Latency clarification

[Dreams]

I agree that mages should have some method to detect a Latent. If it was a spell, then it would have to be a universal one that any element could use.

I kind of don't want it to be a spell though. Maybe just a chance when looking at an individual that they get a flavor message like '<element of latent here> seems to react to <person name>'s presence'

Or something.

Perhaps latents of a specific element could be detected by mages of that same specific element, while doing the astral projection thing??? just a thought

I do not believe the element is chosen by code until the latent is wakened.

[Satoshi]

I see trolling back in the forums latency detection has been asked for before and received a positive response but was never implemented. However... I see a lot of references to "automatic awakening" in the game from latents, but I have never even heard of it happening in game to a PC.

Is the code related to that broken? Someone's mentioned they played a latent for almost 2k hours and it never happened. Can anyone say they've had their latent automatically awaken? Mine was awoken by a player and died shortly after.

Most of my "there's no threat" comes from the fact there's no real threat of a latent eventually activating. Is there an actual real chance that latents will turn on? Is it simply influenced by the amount of mages in game? (And if so, not likely to activate since there's a fairly steady inflow of PC mages being created anyways so perhaps it shouldn't be)

[Temi]

It is influenced by the proportion of mages already around, and we have also held staff events for it when there seems to be a need, but both of those haven't come up much since the chance of everyone being a latent.

[Lei]

Long, long ago in the early history of TI I did have a latent character who was awakened against her will by another mage. This mage had specifically 'pinged' or targetted her with some sort of spell or magical mechanic in order to recognize her as a latent. I remember getting that ping echo when my character was alone in a room, and going... "Oh sh**. This is it."

So. It used to be a thing. But that could be as distant as 15 years ago.

I have also had at least two latent characters spontaneously awaken. It was horrifically abrupt, but catastrophically amazing. It does happen though. The worst drawback there was that I was still on my own with zero mage contacts.

Also there was the time that one mage tried to awaken my non-latent character. I was hoping it would burst me into flames or something equally dangerous, as the helpfile at the time suggested. But nothing happened and I was super disappointed.