I quite like the insanity from the Asylum quest parasite thing, and consider it far preferable to the current insanity emotes, if you want to take those messages as a guideline. They're not standard emotes, but they certainly get the point across.

If people want insanity to affect bashing more and RP less, that's a good thing - as that's what it's intended to do, and having it affect bashing as almost a side-effect (I don't want to bash too much because I don't want to get insane and not be able to RP) is worse than simply having it affect bashing (If I bash too much I can't bash any more/become far more likely to die).

Thus, things that affect bashing (and, subsequently combat, as the two are y'know fairly close) directly should probably be instituted - move the affs/countercuring so you get hit by them earlier, perhaps introduce sip or balance maluses, etc. I'm sure incurable vestiphobia while on Astral after a certain insanity level would make a lot of people stop bashing (that's not a serious suggestion).

I'd like to throw in my two sense that I fully agree. I think it's a valid point to say "Hey, these OOC emotes completely ruin my character", so it makes more sense that you truly force them to be more insane in IC terms, that is, seeing people say things to you that weren't actually said, or seeing people enter or leave rooms who are still there. All these are the kind of things the player will actually have to check the validity of, forcing them into the insane role more effectively when they are trying to send tells to people that don't exist, or constantly examining the room to see if people are still there. Receiving false teleport or attack notifications are things that will get the player jumpy, although I guess there is the problem in the sense of the systems going buck-wild. The point is more to go for things that make everyone begin to question what is or is not real in-game. I mean, if you are insane, and Ironbeard walks in and gives you a present, wouldn't you check to see if it was real, hehe? You could do physical things as well, such as making them remove clothes, or take things in and out of containers.

Bonus system for the Admins as well, as if you set up some kind of way to alert you if someone is insane, you now have a perfectly legitimate reason to screw with someone with all those fancy tricks you have at your disposal, I mean, if you could figure out a way to make a character that only the insane person could see, you could physically control them and talk and emote to them, going beyond the whole "learn to ignore the canned insane message" track.

And if you still want to sit in your Manse and hide it out while complaining that "my character is to Regal to do that", then at that point you're simply ignoring a chance to do some wonderful roleplaying. I mean, with a system like that, I would see valid opportunity for some roleplay. I could totally even imagine making a character I labored to keep insane ALL the time, just for the fun experience. Brilliant but mad scholar, anyone?

Well, it doesn't have to be the actually attack messages, maybe just something that looks like it should be. Now that would mess you up. Then again, if you are in the highest level of insanity, making your system bug out could be a very clear sign that you should step off Astral and seek help.

I also think any insane tell should be from a player who is around at the time, and should try to be more like a real conversation.

Also, with random commune/city chatter, it would be funnier if it could be anyone. I know I would start freaking out IC if a commune enemy started talking on Serenwilde's CT.

Most of the insanity stuff I like, but it just doesn't go far enough. I mean any time I see 'The feet of the fae' or 'will you marry me' from a vial or from a pack it's cute, but...so? Oh hey a ruby vial spoke, har har.

People entering and leaving the room you are in is great.

Ooooh, man another idea, mess with the room exits.

You see exits to the: Blue, left, seven, and pie.

Yeah, that'd be great!

Just a random point.. insanity helps deter long bashing periods if it werent for DOMOTHS and ARTIFACTS (in fact stacking the two can almost completely negate the gain).

Domoths were a badly done idea to begin with, and have never really seen any balance in them. Even the system of having an ascendant means whoever gets the most passive power will always win (they can hold more domoths, get them faster, dont lose essence doing it, etc etc).

As a side note, I'm fairly certain insanity also gives you a free, albeit annoying and unpredictable, way around shrouding and stealth abilities, as the random fake tells from and the names of people-there-but-not-there when you enter a room, are taken from the current list of players online. Not a tragedy, but some sneaky people might be irked by that.

I might be wrong on this, but being insane when the online player base is only around 15ish people generates a very short and very repeating list of names.

Sounds like you should bug it.

It has an even smaller pool. It only gets people on the same plane. When hunting Muud alone it will always show you, for example... unless someone else shows up, in which case it will show them too.

Other things that might make it a better deterrent could be randomly receiving the slain message from someone in the room, or a mob in the room (You have been slain by Meleris, Keeper of the Pool of Stars), dropping afflictions like recklessness, panic, and stupidity on you without a warning line, playing with your DEF list, if you have deathsight/deathsense up, throwing random people in your org in front of Gorgogs/Orcs/the krokani cook/Lady Elohora/Nifelhema/of the Moon, getting messages like "You spend 100000 gold and receive 1 credits", getting the "forget" lines for skills, especially if doing AB can conveniently forget to mention that you have, saay, Resiliance, having CT fail with "You are not part of a city or commune". have City/communeenemies return Citizens/Members and vice-versa, have loyal mobs cry for help, have AB show random levels in other skillsets, have AB show a random different ability, even if you don't and could never have it, toggle CONFIG MAPVIEW or BRIEF/VERBOSE, return a 0h, 0m, 0e, 0en, 0w dbp- prompt, have DIAG return afflictions as if hypochondria was active, have qw show people who aren't logged in (Bonus points for taking the list of those people from the "Calling Lost characters" thread, like Catarin, Shayle, Kalodan, et al. or Xiel, Sojiro and Sol (double bonus points if Viynain sees Xiel, Ilyarin sees Sol, or Shuyin sees Sojiro))

If you're going to mess with people, go all out.

Everything but the Credit one I agree with. Playing with credits is a big no no! As scary/hilarious/insane that would be... and I think some of these should be on random timers. It's painfully obvious when you're trying to do something and you get insanity messages. If it happened randomly, well it's more likely to mess with your head.

I think I have too many insanity ideas. People are going to start doubting my own sanity. I just like games that mess with your head! Honest! Eternal Darkness is great. I wish there were more games like it.

Moar! These are actually making me giggle out loud and netting me strange looks from my co-workers.


No, this is not madness....



Bananaphone!

Needs moar nutjobs.

Insanity that encourages roleplay by affecting things player-side would be awesome.

If you want to deter bashing all day on Astral...throw off equilibrium every once in a while as you get further and further into insanity? That would make sense to me. Then people can't bash on Astral, and they want to run back to Prime to roleplay because the roleplay will be awesome.