ESP and it's many uses!

[TwistedAkai]

A pet peeve of mine is using ESP for everyday business or just general conversation. This is a telepathic network used by everybody - PC and NPC alike, not a private channel for the 10+ people currently online. Would you really shout your personal business from the mountaintops for all to hear or would you just use it to request a private meeting to discuss things? I'm pretty sure it would be the latter.

So if you want to buy something, have something crafted, discuss the fancy soles of your shoes, start a hunting expedition, discuss your finances or the state of your farm, whatever it is - do it in private or if you want to gossip, buy a colored pendant from the mummers and have at it. Don't discuss the details over the public network. It's just silly and I'm so tempted to ridicule people for being so open with hundreds or thousands of citizens of the nearby area sometimes. I'm sure Suzy NPC in Mistral and Joe-Bob NPC in Shadgard would appreciate a bit more discretion also because they don't care. They have lives to lead.

Seeing as this has sort of evolved into a small discussion, I thought I'd make a thread for it. As was said in the RP thread:

Something inside of me thinks that most NPC's would do their ESPing on their town network crystal color, eg, Amber for Shadgard, etc. Just musing here.

Granted, having used these, I can tell you that being tuned to another color does not tune you out of Gray, so people are still spilling their business into the open. But then people do that today (See Facebook, Myspace, every personal blog out there, etc.)

The question is, is there such a thing as a universally inappropriate usage for ESP? Does it simply come down to the person? Are there any particular norms for this? Do people think there should be? Discuss!

[Jaster]

I don't think we need to put restrictions or set up "norms" for ESP use (aside from it being a RP channel, of course). It's completely up to the discretion of the character and how they would use it (or how the player wants them to use it).

Similarly to social media today, if someone wants to put their business out there for all to see then so be it. Anybody or everybody can ignore it or respond to it as they please.

Not everybody does that. In fact, some people choose to use or pay attention to ESP as minimally as possible. But that's still a choice.

[Kiyaani]

Agreed with Jaster. I don't think we need to have these restrictions or expectations just because of my own personal preference.

I was just stating a pet peeve of mine in light of the overabundance of information being put out last night over the pendant regarding organizing someone's house among other things, and the recent over-share (in my opinion only) of private information in general. To me it just seems really out of character to be so open with a bunch of strangers who may be listening in and a lot of what's discussed can be requested publicly and then fleshed out in person.

A lot of PCs that are trying to be available to be helpful may find the chatter too much and tune out or remove their pendants and miss something important. For example, when death changes come in, I wouldn't want to remove my pendant if playing on Eira just in case someone needs me, but I also don't want to be mentally assaulted ICly with every little thing.

Tuning into a color allows you to communicate on that color's frequency while still hearing Gray, but not actually use Gray. So it would suit the purpose of allowing you to do whatever you wanted without 'sharing with the class'. If you have a group you speak with often, you can set up code words to let them know to tune in. Social media requires you to actually go to the effort of viewing that data rather than someone invading your mind with randomness.

I'm sure several of you have noticed Kiyaani getting annoyed over the pendant lately and that's just part of her character. She's pretty volatile. Just throwing that out there. Most of my other alts wouldn't say anything regardless of how I (as a player) feel.

I really, truly, honestly did not mean for this to become a giant discussion. So please don't feel I'm harping on you or saying you're doing it wrong. It's just something that bugs me sometimes (like last night) but most of the time, I don't even notice.

[Rias]

I need to add a way to tune out of Gray, if one prefers, to enjoy the relative quiet on the other channels.

The gray channel is pretty much picking up a radio and talking on an extremely wide-ranged, unmoderated channel. People can and will talk about whatever they please, and there's simply no way to enforce any kind of rules. It's kind of like those "General Chat" default chat rooms way back in the day, or Twitter or Facebook these days. Some people will find it necessary to broadcast every single little thing they do or think, for reasons I cannot fathom (I've never understood why people enjoy widely sharing completely random and worthless trivia tidbits about their everyday lives, but it happens constantly nonetheless).

Also, I just got a merchant idea.

To some characters' credit, there are a few who do tune to other channels to conduct personal business. It's never anything secretive or anything that I've been able to tell. I think they just do it to spare other people having to listen in to the details of settling on custom options, pricing, etc. Kudos to them - not because I'm saying it's not allowed to do these things on the gray channel, but because I personally, were I a character, would not want to hear all these irrelevant details and would appreciate them going to a private channel in order to cut down on the irrelevant-to-most noise on Gray.

[TwistedAkai]

My idea on norms would be much less formal rules, and more the world thinking less of you for doing it. Like if you're opposed to crossdressing and see a crossdresser. Not much to do about it other than be offended, and act (or don't) accordingly.

Another approach would be, would it be considered unusual or rude to ask someone on ESP to take a conversation to a more private setting, or is it so widely accepted that you'd likely be chastised in turn?

[xavier]

i would think that asking someone to take their conversation somewhere else would get you about the same kind of responce as you would get in real life. I have heard similar versions of this question a hundred times already and I've only been playing a few months.
If you want to ask "What would happen if..." stop and think about what would happen if you did it in real life, chances are responce will be pretty damn close. Just my two cents and I'm not attacking anyone, I'm just a lover of common sense