Last Words/Death scene

[SekoETC]

I think it was suggested somewhere that once the person is dying for sure, anyone could finish them off just as long as they have some sort of a weapon. And maybe it could ask for confirmation with "Are you sure? This person is no longer a threat to anyone." That would make people think twice before executing a helpless person.

People would die automatically after 1 day of the mortal blow. Generally most people could only speak one line but there would be a small chance of living longer than that. Also maybe speech could cut off in mid sentence. But what about emotes then? It wouldn't make much sense if emotes could be cut in the middle. So maybe it could search the string for asterisks or double colons and post stuff between those as a whole. But maybe with a possibility of cutting after a period, in which case it would paste an ending character to make the block complete. If you're confused, I think I could write the code in C.

[SekoETC]

Code: Select all

#include <stdio>
#include <stdlib>//rand
#include <time>//time()
#include <string>//strlen, strncpy


char lastLine[] = "*Emote one. Emote two.* Something to say. *Emote three.*";//this line is actually from what the player posted but we'll use a constant for this example
char outputLine[];
int deadline, i, minChars = 3, maxChars = 300, asterisk = 0, col = 0, isEmote = 0;
//minChars and maxChars will be defined by the staff

srand (time(NULL));//initialize random number generator
deadline = rand() % (maxChars-minChars+1) + minChars;//should be 3 to 300 in this case

if ( strlen(lastLine) <= deadline ) deadline -= strlen(lastLine);
//in this case the line goes through unmodded and they are allowed to post again, but for the next time deadline is no longer random but will use what was left over from the previous round
else {

for (i = 0; i <strlen>= deadline)
   {
      if (!isEmote)
      {
         strncpy(lastLine,outputLine,i);
         outputLine[i] = '/0';
         break;
      }
      else if (lastLine[i] == '.');
      {
         strncpy(lastLine,outputLine,i);
         if (asterisk == 1)
         {
            outputLine[i] = '*';
            outputLine[i+1] = '/0';
         }
         else
         {
            outputLine[i] = ':';
            outputLine[i+1] = ':';
            outputLine[i+2] = '/0';
         }
         isEmote = 0;
         break;
      }
   }//end past deadline check

   if (i == strlen(lastLine) - 1 && isEmote)//if is the last character and emote is still active
   {//we'll assume asterisk or double colon was misused and the string will be cut like it had been regular speech
      strncpy(lastLine,outputLine,deadline);
      outputLine[deadline] = '/0';
      break;
   }//alternatively if double colons were used and col == 3, we could assume they just had a typo and go through the string again backwards to find the last occurance of a colon, then cut it there. But this is quite a lot of trouble over a marking system I only know two people to use.
   
}//end if
//something here to post outputLine as a talk event
}//end else

I was just checking if the tag signs are causing any data loss as that's a common problem here on the forums but at least in preview mode it doesn't seem to be cutting any stuff. And naturally this doesn't work because it doesn't have main() and it doesn't actually print out anything because that would be done by the regular event processing system.

[Joshuamonkey]

That's a good idea! We should totally do that! (lol, maybe only for people who live more than a year?) Or just have all the items they're carrying already drop on the ground.

[Crosshair]

I suggested this before... Cause like... I'm great. I agree with it.

[SekoETC]

Yeah, there were several topics so I rejected the others as duplicates.

Since this is the oldest topic on this subject, it should be where the discussion happens. But since some of the other topics on this matter are rather lengthly, instead of quoting their posts here I shall just post the links for reference.

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3331
http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6234
http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13315
http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13982

[Chris]

How about storing your dying words/emote ahead of time? You could change your dying words any time before your death. When you actually die, your last words are automatically spoken just before the death. This way, there is no long delay between the mortal blow and death.

[Wolf]

How about storing your dying words/emote ahead of time? You could change your dying words any time before your death. When you actually die, your last words are automatically spoken just before the death. This way, there is no long delay between the mortal blow and death.

Pro's:
+ It adds to the roleplay.
+ It is another thing that could cause people to give serious thought to being original.
+ It makes sleepy towns with lots of dying sleepers more interesting.

Con's:
- It can ruin roleplay if someone has dyingwords that have nothing to do with his/her death.
For example, a newspawn in a pewaceful town just falls asleep and after the usual timeframe croaks from a heart-attack, but the dying words are used to emote some huge battle against teenage mutant ninja turtles.
- It can make your sleepy but pleasantly quiet town into a hellhole, because every time one from the hordes of sleepers croaks, it shows up as an event, and you check that char of yours which lights up, only to find that someone croaked with some dramatic, original yet pointless words.
- If there actually are hordes of sleepers waiting to croak at around the same time, the server throws a hissy-fit and lag goes up.
- Some noob-spawn uses the option to go against the rules and tells the town, with his/her dying words, to leave his stuff to so-and-so, three towns away, which is a char of his/hers too... or says that he/she was killed by some char in some mysterious way, just because they have an ooc-grudge against some other player or another player's char.
- "Dis game sux & ure all lame" ... 'nuff said about that bad example.
- Staff needs to patrol a lot more to get to inappropriate/ooc-ish dying words in time.
- People adding something in the text that the database doesn't manage to properly handle, resulting in database failures.

I can come up with a load more con's, but dinner's ready.
And while I see more con's than pro's, I'm actually liking the idea.
Maybe another field to add to a character's page, with a checkbox to choose if you want some dying words or not, and if yes, a text-field where those last words can be entered and edited.
And a noitice could be added to warn people not to add specific chars that would make the database crap out.

[Joshuamonkey]

Unfortunately, those are true, but I don't think we should not add something just because of the possibility that someone might break the CR with it. If they're really determined, they'll do it anyway...

It appears that from this thread, ideas are getting better and better at how to implement it in the game, so I agree.

[Chris]

If people want to say OOC stuff, they can say it at any time. Last words wouldn't add anything new in that respect. Warn the player that his/her account will be suspended/deleted if it happens again.

As far as the relevance of the last words, you would have to think about it. If there is no particular threat, you would do best to put down something generic — e.g., *groans and falls to the ground*.

[Wolf]

@ Chris:
Account suspension/deletion isn't as big a deterrent as it should be - it's easy to circumvent that and open up new accounts.
For some, it's even a sport to get as many of their accounts as possible suspended or deleted.
Any two-cent scriptkiddie with a one-cent computer and a three-cent connection can come up with at least two ways to get past being blocked.

And that logic of it not adding anything new - let's say that there are, give or take a bunch, 50 ways in which a car can be used to kill people, even if unintentional.
I'm sure you'd be the first to protest if someone bolted flamethrowers to their already lethal front bumper and started racing through your street, firing the flametrowers whenever someone got in their way.
While killing someone is a far greater violation than putting inappropriate stuff in a game, the logic of it not adding anything new is exactly the same, so either let me jack a car and equip it with a bunch of lethal devices and massive bumpers and a shredder where the grill sits, or... wait, I'm kinda drifting off topic here...
Bottom line, if you'd protest because an already lethal thing like a car gets equipped with even more ways to kill someone, then you should follow that same logic for inappropriate messages in a game.
But as said, despite there being more con's than pro's in my view, I'm actually liking the idea.

[Voltenion]

it would improve the rp a lot! and maybe staff could control a bit the last death words or scene...are there many chars dieing every day?

[Joshuamonkey]

are there many chars dieing every day?

Unfortunately, yes.

[Voltenion]

oh...then it woulnd't be that easy to the staff...

[joo]

It is unnecessary, and it would screw up the rp (plus it would take too much trouble to implement).

Cantr isn't like real life -- people don't respond immediately to events, and that's the way it is. It's best to be consistent rather than implement a complex and lag-inducing feature that has so much potential for abuse or mistakes.

For example: what if a person changed their death-string when they were at 50%, but by the time they logged on again, the next day they were at 99% and events had caused them to want to change their death-string. Then they die before the change gets through and the worng death string is sent.

P.S. sekoETC, when will you realise just how much better C++ is than outdated old C?

[SekoETC]

In fact I learned the basics of programming in C++. But I didn't understand all aspects of it so now I learned C in school. And I think it looks more like a real function to write print(""); rather than cout << ""; C++ is weird...