Custom Descriptions

[Dudel]

Firstly, I'd think the whole "ocean sun kissed" is a color description and not a "Tanned via an ocean sun." An ocean tan is darker and implies a much richer skin tone as they are ALWAYS near the ocean which has a high reflective rate for the sun. You can tell when someones been on vacation, yes? Really. NOT TO MENTION, you can have an ocean sun tan and NOT be anywhere NEAR the ocean. It could be the natural skin tone meaning they are more of a Spanish origin then others. Really, again.

As for the descriptions themselves, I'm worried that things of the above will be added to the "poor RP" category for people who don't understand things. Be they the CR or people who know how to write more then three competent sentences in the English language.

So many people already try to distort the CR and thrash at people for certain behaviors as it is that I see a problem, now, I did not see earlier. More faulty/false and whiny "This is a breach CR!" when such an event is not. This would be via the CRB sub-forum.

My descriptions are short and hit the major parts. Eyes, hair, anything special about clothes/person and that's about it. They are still loosely vague and require my opposite RPer to imply things themselves.

[Rebma]

I have to say I'm eagerly anticipating the finalization of this. I got to see the description of a character that travels with mine (when they were briefly visible yesterday), and it's safe to say that this is going to add a whole new level to Cantr, and I'm really excited about it!

They were briefly visible?!?! I'm so jealous. I can't sleep because my mind is racing through all the characters mine know and wondering what if they'll look how I think.

[Doug R.]

Honestly, I have high hopes that the players will police this new feature themselves by reporting problem descriptions as they are discovered. We could even create a forum thread of reported descriptions and then explain why they're either bad or acceptable. Actually, that's a damn good idea. We can then toss a link to it into the feature guide.

[Mafia Salad]

I didn't know if I would like this feature, but I really do. I found it especially nice for my less developed characters who I never had a real clear picture of in my mind. Writing out their descriptions really helped me better establish their personality in my mind.

[randognsac]

I really didn't have much of an opinion about this feature to begin with. But I figured I would try it out.

He is a six foot tall, long and lanky man. He is thin weighing in at 150 pounds. His skin is darkly tanned from years out on the sea. He has very light colored hair, almost white. With bright, glowing, neon green eyes.

I tried to stay within the guidelines, but then I read this topic. It seems like way to much trouble now. I don't think there is any way to do this right. More frustrating than fun for me.

If you know my characters, then you know my style. I really don't emote very often because of the same reasons above. I know I am not that good at it and I don't want to offend everyone else. I am sure if I took the time I'd probably be pretty good. But I think way to much into stuff to properly communicate it. i.e. this post!

[EchoMan]

I wouldn't put the "150 pounds" in there, since cantr characters wiegh 60000 grams (if I recall correctly) and a pound is something unknown in game. But I guess it would be ok to say hi has a thin build though.

[SumBum]

I really didn't have much of an opinion about this feature to begin with. But I figured I would try it out.

He is a six foot tall, long and lanky man. He is thin weighing in at 150 pounds. His skin is darkly tanned from years out on the sea. He has very light colored hair, almost white. With bright, glowing, neon green eyes.

I tried to stay within the guidelines, but then I read this topic. It seems like way to much trouble now. I don't think there is any way to do this right. More frustrating than fun for me.

If you know my characters, then you know my style. I really don't emote very often because of the same reasons above. I know I am not that good at it and I don't want to offend everyone else. I am sure if I took the time I'd probably be pretty good. But I think way to much into stuff to properly communicate it. i.e. this post!

I don't see anything wrong with that description, although it has been discussed that putting the "years out on the sea" thing is giving away info another char shouldn't know just by looking at yours. It is proving to be more difficult than I thought to come up with descriptions for some of mine, but I think it's fun and also makes me consider my chars more from another's perspective. I think that's how you have to approach it - what would someone see just by looking at your char without ever speaking to them.

[Sabsi]

I'm getting the error message that my text has been truncated because it was too long, even when it seems to have exactly 500 characters and no character is missing at the end. Is it wanted like that?

Oh, and I'm really having problems to make descriptions in two different languages fit into the 500 character limit.

[Doug R.]

Is there a reason for the 500 limit? I would think it should be at least doubled to accommodate people in bilingual zones.

Sabsi - According to Seko, ' and " can count for as many as six characters because they're converted to code.

[Snake_byte]

He is a six foot tall, long and lanky man. He is thin weighing in at 150 pounds. His skin is darkly tanned from years out on the sea. He has very light colored hair, almost white. With bright, glowing, neon green eyes.

What about:

He is a six foot tall, thin, long armed, lanky-looking man. His skin is darkly tanned, obviously from direct sun exposure for long periods of time. He has very light colored hair, almost white. With bright, glowing, neon green eyes.

[SekoETC]

Description length was originally 250 in the test environment, I think that was copied from another text field, then since that was too short, it was doubled to 500. A limit is just to keep them brief. I wouldn't mind increasing it to 1000 or even beyond that.

The error message should only appear if the message length is over 500, not exactly 500, but if your exactly 500 contains quotation marks, apostrophes, ampersands or line breaks, my logic says something would get truncated. It's strange if nothing does.

[randognsac]

Okay after some sleep and everyones input. Here is my revision:

He is a six foot tall, long and lanky man. He has a very thin build. His skin is darkly tanned and rough looking. He has very light blonde colored hair, sun bleached almost white. It is quite long and very straight. His eyes are a piercing and glowing neon green color.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Okay after some sleep and everyones input. Here is my revision:

He is a six foot tall, long and lanky man. He has a very thin build. His skin is darkly tanned and rough looking. He has very light blonde colored hair, sun bleached almost white. It is quite long and very straight. His eyes are a piercing and glowing neon green color.

Very nice job.

[Dudel]

I saw nothing wrong with the ocean comment or the 150lbs as the descriptions are for PLAYER benefit and thus in order for people to understand saying such things IS NOT a CRB.

This is my problem with a lot of things. Twisting the CR. "There are no pounds in Cantr" WHO THE FK CARES!? Its for descriptive purposes to players know what the heck is going on. If you say he's X amount of kilograms you aren't getting a guy who's very big.

I mean, in "the spirit of Cantr" you'll get people ripping the word "neon" out of there as its something that doesn't fit their Cantr world view of what's "okay". "People can't have neon eyes! I'ma report that!" etc.

You can't win, and as the description is all OOC for OOC reasons and to benefit OOC it REALLY doesn't matter.

He is a short man with scaly skin and a small tail. His teeth are sharp and his eyes indent into his head every so lightly. His nose is more of a snoot and includes his mouth, looking more like an animal jaw.

The above, we have a problem with it? He's a lizard, but I didn't SAY lizard... so that makes it okay.

Just have at whatever, randognsac. I'd not worry about it, AT ALL.

In order to "please y'all" he removed any comment about the man's build all together, which isn't something that should be encouraged. And simply adding the word "appear" or "possible" takes away anyones gripes about the "years at sea", anyway. Its all rather stupid.

[randognsac]

I had the same feelings and thoughts Dudel. If I were to say he weighs # of kilograms that does nothing for other players. I couldn't tell you what 1 kilo of anything looks like. But Americans like me can guess what a six foot tall 150lbs man looks like. That was why I used the amount of weight. To give other people a frame of reference to imagine what I look like to their characters.

I feel that the descriptions should be for the players benefit. Not the characters. Use the descriptions how you will. If you think about it, nobody walks around with a description of themselves in RL. They are OOC not IC like Dudel pretty much said, so it shouldn't really matter.