Emotes and layout for creation of tools

[Skimpen]

Hey, just started playing this game, but I already see something that I miss.

1. Emotes First, I would like to be able to type pure emotes, instead of "Person X says: *Laughs*. Everyone knows a *_* is an emote, but it would still be better if you could make a pure emote, something like "Person X laughs." You get it?
-
Person X says: *laughs*
Person X laughs.

Emotes is very important for text based roleplaying.

2. Layout One other thing: can you improve the layout for creating tools etc? Perhaps making at least 2-3 rows or something, it is a pain to navigate with just a huge scrolling list, filling up like 3 whole computer screens of scrolling. You get no overview.[/b]

[SekoETC]

Emotes like that were suggested in some other topic though I don't remember where it is. (Maybe someone could link it here?) Anyway people were complaining about that it might fool newbies when someone would write for example:

/me drops some rice. (Outcome: A man in his twenties drops some rice.)

compared to

You see a man in his twenties dropping some rice.

I also suggested printing emote text in italics to make it stand out more.

[Snake_byte]

Well I like the emote idea. Not so that it adds smilies but written actions much like we already do. mainly for noobs to get into it.

As for the layout, it's alphabetical...

[TatteredShoeLace]

Dang alphamabet!

[Skimpen]

Well I like the emote idea. Not so that it adds smilies but written actions much like we already do. mainly for noobs to get into it.

As for the layout, it's alphabetical...

Emotes are not just there for noobs, it looks much better for the eye when anyone read it. It will create a stronger feeling of being in a book (and hence a story) instead of in a chat room.

As for "the layout is alphabetical", well, not exactly. It is quite confusing when the material the object is made of is standing first, like "Bone knife" being on K and then "Improved wheelbarrow" being under I(?) instead of W. It would be alot better if it was consistent all the way. As an example all the knives could be typed "Knife, bone" or "Knife made out of bone" or "Knife (bone)" under K instead of "Bone knife" with the capital B under the letter K. A "Big stone pot" is put under B, while a "Small stone pot" is put under S. But if the pot would have been available in iron as well, it would in the current system be put under P (if in no particular size). This just isn't logical.

A small thing like having headers, like:
A
Axe, 3/4
Adze
Asparagus harvest knife
Axe
B
etc. would also help alot.

Also about 75% of the screen is just green, empty space, while the list contains about 100 tools to create. What happens when this list will be 300 objects? Will it still be just one huge column with endless scrolling?

So, some small changes into the layout would improve the navigation alot. As a summary of suggestions:
1) Don't let sizes decide if an object should be under a certain letter column. Small X shouldn't put object X under letter S (as in small), it's just confusing.
2) The material doesn't decide where an object will be put, which is good. Iron doesn't put it under I, but still: the object is written "Iron x" with the letter I as the capital letter, like it is representing the object.
3) The column should be shortened/ improved. A loooong scrolling column is neither looking good nor is functional. There are a number of ways to improve this I guess, as creating a table (and use up more of the green space), perhaps having another frame with shortcut links to each letter and having headlines for each new letter.

Update: Now when just scrolling the tool list before logging off, I saw that the "Wooden bowl" is under W, even if the word "Wooden" only describes the material this is made of. So, there actually also exist at least one example of an object where the material it is made of decides which letter in the column it is located in.