CLOK BBS

As the new changes are bringing in a logistical headache, to spare players the annoyance of having to regularly detach tuning crystals (of all the other colors they bought) and reattach them to the replacement esp artiface, and especially if you want to keep a particular esp artifact, how about we achieve the same goal in this fashion:

The esp artifact itself will be permanent, but barebones, it will not connect you to the telepathy network (alternate: It will let you listen but not transmit).

The character can buy a dull gray crystal that is now for sale everywhere, and it will need to be replaced on the same regularity as intended by this change.

Esp artifacts will come with one dull gray crystal at point of sale.

The other thing is, either gray channel change will result in a hardship to new, poor characters, all the while being but a minor inconvenience to excessively wealthy older characters. In many cases, this change will be a punishment to newbies who need to ask ic for directions, etc.

If the goal is to limit esp talk, why not implement a system of gossip points (or some other name) which some other muds do...if you esp, it draws down the bank of the player's points, and when it reaches 0 , he can't esp for a while, but he can listen. These points will replenish over time, so many points back per chime.

This reminds me of the change that was made to bank vaults. Loss of bank vault storage and transition to buying crates in the side room was a relatively minor burden to existing players with cash, but those impossibly high prices for a container big enough to put your flatbow or pole harness in was a solid step towards newbie unfriendliness in this game. I fear the change to esp access will result in yet another hardship to newcomers, unless some consideration is included for them.