I notice that with the popularity of aetherspace (genius, Estarra and Roark, I say genius! ), not to mention manses and extra-planar activities, often a city or commune can feel much more empty than it really is. Often the number of guild members or citymates 'on other Planes' can exceed the number visible on Prime, and of course if you yourself go off plane there's no way to know who else is listening in.

I'd like to suggest a change that I think would give a better indication to newer players that there really are a lot of people about and Lusternia is often bustling with activity, even though it may be spread across six planes or so.

Show anyone who can hear you or speak to you on CWHO, CGWHO, and GWHO, regardless of their planar location.
Surely if I can sense from their aetherwaves which plane they are on and have the ability to send or receive my thoughts to them, I know they are there. I can't see any advantage to having the information hidden from your allies, and I think it would help a great deal in coordinating defences across planes. This would include aetherships (if the empath has set up GRID PLANARBOND) and manses. For example:

I can't colour it in the code blocks, but the members who are not in your plane could be coloured using the dark white colour to make the others stand out.

I did consider that this might be a benefit of shortwave, farwave, etc abilities in Planar, but the problem is that it is more beneficial for the lowbies than the highbies, so tying it to high level skills seems counter-productive.

Edit: Two wonderful extra suggestions:
- as per Ayisdra's comments, make sure that CLWHO functions similarly; and
- as per Xenthos's comments below, the manse room upgrade 'Privacy Gem' should ensure anyone in the private room would not be seen on CWHO/GWHO/CLWHO

Change WHO to show everyone online, and then create VWHO to display what the current WHO does.
I'd like to see WHO display a relatively accurate picture of how many people are online, not just how many are visible. It shouldn't give much combat benefit that the regular who doesn't, and shouldn't negate the effectiveness of the gem of cloaking artifact, but I think that can be achieved without making the world feel much more empty than it really is. For example:



I don't really think this would cause too many problems, because with everyone shown on WHO (regardless of whether they have a gem, are on an aetherbubble, or whatever), the information isn't really that useful beyond what you can already figure out by using TELLs or targetted ability fail messages. Condensing the VWHO list - which would work with thirdeye where the regular WHO doesn't - to first names would also make it easier for combat or mapping systems to access and use that information, not to mention making it much simpler to find who you are looking for in a flash.

So, what do you all think?

I would love this for cwho, gwho, and clanwho. Too many times have I spammed those when in my manse, excepting to see someone come up on the list.

I'm not sure your premise is rock-solid-- you can't send a tell to people flying in deep aetherspace, or people on an aetherbubble, nor can you who / gwho / cwho people in other manses from your own manse. Also, it's kind of nice to be able to "hide" away, which making who work everywhere doesn't really help.

The basic premise is good, but there are also reasons to hide-- when I'm in my manse I don't want to be seen on GWHO / CWHO. That's part of the point of a manse. You could make it work everywhere except manses, but then that also cuts out aetherships and doesn't address the problem you're talking about... hm.

Also, it would make raiding Nil / Celestia / Ethereal much harder for anyone without a gem (WHO, highlight the planes you want to defend). Sometimes knowing the plane is all you need, you don't need to know the area (and you can't get plane from a tell or targeted attack).

Oh right, I missed clanwho - that would be a great addition too!

Well, if you're talking about the first point - the idea is that anyone who hears your CT messages, or that you can hear from their CT messages, will appear on your CWHO. That includes algontherine if you've got the Empath ability that allows you to speak on channels enabled, but wouldn't include aetherbubbles, since you can't be heard or hear others at all.

If you're talking about the second, I don't really see it as being a problem to notice that enemies are online and playing, but have no way of knowing where they are, what they're doing, or whether they're even active.


Well, it's always possible to turn off CT/GT/whatever, which in combination with being in a manse would certainly indicate you don't want to be disturbed. That's not quite the same, I know, and as a lurker at heart myself I'm sure I'd rather there were times where I was able to disappear entirely, but I don't think there is that much harm in it. Perhaps add a manse room upgrade that hides you from CWHO/GWHO?


I don't really understand this... the WHO list would no longer work with thirdeye, only VWHO. I may not have made that clear, sorry!

Ah, I was looking at your gwho/cwho list that showed planes and was pointing out a possible issue with that. If that's only for gwho/cwho then it's not so much an issue (unless you've got alts spying).

And no, turning off CT/GT is not even an option. At least, not if you're in any position of responsibility whatsoever. I'm not talking about AFKing in a manse, I'm talking about being in there to take a 'break'. You have to be able to hear things, so if something comes up you can deal with it. At the same time, you don't want it to be publicly known you're around.

Y'know, just like a hidden Divine.

I was a bit slow in my edit, but on thinking about it you do indeed have a valid point.

What if the manse upgrade that gives the secrecy effect in a room, also hid you from CWHO/GWHO? Then it's not every time you visit a manse shop/go hunting, but if you want a 'timeout' room, you can make one for yourself and your family/friends/partner.

... if we could move the privacy gem around the manse (or make it cloak the whole manse), maybe that's an option. It's pretty expensive / limited in area-of-effect right now, though. But it would give it a bit more of a tangible effect. Hm.

I could probably be talked into supporting something along those lines, sure.

Or even... envoying it?

I'm not sure it's really an envoy thing, I'm afraid. It's not so much a skill as a reworking of underlying base commands.

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small, small, small world

There is just one moon
And one golden sun
And a smile means
Friendship to every one
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small world after all

It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world, small world after all


Ahem...on the other hand, you could envoy to make this the Trans Planar skill. Because Gods know that everyone's been bitching about the current one.

I'm not sure that would help younger players feel like there is a lot of activity going on, if it was only high-levelled players that gained the benefit.

Hey, buddy, bad jokes are MY thing.

Before we get any more posts regarding how this will make a gem obselete....can anybody here HONESTLY say that they never went up to the main site to see whether or not those little gemmers were on?

Yes.

I don't look at the list of players on the web site, and I honestly wish it didn't exist.

I don't see how this change will make a cloaking gem obsolete, as I'm assuming cloaked people won't show on the list no matter what.

I personally think it'd be great to be able to see who's on other planes, even if just to keep track of how many of my own commune/guildmates are idling/chatting away in their manses.

People with cloaking gems already show up on C/G/CGWHO anyway, and with this proposed scenario won't show up on VWHO or WHO at all, sooo I don't see anything wrong with this. Personally, I've loved to know who all is off-prime and where they are (plane-wise), in case I'm looking for a commune or guild member.

And besides, looking at the list on the website is OOC. You can't bring that information IG (which doesn't mean people don't do it, but we're technically not supposed to).

The worst is that cloaked people show up on HELP GUILD or HELP CITY if they are able to induct etc...

I like this idea all around, specially the manse privacy gem upgrade.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if gem of cloaking still made you appear in the WHO, but not VWHO list. Either way is fine, of course, it's not that important to the purpose of the suggestion.

Personally, I have my gem so that I can't be individually tracked or noticed - particularly if I was in hostile territory or planes - but not so much to remove myself from ever counting as an active player either via the website list or on a count of current players online. I would suggest that concealing that information doesn't really serve any combat purpose, and only encourages a sense of withdrawal from social mechanics, but that's just a personal impression.

Wouldn't that be the reason for the ability to... turn the gem's effects on and off?