Emote

[Nick]

Instead of
John Doe says: *laughs*

how about there is an option to make it

John Doe laughs

just explaining the concept of an emote, i am sure all of the programmers are familiar with it.

[rklenseth]

That is something that I have been trying to get added. I think that would be much better than those stupid * * or = = crap. It would aslo keep people from describing things that another character could not possibly know like *someone cries because she is sad*. How the hell is my character suppose to know if she is sad. Maybe she is crying because she is happy. I think those kind of emotes would cut out that crap more often and would allow better role play so that someone would actually have to talk to the person to figure out why she is crying instead of ignoring it or giving the person comfort because of * * when their character shouldn't know why they are crying.

[Jos Elkink]

I'm not sure I agree here. I like the freestyle now, and although I did not like the * * stuff first, I start to really like it. It does add to the roleplay, in many cases. And now the options are unlimited - if we pre-program them, not anymore.

The one problem is that it requires some proper roleplaying. E.g. it should not break the limits of what the character can actually know and do, etc. For example *picks up some daisies* is really not allowed (as then you would have to actually pick them up). Or the situation Richard describes is also somewhat odd. But when it just describes physical expressions (::bends:: or ::smiles:: or ::shakes his hand::) then I don't really see the problem.

[g1asswa1ker]

I like the freestyle myself as long as that isn't removed or blocked then I see no problem with emotes. Freestyle allows for a lot of creativity to be explored where standard emotes are just a quick fix and limited. Best for newbies and the creatively challenged...

[rklenseth]

How about add in emotes like laugh, cry, smile, etc... and then do what a lot of other MUDs do where they allowed you to freestyle your own emotes. It might not stop bad roleplayers but at least gets rid of;

man in his twenties say: "*He jumped up and down*"

Do it so it takes that away and a person can do something like this;

You see a man in his twenties (or you would see the person's name) "jump up and down" (minus the quotations; but the person would add in the jump up and down part as the freestyle)

That way you have all of the basics and at the same time have an option to freestyle as well. You get rid of it from the speech part and give it an area of its own.

How does that sound?

[Rob Maule]

"You see Rob pick up some iron."
"You see Rob leave Cantr, entering the Real World."

That's where the problems come in. Typing whatever you want could purposely confuse people and make them see things that never really happened. In my opinion, it's fine the way it is. Which is actually the opposite of what I originally thought.

[Jos Elkink]

Well, I sort of like the comment of Richard - we should think it through. What if we made it typographically quite distinct (e.g. different color)? That would be good for veteran players, but might be misinterpreted by newbies, though.

A problem might be how to check. But that might be solvable in a programming way - e.g. store these texts separately, make it searchable for the PD, have specific keywords to search on automatically, etc. ... Not sure ... It looks like requiring some additional work by the PD, or maybe I'm seeing problems that are not there and it would work fine. What do you guys think?

[rklenseth]

I was thinking about something like that after reading Rob's post. Simply make it a different color so that people would know that it was a freestyled emote and should someone do such a thing as Rob described then players would know that plus it could be reported in case of a problem later.

As far as newbies, I think they would understand after a while. Veteran players would explain it to newmbies as we do a lot of things already. I think it would be much better to have emotes outside of the speech area and into it's own area. You are still able to freetyle if you like or you can use basic emotes (smile, laugh etc...).

Maybe you could add stuff to other characters as well, so there could be a hug emote or a kiss emote etc... next to other character names. So there would be a few basice emotes next to you character's name and then a button to do a freestyle emote and then there would be basic emotes for next to other characters' names and these would be stuff that your character could do to that character (ie, kiss, hug, touch, poke, etc....)

[Rob Maule]

On a side note, you should be able to both slap and poke people. I like what Richard said about extra emote buttons next to people's names.

[Solfius]

and point at animals, rather tha just poke them. If I had the choice I would point at a bear, rather than walk up to and poke it

[new.vogue.nightmare]

It would be good to have the ability to put a dynamic name into an emote. For example, you may hug someone, or wave to them, or glare at them, but If you use the char's name, then chars that don't know him/her will be stuck with a name and no face to pin it to, just the opposite of what would happen IRL.

[Solfius]

don't understand, can you elaborate?

[Rob Maule]

"You laugh at a man in his twenties."

Instead of:

"You laugh at -note theif-."

This way someone will not be able to see what the person's name is unless they also know that person.

[rklenseth]

A good idea, might I add.

[Solfius]

ahh, yes i get it now, yes very good idea