Important Edit: Downthread you'll see that what I was originally told was untrue, and it's same-room, not same-area, so it's a hundred times less awful than it seemed originally based on the misinformation. I'll leave my original post below so the rest of the thread still makes sense though.

It's been pointed out to me that there is now a quest item already in the game that does this. As I've been told, which might not be accurate, you can't tell who has it unless you happen to see them. You can't tell they're spying on your tells. You can't block them doing it. You can only avoid it by being TELLSOFF because otherwise they can spy on tells sent to you too. Your only protection is to send tells in a language the unknown spy doesn't happen to know (and there's no way to tell what languages that might be). Essentially, we just lost tells as a means of communication (and I intend to remain TELLSOFF until I find out a reason not to be).

Someone please tell me I'm dangerously misinformed about this. Failing that, someone give me a good reason why I'm overreacting to say that this is a new level of dumb in the history of Lusternia that makes TBC and hai'Gloh together seem tame. (A good reason must, necessarily, include an actual reason.)

That sounds like an insanely powerful quest reward... I hope the quest involves killing all six nexus guardians (Brennan et al), the Queen of Queens, clearing out Muud and slaying the Soulless. Otherwise that's ridiculous.

Don't really know what else to say to this except 'ew'.

I never liked that quest reward in Achaea, did it really get brought here too?

As far as I understood, the quest reward in Achaea only let you listen in to tells in the same room (which was already doable with skills).

I think this is a horrible idea, if it is true. Outside of TELLS, the only way to have a private conversation with someone is via messages and letters. If this is in fact true, it is absolutely ridiculous, and I will no longer be using TELLS because of it. I sincerely hope that this is not the case.

What quest item? in that new Celest mountain ghosty area?

That's what I was told, yes. It's the crown mentioned in the news post.

I'm probably wrong, it's been like 4 years since I touched Achaea.

But even with the skill-tells listening, you didn't have to examine every person to see if they had the crown that let them listen, you just had to check if there was an Angel or Baalzadeen in the room, no?

Right. Plus, it took a fair chunk of angel energy/baalzadeen health, so it wasn't very long-lived anyway most of the time.

This is an accurate description of the current mechanic. Lendren, I worry some mornings that you over-caffeinate.

Edit: Oh my god Siam, wtf is going on with your Avatar.

CLARIFICATIONS:
o "Immediate area" meaning "Same room"
o It's based on whether or not the recipient can understand the language, not the spy
o Messages are unaffected
o Says are unaffected
o CT/GT(S)/CLT/CGT(S) is unaffected
o "Denizen tells" are not affected
o fairly certain Divine tells/messages are unaffected.

EDIT: Further clarifications:
o The Meliashmora requires either scaling or a previously set milestone/hermit/pyramid point
o The last creatures are NOT pushovers

The answer is to spam tells untill they take the crown off.

In all fairness, attempting that is just likely to make me personally roll my eyes and continue what I was doing.

Still, wtf?

'Same room' makes a huge difference over 'same area', as I was originally told. I still think this is a very, very bad idea, but a great deal less so than it seemed when I was misinformed on such a huge point. Maybe not even worth having its own thread.

For the record, I don't actually drink caffeine. The problem is more of an Asperger's-like thing, where I don't translate between actual meanings and the code that other people use and understand and translate back and forth between without even realizing they're doing it. People are always reading lots of meanings, emotions, and agendas into stuff I say, because that's what would be behind the same things if they said them. If you take what I say at face value, it's really pretty tame compared to what most people mean but don't say (and what most other people can tell they meant but didn't say).

You are falling under its spell.

You are falling under its spell.

You are now under its spell.

I've added a clarification to the first post to head off worrying more people unduly, but left the original post too, so the thread still makes sense and people will still have the chance to make fun of me.

If a moderator wants to edit the thread title too, that'd be okay with me.

We were going to let it allow the reader to read other people's messages and intercept clan tells too, but figured that might be a little on the 'too much' side.

(And I'll tell you, listening to tells is about as exciting as watching grass grow. While I can appreciate the upset, I promise none of you are so interesting as to actually be worth the spam of your tells. Of the quest rewards, it really is the weakest in my eyes!)

Different story when you put it in mortal hands, though!

Say there's someone, somewhere, looking to incriminate someone someway, and there's an OOC conversation going on in tells where someone says they hate so and so and want to get rid of them and will do so and so to do it, produce as evidence to bring to leadership of city/commune....

Bam!

Jerkishly won profit.

I liked the idea in the subtitle. There should be more skills like scaled throat and feathered throat.