Thursday, August 6, 2009

RR Tutorial : Timers

Hello and welcome back to this series of RealRestraint tutorials. Today we are going to talk about timers. I assume you have read the "Locking" tutorial first, if you haven't please do so now, you'll need it to understand what I'm going to talk about here.

So what if you lock your friend up after a lost bet, but you're not sure you'll be there when she needs to be released (notice I didn't say "when she wants to be released") ? Timers are your friends in this instance. Remember these "No timer", "+30 mn" and "+3 h" buttons on the second page of the menu ? Before I start explaining what these buttons do, let me expose what a timer means, in the first place.

By default, when a restraint is locked after being unlocked, it is meant to stay locked until "the end of time". Or "until the keyholder wishes to unlock it", whichever comes first. In other words it has no timer by default, or rather an infinite timer. But when you start adding time, the timer suddenly becomes zero, then is immediately increased by the time you specified. And as time passes, the timer decreases as well, slowly, down to zero. When it reaches zero, the captive gets her key back and she is able to unlock herself. Until then the key is just out of her reach.

Now, you may have noticed that the menu always shows two timers, not one. Well it's simple, the first one goes up, it is the time you have spent restrained so far. The second one goes down, it is the time you are going to stay restrained. Easy. And a third one shows the longest time you have stayed restrained, just so that you can gloat to your friends. Hehe.

So let's go back to your locked up bet-loser friend. She can't do anything with her cuffs besides struggling (more on that in another tutorial). She cannot add time because no timer is set, meaning she's on an infinite timer. If she could add time she could free herself in half an hour, which would be too easy. She cannot do anything, and she wants her key back so she can unlock herself here and now. If you left the key on, she could be able to unlock herself indeed.

But instead you click on her cuffs and go to the second page with "More...". Let's say you want to be a bit nasty with her and trick her, so you just press "+30 mn". What happens ? The cuff says that 30 minutes have been added to its timer, and that it is now going to stay locked for 0:30:0, that's 30 minutes in total. So far so good. Your friend grins because she thinks you're a softie. Half an hour only, pshaw !

This particular timer counts online time only (not all do that, for instance the RL Timer plugin counts time regardless of online status). This means that your friend is going to have to bear half an hour bound there. She can of course go AFK, but that's half an hour during which she is not going to go anywhere. Even if she logs off in the middle, she won't be magically released when she comes back one hour later. Her cuffs will stay on for half an hour because you decided so.

But this little pest is still grinning, obviously taunting you. It would be a good time to gag her, perhaps. Because... you press "+30 mn" again. What happens now ? The cuff says that it added yet another 30 minutes, pushing the time up to one hour. She is not grinning anymore, she's now glaring at you ! Poor girl. Of course she has little say in this.

What about the key ? Obviously she wants her key back, one hour may feel a bit long for her. Well let's give her the key back ! You press "Leave Keys" on the first page of the menu. What can she do now ? Can she just take the key and unlock herself ? Not at all. The key sits there, for all to see and use, but she is powerless to use it herself. All that she can do is struggle, and add time herself ! She couldn't add time before, until you added time yourself.

Now it is time to show her who's in control. You take the key back by pressing the "Take Keys" button, once again granting yourself the right to access her cuffs, and nobody else, then you go to the second page and press the "+3 h" button. Immediately her glaring look transforms into a pleading look, surely you can't leave her bound for 4 hours ! Can you ?

Yes you can, and you do. You don't log off, but you wander outside while knowing your friend is safe and secure in your house. Sometimes you check on her, sometimes you go AFK to do some RL chores, and eventually the timer expires. When it does you get a message from the cuffs saying that the time is up and that your friend got her key back and is now able to unlock herself. She can, because she's now granted "full access" again (she has her key, and is under no timer).

And she frees herself so... perhaps now is the time to... uh... run... quickly !

Marine

PS : I know someone who stayed more than 1800 hours straight in restraints. That's like 4 hours a day, everyday, for more than a year. You can try to beat her score. Hehe.