I know this topic has been discussed before:

Quite simply, insanity, in its current iteration, is a pointless mechanic. It doesn't slow down bashing on astral at all (I simply triple all my commands when I am insane), nor does it stop anything when you are back on prime, except for interaction with other players. I've been bashing in astral for hours, going just as fast at highly neurotic as I go at completely sane.

However, when I finish bashing, I have to avoid others. The emotes it makes me do are absurd, with most of them bordering on OOC inane. That's not in my character's roleplay, and I find it very weird that the game itself creates a situation where you have to avoid other players and avoid roleplay. Is there any chance that the effects of astral can be changed to something that doesn't encourage us to idle afk for hours, avoiding interaction with others?

I don't know if insanity made me declare (against myself, is that even possible? O.o), or just made it look like the declaration was nulled, but maybe declaring, or messages related to it, shouldn't be part of the insanity stuff...

It never did have much of an effect. It can get annoying at close to psychopathic. I never stay up that long because it affects more afterward than during the actual hunting. As you said, you can just duplicate commands which works, though it wastes stuff. As for the emotes, you're no longer thinking straight, that's the point of insanity. You do things you would not normally do, such as a stupid emote instead of sipping health.

I like it the way it is.

It's fine, if you don't want the long cool down period don't stay up so long

I wouldn't mind except most of the emotes it makes you do are either semi-sexual (kissing, fondling, whatever) or absurd to the point of being OOC. I don't want people seeing this from my character, so I should just sit in a manse for a few RL hours? That seems a bad solution. Blocking commands (although essentially ineffective) I'm fine with. It's the fact that the emotes aren't even "insane" focused ones (gibber, babble, etc), but just plain stupid ones. Let's get chaotic? That's a step away from Leroy Jenkins, sorry.

Seems to me, if you are forced to not bash astral for a few hours, whether sitting in a manse or not, then it is working exactly as intended.

No. I can keep bashing. As I stated in my very first post. A few repeated commands mean that's happily possible. It's interacting with people - something I consider part of my daily "job" in game, given that I'm a Guildmaster - that is hindered.

As Gregori said, it's having the desired effect, except that you're ignoring it. It's limiting your capability, and you're substituting the extra time bashing for the time you could be spending on other things.

^^

Iasmos worded it better. You can bash Astral for hours and not do things after because you are to insane. Or you can bash Astral less and interact with people more. The effect is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing, you are just making the former choice instead of the latter.

Also I am sure you would find after Highly Neurotic you would not be lasting much longer up there anyways, repeated commands or not.

No. I could, quite simply, sit around like most people do and just let the emotes go off and either, a) pretend they aren't happening or trying to make up some stupid reason why to newbies. I really don't see why roleplay, something that has no benefit aside from encouraging people to be online and interacting, has to suffer because of this mechanic. I want to get demigod and I'm about 10% away, so RP interaction with people is going to be confined to other muds, while I'm stuck with insanity, because I want to push for the xp. I don't see how that's stopping me from bashing (because it's not, I astral bashed for several hours), and all it's stopping me from doing is RPing. Lusternia's RP is somewhat lacking already; I don't understand why there should be a mechanic that further encourages the breaking of it.

As I've said several times now, it's the OOC-esque emotes that are the real issue. If I gibbered and bibbled and acted insane, that's one thing. Trying to fondle and kiss and hug is what's dumb. Even worse are the emotes that aren't even suiting for a fantasy-realm setting. Look, here are some choice ones:



Not to mention this exchange that went on, because I didn't run off quick enough:
Poor novice.

When i solo bash astral, i stop when i get to neurotic and then go clear earth, do the power quest, some infuencing or just chill for a bit and then go back. That way if there is a revolt or a raid i'm not acting like a fool and tripping over myself. If you pace yourself you can bash astral with very few insanity issues.

As I've already said several times, the insanity only affects RP. I've been happily influencing away for about an hour, starting at sociopathic. I just have no desire to interact with people because of it, mostly from an OOC level, because of how it makes my character act (ie, like an idiotic, dumb snuggly). I don't see why that is something we want to encourage: either the avoidance of interaction, or the interaction with dumb, immersion-breaking emotes.

Again, your interaction is your choice. You made the choice to get so insane you couldn't interact. The mechanic is working exactly as it is intended. You just choose to ignore it, then complain because you can't interact with people for hours, because, once again I repeat myself, you chose instead to bash astral and get incredibly insane.

You can do one or the other, take your pick.

What? No.

Astral insanity has been a part of the game for a long, long time, and people acting out of sorts as a result of it is a completely IC explanation for such actions. It is not stupid. If novices or newbies ask about it, you can very easily relate it to being on the higher planes. It's like complaining the being afflicted with stupidity is forcing you to do things you wouldn't normally do, fondling being included amongst them. And if you don't think that's reasonable, perhaps you need to reread some of the history regarding astral and go read a bunch of the room descs found there.

Once upon a time, when astral wasn't just a good place to bash at high levels, but pretty much the only place (if you wanted to make any recognizable progress), it resulted in a lot of people running around insane. People understand the mechanic - it has been this way for a long time. All the older players don't require much explanation from you. If there are a lot of new players that do, then it's only proof that we have so many alternatives now that not enough people get insane anymore.

If it bothers you that much, then you can go out and solo bash while the insanity wears down, and never let it build up too much. I find learning the approximate point between "neurotic" and "highly neurotic" is a good place to stop if you don't want to be stuck with it for a long time.

@ Gregori: Ok, then my question is why would admin want players to make that choice? Why should we have to pick to interact with novices/guildmates or to gain xp? The willpower mechanic should be enough - while regaining we should be able to roleplay and tutor. Placing people in a "choose to help others or help yourself" situation is a stupid one. Personally, I've been playing MUDs for years - the novelty of doing all that administrative busywork has long worn off, and if I'm forced to make the choice, I'll just continue working for my own goals.

@ Vendetta: As I have said many times now, and even included multiple emote examples of, the majority of the emotes they make you do aren't just insane on an IC level. They are insane in that they are essentially OOC emotes. Dang? Duh? Whoop? What basis do those emotes have in a fantasy realm?

...what? You are just pulling up counter-arguments out of the air. I'm saying that you should be able to, in a full day of gameplay, RP and help kids and go bash. Pulling up one of your usual sarcastic strawmans makes no sense. I am not in any way saying that you should get xp for doing non-bashing things, nor am I attempting to complain about astral giving penalties.

PLEASE actually read what I'm posting. I'm suggesting we lift the OOC-based emotes from the penalty. This would both enrich the actual insanity affliction, as people would be more evidently insane, and not just...snugglystupid...as well as allow us interaction with others without having our RP (and their's) broken every 30 seconds by a dumb emote that has nothing to do with a fantasy game.

Ask an admin. There are a few such emotes that are stock emotes taken from the base of the IRE MUD which there was arguably no control over, but others like "orly" and "yarly" were definitely added later. It was decided they had a place in the world, whether some portions of the pbase like it or not.

On that note, I don't see why "duh" or "whoop" are especially bad. They're silly, yes, but there's nothing distinctly OOC about them either. Lusternia is neither futuristic fantasy, nor medieval fantasy, nor much of any single one at a given time... it's a Lovecraftian freak of genres. It would be just as hard to argue how "duh" or "whoop" aren't IC in a game filled with pig noses, surfboards, bad pseudo-french, aetherships, etc.

I don't see any of those as OOC. They are simply a little silly, as they should be.

Oh, and there are plenty of alternatives to Astral bashing, which makes this whole thing kinda moot.

They are both words invented in this past decade or two. I'd never use those emotes as my character and I'd probably give withering looks to people who did.

I was under the impression Lusternia was one of the more RP-focused of the IRE muds. That's what I heard through the grapevine, at least. Maybe I'm just entirely off-base here for thinking that.