Meditate Beacon:Make it Visible From The Outside World

[Eldar]

So this is a pretty simple thing. For those who don't know or are not horribly familiar with the command. Meditate Beacon is a command which sends out a beacon which alerts other mages in astral of your approximate location (and is more specific if your fairly close).

The change I was thinking of was making it so that a meditate beacon also 'rippled' to the outside world, giving mages there a notification that there is something going on in Astral.

Note: This would only include that a meditate beacon had occurred in Astral, not general location.

Reasons why I would like to see this (or something similar)

1. Meditate Beacon is very very rarely used because it's rare that more than one person is ever in Astral.

2. Where does tell you that there is someone in Astral, but it doesn't alert you to it, and, given that the vast majority of mages in Astral are going to be fairly low circle (due to it becoming fairly redundant past a certain point) they tend to pop in and out in relatively low time periods. 5-10 minutes is about my personal average for astral visits, and, oftentimes they're even shorter.

3. The lack of a Mage Channel is really going to be making it hard on newbies to learn the ins and outs of the magic system. Even with experiemntation and careful reading of help files, it's quite easy to either be unaware of, or utterly confused about portions of the magic system (Rit invert and Talismans are the big two i've noticed, even with the magic channnel).

4. It's exceedingly hard and risky to find Mage RP currently. While I completely agree and believe that it should be difficult and risky to find and confide in other mages, there should also be a sort of in-between of sorts. Med beacon was (I believe) intended to allow mages a way to meet in Astral, and currently it doesn't really seem to be performing it's purpose.


Intent: I see this change as being something which would promote use of the command in order to garner additional Mage RP. Currently, due to the way the command works, it more or less forces you to wait in astral for somebody else to show up in order to use it (and well, that really just isn't very fun. :/). Allowing it to be perceived outside of Astral as a sort of announcement that you would like to RP could allow for some pretty interesting scenes. After all who wouldn't want to re-enact the Mad Hatter's tea party?


Any thoughts, questions, or comments? I'd really appreciate additional input and feedback on this one.

[Dice]

I like this idea a lot. Mages don't always want to sit around in astral waiting to see if somebody else shows up. This is a definite help that gives them a way to meet without taking away the danger - if you want any genuine IC lessons/spells/etc you still have to take the risk of meeting in person. But! If you need the OOC help, that's easy to ask about in the astral.

Also, it's a minor thing, I like things that establish the mage experience as different. It's actually possible to go through life as a mage without hardly experiencing anything that ordinary people don't experience, but in theme and reality, everything about magery sets you apart from normal life. Feeling these sensations that others don't would be a neat way to emphasize it.

[Rabek]

I, personally, don't really see this to be an issue.

Where already notifies you when people are in astral, and there's not a huge difference between idling in Astral for RP and idling in some random tavern for RP. About a third the game's population is awakened mages, so the odds of finding someone isn't that horrible.

I found more mages to RP with in astral than I really needed just wandering aimlessly with nobody using the beacon.

[Beronica]

That was a time when there were a number of newly awakened mages and the manus was still around. I personally like this idea since it will encourage mage based RP in a more IC way than people talking on the mage channel.

[Atholos]

I disagree a bit with Rabek's post, here's why.

About a third the game's population is awakened mages, so the odds of finding someone isn't that horrible.

I found more mages to RP with in astral than I really needed just wandering aimlessly with nobody using the beacon.

While it may be the case for you, it isn't the case for all, sadly. For me, I would have to do some really hard searching and had to go astral at just the right time before I could find someone.

and there's not a huge difference between idling in Astral for RP and idling in some random tavern for RP

Really, there is. Outside the astral, you have the advantage of where and entities that won't attack you on sight. Inside the astral, you would have to go to a public room for there to be a where signal and even then you have the possibility of running into an aggressive NPC who will gladly kick you out of the astral.

[Kinaed]

I'll add a note to Az to add this.