Stopped time in gameplay is exactly that: a way to halt the time. The premise behind them is the fact that technically, if you think about it, a fight in RL only lasts a few seconds .. a couple of minutes, tops. This means that there usually isn't time for newcomers to actually participate in the event. Therefore, you can set up an object named "STOPPED TIME" and set it down. The people involved in the fight, let's say, can enter the timestop and continue to RP the event freely without having to worry about outsiders or lemmings coming in and interrupting something they technically could not be a part of. They can also be used if for example, your character is in a fight with another but you are both in an alleyway or on a roof top .. in a place where no one else would probably notice you were there as this is New York and each room that you are in is in reality a very large place filled with other people so the chances of not seeing everyone when you walk into a room is possibly slim.

Make sure when you do use a timestop that it has a rough desc of the area you are in, ie, a roof top or an alleyway, etc. Also, make sure it is set !opaque so that when people look at it, they can see who all is inside it and then they page a person and tell them why they should be able to join in, ie, they can teleport or were called in ICly, etc. These are not mandatory but they do help cut down on unnecessary spam and can help avoid possible confusion. Any questions concerning this, please page a Wizard or a Staff member.

(Note: The way this has been for the last 8 years and who knows how much longer before that apparently is not okay to use because some company with too much time on their hands has sent us a cease and desist for using a word that is in our vocabularies without ever having heard of them. Oh well, what can you do.)