CLOK BBS

Is anything at all set in stone for this? How are messages on ESP perceived? Are they as concepts? A kind of 'colored thought'? Are they audio only? Are we able to distinguish homophones ("The sky is blew" instead of "The sky is blue")

So many questions, but what is set in stone? And what would likely differ from person to person?

I see it as actual thoughts or feelings being transmitted over ESP. I've thought we've needed ESP emotes for a while. We can sense a timid fear from people, so why shouldn't we at least percieve a feeling of laughter, even if we don't actually hear it? I think we should sense a bit more than just fear through ESP.

Definitely interested in GM feedback on this, but just for kicks here's how I tend to think of it.

I picture ESP as language/sound thought, not as in hearing voices but as in other thoughts popping in your head that aren't your own. the thoughts themselves would be sound, not visual, but also overlayed with a sort of color sense in order to distinguish both the channel color and the color of the individual speaking.

This is why I have no problem with emoted sound over esp, such as *chuckles* or *groans* but wouldn't really want to see *grins* or similar over esp. Similarly I try to avoid abbreviations that aren't generally verbalized, like lol or brt or ttyl, but punctuation used to help clarify the sound of the speech I do use. For example I sometimes might put commas where they wouldn't usually go in order to indicate a slight pause or hesitance.

I'd guess that we would hear blew and blue the same, but for the sake of the player behind the keyboard, using such words correctly is still a good thing.

Again, this is just my perception though, and it's entirely possible that the gms have something very different in mind that might necessitate myself and others slightly modifying the way we communicate over esp.

Drayla does have a good point though, in that we can sense fear over esp, so other emotions could likely be sensed as well. I'm just not sure how we could project that or even if we should.

A started an ESP Q&A doc a while back, I'll post it soon.

Are the sounds perceived on esp in the form of a language or are they simply understood in your language? The reason I ask is I encountered a player who did not speak common very well but seemed to speak it fine on ESP.

You can't ESP in other languages is how it was explained to me. So thoughts are generally understood.

I would say it's technically possible to ESP in a specific language, but it's not currently supported by in-game mechanics. As of now, people are considered either A) Communicating universal thoughts/concepts rather than specific words (that is translated to players via specific words for convenience/ease-of-understanding), or B) Communicating specific words in Common.