TEO Urman's page

I've been playing as a refiner, but running PvE in parties with company members.

Segment one is there, with all hexes having some monsters, and monster hexes having escalations (which do spread into neighboring hexes if not dealt with).*

Segment two is there, with node harvests and PvE drops being turned into refined, then crafted, goods.

Segment three... I've only played in the latest Alpha, with accelerated xp gain and free achievements, so it's hard to say. I think, looking at the crafting recipes and character skill advancement, that by about Day 3 characters are going to be using more player-created items that increase their lethality. For example, the fighters' Trophy Charm item needs silver bars, and a smelter like my character will be able to create those sometime in the third day.

* Combat against monsters has some cool subtleties. Just one example: if you take on two bandits in melee, the one you aren't targeting will get sneak attacks, just as if you were fighting two PC rogues. So in every encounter with monsters you can consider their mix and your abilities and engage with a little more tactics.

I've got two as well. After about 3:00 pm Pacific today, I'll be in game (and you could be, too.)

TEO Malvius012 wrote:

The bottom line for the people still arguing for this is to stoke their own egos.

That is an extremely unfair assumption to lay on anyone that supported the premise of the OP or the comments thereafter.

Guurzak's OP might be a terrible idea for the game, or it could be helpful.

Cyneric's assessment of reputation consequences in relation to high value items is either true or not on its own merits.

Taking everyone that supported the OP and stamping them narcissists cheapens the discussion. It is untrue, and is a Superman level logical leap.

And this is why, Malvius, it's not useful to make personal attacks like calling someone ignorant or to state that people that continue arguing one side of an issue are stoking their egos. Because then you can be called out for personally attacking other posters, and whoever calls you out will be right. (And your salient point, that perhaps nothing new has been said, will be lost).

... I think you may be discounting the value of forcing meaningful choices about what the Settlement does. Allowing every Settlement to support every Role seems kind of silly. Every Settlement will support every Role and still have great Markets and great Crafting facilities. Where are the trade-offs? There need to be opportunity costs.

Yes. What a settlement does will determine what a settlement is.

Some towns will be major trade hubs. Not all towns, because there are trade-offs. Some towns will be major trainers for a few skills, but not every town. Some towns will support 4 or 5 or 6 roles. Some towns will support almost every role, but they will sacrifice other things to be so inclusive.

Wild guess: NPC mobs will scale with hexes, just like the materials you find there. Those valuable Tier 3 materials in crater hexes will be well guarded.

I wonder if it could be possible to vary bow range based on movement. So firing while moving has a range of X (based on skill, dexterity, etc.). Firing while stationary gains a range increment every tick up to the character's maximum range.

I'm not sure where this no-competition anticycle is coming from. One on one is not the only combat dynamic, and duels between equals are not the reason most players will be logging in. If a full party of Tier-3 geared vets is a match for a 20-man formation in Tier 2, that's competition and incentive to gear up.

That's my expectation as well. I'm not sure how often combat will be merely for the sake of combat. If some group has the goal of burning down an enemy's Outpost, they'll want to wear enough gear that they can fight off opposition long enough to complete the task. Spending Friday night on multiple respawn runs because naked people die pretty fast might mean that the Outpost isn't destroyed at the end of the night.

I'd hope Tinker is ok; it's a good old word. Tink or Tinkerton wouldn't even raise an eyebrow.

Current trend seems to be heading towards lotsa nakid ppl running around with just the one massively expensive threaded bow and heaps of ammo kiting.

Sounds like a lot of ammo will drop as loot, then.

edit to add: Near-naked fighting might work in the short run, but damage mitigation will probably be more important when people have better weapons.

In another thread someone was discussing making five +1 swords or one +5 sword. If someone is carrying a +5 sword, she's probably going to be dedicated to melee, because she won't want to risk switching to a missile weapon and dying before she can switch back. Likewise, in some games like Wurm, people switch in and out of armor in chase situations. That might be a fast way to lose a good set of armor that's temporarily unthreaded.

I can attest to the fact that the idea of a "Tank" in D&D was certainly there in the mid-80's. With my group at the time, it was usually a "Dwarven Tank" in very heavy armor with lots of Con and HPs.

When I played TT, the fighters (and subclasses) were both the best armored and the best consistent long-term damage dealers. Mages were key for AoE against mass enemy groups or for massive damage against 'bosses'. They were critical for pulse damage in key fights, but weren't the consistent high-dps members of the party. Likewise, thieves/rogues were good for about 1-2 high damage outputs in a fight, but most of the time were only competent fighters - their value to the party rested on their other skills. So the classes weren't balanced, not by MMO standards, yet it worked pretty well.

In a world with Minecraft, I'm not sure people care as much about graphics as this thread implies.

With a couple hundred hours into Terraria, I'd like to give this a few more 'favorite' votes.

Both sides of this equation need to be balanced. Kiting needs to be possible, but melee characters need to have a fighting chance of closing range. Tipping too far to either end of the scale is bad for the game.

You say kiting needs to be possible - which seems balanced, but maybe it isn't. Maybe the answer is that when the archer turns to run, he's as helpless as anyone else who turned to run.

Maybe archers are able to move and shoot (while standing for some time) when they are protected by melee forces, And maybe melee forces work best when they are protected by archers. The kiting shooter might be a technique adopted in many games, but kiting doesn't have to be possible. I think it might take more from large fights than it adds to them.

TEO ArchAnjel wrote:

I don't believe ammo consumption will prove to be an effective counter balance as players will always be willing to spend gold for a marked advantage on the field. If I'm going out to PvP, I'll spend however much gold I need to load my inventory full of arrows knowing that arrows allow me to kill faster, more often, and more safely than any melee weapon in which I could invest said gold.

IRL, you can't transport more than what ? 30 arrows ? I think that the point of ammos isn't the price, but your capacity to transport it. EvE being a big inspiration for this game, I would be very surprised, to be able to transport 2000 arrows.

There's a couple of possible parts to ammo consumption which might make it more relevant, depending on how GW sets things up.

- Arrows might be considered somewhat bulky and unwieldly (they are almost 3' long and somewhat fragile) so each quiverful might have some non-trivial encumbrance. Every spare quiver of arrows that your character is carrying is that much loot or cargo he can't carry.

- Arrows aren't threaded. When you die, they become loot for whoever killed you.

Perhaps, they could be balanced in the sense that should they be killed, they stay that way. Makes it a much more meaningful choice that way.

I think your idea has merit; yes, if these afflictions are supposed to be curses, there should be a curse involved. However, I think making some option become perma-death just means the option would never be used or considered by the great majority of players.

I'll offer a few 'curses' that might fit:

- On death, the afflicted player respawns to a totally random respawn point. This might be better for were-types, as it's a loss of control.

- The character is limited to a single respawn point which can *never* be changed. This is a random selection from the character's threaded respawns at the time of affliction. This might be appropriate for vampires who are linked to home ground.

- The were- or vampire character is dependent on having some "hunting territory" - a chosen base hex. Character power is inversely proportional to the number of afflicted characters that claim that hex. Character loses X% of hit points, cumulative, each day he doesn't visit his hunting ground. Hit points recover back to normal each day the afflicted visits his hunting territory. This would encourage afflicted not to share their powers as they potentially weaken themselves. It also allows GW to put an effective cap on the number in the game, by setting the number allowed per hex.

Yeah, I had to read Killer Angels at some point; we had to write about one of the officers in the book, focusing on whether they were a 'great leader', Chamberlain was specifically not an option (because he pretty clearly was key at that certain point in the battle).

Well, I guess the Silent, disappointed or not, have been driven from this thread. Sort of sad that every thread eventually gets hijacked, but scrolling up, I see I'm not blameless.

Many of us are former/current military members, and know that "me" people aren't leaders--a large part of leadership is selflessness and focus on others. It's why military socialization includes punishing over-use of both "Me" language and "Me" conduct.

I'm curious about one point - do you think that leadership is universal? That is, are the traits required to be an excellent leader in a 21st Century/First World military heirarchy match those required to be an excellent military leader in the Civil War/Napoleonic era, or in the Middle Ages? Or does the existing social structure of a society have bearing on the traits that make a great leader?

@Feydred, it's not just in games. There were a few Dilbert strips that discussed business/tech management being selected by bladder-to-brain ratio.

The idea is that a leader is someone who convince others to come around to his way of thinking. But someone without a lot of imagination (or empathy, but they might be related) can latch onto an idea and not be budged from it. And if they have a large enough bladder to outlast everyone else in the meeting, viola! People accept the simple idea that the large-bladdered guy insists upon, and higher management says, "hey, that guy is a born leader".

The Dilbert strip is undoubtedly exaggerated, but has an element of truth. I'm sure we all most of us have made some concessions along the line, just because we're not willing to put our lives on hold to continue arguing some point with the guy who won't rest until he gets his way.

It's the French spelling, KC. They have a different word for everything. :)

The spelling I'm wondering about is this one (bolded):

As Ryan has pointed out, oh like a thousand times, player A and player B will experience willy varying amounts of PvP interactions, by design.

Did Mbando mean wildly, or was he channeling his inner Elmer Fudd and mean really? :D

TEO Urman wrote:

@albadeon, fighting hostile characters doesn't have an alignment hit. Even without the war of the tavernstowers, one good settlement can use faction warfare, feuds, and declared wars to attack members of another good settlement. It's honest, above-board, by-the-rules conflict and has no alignment penalty.

It doesn't have an alignment penalty rule-wise. But can you see a Paladin of Iomedae fight a Paladin of Sarenrae over ownership of a tower and still be rightfully able to call himself a Paladin? Seems to violate all that is is to be a good-aligned character...

Edit: Yes, I know, no Paladins in EE, but you get the point...

At one point, Ryan suggested that at one extreme paladins might be dedicated to PvE, avoiding PvP. There is one school of fantasy that believes that good-aligned characters will never disagree on something strongly enough to fight a war over their disagreements. I don't subscribe to that school. I believe that even horrible wars like our Crusades can be fought with some of the people on both sides being well-meaning and dedicated, some being venal, and some being dupes.

@albadeon, fighting hostile characters doesn't have an alignment hit. Even without the war of the tavernstowers, one good settlement can use faction warfare, feuds, and declared wars to attack members of another good settlement. It's honest, above-board, by-the-rules conflict and has no alignment penalty.

Or how to manage big group boredom in between major conflicts?

ooh - I think I know! When there's nothing going on in game, head to the forums, right?

@Decius - I'd be fine with "public works", too - that's a good addition. After the wailing and gnashing of teeth over "PoI" as not role-play friendly, I just figure it might as well be something we'd use in conversation that doesn't describe the mechanics too overtly. "Placeholder that gives a DI boost" is right out.

Given that list, Auxiliary Structures might fit best. (Warehouse, silo, well, guillotine? One of these is not like the others.)

While I appreciate the innovation, my first impression leaves me with 2 main concerns.

First...

Tork Shaw wrote:

A settlement with 6 towers MUST HAVE 6 ALLIED COMPANIES . . . Your company can capture one, and then you MUST make alliances with AT LEAST FIVE other companies to secure your other 5 adjacent towers.

...seems like a pointless hoop to make companies jump through, as they are obviously just going to break into smaller companies to hold more towers. Instead of TEO holding 6 towers, TEO 1-6 will each hold one tower. Why bother requiring this?

I'm not sure of other groups, but based on what we know of the game so far (a 50-character company can hold 1 POI well, or 2 POIs badly; company Influence is limited if the company goes over 50 characters; and other bits), TEO would have to break into multiple companies anyway. In our internal discussions, TEO is an organization somewhere between a sponsored company and a settlement (one that Ryan doesn't list), because we fully expect that the settlement Brighthaven will incorporate lots of companies that aren't TEO, but the TEO companies intend to maintain their identity as such.

So yes, we'll split up into multiple companies, but we're also always willing to incorporate small independent companies all through this process and the tower wars.

Edit to add: I fully expect that most of the other settlements also are willing to incorporate smaller companies. Certainly all of the settlements that survive into OE will.

Or not, ArchAnjel. Going from 6 towers to 7 towers to get that level 1 wizard facility might not be worth expanding the PvP vulnerability by an additional 1-2 hours every day for the next 3-5 months. Building that facility from scratch might take less effort once settlements are live. A settlement might better spend their time in other pursuits; every hour locked in PvP is an hour a character might not be gaining achievements, harvesting and banking resources, etc.

<Flask> Ulf Stonepate wrote:

The Gauntlet has 11 players. They are surrounded by four groups with 17, 18, 31, and 50. How realistic are their chances?

Keep in mind that a lot more people will get involved once EE starts. They are hoping for around 20,000 within a couple months... that'd be ~20x the land rush population. Those players will apparently have a choice of joining one of the 33 land rush settlements or sitting out the 'war of towers' until the ability to build new settlements is added.

Strictly guesswork on my part of how the game will unfold, but I think waiting for the ability to build new settlements is not a winning move.

If I were leading a smaller company (ie, not going to be in the top 33) and really, really, really wanted to be in the settlement management game, I'd be looking for a spot and looking at that spot's neighbors. Strong settlements will be able to leverage their success to helping other settlements get started - and they're likely to look to people who have been long-time allies.

I think to "win" (ie, to survive), a settlement is going to have to be able to juggle PvP, PvE, diplomacy, gathering and crafting to some acceptable degree. Might as well jump in early - the world isn't going to be more forgiving in OE.

Sure, if someone has enough characters, training time, player time, and multitasking ability to assault a tower while defending thirty others, they're going to be pretty powerful entities.

The difficulty of keeping all your towers scales with the square of the number of towers held- you have to hold an increasing number of towers for an increasingly long window. Meanwhile, the number of companies holding a tower increases linearly, and the difficulty of finding a time for the vulnerability window that works well for every company explodes in a manner greater than exponentially.

Agreed. Even big settlements are going to have to take an appetite suppressant; there's little reason to take and claim a lot of towers if you can't protect them day after day. Taking them with spare companies, but not claiming them might be a technique, but then the members of the companies may be missing training opportunities and becoming relatively weaker day by day. The number of towers that a settlement "needs" might therefore start low and increase over time if they are on the leading edge of their training - leading to more conflict over time.

For those that want to PvP, this is a good setup. For those settlements that want to get some people trained up in PvP with low cost/impact, this might encourage some to dip their toes into that pool of gameplay.

There may be some sides to this that don't involve PvP. If you want to be an explorer, you might be set - just be aware of the PvP windows for different hexes and be somewhere else. Same if you want to focus on PvE or harvesting. And when your settlement's window is closed, they might actually just encourage people to be free each to go do their thing.

@Bringslight - except those chokepoints *aren't* included as rep-free PvP areas.

I'm posting just as a player, not as an official representative of TEO. My 2 coins about where the Roseblood Accord *could* go, if the various companies/groups that signed up were so inclined:

Make the Roseblood Accord a statement of chivalric principles. Define those principles however you all choose. It might include things like the following: Those who agree to the Accord agree to wage any conflict between themselves and other signatories of the accord through declared wars, company feuds (including outpost raiding), and faction warfare. Banditry (SAD), raids outside of feuds, and attacks on unflagged persons are not acceptable against other signatories, unless the other has already violated the Accord. Signatories will not harvest in each others lands without permission. Signatories will depart each other's lands when asked. Wars and feuds will be declared before entering the target's lands. etc., etc.

I think it's good to talk about positive gameplay, but I wonder if that's totally undefinable. I think that there will (or should be) the possibility of conflict (PvP combat-type conflict) between signatories. But if you all want that combat to be conducted by some sort of fantasy-chivalric code, make that the basis for the accord.

(Edit to add - Bluddwolf's post appeared right after I posted. I think the signatories to the Roseblood accord could eschew banditry and attacks on non-hostiles; just because something is in the game doesn't mean they need to use those methods or accept others who do.)

If new characters start at 1000, and if the highest useful settlement threshold (i.e. the level at which all T3 structures and advances are permitted) is higher than 1000, then that means that newbies cannot join that settlement at birth.

I don't think this is a good idea; I think that someone who joins the game specifically to play with Group X should be able to move to their desired settlement immediately if they like. So either the highest threshold needs to be no higher than 1000, or newbies need to start higher.

That's what I've thought all along - new players shouldn't be excluded from settlements - settlements shouldn't have to decide between recruiting new players and having Tier 3 capabilities. I expect that a "high" threshold for settlements will actually be something like 0 or 1000, like you say. There may, of course be other things required for Tier 3 facilities, but for Rep, that might be it.

If that were the case, then the "medium" threshhold (ie, Tier 2 limit) could be something like -2500. Note that that's also the entry threshold for most NPC towns, which will likely all be Tier 1 at some point. Then the "low" threshold for NPC towns (a limited number) might be -5000 (though I'm not sure if there's ever a point where you can't enter *any* NPC town). The "low" (Tier 1 limit) for PC towns would be the -7500 floor.

ps. Your accent slipped again. I think I've see that happen frequently when you write good, meaty posts like this one.

(NOTE: I do notice there is only one announced evil settlement on the map....but evil has a way of always showing up.)

I figure every -N settlement probably has some number of members that are evil. And some that are good as well. Those settlements have chosen to place themselves at that point on the continuum, to allow members those options.

I'm not surprised that the one announced evil settlement is LE; they can eventually join a LN nation. A NE settlement is very limited on the nations it could join; a LE settlement has many more potential partners.

Locke, that's sort of true. Someone could belong to a settlement and belong to three companies that are unsponsored.

I think the way it will work in game, though, is that since sponsored companies will be holding the PoI hexes around the settlement (in order to add the Development Index (DI) from the hex to the settlement's count), many/most people that belong to a settlement will also belong to a sponsored company.

Also, when settlements get up to 200-500 characters, it may be easier for settlement leadership to manage companies than individuals.

PoIs are always holding a hex, so for role-players, you can talk about someone's lands (rather than hexes or PoIs) perhaps.

I think of holdings as the generic term: Settlements, PoIs, and Outposts can all be holdings at different levels.

Thanks, CBDunkerson and Guurzak, for interjecting the known facts. It's sometimes good to start a discussion from what we do know. Even if may change in the future, GW has said that settlements can be set up so that the PvP vulnerability window is never open.

The OP suggested that a zero-pvp windowed settlement would have settlement, POIs, and Outpost protected from PvP attack. I'm not sure that's the current case. The settlement might generally be protected. Some guards might be pushed from the settlement to POIs or Outposts, but the total number of guards in those surrounding hexes isn't guaranteed to keep those POIs and Outposts in the settlement's hand.

On the other hand, it's the reason a lot of people I talk to are not at all interested in the game. They can never catch up to EE players. Assuming EE lasts around 18 months like was proposed at one point, that puts us 18 months ahead of OE players. If it's still taking 2.5 years to get to max skill level, that puts us 60% ahead. As long as we're subscribed, their is no way for any of them to get to equal footing.

Yet people still join EVE.

In almost all TT games, there's some local NPCs in charge of the town or village or whatnot, and they are higher level than the PCs in many cases. So what happens when there's few NPCs? Some PC is going to be in charge of the town and have a more advanced set of skills than many junior PCs. It won't be that bad.

I hope. :). I'm due to come in to EE in month 2, so everybody will be 'level 8' after their month in EE, and I'll be one of the new 'level 1' commoners.

I think that if I had seen Rust before we planned Pathfinder Online we might have risked a much more minimum game than we did. As it is, we're still pretty "minimum" compared to what most people think of when they think of an MMO, but there's a pretty robust game in there already. It's a long way more complex than Rust.

I guess I'm glad you didn't see Rust first. Like Tyncale, I found it not worth the effort. otoh, I played Wurm for several years, and when I tried Rust my first impression was "Oh, gods, no. I'm not going to spend that kind of time again, grinding away for very little gain."

Kryzbyn, I think it will be possible, to an extent. The character won't really be competing with the most serious players in the game, who will leverage faction membership, company ties, and settlement training and connection to be much more powerful.

I think a lot of people have the same concern - they want to be more in control of their game time and destiny and not give that over to some settlement war marshal. You might be surprised; I think many or most settlements probably are willing to give 'solo' players space. Almost everyone has something to offer a settlement.

If low rep earns less and less influence to feud, then they will use feuds less and less. This would remove the incentive for them to feud. Feuding does not only allow the attacker to PvP without negative consequences, but also the defender has the ability to attack preemptively as well.

I believe they want the game to be PvP most of the time, but remember, PvP is not just combat.

I was speaking of feuds and factional conflict and warfare - I thought you were as well. If PvP is not just combat, then having a new mechanism that benefits war over faction conflict and faction over feud is only dealing with some small fraction of your PvP. By that standard, GW would also need to make decisions as to whether crafting earns more influence than gathering, and whether processing ore earns more influence than a feud. If it's all PvP, your new mechanic probably needs to consider it all.

If GW wants to tie Influence to in-game choices, I'm not sure they need to prioritize feud vs. faction. Why should GW decide which is better?

If we're getting Influence primarily from company members' achievements, it might be simpler to tie Influence gain to the player character's Reputation: Take a baseline Rep of 0 earning 100% Influence for achievements; having a Rep higher than 0 doesn't have to earn more Achievement than that. But Rep lower than 0 could have a linear drop-off in achievements' Influence gain, where bottom Rep of -7500 earns 0 Influence for achievements.

I'm not sure low Rep should get lower Influence. I am pretty sure that GW doesn't need to be in the business of subsidizing war vs. faction vs. feud. (And why should feuds or faction or war kills gain Influence beyond that normally gained for achievements - unless they want the game to be all PvP, all the time?)

edit to add: ramping down Influence available to low Rep groups would also provide another incentive to not become low Rep: the group would be able to attack without a feud, for example, if they disregard Rep losses, but would have less and less Influence to use feuds until they raised their Rep.

It seems to me like you could also use your secondary company membership as an "assist" for an allied company, feeding it a portion of your influence for their own needs while not actively participating in it. This could be used as a bargaining tool between smaller companies.

But only if that allied second company is not sponsored by any settlement. As Guurzak suggests, funneling influence to non-sponsored military companies could work; most members of such a company would get their training from their primary company's sponsor.

That's how I read it, too, Nihimon. Most people will probably have their settlement-sponsored company be primary, but not all.

My tertiary company might also be someone else's secondary company, and therefore have some influence.

False. Maybe a couple dozen, but hardly 1 brazillion. How many zeros is that again?

The next person has a beard *and* a mustache.

I'm worried about the utility of PFO as a tool for relaxation. We're all pretty-well agreed letting one's guard down is a route to a chat with Pharasma, so PFO at the end of a long day's work may be contraindicated.

It depends on one's focus and definition of relaxing.

If your character is a crafter, for example, you log on, get supplies from your contacts, and spend a half hour or hour setting up the crafting queue you were thinking about since lunch in your cubicle.

If you've got gathering skills, you log on, check where your settlement is gathering this afternoon or evening and run out to smash nodes for the next 45 minutes. Same thing if you're a PvE specialist - the nodes might just look like goblins and drop resources and coin.

As an aside: please give us some ability to change the name of a settlement as the game goes along. Some cost, DI, whatever. The players who name the settlements on founding and the players who control the settlements 2-5 years from now may have very different ideas on the town's direction.

In the real world, I live in a city that was originally named "Duwamps" in 1851. Its name was changed in 1853 to "Seattle." Name changes aren't uncommon.

Not even an evil hit for death. Attacking and killing a flagged/hostile character isn't "murder", it's just "killing". It's not a rep hit or an evil hit.

I don't think there will be any shortage of Faction Flags you can fly that allow players to attack on another outside of NPC guarded areas, even within CC's.

I've heard chatter of something like a "Red & Blue" type faction anyone should be eligible to join. Sure you have to coordinate it, but that shouldn't be that much of a speedbump.

Agreed. Likewise, a number of players can agree to have one character "steal" the loot from a kill, maybe taking a chaos hit, but flagging as a legitimate target. I'm sure there will be other ways to flag without taking a Rep loss.

If actually doing a lot of PvP in early EE brings a reward (ie, better understanding of PvP mechanics) that can't be gained through PvE, then those that pay the price (rep loss, alignment shift, Influence expenditure through feuds, etc.) will be better at PvP later than those that aren't willing to pay that price. But there's likely ways to avoid paying a steep price.

@Bluddwolf If OE exposed the 6000 EE to an immediate influx of 20,000 more players you'd have a point; but that's not the growth plan is it? It's a much shallower curve where the uninitiated remain outnumbered by the established and self-reinforcing. Plenty of opportunity to flay minds.

Like Bluddwolf, I'm thinking that Ryan isn't planning to keep the population at 6000 or 8000 for however many months EE lasts. Here's what he said Tuesday, though there may be better quotes. He doesn't talk about OE:

Settlement size will be a function of density. If there are 100 settlements and 50,000 players, it's not unreasonable to expect that the average settlement would have hundreds of players. We hope to get to that point in reasonably short order - maybe 6-12 months....

@Arlock, TEO and Brighthaven are intended to be two different entities, but: what do you mean you're not in TEO? What changed saying you're not in TEO? Feel free to send a pm.