Arelith

As it stands, the speedy messenger text that pops up in your screen consists of 3 seperate lines of dialogue. I am going to give the feedback that this is too much, and whne you're in a high density area with a lot of people and stuff going on the speedies will start taking up far too much dialogue space in the chat box. Someone decides to message a few people for a thing, and suddenly for them informing 3 seperate people, 9 lines of chat just flooded the area.

It can be quite disruptive.

If we could reduce the amount of text the messenger or wisps generates to just 1 line of text containing the actual message that would be ideal. This would reduce spam.

Above is just an example of a typical speedy, ideally, we find some way to reduce the chat bloat these guys make.

In fast moving chat this can indeed be quite disruptive. I'd much prefer if the dialogue was consolidated into a single line.

I'm not sure about a single line, as the "I've got something you should hear!" is good for idiots like me who have very little awareness, but IMO, you could probably get rid of the "Dashes off" as it's pretty evident what happens from them poofing out of existence.

Hadals wrote: Sat Jan 20, 2024 6:43 pm

I'm not sure about a single line, as the "I've got something you should hear!" is good for idiots like me who have very little awareness, but IMO, you could probably get rid of the "Dashes off" as it's pretty evident what happens from them poofing out of existence.

We can make NPCs only display text to one person. Perhaps it only gives the "I got something you should hear!" to the reciever?

So it's 2 line for who needs to notice it, 1 for everyone else?

In all honesty I still simply think the notion of the speedies and runners is strange when they can literally find you anywhere even on a ship in the middle of the sea or another plane. Having a Ball of Light would make a lot more sense. And maybe there doesn't need to be any introduction for that. Just the message itself.

Next person to suggest getting rid of speedy messengers is gonna get it.

Curve wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2024 1:08 am

Next person to suggest getting rid of speedy messengers is gonna get it.

Remove Speedy Messengers.

https://youtu.be/iyd8dY8rRtA?si=zl0gAZGebga23HCM

Replacing speedies with contract illusionists across the board would be a huge immersion upgrade. Also, PO boxes for people without doors to pin letters on, please.

why has no one thought of homing pigeons/birds

In Sorrow We Trust wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2024 9:25 am

why has no one thought of homing pigeons/birds

They can't talk.

Sending of letters would be more private and superior for transfer of knowledge than a messenger declaring the message. That would need to be a separate, and far more expensive, system (or just use PCs! PC Post Offices!!!!!!).

Use PCs to send private messages!

Speedies as they are give warning that a message is coming, deliver the message, then depart. It’s done this way so that people who aren’t paying immediate attention can still see what has transpired.

If you find messages annoying, encourage people to turn them off when they’re in big public spots with many people or in private meetings. It’s something you can do by visiting a Speedy rep.

DM Monkey wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2024 10:31 am

Use PCs to send private messages!

Speedies as they are give warning that a message is coming, deliver the message, then depart. It’s done this way so that people who aren’t paying immediate attention can still see what has transpired.

If you find messages annoying, encourage people to turn them off when they’re in big public spots with many people or in private meetings. It’s something you can do by visiting a Speedy rep.

Yeah that's just hopelessly unrealistic I hate to say mate. People won't turn them off because then they need to leave the entire event to go and hit the 'speedy off' function.

It doesn't make it more private reducing the dialog space, there is no real benefit to having it take up 3 lines when it could optimize on two or ideally one. This doesn't make them more 'secret' becuase in narritive the speedy acts identically by dashing up and leaving as seen on screen.

All this does is reduce chat bloat.

Turning speedy off is really only realistic to stop harassment of non-stop goblins/speedys. I agree that nobody is going to turn off in big populated areas just to avoid excess of screen messages in advance.

I also agree that is important that messages are actually spoken out loud for everyone and not a written secret message given.

It would be pretty good as suggested to have; 1 message only to the receiver to draw their attention and 1 public message to everyone around, which is the message itself.

And regarding the speedy itself, I'm torn. Yeah, an illusionist group across the archipelago would be much more immersive. But on the other hand, speedys/goblins is a staple in the server, so much language, jokes and light-hearted moments come from them that it makes me wonder if this immersion is worth it.

Choofed wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 1:53 am

Yeah that's just hopelessly unrealistic I hate to say mate. People won't turn them off because then they need to leave the entire event to go and hit the 'speedy off' function.

Maybe add the choice as a rest menu option as I'm assuming turning on/off speedies is just a dialogue flag so the code could be copy/pasted.

The poor Speedies get so much abuse when they're just doing their job. Mocked, yelled at, ATTACKED. Lol

Though I do agree with a few posts here, namely turning off the 'Dashes Off' one, as 'I got something you should hear' and 'Uhhhmm excuse me, hello?!' grabs my attention for both the visual text and the audio. Even if the first line of arrival was de-activated, I'd want the audio to stay.

Also the idea of turning off Speedies via the rest menu is a nice idea, since going to the physical Speedy Office is sometimes a bit of a burden depending where you are and what time limit you might have. Some folks might be late enough as it is going from one event straight to another to even remember to hop to the Office/Hub, this is especially true in the UD where there aren't a lot of them around.
The other option is to enter Stealth Mode, but it can be a bit of a nuisance if you actually HAVE ranks in stealth.

I HAVE in the past seen people try to RP a Speedy Messenger which I always thought was a cool idea. But they're not immediate like the mechanic (for obvious reasons), so they never got that much 'work' or stuck around very long. I always liked the idea of PC messengers for stuff like packages though. Maybe some kind of Commoner Feat with a long-lasting haste ability would make them a bit more viable? Not sure. Fun idea to think about, though.

Love the idea of contract illusionists instead of supernatural hin. Entirely my own bias, but gnomes are pretty good at illusion...

As much as I don't enjoy OOC solutions to IC problems, there is a conversation to be had about blocking speedies from the rest menu. Maybe tie it to stealth ranks if you want it to "feel" IC.

It's worth noting there is a fee to blocking speedy messengers. It's nominal, but it's there...and I definitely don't think there should be rest menu facilitated bribery.

The fact that you have to pay off speedy messengers implies that speedy messenger harassment is not only allowed, but intentional, and that bribing the speedy messenger service is speedy messenger harassment counterplay.

The meta solution is to riot about it on the forums and dismantle the speedy messenger system. I don't really have a horse in this race, though. People getting random speedies in the middle of important meetings about how their staff is ready, or embarrassing love notes is peak Arelith.

Aesthetically though, a near omniscient organization of halflings that can hunt you down within seconds of a message request -- including hunting people down on Skal -- is terrifying. But accurate. As we all know, halflings are the outer-evil we've all been warned about, and once their dark tapestry of madness is complete, they will drop their guise as pie-coded hedonists and plunge all of Toril into a languishing, wasting despair. Decay of the flesh. Decay of the mind. Decay of the spirit. The gods will prostrate themselves before the soil-crusted feet of our new halfling overlords, and we will all be forced to call them hins. A final utterance before the soul collapses in on itself, and we all experience ego death.

Anyways, I like the point about just replacing speedies with wisps, but I offer a counter-argument that those goofy little halflings are basically the mascots of Arelith. If you get rid of them, you destroy years of tradition. Again, I'm not particularly attached to speedies, but I could see people protesting their removal because, "Arelith isn't the same," without them in some ethereal, vague, conveniently unexplainable way.

This may not be a great idea for performance or stability, but what if instead of instant message, the speedy messenger actually has to travel across the maps to reach their target? But it sends the speedy from the Speedy Messenger service that is closest to the target.

They could do it at DM speeds to avoid having to wait too long, but this way we respect the tradition while also making it far more realistic. And who wouldn't love to see a bunch of actual IC zooming speedy messengers

And yes, this would mean some speedies would never reach their destination, such as on a ship at sea, or Skal. Those could just get refunded in their bank account, as a sort of warranty. Not a big loss, if you ask me. It also makes Illusionists more relevant for sending a message.

xanrael wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:47 am

Choofed wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 1:53 am

Yeah that's just hopelessly unrealistic I hate to say mate. People won't turn them off because then they need to leave the entire event to go and hit the 'speedy off' function.

Maybe add the choice as a rest menu option as I'm assuming turning on/off speedies is just a dialogue flag so the code could be copy/pasted.

I like that you have to go to the office to pay them off. There's two reasons for this.
1) It makes it an explicitly in Character choice. I think this is good. Opens the way up to counterplay and such. E.g. miscreants using a time when they know a leader can't recieve speedies to cause trouble!
2) I think, at least to a degree, the more and easier options for communication there are, the more people are willing to use it, as opposed to ooc communication methods. Keeping things In Character as much as possible, and facilitating that is - over all, a good thing.

Re Changing Speedies to Whisps: I mean, I'm not dead set against it persoanlly, but I kinda like the goofy speedies as they are, they're a thing of nostalgia to me. And they're fun to interact with, even if it is a little wierd they can travel so far.

The closest thing to a counter argument I can give, in any rational form, is that there's been complaints on other topics that arelith is becoming much more 'high fantasy' (which isn't incorrect imo) and I think replacing speedies with whisps will make this more so.

There is also something to be said for the audio of them. I rely heavily on what speedies actually say aloud, whether halfling or goblin, as I am focused on several things at once. The wisp sound, not being actual words, is rather easy for me to miss.

MissEvelyn wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2024 9:21 pm

This may not be a great idea for performance or stability, but what if instead of instant message, the speedy messenger actually has to travel across the maps to reach their target? But it sends the speedy from the Speedy Messenger service that is closest to the target.

They could do it at DM speeds to avoid having to wait too long, but this way we respect the tradition while also making it far more realistic. And who wouldn't love to see a bunch of actual IC zooming speedy messengers

And yes, this would mean some speedies would never reach their destination, such as on a ship at sea, or Skal. Those could just get refunded in their bank account, as a sort of warranty. Not a big loss, if you ask me. It also makes Illusionists more relevant for sending a message.

I agree with this. This would be hilarious, and I love it. Speedy go nyoom!

Cthuletta wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 12:16 pm

MissEvelyn wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2024 9:21 pm

This may not be a great idea for performance or stability, but what if instead of instant message, the speedy messenger actually has to travel across the maps to reach their target? But it sends the speedy from the Speedy Messenger service that is closest to the target.

They could do it at DM speeds to avoid having to wait too long, but this way we respect the tradition while also making it far more realistic. And who wouldn't love to see a bunch of actual IC zooming speedy messengers

And yes, this would mean some speedies would never reach their destination, such as on a ship at sea, or Skal. Those could just get refunded in their bank account, as a sort of warranty. Not a big loss, if you ask me. It also makes Illusionists more relevant for sending a message.

I agree with this. This would be hilarious, and I love it. Speedy go nyoom!

Speedy draws all the aggro in Maur's

Eira wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 8:21 am

There is also something to be said for the audio of them. I rely heavily on what speedies actually say aloud, whether halfling or goblin, as I am focused on several things at once. The wisp sound, not being actual words, is rather easy for me to miss.

We could (and probably should) give wisps actual words for this reason then, whether or not they become the default method of communication.