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+---- Thread: Time Stop (/showthread.php?tid=1121)
Time Stop - Balanor - 09-10-2011
As a question has been brought up about reverting this spell to its default behavior, I’d like to explain a little about what you may start seeing, and the reasons why it is no longer an area-specific spell.
First off, what will now happen when Time Stop is cast, is that all character’s portraits except for DMs and the caster itself will actually change to the Time Stop portrait (kind of a bronze gear-looking thing that is stopped). It is a pretty noticeable change, so you should be able to recognize when that occurs. Everything everywhere will freeze, but you can still talk (preferably only in emotes as you are in a moment in time) if you need verification it is not lag affecting you.
The spell lasts for 9 seconds per casting. Some very bad-ass creatures (or players) may have more than 1 and may sometimes cast them in quick succession though, so it could happen for upwards of 18, 27, or even 30+ seconds.
Again though - every time it is cast it will affect everyone on the server. The main reason for this is we have some very precise scripts that always run *unless* the server timer is actually stopped by Time Stop or paused by a DM. So they would run even when old area-specific version of the Time Stop spell was cast. For example, time stop could have been cast and technically, while time was stopped, slavers, assassins, etc could pop out and attack when everything else is frozen. Or something else could spawn within the time-frozen region after it was cast, or could come running to attack from outside the range of the previous time stop spell and attack as the spell affected only creatures in a radius of about 30 meters around the PC.
I know some people consider it an annoyance when Time Stop freezes everything, especially if more than one Time Stop is cast in a row. But since it only lasts for 9 seconds per casting anyway I'm willing to take the risk of people be annoyed about it on occasion rather than upset they somehow got killed or some timing got screwed up when time was supposedly stopped. Finally, as we do not have a large number of PCs that either have or will be spawning NPCs with that spell (which is also by design!), it should not be a terribly common occurrence.
RE: Time Stop - kta - 09-10-2011
Let me add that I really like the idea that Time Stop does actually stop the time of the whole server. So I greatly welcome this change and not only because I soon may have a very bad-ass caster that can do it in a row... 6 times... ah well I will restrain myself. :P
KTA