I just tried to page someone and they happened to disconnect just before I did, and I got an error that they didn’t exist.
Made me panic and think maybe they deleted, but I went and checked their area and their rooms are still there, with them listed as owner. So I tried to page someone else offline, and got the same thing.
This is true, it’s not the best message. Perhaps “Character is not online” is better.
Strong second on that!
An early interaction I had here involved a player I was chatting with in the Park quite reasonably calling it a night due to another player* acting disruptively. When I mailed them to say I had fun and hoped to see them more, I got the “doesn’t exist” message, and my heart went through the floor, thinking they were so disgusted with the disruption that they self-deleted. Which, happily, wasn’t the case at all.
I also remedied this just like Windchaser did, experimentally pinging folks that I knew still existed but weren’t online. Whew! So, I hadn’t thought about it since then. But, yes, totally worth some attention.
* To whomever is reading this: it wasn’t you.
@Windchaser, are we talking about this error when using message?
There is no character named “Accipiter”.
I will change it to:
There is no character awake named “Accipiter”.
@Halstrick, you error is probably a different one, as you talk about mailing:
Character not found.
This is typically seen if you try to mail someone using only the first name when that character is asleep, and is not in your Watch list. This will be improved by allowing first name only to be used. And then we can also improve the error message.
For using first name, see: [Documentation] Clarify single name vs full name
Yep, I figured all that out eventually, and I ended up successfully sending mail to their full name, to my great relief.
That first error message ("There is no character named…") is the one I saw, if memory serves, because I tried to page them before I saw they’d hung it up for the night.
I think your proposed reword is good!
Perhaps the error message could go a little further and suggest using the character’s full name, if the player has appeared to provide only a first name?