Emoting

[jilliana]

Is it possible that we can have a way to write emotes in such a way that we have our name somewhere in the emote itself instead of always at the beginning?

Another suggestion I have, and this one isn't really a huge deal, is that we have the ' added naturally when we use it after our name.

[Fayne]

+1

I'd like to see emote tweaked so we have more options for it, and if it's already planned, I wouldn't mind seeing it bumped up the priority list. I can't tell you how many times I've simply not emoted simply because I couldn't reword what I wanted to emote into a sentence that made sense when beginning with my name.

[Barius]

I also like this.

[Ahelis]

I also throw in a vote for this! I have run across similar problems as Fayne a handful of times, and it would be really interesting to have the emote command be more versatile if possible.

[Noctere]

I hate to be the killjoy here but... in the past the GM staff has 'mightily' debated the issue of player emotes. In the end, the decision was agreed upon to allow players to have emotes but to restrict the format to a parenthesis enclosed version that is less prone to exploitation.

The difficulty of placing a name within the middle of an emote is that the system wants to make sure that you are you not making scripts such as, "A duck with a superhero t-shirt flies into the room and leaves its quack power blessing upon Fredegar." When you use an emote with your name in another place other than the beginning it makes it more tempting to allow other things to happen that are not coming directly from your character. I myself have found fancy ways to work around this problem.

When I have an emote in mind such as, "With a slash of his sword Fredegar leaps at his foe." I will change it to, "Fredegar leaps at his foe with a slash of his sword." Another could be, "You notice that Fredegar looks worried about something." That will change to, "Fredegar looks worried about something." As you may have noticed, in the first examples there is an emphasis is on the 'sword' or 'you' and in the second version the emote is 100% from your character and doesn't emphasize his sword or insist that you MUST have seen him worrying (even if you were looking away).

These are just a few rough examples and I have no doubt that this idea could be used properly under certain circumstances unfortunately it also opens up another avenue of possible misusage. However, this will be discussed with the GM staff and if we feel that the emote system should be reassessed then I would be more than happy to plop in some more love for the emote system.

As always thank you for the suggestion and please keep them coming.

[Fayne]

While I can see where you all are coming from, I can honestly say that I don't imagine anyone would intentionally misuse emotes, especially not to the degree of your example, unless they are simply trolls and should be banned anyway. Those of us who play regularly would be prone to ocassional mistakes, but if another player or GM sent us a tell saying, "Hey, that wasn't proper use of emoting, and this is why," then we'll work to avoid making the same mistake in the future.

Also, simply changing the structure of the sentence doesn't always work. I can't give any specific examples off the top of my head (though the next time I think of one I will be sure to add it here) but I know whenever I have wanted to do an emote without my name at the beginning of the sentence, I've tried thinking of some way, any way, to reword it with my name at the start, and it just wouldn't work, so I abandoned it.

[Barius]

No point debating it further. What we're debating is on the Never list, after all. Let's just be happy we have an emote command at all.

[Jaster]

The removal of parentheses around emotes is on the never list, which nobody has requested in this thread.

[Barius]

The removal of parentheses around emotes is on the never list, which nobody has requested in this thread.

True, however Noctere has seemed to suggest this will be on the never list soon enough, as well.

Either way, I'm not debating it further, as a response that discouraging pretty much kills my desire to.

[Jaster]

However, this will be discussed with the GM staff and if we feel that the emote system should be reassessed then I would be more than happy to plop in some more love for the emote system.

As always thank you for the suggestion and please keep them coming.

You must have missed that part.

[Barius]

However, this will be discussed with the GM staff and if we feel that the emote system should be reassessed then I would be more than happy to plop in some more love for the emote system.

As always thank you for the suggestion and please keep them coming.

You must have missed that part.

...You're right, I did. I take back my snarky post. Sorry to Noctere for not reading the entire thing.

[Lacie]

I would die of happiness if something like this was ever implemented. This would grant so much more flexibility to emoting, and variety is the key to it AND the point of it.

Imagine if GMs were required to start each room description with "This room is," no if's, and's, or but's about it. Yes, you COULD describe a whole world like that. It was just be horribly boring, super repetitive, and frustrating to work around. It's the same way with emotes. It's frustrating, and ends up really stifling how we can express ourselves.

It only increases the abusability very little. In your example, someone could simply emote (Fredegar is suddenly bestowed a quack power blessing by a duck in a super-hero t-shirt!). Would anyone believe it? Of course not. Should they report it? Definitely. This proposed change only marginally increases the chance for it to be abused, and "makes it less abuseable" is the the same reason those jarring parentheses are around emotes. If there's parentheses? You know to take it with a grain of salt... but that's beyond the point.

I would suggest two alterations to the proposal, though, that may help cut down on whatever potential abuse there might be. For one, NEVER allow an emote to start with "You". Just flat out disallow it. Don't let the command accept it. This could also be extended to the names of the characters in the room if that's feasible or possible? So, if I'm in the room with Jaster, I wouldn't be able to start a static emote with either You or Jaster.

The second is some kind of highlighting or, for blind players, a symbol or something, for the name of the person sending the emote. That way it is always clear WHO exactly the emote is coming from and there's no confusion.

[Barius]

I hesitate to make another post on this issue, but since the GMs have always seemed to prefer hearing feedback and opinions, I'll go ahead and say one more thing:

The amount of roleplay encouragement and enforcement in CLOK, coupled with how intensive it can be, makes CLOK one of the most immersive MUDs I've ever played. When you compare that to other RPI style MUDs with much more freedom in emoting, it makes a stark contrast to see just how little CLOK staff trusts players as a whole. It's both depressing and extremely insulting.

[jilliana]

I hesitate to make another post on this issue, but since the GMs have always seemed to prefer hearing feedback and opinions, I'll go ahead and say one more thing:

The amount of roleplay encouragement and enforcement in CLOK, coupled with how intensive it can be, makes CLOK one of the most immersive MUDs I've ever played. When you compare that to other RPI style MUDs with much more freedom in emoting, it makes a stark contrast to see just how little CLOK staff trusts players as a whole. It's both depressing and extremely insulting.

This is kind of why I posted my suggestion. I have played on other games where emoting is so varied and very very refreshing, but the RP isn't as strict as it is on CLOK. Quite frankly, when I first started playing I was pretty surprised at how limited emoting is.

I think a lot of the players on CLOK are comfortable enough to emote without forcing roleplay on another character just by having their name in the middle of a sentence.

I also believe that players on CLOK are great in looking out for each other and telling each other when something is not right. Sure, that can be said in colorful ways, but then at the end of the day the point is made. We all learn and we don't always emote perfectly 100% of the time.

Thank you Noctere for explaining things, though honestly my feelings align with those of Barius that I quoted above.

I know some of us would be extremely grateful if the staff took another look at emoting, even if it results in stayign the way it is now.

[Zeik]

I've played a lot of different MUD's and I've seen a multitude of different emote systems. I thought I would jot down a few of my favorites for everyone to discuss. Not sure if any of these are able to be added to Clok but they can make RP emoting very robust even with just a few additions.

Of course there is always the chance you can run into people that don't adhere to the basic principle that emotes should not force actions/feelings onto another player, but I feel like a lot of the benefits outweigh some of that, especially when you have reward systems that help people learn the best ways to emote: like nominate and the BBS board kudos. I am not the best when it comes to using emote systems or some of the fancier things that can go with them but I do appreciate those people that are and they encourage me to try it out more.

Along with Jilliana’s idea of an apostrophe I’ve also noticed that there isn't a way to add a comma at the start of an emote like “Zeik, leaning up against the wall, brushes dirt from his vest.” adding something like this would also be really helpful in doing some basic emotes.

For more robust emotes I once saw a system that allowed you to target other players. Basically you would type something like "emote waves his hand at $Lae." and you would see "Zeik waves his hand at Lae." but Lae would see "Zeik waves his hand at you."

It then went on so that you could add such things as $he, $He, $she, $She, $<name>, $him, $Him, $her, $Her, $it, $It, $<name>'s, $his, $His, $hers, $Hers, $its, $Its, $Himself, $himself, $Herself, $herself, $Itself, and $itself. So you could do something like: emote repeatedly beats $him about $joe_his head., everyone else will see: "Zeik repeatedly beats Joe about his head." while Joe will see "Zeik repeatedly beats you about your head".

Another cool thing I've seen is an adjective list where you could add an adjective to an already defined verb, so in addition to be able to type something like "smile Althea" you could type something like "happily smile Althea". In fact that same system used the adjective list like Clok uses tone so it might be something that can be adjusted for verbs also.

Last thing I will throw out there was a game that allowed you to pose so that others entering a room could see what you were doing. I know some things we do are already shown but this was more of an emote type thing. So if you typed "pose stands here twiddling his thumbs." When someone walked into the room you were in at the bottom of the description it would show “Zeik stands here twiddling his thumbs.” instead of just showing “Zeik.”

[jilliana]

We suggested room poses before and Rias said no go on that one.

[Zeik]

We suggested room poses before and Rias said no go on that one.

Ah bummer, okay didn't know that, thanks for letting me know.

[Lacie]

I think the whole adding symbols thing is a bit too complex for CLOK, personally. Though it's easier once you get used to it, it can be a pain in the butt at first and might turn some people off using the command -- not to mention being more annoying to implement and unfriendly to visually-impaired players.

I'm all for keeping them totally third-person, I just want some kind of static emote, or like you said with apostrophes and commas.

[jilliana]

I think the whole adding symbols thing is a bit too complex for CLOK, personally. Though it's easier once you get used to it, it can be a pain in the butt at first and might turn some people off using the command -- not to mention being more annoying to implement and unfriendly to visually-impaired players.

I'm all for keeping them totally third-person, I just want some kind of static emote, or like you said with apostrophes and commas.

As a VI player, I don't mind learning the symbols. I played on a game that did use all of those commands mentioned previously. I can't speak for all VI players but if I'm coming to play on an RPI MUD, I'm sure as hecks going to take the time to learn how to emote appropriately.
:)

[Barius]

I agree that too many pronouns and symbols may get confusing. A reason why certain RPI games never sat well with me. However, an option to put character names anywhere in the emote would be fantastic. So would possessive names.

[Lacie]

The thing is, CLOK isn't an RPI MUD. It's roleplay-enforced, and people roleplay, and everyone must stay in character, but people also come here to grind skills, kill monsters, craft, forage, dress up their characters, have tea parties with their friends, etc.

The roleplay isn't necessarily intensive, and that is not a bad thing. The casual atmosphere makes it more open for all sorts of people, maybe some who may be new to the concept of roleplay. I know several CLOK players who came here having little to no experience with roleplaying on MUDs, and having to learn a new language just to emote would be a huge turn-off to some people and maybe keep them from branching out and making an attempt at it.

I do have a lot of respect for your willingness to put a bit more effort into emoting though, Jilliana! I just think there's a fine line between the flexibility to express ourselves and accessibility to a wide range of players with a wide range of desires.

[jilliana]

The roleplay isn't necessarily intensive, and that is not a bad thing. The casual atmosphere makes it more open for all sorts of people, maybe some who may be new to the concept of roleplay. I know several CLOK players who came here having little to no experience with roleplaying on MUDs, and having to learn a new language just to emote would be a huge turn-off to some people and maybe keep them from branching out and making an attempt at it.

I do have a lot of respect for your willingness to put a bit more effort into emoting though, Jilliana! I just think there's a fine line between the flexibility to express ourselves and accessibility to a wide range of players with a wide range of desires.

The good thing about having a more complex emoting system is that it's not set in stone for everyone. It'll allow those people who want to keep it simple to keep it simple if they so wish, while also allowing those with the desire to be a bit more complex.

I certainly wouldn't judge someone for keeping their emotes short, sweet and simple. I don't know about anyone else but I usually try to keep my emoting complexity to a minimum if I know the person I am roleplaying with is newer.

I guess we'll see what the GMs decide. :)

[Jirato]

We'll have to have some internal discussions on this. I really have mixed feelings. (Regarding name placement, parenthesis removal is a flat out no, sorry!) I totally understand why it is desirable to you all, but the opportunity for abuse is so high, and all the restrictions and conditions that would have to be coded in with it to prevent such abuse will be a pretty big headache and probably far from comprehensive.

[Barius]

I wish this didn't feel like an inevitable "no" to me. I hope the GMs can bend a little on the heavy "preventative" measures and allow more freedom, because I honestly feel most players can handle it.

[Lysse]

The parentheses actually doesn't bother me, and I'm not sure why it bothers people. If anything it helps me keep up with emotes in situations with a lot of spam, like crafting.

I would like to put in my two cents, though. Just being able to control name placement would be super useful. It's what I'm used to from the MUD I played during my break from Clok, it lends to more robust, interesting emotes, and generally promotes good RP when it's used, and hopefully inspires people to emote more often, rather than emoting in speech and the like.

I had a discussion today with a player actually, who was expression frustrating to me in the limitations of emotes here, versus many other MUD's they've played in, and it IS something that can be potentially offputting to newcomers, and even people that have been playing for a bit.