Latency clarification

[Puciek]

Seems that this has exploded into a hot topic on visnet, and this is not the first time when a new player find himself latent (by choice or lottery) and with no idea or what to do now. Help latent doesn't provide much help either:

Helpfile for Latent

Latent mages are mages without the ability to cast spells. Generally,
they do not know they are mages, though they may feel 'different' from a
young age, or inexplicable things may happen to them.

On TI, latents generally don't last long unless they find a true mage to
awaken them, granting them access to their innate powers.

(Subject area: information Last modified: Fri May 9 04:01:58 2014)

It can actually confuse them even further, as it mentions feeling "different" all their life but... what does that mean? It also mentions inexplicable things happening to you, but then again, what does this mean? Additionally as I understand latent players now do not know their element, so even if they want to roleplay related weird coincidences, they cannot make it of their natural element, as the Player, OOCLy doesn't posess the knowledge.

And yet OOCly the player knows that he must somehow find a mage to be awakened, and yet, what actually does the PC icly know is extremely unclear, with very little guidance to go with it, and trying to merge those two worlds seems to sometimes wind up with players not roleplaying the latency at all.

I think we can do better if we collectively work together to figure out a sort of newbie-latent guide with some examples of what could the feelings be, how can they manifest (use of thoughts, or subtle hints can be a powerful tool when done right) and even what may the inexplicable things be. Also it would be great if staff could chime in and clarify if this is intentional for latent players to OOCly not know their latent element, and if that is so, should the inexplicable things be from all walks of life, instead of element related?

[Alpharius]

I think first of all, the point of latency isn't supposed to be a quest to find a mage to be awakened. In my eyes, it's just a different form of roleplay for your character. Maybe your character will find out, maybe they won't... but at the core the point isn't supposed to be 'find out you are a latent, find a mage and get awakened as soon as possible'. I feel if you're playing latency that way, you're going to be extremely frustrated.

[Taunya]

When latency actually manifests, it's my understanding that you get those feeling different/strange things happening messages, and I thought that they were element-related.

I've not played a mage/latent mage since original TI though, so would be happy to be corrected.

[Puciek]

I think first of all, the point of latency isn't supposed to be a quest to find a mage to be awakened. In my eyes, it's just a different form of roleplay for your character. Maybe your character will find out, maybe they won't... but at the core the point isn't supposed to be 'find out you are a latent, find a mage and get awakened as soon as possible'. I feel if you're playing latency that way, you're going to be extremely frustrated.

But the helpfile directly states

"On TI, latents generally don't last long unless they find a true mage to
awaken them, granting them access to their innate powers."

So this is very clear that if you do not find a mage to awaken you, your character will not be a long lived one. So to me this points further that the matter is in dire need of OOCly clarification. I am not looking here for IC suggesions on "how to find a mage" etc, strictly to flush out the OOC part of it.

When latency actually manifests, it's my understanding that you get those feeling different/strange things happening messages, and I thought that they were element-related.

I've not played a mage/latent mage since original TI though, so would be happy to be corrected.

I remember that there were some latent pvents, but nothing besides that, even once in my entire time here. So this likely was removed since.

[Dreams]

When latency actually manifests, it's my understanding that you get those feeling different/strange things happening messages, and I thought that they were element-related.

I've not played a mage/latent mage since original TI though, so would be happy to be corrected.

You don't.

You get an echo of, "[char name] is a latent mage." And that's about it. From there, it's up to you. As far as I know, this hasn't changed.

It also now shows up in the 'purchase' screen, so you can be reminded every time you type it.

[galaxgal]

Edited out some unnecessary commentary.

As far as I know, there aren't any ways to externally -know- if someone is a latent, and if there are, it appears they're highly secretive and rarely used.

It would be good to have updated guidance on how latency is supposed to work, since latents are honestly highly likely to die finding a mage in the current state of TI and mages have no way I know of to go looking for latents so vice-versa.

[Eldar]

Something I haven't seen mentioned here is that if you RP long enough you will eventually auto-awaken as a Latent. There are not, to my knowledge any additional signs or ways to determine latency beyond summoning a demon. There are no code benefits to finding a mage to awaken you compared to having it happen naturally (unless things have changed since I last had a latent), and it can be a great hook and source of character growth when it happens. I do however wish that you got the occasional IC indicator of latency BEFORE the full awakening to better fit the helpfiles. While I certainly do not feel that it should be told to the player in character generation, having one or two indicators post-cyan period but before the full awakening would be a definite + in my eyes and make for some great potential roleplay options.

[Dreams]

Something I haven't seen mentioned here is that if you RP long enough you will eventually auto-awaken as a Latent. There are not, to my knowledge any additional signs or ways to determine latency beyond summoning a demon. There are no code benefits to finding a mage to awaken you compared to having it happen naturally (unless things have changed since I last had a latent), and it can be a great hook and source of character growth when it happens. I do however wish that you got the occasional IC indicator of latency BEFORE the full awakening to better fit the helpfiles. While I certainly do not feel that it should be told to the player in character generation, having one or two indicators post-cyan period but before the full awakening would be a definite + in my eyes and make for some great potential roleplay options.

I had 1399 RP hours on my latent, and never awakened automatically. So, I'm not sure when the 'eventually' would have happened there, but that's quite a lot of RP hours without an automatic awakening. So, I am uncertain if this is still true.

I know that during an plot run by, I think, Basdes, there were several latents that were awakened, but as far as I understand, it had to do with the plot, and was not a normal coded happening.

[Alpharius]

So this is very clear that if you do not find a mage to awaken you, your character will not be a long lived one. So to me this points further that the matter is in dire need of OOCly clarification. I am not looking here for IC suggesions on "how to find a mage" etc, strictly to flush out the OOC part of it.

I remember that there were some latent pvents, but nothing besides that, even once in my entire time here. So this likely was removed since.

That's not necessarily true. If you're a latent and aren't awakened and don't do anything that suggests you might be one... then there is no threat. As I said, we've had latents who weren't awakened and lived long, long lives and died to unrelated stuff that had nothing to do with the pyre or the Order. I think the help file isn't necessarily correct.

I think being awakened should be an end goal, not necessarily an immediate one. A guide to latency would take a lot of the fun part of mageRP away... which is finding things out on your own and RPing finding all that lore and the effects. I don't think it should be public knowledge available to all the players.

And as far as I understand, when you're a latent you get instructions anyway once you find out you're a latent.

[Puciek]

So this is very clear that if you do not find a mage to awaken you, your character will not be a long lived one. So to me this points further that the matter is in dire need of OOCly clarification. I am not looking here for IC suggesions on "how to find a mage" etc, strictly to flush out the OOC part of it.

I remember that there were some latent pvents, but nothing besides that, even once in my entire time here. So this likely was removed since.

That's not necessarily true. If you're a latent and aren't awakened and don't do anything that suggests you might be one... then there is no threat. As I said, we've had latents who weren't awakened and lived long, long lives and died to unrelated stuff that had nothing to do with the pyre or the Order. I think the help file isn't necessarily correct.

I think being awakened should be an end goal, not necessarily an immediate one. A guide to latency would take a lot of the fun part of mageRP away... which is finding things out on your own and RPing finding all that lore and the effects. I don't think it should be public knowledge available to all the players.

And as far as I understand, when you're a latent you get instructions anyway once you find out you're a latent.

There are no further instructions than that for latents, no, you understanding here is incorrect. On mage side there is no latent-radar either, so if latents don't play the part, they won't be found (random awakenings are against policy afaik).

And I didn't make the thing up about latent life being short, it's a direct quote from the helpfile (which is about the only helpfile about latency that the non mage players can find). So if we now think that latentcy is perfectly fine and ignorable, well, we should at least update the helpfile accordingly

I think the fact that people think that there is more instruction and amount of contradictory information in this thread and visnet speaks volumes for the need of having those.

Re: auto awakenings there are some IC events that can awaken latents, usually triggered by staff when mages population got too low.