Haven and City Portal Changes
Hi folks --
I mentioned in our Town Hall meetings that I wanted to help encourage our players to interact more with their citymates and guildmates without removing the ability to make the private connections that many of you value. I'm now implementing one such change.
Havens have always been places our characters create through force of will and mind. Now, when you enter your haven, a shell of your body will remain in the room from which you traveled, visible to other players passing through. You will be able to interact with everything in your Haven as normal, though you will not be able to take aggressive action. Meanwhile, your resting body below will still overhear speech in the room around it, which will echo to your consciousness in the Havens. This will allow you to keep up with the conversation and allow others to get your attention.
Should someone wish to confront you more directly, she or he may WREST you from your Haven, bringing your consciousness back into your body and preventing you from returning to your Haven for 60 seconds. While there may be friendly uses for this command, it is certainly aggressive and provides PK cause should you wish to press the matter.
Additionally, while your city portals will function the same way, there is now a 90 second time limit before you are brought down to a gathering area in your city. The following locations have been marked gathering areas:
Bloodloch - The West Gate
Spinesreach - The Inner Gate
Duiran - Core of the Great Oak
Enorian - Landward Gate
While this is currently the only use for them in code, we may lean on them in the future in similar efforts. Please feel free to contact me or post in the corresponding forum thread [which is this! Right here!] with any questions or feedback.
You say to Slyphe, "You're so freaking smart."
[---]
"^," Slyphe agrees with you.
17
Comments
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
Also, with shells now being a thing, is the limit on returning to haven from someone else's organization building still necessary? I imagine if they don't want you there, they can just wrest you out.
So what is the point in WREST? I mean if you do it in the city to a fellow city/guildmate there might be a law against it.. And no one would go to a haven now in an area where enemies can find your shell and WREST it. The point of the WREST command seems pointless now.
As far as leaving a shell in a room, seems to me like something to talk to your minister of development about adding a daydreaming room or something into the city that you can use as a place to go to your haven where folks are expected to maintain silence so as to not bother people in havens.
I understand the reason for it. I don't understand why the necessity to apply a non-aggression field to havens.
Edit: And while yes, I can appreciate the good this can -provide-. I can also indicate the number of trolls who are likely to go out of their way to drag people out of their havens just because they can abuse this mechanic. Not to mention it kind of makes the point of Havens in the first place kind of moot. The name itself isn't really.. viable anymore in fact. A haven is a place of safety and comfort. This change takes away the safety, and depending on how you have the "shell" set up, you could very well have it be a security risk entirely in places that you enter your haven so you're not idling. Why even use the haven as more than a storage spot after this? Don't bother spending more than a few moments in there because those who might be trying to escape to take a breather from RP can't now. Not without someone dragging them out of their haven to RP at them more. I respect the purpose. I request the removal of the aggression protection for the sake of defenses, and other abilities that are considered "aggressive" even if they're not "harmful". I also humbly ask that you either remove the channeled part of HAVEN ESCAPE and remove WREST entirely, so that it doesn't take 20 seconds for someone to get you out of your haven if they want your attention, or you look at maybe alternatives to this idea which feels entirely hamfisted in its application. These are my thoughts after I've had time to think on them, and the good and the bads.
I understand what the change hopes to achieve, but in my case at least it's going to have the opposite effect, as exiting the haven takes longer than moving from the portals. Ah well!
Edit: Didn't realize this was live, so I tested and you can bring people to the Haven. Have return is also 5 seconds (affected by eq recovery time)
Edit: Feel like my Gorgon Lucky Charm idea may be losing traction.
Also, if you're hidden, have a veil, hood, or other artifacts that hide you will they work on you and your shell? There's a lot of this I'm not sure about yet. If you can no longer bring people to your Haven that's a serious change and one I am wholly against. The whole point was to decorate the place and show it off.
How will people in havens and their shells appear on WHO?
"The smell of dusty fur, sweet smoke, waiting and patience, a thing that time cannot kill. The moth that candles won't burn."
However, I will say this. I think this is a good change to happen, even if I'm reserved about it. Now, for everyone saying what if, what if.... here's an option instead of sitting afk which I am a proud supporter of. Logout. If you're going to afk for 12+ hours, then logout. No one can pull you then.
Also, as I write this. I think this will definitely give player owned houses, city apartments, etc a much better use now because if no one can get in your house, then your shell is safe anyway. So for everyone getting upset, there are a few options for you. WOO!
What advantage does going AFK provide? I stopped doing it because if people want to initiate things with me or guildmates/citymates have questions or concerns, they expect an immediate response if they see me online. I see no advantage aside from padding vote strength.
I think it's more responsible to just log off the game, frankly.
Edit: Just for giggles, if you type WREST and hit enter, you should get:
"Sarita's body is not resting here."
Edit: After some testing: You can follow people into havens and everyone who follows makes a shell. If you WREST the leader, everyone gets pulled out. Also, everyone can hear conversation in the haven. Shells don't seem to be intractable in anyway I can figure out yet and they do not hide if you have a veil or other form of hide mechanic.
BUT the part I hate is not being able to defup in my haven. I always log out from my haven and sometimes in aggressive hunting areas where i know when I return i can defup, exit haven and start bashing. Also maybe a timer on the haven, 5 or 10 minutes before your shell is seen and can be WREST out.
EDIT: Yeah, and the 'no aggressive action' thing is weird. I guess I need a refund on my safeduel haven mod, and I'll have to go idle in the training rooms for fixing my system instead.
@Oleis can we get a command to expel people from our haven, since we can't kill them anymore?
Sure, let's change something that doesn't impact me over much, sure people are sitting and abusing haven and portals and the ones that do once again impact those who do not. BUT what does impact me, every single day I log in for oh what over a year now....
Why I'll tell you, the gulleye rod being crappy, I curse and spit and shake fist EVERY single day over it but do you fix that...NOOOO let's fix something not broken.
Okay just had to get that out!
If John, Jack and Jim all go to John's Haven to RP and John has to AFK for a bit, and someone WRESTs John, then that's unfair to interrupt Jack and Jim's RP to bring them back to.
WREST should only work on the person you are WRESTing. Not them and everyone in their entourage.
It also lets people know that "Hey, Kelli is about at the moment, even if she's not down on Sapience," and allows me (using myself as example) to keep track of conversations happening in the location my shell is chilling out in, and for people to get my attention if need be.
Sure, tells exist, but is having another way to get a conversation going really a bad thing?
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
As was states, you all see that goes on around the Shell of your character, while your mind is socializing with others inside your little world. That way the people who are friendly, allies, citymates, guildmates, can go find your shell, gently poke you and ask if you're aware. If you don't want to drift away from whatever it is you're doing in the haven, you don't. The person wanting your attention will be left with the choice of leaving you alone or aggressively wresting you from it. In the latter case, I'm assuming there will be consequences. If the former, well, they tried, they failed, you're still lost in thought.
I'm sure Admin will watch this carefully to make sure that there won't be any harassing of people, simply by spamming them, much like it is generally frowned upon to skip-hop in and out of an area just to spam mindnets and such things.
If you want a safe place from which to enter your haven, get a house. As someone suggested, request a place within the city in which people can silently meditate in peace (return to their haven without people coming to bother their shells).
I feel like, if a city did this, inherently, it defeats the purpose of these Haven changes. I think @Rhyot and @Fezzix have the right idea. If you're going to log on, Idle/AFK with absolutely no inclination of involving yourself in the RP, either buy a Castle/House/Whatever yourself so you can truly be isolated, and turn off channels and such, or just log off? At that point, honestly, if you're idling all alone in a Haven and playing LoL in another window, are you even really playing Aetolia?
If a city makes a 'safe' room for people to Haven to, this defeats the purpose of making Havens less of a complete 'hideaway from everything all the time' mechanism. If you know you're going to go to your Haven to, say, RP with a few people, def up, test out some skills, or don't want to be on-plane and botherable while you're designing/crafting/writing/whathaveyou, then this is a perfectly fine mechanic. Go to your guildhall or an isolated part of your city, Haven from there, and still be accessible to the degree you want.
IMHO- if someone, after these changes, goes to their Haven EVEN in a really public spot, and I check and they've got TELLSOFF, CTOFF, GTOFF, etc, clearly they don't want to be bothered. At that point, I'm either going to assume they're AFK doing some private RP or writing/designing/etc, or they honestly should've just logged off.
TLDR: You make a good point about WRESTing groups. The 'safe place' idea basically undermines the whole point of these changes
EDIT: One last thing. I paid for that "HideRoom" thing for my Haven, given the rp behind how Rhoynn gets there, so when he's there, I don't show up on WHO. I haven't tested this yet, but can anyone confirm if that remains the same? The 'shell' thing actually makes perfect sense given how I 'go' to my Haven, but I want to ensure this doesn't nullify even more haven upgrades, before I go dumping stuff into my haven