Overhearing whispers, your opinion

[Smellfungus]

It annoys me greatly when some antisocial newspawns are whispering because I assume that they might be planning something criminal, but there's no way of listening to them. And if there was a particular eavesdropping feature, that would make it obvious you were suspecting something.

Actually, I like that idea a lot more. If it was implemented correctly it could really work. Maybe a chance of being detected similar to the crowbar success rate?

[Piscator]

If you think most players will just ignore it anyways.. And only some will use it to RP...

Sounds exactly like illnesses. Maybe that should give us something to think. Or an idea of where this is heading.

[Rebma]

@Caesar: You hit the nail on the head.


@Whisper/Note passing haters: How about if whispered conversations were condensed so all you saw was "John and Taylor whispered 24 times" or similar? Dragged notes? Passed objects? Though I'm guessing that would take some serious programming.

That's what we were trying to get implemented before a few high and mightys implemented this one with barely any discussion.

EDIT: Not that I mind whispers at all. I don't.

Whoooo! Nice! That's something to look forward to. Good luck! What's the outcome likely to be? Yea or nay?

Probably nay after this episode. It'll get added to the piles of suggestions they'll "think about" for a few years. Lol.

[CantrFreak]

I like the idea of eavesdropping actually...

[Comy]

I'd much prefer an actual eavesdropping feature.

[CN]

Actually, I like that idea a lot more. If it was implemented correctly it could really work. Maybe a chance of being detected similar to the crowbar success rate?

A "stealth" mode like that would not only take much coding, but just be kind of pointless. You would then be going out of the nature of the game. Stuff like that just isn't in the nature of the game itself, it's more like a MMO type thing, not a text-based RPG.

[CN]

Sounds exactly like illnesses. Maybe that should give us something to think. Or an idea of where this is heading.

Ah, CD Ninja, I knew there was a reason I dig you.

[playerslayer666]

I like the idea of eavesdropping actually...

it appears to be a decent alternative for those who just wanna but in on things that are not their business.

seriously it's one thing that this has recieved some support but why are people suggesting the percentage rate should go up?

and Caesar.....just because not every realistic thing is likely to be added that doesn't mean you should " get rid of hunger " ( i almost didn't bother to reply to that because of how stupid that remark was )

[Gran]

This all reminds me of when smokers were nerfed. Hah. Much walls of text written by these hands. I'll see what will be the results of this discussion, but I might alredy know the answer.

I think that the current system should be tried out. If the "IC funny quotes" topic receives too many replies than usual, then it should be removed. (Still, eavesdropping seems cool if coupled with the project of "speaking to").

[playerslayer666]

I'd much prefer an actual eavesdropping feature.

wow you know this is a hot topic when comy keeps posting in it i never see her make posts.

comy tell them to make an in game poll it was your idea before mine

[CN]

I like the idea of eavesdropping actually...

I'd much prefer an actual eavesdropping feature.

I'd much prefer the option to eavesdrop by chance as one would breaking a lock than this sudden ability to do so *shrugs* This, at least, has opportunity for RP. If you just happen to overhear something, you're likely to ignore it if it doesnt concern you, but if you make an attempt to eavesdrop and fail, well, that could create interesting situations.

Not to mention, it would give those paranoid people a chance to find out information without making it completely easy for them. While they may not be the ones to overhear the criminals, I'm sure they'd be dependent on loyal, honest citizens to report it.

[Comy]

I'd much prefer the option to eavesdrop by chance as one would breaking a lock than this sudden ability to do so *shrugs*

Yeah, that's what I meant. It should be on purpose.

[CN]

I'd much prefer the option to eavesdrop by chance as one would breaking a lock than this sudden ability to do so *shrugs*

Yeah, that's what I meant. It should be on purpose.

*nods* and people should be able to know that it's happened, or, atleast that the attempt was made.

[Smellfungus]

I like the idea of eavesdropping actually...

I'd much prefer an actual eavesdropping feature.

I'd much prefer the option to eavesdrop...

That's what I was getting at. Sorry, it's a quarter past three in the morning and the coffee buzz died 11 hours ago.

[CN]

For those of you voting for a higher than 2% chance of overhearing something:

To put some perspective on the matter:

The probability of being heard by at least one person is equal to inverse of the probability that nobody overhears. The probability that one person does not overhear is the inverse of the probability of them overhearing (2% or .02):

1 - .02 = .98 (probability of a single person not overhearing a private message)

The probability of nobody overhearing is equal to the product of the probabilities of all possible people in the location not overhearing at once, which is all of them multiplied together, or:

.98^(number of possible eavesdroppers)

When a message is overheard at least once, that means that everybody in the location did not fail to overhear, or the inverse of the last calculation, i.e.:

p(n) = 1-(.98^n)

Where p is the probability of being overheard by at least one person, and n is the number of people who could overhear the message (number of people in the location minus two; or minus one if the person is talking to themself)

p(0) = 0; No other people in the location, no chance of being overheard.
p(1) = .02; chance that one person overhears
p(2) = .0396; chance of being overheard with two other people.

Using the previous formula, the following can be deduced:

In a location with 12 people, and one person whispers to another, there is a chance of approximately 18% (p(10) = 0.182...) that the message will be overheard, meaning that one in every 6 messages will be overheard on average.

In a conversation in the same location, which involves 10 messages, then chance of at least one message being overheard by one person is 87% (p(10×10) = 0.867...), which means that on average, private conversations with those parameters will be overheard almost 9/10 of the time.

Joo did the math, kiddos. It doesn't get any more clear than that. To make it higher than 2% would mean that absolutely every whispered conversation would be overheard, there's no real "chance" at that point. Hell, there's barely one now for it to remain private.