk, you can use your mind, however thiefs and assassins are punished for using there mind?




Whispering Voices..Summoning screams...

No, the tell command is an act of intellgences and telepathy..

Please cite your source. Zulgh's point is that we've never defined the tell command in that fashion.

Help tell doesn't specify a mechanism:
TELL sends a message to one awake player anywhere in the world. Though it can be done over any distance, Therans consider this ability completely natural, and something anyone can do.

You'll also note that tell does not work when you are silenced or tiger clawed, implying it's more than just thought.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

It's just one of those mystical things that everyone would bitch about if it didn't exist, and no one appreciates that it does.

Don't try to explain it, they might turn it into a telepath, based on intelligence, fire giants and the like wouldn't be able to use it, and other more-smart-but-not-as-dumb-races you might see squint and their brow get covered with sweat with concentration when they're in a room, maybe they'd even pass out.

I mean, really, just... SHHHH

It's a command provided so that you have the means to communicate to ANYONE in Thera. There are limitations. But just it existing is a godsend.

Literally.

ZepaPissedOffHeLostAllHisPostsAndPositiveRatingsButKnowsHesNotNearlyAsPissedAsTheImmortalsMustBeAndWishesThemLuck.

It is one of the limitations of regular Hiding.