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Sic Logic

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Alright, so a few things about sic that I feel need to be changed or added to fit not only theme but also fit the technology behind the chip.

First and for most, we as players have had it hammered into our skulls that sic is chaos with millions of people on it at all times. Problem is that on an OOC level we have no way of knowing when this suddenly stops, which is why a lot of times we find ourselves sitting around without realizing signal has dropped. I feel a prompt is warranted when we lose signal because logically if our chars would know there is suddenly no noise, then so should we as players.

That leads into the tech that already exists for this. If you are running through the mix and type who to bring up a query and run to another room without signal before the query is pulled guess what you see? 'Signal Lost'. So logically that should happen -any time- signal is lost. While this isn't a big deal, it just seems like lost logic on something that -should- be.

So onward to the "Sic is Chaos." Really it's not. Rendering a single color with low player base there is nothing chaotic about it. We can pretend it is sure, but again it comes down to a chip that uses your mind to communicate. So with that logic with language should come personality. Which would include colors and possible different fonts.

That's chaos. Millions of people set out on the sic network as -individuals- all different and a mess. Maybe even make it a premium thing you pay for at the hall. Especially since it -has- to be possible due to things that have happened in the past that has shown us to be possible. ;)

That's my two cents.

Happy Easter

By Floki at Feb 17, 2022 4:06 PM
While I love this idea for quality of life. Playing devils advocate, how do you handle things like travelling in vehiciles where you might go in and out if sicnal ten-twenty times in a single journey?
By fopsy at Feb 17, 2022 4:09 PM
@Fopsy put a timer on the notification so it can only alert you after 30 seconds of travel.
By Floki at Feb 17, 2022 4:10 PM
Instead of a constant scroll of Signal established, Signal Lost, Signal Established, anyone can 'ping' the network with a ca command which instantly returns their alias if there is signal and otherwise says there isn't.
By 0x1mm at Feb 17, 2022 4:13 PM
We shouldn't have too. As I explained the mechanic already exists in game for it to happen already. This also does not at all address the very first thing stated in the topic. We as players have no way of knowing our characters suddenly do not hear millions of people on sic.
By Floki at Feb 17, 2022 4:15 PM
Just type 'ch'...
By Stiza13 at Feb 17, 2022 4:15 PM
I have to agree. If SIC is not supposed to be an ever present thing, then give us a lot more options to filter it.

Either it is a noise in your head all of the time, or it's not.

If it is, then notifying the player that they no longer are being bombarded by 80 million people makes sense because it sure would be evident, as opposed to the ## people playing right now who might have other things to do and just aren't posting in SIC.

If it is not, then the rationale for having it Red and intrusive is kind of off. If it's not chaotic and a constant noise, then we should be able to filter it out and change it to how we want.

I think letting people know that 80 million voices just went silent without requiring player agency is not a bad thing.

By DancingRoo at Feb 17, 2022 4:19 PM
I think it is widely established and accepted that the millions of voices are filted down with 'magic' lots of IC explainations exist with no real confirmation. But to my knowledge you do not get the full brunt of all those voices, all the time. You get what the game presents you with, at any one time.

I have always thought of SIC as an intelegent system that analyses you and your behaviours bubbling up appropriate data to you (like current search and ad bots irl)

I genuinely would like this as a system, but I think there are likely very good mechanical reasons why there is not.

By fopsy at Feb 17, 2022 4:19 PM
It seems like this comes up at least once or twice a year.

Is there a way to succinctly summarize loss of SIC in a way that it could be appended to "help SIC"?

By Hek at Feb 17, 2022 5:47 PM
I'm not that huge of a fan of "immersion for immersion's sake," or spending code development times on these things which are maybe a speck of QOL at best and nothing more than QOI (immersion) at worst.

But let me help people with the cognitive dissonance. Let's imagine that the IC experience of SIC is VERY MUCH LIKE the OOC experience of it. That is to say, you can only process so much of anything at a time especially when there are other things occupying your attention. OOCly you don't notice the absence of SIC right away because your buffer (mentally speaking, I'm not talking about browser or client) has other things in it you're processing. SIC isn't the priority unless you're making it so, in which case you can notice and confirm pretty quickly that it stopped.

Imagine that IC the chip itself is doing this buffering, due to the ginormous volume of traffic. When signal actually ceases might or might not be the same moment when the chip stops stimulating your neurons. So, your character notices when the buffer's empty, not when the signal drops.

There. A lovely IC explanation for why the experience of signal drop is the way it is.

By beandip at Feb 17, 2022 5:56 PM
I agree you can come up with IC explanations, except there already is instances where your chip tells you the signal is lost. So when it is lost for other reasons it's odd that it can't tell you this.

It obviously isn't a huge deal and there are ways around it... but... it does seem like something that should happen.

By DancingRoo at Feb 17, 2022 6:18 PM
I still don't understand how one could implement this codedly without it being extremely spammy.
By Cinder at Feb 19, 2022 4:14 AM
I recognize the desire to be alerted when you lose SIC but it is a gameplay mechanic that would-be assassins and the like depend on to tactically ambush others.

If you're paranoid about losing signal, annoyed by it, etc. The feature is working as designed.

By ReeferMadness at Feb 19, 2022 9:54 AM
There is a point though that it breaks immersion that the SIC chatter of millions is supposed to be a constant presence in your head, but you get no OOC indicator that it has suddenly gone silent.

I'm all for a message noting the silence of SIC (with limitations to prevent spam).

However, I am against separate colors for different SIC voices. It's chaotic enough as it is, thank you.

By Blackbird71 at Feb 19, 2022 10:22 AM
This was addressed by Slither a couple of months ago. I'll see if I can find the link but the jist was:

The who list is not billions long and you are not hearing the whole dome all the time. SIC uses algorithms to select the voices and aliases on SIC it thinks your PC would be most interested in. What you see OOC is what your PC sees IC. That's it.

S Lither can correct me if my summary is wrong of course. :)

By Grey0 at Feb 24, 2022 9:28 AM
SIC uses algorithms to select the voices and aliases on SIC it thinks your PC would be most interested in.

If that's the case, then the algorithm stinks, because the vast majority of voices I hear on SIC my PC has no interest in. :P

By Blackbird71 at Feb 24, 2022 10:06 AM
@Grey0 is correct.

This is one of those things where you gotta not scratch the walls as we can't realistically make the SIC useful to players AND generate millions of SIC messages / aliases all the time. We used to have automated SIC messages that went out and it's super hard to make them not seem repetitive, and also makes the SIC less fun to use and we saw less engagement with it.

By Slither at Feb 26, 2022 1:05 PM
This might be just me and my wicked bad ADHD but I've 100% had music/TV/misc constant sound on in the background while I did other things and then suddenly have that moment of realization that the background noise had stopped at some point without me realizing it.

One thing I used to say to new players when I was explaining SIC to them was that the who list was some "smart slice" of people awake and on the network, though that was mostly to remind them that there's a massive ambient population.

By goblinfemme at Mar 3, 2022 6:37 PM
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