Changes to Cloaking Gems and WHO lists

Ealix

Something that has caused issues in both Lusternia and other IRE games is the way cloaking gems work. While a valid and useful tool for both combat and general hiding, the problem we face with cloaking gems is that they leave the game feeling somewhat empty and it can drive away newer players.

Lusternia is the last of the IRE games to retain the current system of cloaking gems, all the others moving away to a better system which enhances player visibility while retaining some effect of being hidden. This is something that we have decided to move on as well and we have conversed amongst ourselves a bit to come up with some plans and ideas on how to move forward. 

Below are all the changes we are planning on making, but wanted to get some feedback from the player base before we make the changes.

Cloaking Gems: 

• Cloaking gems will no longer remove a player from the WHO list completely. It will remove their location, but not their name (Example below).

• The bottom line of the WHO list (the ‘Currently, there are x Lusternians’ line) will be adjusted to show the total number of players online (Example below).

• Cloaking gems will have the ability to use their current effect (being removed from WHO completely) for 10 minutes with 5 uses maximum per real life day.

WHO command:

• All players, regardless of their in-game location, will be shown on the WHO list. 

• Thirdeye will function the same for players on the same plane, but not others.

• We are going to add little location blurbs for players not on the same plane as the one you are standing on (Example below).

EWHO Command:

• The EWHO command will function essentially the same, showing room names of players, aside from those who have a cloaking gem.

• The one exception to this will be manse room names. It will show players in manses similar to the normal WHO example below.

• We are also going to remove the little bit at the end of the line which has [PLANE] from the EWHO command, and correct the player count at the bottom of EWHO.

Example new WHO (WITH Third-eye):

       Aeral - [Travelling Off-Plane]

       Aisha - a solemn graveyard           

       Alysi - [Traversing the Aetherways]                                      

       Aramantos - (cloaked location)

       Ayisdra - the northern tower wall-walk

       Calista - the Garden of the Moirae                                      

       Etra - [Travelling Off-Plane]

       Evette - the northern tower wall-walk                        

       Exeryte - the northern tower wall-walk                        

       Faragan - the northern tower wall-walk                        

       Freja - (cloaked location)

       Galaphyrae - the northern tower wall-walk                        

       Huskii - the northern tower wall-walk                        

       Iazin - [Within an Aethermanse]  

       Kalaneya - the northern tower wall-walk                        

       Kalliope - [Travelling Off-Plane]

       Keegan - [Traversing the Aetherways]

Currently there are 17 Lusternians, 8 of which are hidden from you.

As an explanation:

• Any player not on the same Plane as you will be shown as  [Travelling Off-Plane].

• Any player in an Aethership in Aetherspace or on a bubble will be shown as [Traversing the Aetherways].

• Any player in an aethermanse will be shown as [Within an Aethermanse].

• We are also considering adding more lines such as [Delving the Ruins of Grimkeep] for Grimkeep and other areas we may release in the future, to show players actively doing cool and fun things.

• The total number of players will always be every online player, however the ‘x of which are hidden from you’ will account for cloaking gems, manses, off-plane, off-continent etc.

Other changes:

• We are going to adjust CWHO/GWHO to show ‘Currently, there are x visible citizens and y travelling far-off places’ to account for players off-continent or off-plane, etc.

• We are going to remove the BWHO command, as it functions the same as QWHO.

As stated, we are looking for some feedback on this before we make any changes, and want to take your opinions on board before we start making changes.

Thanks in advance,

~Ealix

Alexandria

I think it's a good change with enough compromise in it.

Eiselle

I love the change, just had a question, are the manse privacy gems being treated as the cloaking gems?

Shango

Change the room name in WHO (to get rid of it being a free, balance-less use mass Scry for the un-gemmed) to not show up on those with gems, and it's fine I think.

Ealix

Eiselle said:

I love the change, just had a question, are the manse privacy gems being treated as the cloaking gems?

Manse privacy artifacts will be treated as being a cloaked location.

Alexandria

Shango said:

Change the room name in WHO (to get rid of it being a free, balance-less use mass Scry for the un-gemmed) to not show up on those with gems, and it's fine I think.

Isn't that just a function of THIRDEYE?

Ealix

Shango said:

Change the room name in WHO (to get rid of it being a free, balance-less use mass Scry for the un-gemmed) to not show up on those with gems, and it's fine I think.

The example WHO list shown above assumes third-eye, so you will still only see the room name of those who do not have gems.

I have edited the post to reflect that it is an example with Third-Eye.

Ayisdra

I don't like that you are reducing EWHO by removing manse room names. Seeing the room name of a manse may seem like nothing, but it adds a bit of value to the rather expensive ewho mirror. Same with removing the plane info. While sure its easy to look up this info with most having mappers, not everyone could have such a map/skills to do so. Being able to easily tell that X room is on ASTRAL for example is great.

While showing everyone on WHO is fine, and probably for the best, Being able to tell that someone is 'Off-Plane' is rather valuable info, more so if you are planning something combat heavy. Personally, I would rather see it just show '(cloaked location)' for those with gems, regardless of plane. Perhaps I am in the minority, but a majority of the point of the Gem is to hide the room name from easy spying (perhaps I'm doing a multi-hour long quest I don't want people knowing about), not that I'm online somewhere in the game.

Machlana

Great change. More visibility helps improve player retention. Achaea did this years ago.

Ealix

Ayisdra said:

I don't like that you are reducing EWHO by removing manse room names. Seeing the room name of a manse may seem like nothing, but it adds a bit of value to the rather expensive ewho mirror. Same with removing the plane info. While sure its easy to look up this info with most having mappers, not everyone could have such a map/skills to do so. Being able to easily tell that X room is on ASTRAL for example is great.

While showing everyone on WHO is fine, and probably for the best, Being able to tell that someone is 'Off-Plane' is rather valuable info, more so if you are planning something combat heavy. Personally, I would rather see it just show '(cloaked location)' for those with gems, regardless of plane. Perhaps I am in the minority, but a majority of the point of the Gem is to hide the room name from easy spying (perhaps I'm doing a multi-hour long quest I don't want people knowing about), not that I'm online somewhere in the game.

With regards to Cloaking gems and off plane, the (cloaked location) will always take precedence over anything else. So even if you are off-plane you will still show as being in a cloaked location.

Ayisdra

Ealix said:

Ayisdra said:

I don't like that you are reducing EWHO by removing manse room names. Seeing the room name of a manse may seem like nothing, but it adds a bit of value to the rather expensive ewho mirror. Same with removing the plane info. While sure its easy to look up this info with most having mappers, not everyone could have such a map/skills to do so. Being able to easily tell that X room is on ASTRAL for example is great.

While showing everyone on WHO is fine, and probably for the best, Being able to tell that someone is 'Off-Plane' is rather valuable info, more so if you are planning something combat heavy. Personally, I would rather see it just show '(cloaked location)' for those with gems, regardless of plane. Perhaps I am in the minority, but a majority of the point of the Gem is to hide the room name from easy spying (perhaps I'm doing a multi-hour long quest I don't want people knowing about), not that I'm online somewhere in the game.

With regards to Cloaking gems and off plane, the (cloaked location) will always take precedence over anything else. So even if you are off-plane you will still show as being in a cloaked location.

Ah, I think you misunderstood, or maybe I did in what 'cloaked location' actually means. What causes Cloaked Location to appear under this plan? I assumed it was the 10min cloaking thing. Is this not what that means?

I basically am suggesting that players with gems show up like gods do that are uncloaked - it shows their name no matter what plane you are on,  completely hiding their room name/location.

Ealix

Ayisdra said:

Ealix said:

Ayisdra said:

I don't like that you are reducing EWHO by removing manse room names. Seeing the room name of a manse may seem like nothing, but it adds a bit of value to the rather expensive ewho mirror. Same with removing the plane info. While sure its easy to look up this info with most having mappers, not everyone could have such a map/skills to do so. Being able to easily tell that X room is on ASTRAL for example is great.

While showing everyone on WHO is fine, and probably for the best, Being able to tell that someone is 'Off-Plane' is rather valuable info, more so if you are planning something combat heavy. Personally, I would rather see it just show '(cloaked location)' for those with gems, regardless of plane. Perhaps I am in the minority, but a majority of the point of the Gem is to hide the room name from easy spying (perhaps I'm doing a multi-hour long quest I don't want people knowing about), not that I'm online somewhere in the game.

With regards to Cloaking gems and off plane, the (cloaked location) will always take precedence over anything else. So even if you are off-plane you will still show as being in a cloaked location.

Ah, I think you misunderstood, or maybe I did in what 'cloaked location' actually means. What costs Cloaked Location to appear under this plan? I assumed it was the 10min cloaking thing. Is this not what that means?

I basically am suggesting that players with gems show up like gods do that are uncloaked - it shows their name no matter what plane you are on,  completely hiding their room name/location.

The basic idea is that having a Gem of Cloaking in their inventory or being in a manse room with a Manse Privacy Artifact will show (cloaked location).

The active ability that you can use five times per real life day will provide the current effect of the Gem of Cloaking (being completely removed from WHO list) for 10 minutes. 

Etra

I genuinely love this and have been hoping for this change for several years. I feel like there are two significant changes here that might be worth separating:

Gem function: you still show on WHO, location is masked (and removed from WHO using the gem activation period with cool down). As said above, this would be similar to uncloaked gods.

Location: added blurb on where someone is, generally (Aetherspace, grimkeep, etc). 

I think it's worth separating these both with respect to this discussion and with respect to implementation timeline. I am strongly in favor of the gem function changes but hesitant to support the location changes. The location info is incredibly useful info and can be used to time conflict (for example, I know most on the opposing side are aetherhunting, so we'll attack now).

The problem trying to be addressed is solved with just the gem change. The location blurb feels distinctly separate from the emptiness problem.

Kalliope

I do sort of think maybe manse privacy should still work like current gem?

veara

Hey,

That sounds an awesome set of changes. As someone who plays off-prime and sometimes finds herself having only like.. at most 1 other person in her own org, having the ability to actually -see- who else is around and thus have a chance to actually reach out to people from other orgs sounds amazing.

For me, the only thing that has ever stopped me from fully supporting the removal of cloaking gems was that seeing other peoples locatoins always was problematic. Main reason why I bought one, myself. Never minded people knowing I'm around so... Nice.

Only little nitpick I have is that EWHO kind of feels like it'll have no real advantage over normal who anymore... but that's okay. I want normal who to show everyone, not just people on the same plane, as that's silly.

Aeral

Love the changes! 

Qistrel

How is Stealth Veil going to interact with this? Will just do (cloaked location)?

Iarae

I like the idea of being able to be seen on the WHOlist but the entire draw to a privacy gem in a manse is so that folks don't bother you while you're online regardless of whether you're idling in a safe place or crafting for aethertrading etc. I don't think that Manse privacy gems should change. There should at least be some way for someone to be able to be left alone without having to TELLSOFF and risk upsetting people or giving the idea you're ignoring them. Privacy gems do not offer any pvp/strategic advantage to being completely hidden as a cloaking gem would. And anyone who is in a manse in a private area is most often AFK or not able/willing to respond anyway. You're really only going to cause novices to get more frustrated by being ignored by someone who is showing online but afk. If this is something that is done then I recommend making AFK in manses no longer acceptable as that was kindof why it was allowed in the first place.

Otherwise the change to cloaking gems seems fine. 

Tylwyth

I really don't mind if people know I am around, as long as they see where.The changes seem reasonable.

Qoivhae

I think there is some confusion going on and I would like to clarify a few things. Here's an example, if I am either in possession of a cloaking gem or in a manse with a privacy gem, it would show:

Qoivhae - (cloaked location)

-regardless of any plane in both WHO and EWHO, is this correct?

Also, I agree with Iarae and the others who prefer keeping players hidden in manses with privacy gems to some extent, as the primary intention of "privatising" the manse room is to keep it and the people inside private. Because for me, knowing someone is [Within an Aethermanse] could mean that person is just in a manse and may or may not need some privacy. So, what if the location of private manse rooms is changed to something that connotatively mean, Do Not Disturb? But seriously, something that goes along these lines, [Within the privacy of an Aethermanse] is probably fine since having the cloaking gem would take precedence anyway. Additionally and optionally, perhaps we can have another feature of the privacy gem to toggle if the room will passively turn off tells and all other channels when inside. 

 Ealix said:

EWHO Command:

• The EWHO command will function essentially the same, showing room names of players, aside from those who have a cloaking gem.

• The one exception to this will be manse room names. It will show players in manses similar to the normal WHO example below.

• We are also going to remove the little bit at the end of the line which has [PLANE] from the EWHO command, and correct the player count at the bottom of EWHO.

If I do not have a cloaking gem and happen to be on Astral, I will show in WHO but it becomes:

Qoivhae - [Travelling Off-Plane]

and EWHO would specify which room I am in:

Qoivhae a pan of iron filings [plane name].

If the previous example is correct, is there any specific reason why the plane name would be removed from EWHO (and to echo Ayisdra's comment, remove the room manse name)? The scrying mirror is quite an expensive artifact and I think its purpose is to specifically identify where people are (except when cloaked or with private gem).

On an extra and lighter note, does this mean we are going to have a chameleon tattoo mechanic like in other IRE games as well?

Qistrel

Well I am not sure what a chameleon tattoo does, but currently if you do stealth veil without a gem on, it removes your room from the who list on whatever plane you are on, and your full name shows instead. (It has more effects like removing you from scent etc but the who list thing is what I am wanting to know about) I'm assuming it will line up with the other stuff like so:

Nikkakorra - (cloaked location)

Ealix

Qistrel said:

How is Stealth Veil going to interact with this? Will just do (cloaked location)?

Stealth Veil should still function as it stands now, however (shown in your latest comment) if the preference is to bring it into line with the changes and show (cloaked location) we can certainly do that as well.

Qoivhae said:

I think there is some confusion going on and I would like to clarify a few things. Here's an example, if I am either in possession of a cloaking gem or in a manse with a privacy gem, it would show:

Qoivhae - (cloaked location)

-regardless of any plane in both WHO and EWHO, is this correct?

Also, I agree with Iarae and the others who prefer keeping players hidden in manses with privacy gems to some extent, as the primary intention of "privatising" the manse room is to keep it and the people inside private. Because for me, knowing someone is [Within an Aethermanse] could mean that person is just in a manse and may or may not need some privacy. So, what if the location of private manse rooms is changed to something that connotatively mean, Do Not Disturb? But seriously, something that goes along these lines, [Within the privacy of an Aethermanse] is probably fine since having the cloaking gem would take precedence anyway. Additionally and optionally, perhaps we can have another feature of the privacy gem to toggle if the room will passively turn off tells and all other channels when inside. 

 Ealix said:

EWHO Command:

• The EWHO command will function essentially the same, showing room names of players, aside from those who have a cloaking gem.

• The one exception to this will be manse room names. It will show players in manses similar to the normal WHO example below.

• We are also going to remove the little bit at the end of the line which has [PLANE] from the EWHO command, and correct the player count at the bottom of EWHO.

If I do not have a cloaking gem and happen to be on Astral, I will show in WHO but it becomes:

Qoivhae - [Travelling Off-Plane]

and EWHO would specify which room I am in:

Qoivhae a pan of iron filings [plane name].

If the previous example is correct, is there any specific reason why the plane name would be removed from EWHO (and to echo Ayisdra's comment, remove the room manse name)? The scrying mirror is quite an expensive artifact and I think its purpose is to specifically identify where people are (except when cloaked or with private gem).

On an extra and lighter note, does this mean we are going to have a chameleon tattoo mechanic like in other IRE games as well?

The main reason for removing the PLANE at the end of EWHO (at least in my opinion) is the assumed knowledge by the playerbase once they reach that point of the game where they can start buying artifacts like this one. It feels to me that the information shown by the [PLANE] wasn't really necessary, particularly if people use Mudlet Mapper etc. 

As for the first part, that is how you would show up on WHO/EWHO with those examples, yes.

If there is preference to retain the [PLANE] at the end, we can certainly do that.

As for the other comments on Manse Privacy vs. the proposed changes, I will pass the information back and we will have a discussion about it and place the results here once we have concluded discussions.

Qoivhae

Ealix said:

The main reason for removing the PLANE at the end of EWHO (at least in my opinion) is the assumed knowledge by the playerbase once they reach that point of the game where they can start buying artifacts like this one. It feels to me that the information shown by the [PLANE] wasn't really necessary, particularly if people use Mudlet Mapper etc. 

As for the first part, that is how you would show up on WHO/EWHO with those examples, yes.

If there is preference to retain the [PLANE] at the end, we can certainly do that.

Yes, I agree; however, it is not applicable to everyone. Moreover, because of a recent change to restrict doing path search <room names> exclusive to the plane, someone who has no mapper might find it harder to figure out where the room is located. Knowing the plane through the use of the scrying mirror might be considered as a QoL mechanic, given there are several ways to check - but for me, it is a vital benefit of getting the artifact.

Qistrel said:

Well I am not sure what a chameleon tattoo does, but currently if you do stealth veil without a gem on, it removes your room from the who list on whatever plane you are on, and your full name shows instead. (It has more effects like removing you from scent etc but the who list thing is what I am wanting to know about) I'm assuming it will line up with the other stuff like so:

Nikkakorra - (cloaked location)

The chameleon tattoo allows someone to assume the form of someone else on QW or WHO. I was just thinking that since it is about time that Lusternia shifted to the revised effect of cloaking gem just like in other IRE games, I am kind of hoping Lusternia could adopt the chameleon tattoo mechanic as well.    

Ealix

Qoivhae said:

Ealix said:

The main reason for removing the PLANE at the end of EWHO (at least in my opinion) is the assumed knowledge by the playerbase once they reach that point of the game where they can start buying artifacts like this one. It feels to me that the information shown by the [PLANE] wasn't really necessary, particularly if people use Mudlet Mapper etc. 

As for the first part, that is how you would show up on WHO/EWHO with those examples, yes.

If there is preference to retain the [PLANE] at the end, we can certainly do that.

Yes, I agree; however, it is not applicable to everyone. Moreover, because of a recent change to restrict doing path search <room names> exclusive to the plane, someone who has no mapper might find it harder to figure out where the room is located. Knowing the plane through the use of the scrying mirror might be considered as a QoL mechanic, given there are several ways to check - but for me, it is a vital benefit of getting the artifact.

Qistrel said:

Well I am not sure what a chameleon tattoo does, but currently if you do stealth veil without a gem on, it removes your room from the who list on whatever plane you are on, and your full name shows instead. (It has more effects like removing you from scent etc but the who list thing is what I am wanting to know about) I'm assuming it will line up with the other stuff like so:

Nikkakorra - (cloaked location)

The chameleon tattoo allows someone to assume the form of someone else on QW or WHO. I was just thinking that since it is about time that Lusternia shifted to the revised effect of cloaking gem just like in other IRE games, I am kind of hoping Lusternia could adopt the chameleon tattoo mechanic as well.    

If there is enough support to keep the [PLANE] in we can keep it for sure.

As for Chameleon Tattoo, that is something we'd need to look at completely separate to this.

Ealix

We have had a bit of discussion about Manse Privacy Gems and want to propose the following changes:

- Manse Privacy Gems will still show people on WHO but as (cloaked location) like I mentioned above. They will still stop people from being scried. Room names will not be visible via EWHO.
- We will change the line for TELLSOFF to be something other than 'x is not accepting tells right now.' while in a manse.
- We also want to turn your attention to CHANGELOG 1254 which has the DONOTDISTURB command. We can modify this so that tells will not bypass it, and have a generic message about being 'mindless' or possibility have the option for custom return messages (that may be a change later on down the track after the initial changes are all made) if you are in a manse with DONOTDISTURB.
     - Says and Emotes will not be blocked by DND in a manse.

Qistrel

Ealix said:

As for Chameleon Tattoo, that is something we'd need to look at completely separate to this.

Give the Stealth skillset more toys to play with!

Iarae

Ealix said:

We have had a bit of discussion about Manse Privacy Gems and want to propose the following changes:

- Manse Privacy Gems will still show people on WHO but as (cloaked location) like I mentioned above. They will still stop people from being scried. Room names will not be visible via EWHO.
- We will change the line for TELLSOFF to be something other than 'x is not accepting tells right now.' while in a manse.
- We also want to turn your attention to CHANGELOG 1254 which has the DONOTDISTURB command. We can modify this so that tells will not bypass it, and have a generic message about being 'mindless' or possibility have the option for custom return messages (that may be a change later on down the track after the initial changes are all made) if you are in a manse with DONOTDISTURB.
     - Says and Emotes will not be blocked by DND in a manse.

The only problem I see with this is the fact that people still seeing you online and in 'donotdisturb' rumors will fly about who else might be there too. If I'm being somewhat blunt. Some reasons people want to be invisible in manses is -because- they don't want people to know what they are up to in those manses and who they might be up to it with. Rumors can be really hurtful both IC and OOC to a player and character reputation and I feel like this might lead to a lot of unnecissary gossip about who is in a manse with who and when and why they're all on DONOTDISTURB. 

Besides that I understand the concept. I simply feel that the potential for rumors and gossip that could turn into IC and OOC bias just isn't necissary.

Edit: Maybe increasing the time that the gem's activation lasts while in a manse might help circumvent this? If you can activate it multiple times a day anyway at ten minutes then I don't see why there would be any PVP issues (Considering timequakes and domoths only take 15ish minutes on average.)

Edit 2: Maybe make the privacy and cloaking gems have a stackable effect that while in the same location you disappear from the WHOLIST completely. Seems like it's just a lot of work to rework the donotdisturb and tellsoff systems when having the two artifacts have a 'leveled' effect when used together might be easier?

Ealix

Iarae said:

Ealix said:

We have had a bit of discussion about Manse Privacy Gems and want to propose the following changes:

- Manse Privacy Gems will still show people on WHO but as (cloaked location) like I mentioned above. They will still stop people from being scried. Room names will not be visible via EWHO.
- We will change the line for TELLSOFF to be something other than 'x is not accepting tells right now.' while in a manse.
- We also want to turn your attention to CHANGELOG 1254 which has the DONOTDISTURB command. We can modify this so that tells will not bypass it, and have a generic message about being 'mindless' or possibility have the option for custom return messages (that may be a change later on down the track after the initial changes are all made) if you are in a manse with DONOTDISTURB.
     - Says and Emotes will not be blocked by DND in a manse.

The only problem I see with this is the fact that people still seeing you online and in 'donotdisturb' rumors will fly about who else might be there too. If I'm being somewhat blunt. Some reasons people want to be invisible in manses is -because- they don't want people to know what they are up to in those manses and who they might be up to it with. Rumors can be really hurtful both IC and OOC to a player and character reputation and I feel like this might lead to a lot of unnecissary gossip about who is in a manse with who and when and why they're all on DONOTDISTURB. 

Besides that I understand the concept. I simply feel that the potential for rumors and gossip that could turn into IC and OOC bias just isn't necissary.

Edit: Maybe increasing the time that the gem's activation lasts while in a manse might help circumvent this? If you can activate it multiple times a day anyway at ten minutes then I don't see why there would be any PVP issues (Considering timequakes and domoths only take 15ish minutes on average.)

Edit 2: Maybe make the privacy and cloaking gems have a stackable effect that while in the same location you disappear from the WHOLIST completely. Seems like it's just a lot of work to rework the donotdisturb and tellsoff systems when having the two artifacts have a 'leveled' effect when used together might be easier?

Even now, it is impossible for some players to be truly hidden regardless. Guild leaders and city leaders, even if hidden completely from the WHO list as they are now, will still show up on the respective HELP file for the guild/city/commune under the [CURRENTLY IN THE REALM] section. I understand the concern about starting rumors, however, given the following (with changes):

 - Nobody will ever see the room name [it will be (cloaked location)].
 - Nobody will ever be able to scry you.
 - The two above points apply to everyone in the room with Manse Privacy, so there would be no way for them to know who is in what room with who.

You would have the same issue if we made people not show on the WHO list at all in a room with manse privacy. You would not be able to be scried and you would not show up on WHO, but if you were in a guild leadership position you'd still show up as being able to inguild and promote if you were in one of those positions, and people would still be able to send you tells.

No matter what precautions may be taken, there is no solution to gossip. No amount of preparation will curtail the human imagination, and if we wait for a solution to gossip then I'm afraid we'll never get anything done.

Kalliope

Really think players would best be served with being removed from who lists in manse rooms with privacy gems.

Iarlaithe

This change looks good.

I vote no on two things:

1. removing the plane names from ewho
2. adding chameleon tattoos

Iarae

Ealix said:

Iarae said:

Ealix said:

We have had a bit of discussion about Manse Privacy Gems and want to propose the following changes:

- Manse Privacy Gems will still show people on WHO but as (cloaked location) like I mentioned above. They will still stop people from being scried. Room names will not be visible via EWHO.
- We will change the line for TELLSOFF to be something other than 'x is not accepting tells right now.' while in a manse.
- We also want to turn your attention to CHANGELOG 1254 which has the DONOTDISTURB command. We can modify this so that tells will not bypass it, and have a generic message about being 'mindless' or possibility have the option for custom return messages (that may be a change later on down the track after the initial changes are all made) if you are in a manse with DONOTDISTURB.
     - Says and Emotes will not be blocked by DND in a manse.

The only problem I see with this is the fact that people still seeing you online and in 'donotdisturb' rumors will fly about who else might be there too. If I'm being somewhat blunt. Some reasons people want to be invisible in manses is -because- they don't want people to know what they are up to in those manses and who they might be up to it with. Rumors can be really hurtful both IC and OOC to a player and character reputation and I feel like this might lead to a lot of unnecissary gossip about who is in a manse with who and when and why they're all on DONOTDISTURB. 

Besides that I understand the concept. I simply feel that the potential for rumors and gossip that could turn into IC and OOC bias just isn't necissary.

Edit: Maybe increasing the time that the gem's activation lasts while in a manse might help circumvent this? If you can activate it multiple times a day anyway at ten minutes then I don't see why there would be any PVP issues (Considering timequakes and domoths only take 15ish minutes on average.)

Edit 2: Maybe make the privacy and cloaking gems have a stackable effect that while in the same location you disappear from the WHOLIST completely. Seems like it's just a lot of work to rework the donotdisturb and tellsoff systems when having the two artifacts have a 'leveled' effect when used together might be easier?

Even now, it is impossible for some players to be truly hidden regardless. Guild leaders and city leaders, even if hidden completely from the WHO list as they are now, will still show up on the respective HELP file for the guild/city/commune under the [CURRENTLY IN THE REALM] section. I understand the concern about starting rumors, however, given the following (with changes):

 - Nobody will ever see the room name [it will be (cloaked location)].
 - Nobody will ever be able to scry you.
 - The two above points apply to everyone in the room with Manse Privacy, so there would be no way for them to know who is in what room with who.

You would have the same issue if we made people not show on the WHO list at all in a room with manse privacy. You would not be able to be scried and you would not show up on WHO, but if you were in a guild leadership position you'd still show up as being able to inguild and promote if you were in one of those positions, and people would still be able to send you tells.

No matter what precautions may be taken, there is no solution to gossip. No amount of preparation will curtail the human imagination, and if we wait for a solution to gossip then I'm afraid we'll never get anything done.

This is inaccurate. I am currently Hegumen of the sanctifiers and do not appear on the 'currently in the realm' portion that lists those able to inguild and promote when I am in my manse. I've just confirmed this with another guild member.