CLOK BBS

Suggestion: The existing emote command could be modified to allow quotation-marks, and thus speech, WHEN AND ONLY WHEN the say command would also be usable. This would allow for more fluid RP, without allowing people to talk when they're not supposed to be able to.

Implementing this change would (I hope) be a fairly minor change as far as programming is concerned, but that minor change would be VERY much appreciated by us roleplay-nuts who want to write paragraphs that interleave action and speech more fluidly than the current system allows.

In summary: If talking is allowed, then skip EMOTE's quote-mark check, else do the check as normal.

I honestly would love this. As someone who plays a very animated character, it's sometimes hard to properly express how Zahrah likes to move around and gesture while she talks with having to break up emotes and says. I've been managing by simply command stacking a bunch of emotes and says together, but it's pretty clunky and often ends up in my flooding someone with like... up to five things at a time when I could have just sent through one, clean paragraph.

Alila's player pointed something to me: another big issue with speech in emotes is language. To get around language issues, here's a revision to the idea - rather than allowing quotes directly, I suggest allowing brackets, and having them like so:


emote rises from his seat, and starts pacing, muttering [We really need to figure out how to make this speech system work correctly.] He then stops pacing and exclaims [I've got it! All we need to do is surround the speech in brackets, to let the language system know which text to scramble!]

(Quintin rises from his seat, and starts pacing, muttering "We really need to figure out how to make this speech system work correctly." He then stops pacing and exclaims "I've got it! All we need to do is surround the speech in brackets, to let the language system know which text to scramble!")

(Quintin rises from his seat, and starts pacing, muttering ((something in a strange language)). He then stops pacing and exclaims ((something in a strange language)).)



This might take more development time than simply allowing quote marks in certain cases, but it does cover all the languages in a fairly straight-forward manner. As long as the system warns the user when it finds mismatched or nested brackets, this should work pretty well! One issue I haven't thought of a good solution for yet is how to display what language is being spoken. It would be somewhat inconvenient for it to be included next to every bit of speech. Maybe it's listed in darker text, after the rest of the emote?

Well, not knowing the way CLOK's code works... we already have a way to switch between known languages to speak in says. So I don't know if there's some way to be able to make it so that when you speak in emotes, so long as you use quotation marks, the game recognizes whatever language you have set to speak in and reacts accordingly. That's how it works on another MUD I play on, but different coding languages and all that.

The programming language shouldn't matter much - string manipulation is string manipulation, regardless of language.

The reason I'm suggesting brackets is because it'd be easier to make code that detects when a mistake has been made in the number or placement of brackets, rather than trying to do the same with quote marks.





For an example, here's what COULD go wrong if quote marks were used:

emote begins by giving an example. "Let us say, for instance, that our user has made an error by forgetting to put a quote mark at the end of this sentence. He then goes on to continue, saying "As you can see, the quote-marks were paired wrongly, so what I'm saying now looks like action-text instead of speech-text. It wouldn't be hidden across language barriers like it should be."

(Quintin begins by giving an example. "Let us say, for instance, that our user has made an error by forgetting to put a quote mark at the end of this sentence. He then goes on to continue, saying "As you can see, the quote-marks were paired wrongly, so what I'm saying now looks like action-text instead of speech-text. It wouldn't be hidden across language barriers like it should be.")

(Quintin begins by giving an example. ((something in a strange language)). As you can see, the quote-marks were paired wrongly, so what I'm saying now looks like action-text instead of speech-text. It wouldn't be hidden across language barriers like it should be.")





And here's how brackets could help fix that issue:

emote gives a different example with brackets. [If brackets are used, though, it is immediately obvious to the parser if the user has forgotten to put a closing bracket, such as the one that SHOULD be riiiiight... here. He adjusts his glasses, and mentions [As soon as the parser sees a second opening-bracket before the first has been properly closed, it'll know a typo has been made, and can tell the user to fix it before any problems occur. That would be much harder to do with quote marks, which look the same no matter if they're at the start or the end!]

((ERROR: Incorrectly paired speech brackets. Please fix this and resend the emote.))




(Brackets could also handle other problems better than quote marks do - this is just one example.)

I always did prefer the simplicity of using hard coded speech and socials, to me that has seemed to flow better as opposed to waiting on someone to type out an elaborate emote. I mean, anyone who has been regaled with The Legend of the Frigid Cuirass knows the power of the spoken word. :D

This is where I should say "to each their own".

I also prefer the simplicity of the hard-coded speeches a lot of the time. It's quick and easy and definitely helps streamline conversation, especially when there are 4 or more people all in the same room talking.

That said, there are also times where more elaborate stuff would be welcome - for instance, if you're performing actions and talking and performing actions and talking. You might do this in an effort to explain how to do something, for example, or you might do it to have a more elaborate conversation where both parties are willing and eager to spend the time writing. In such cases, it'd be nice to have it all be in a single paragraph, such as you might read in a book, instead of having an "emote;say;emote;say" combo which gets spread out over several lines.

I'm a big fan of letting people have options when it comes to expressing themselves - the more options there are, the easier it comes.

I've gotta weigh in on this. It's bothered me a great deal. For starters the hard coded commands are harsh for me. Memorization of what goes where is painful. When I get to trying to use and # or $ I have to stick to a shortlist of what I can remember works. Otherwise I risk just sounding strange when I intend a tone to speaking. Aswell when I RP anywhere else I make a point to be animated whilst speaking. Little ticks of movement or fidgets show alot over time and can make an undertone of emotions for a character. When there's a big linebreak and it gets the coded shown or emote then it gets alot more attention. It's no longer a subtle accent to a character because the spacing makes those 'little' things become far more pronounced. Saying something is little doesn't make the font size any smaller than it really is.

Aside from my own memory problems I don't see how the change even fixes the proposed problem. For example if I emote that my next line is in Nuumic [emote-Falor chuckles and retorts in nuumic. -say (in common) "Yeah that's a problem."] Sure the hardcode says it's in common but, then your emote clashes and that leaves players more confused. Additionally if someone emotes speaking in Nuumic and then a character (whom actually knows Nuumic) replies speaking in Nuum but, through the system's language then that punishes the character for trying to subvert the system. I for one don't believe any mercy is deserved in that aspect. If someone tries to play off having something they don't. Those that 'do' will root them out.

It's in the very same vein that anyone could emote using powers they don't even have. There will eventually come a rebuttal that directly challenges the RP the player has been issuing and that sounds alot more like a problem than saying a choice few words.

I apologize if I may sound bitter in some aspect but, I 'really' don't like having this weird separation of speech and action. It's the very same reason I don't RP on Discord. It's small 2000 character limit forces me to break up posts and that (personally) really breaks the pacing and makes my writing feel lazy. For that very reason RP here has been great but, I 'never' feel like I am never doing my characters justice. I don't type as quickly as most of the players do so if I attempt to cram all of the expressions in it inevitably gets broken up by either exterior actions/sounds or another player speaking/acting. While it seems others don't mind this, for me it feels like a far greater deal than it is.

I want to be more expressive, say more. Make my characters come alive but, the system has never been my friend in that regard. It feels like a severe handicap has been placed. Yes I could suck it up, queue it out like I've seen Dorn do. Honestly Dorn's the only player I've seen do that and I cannot say anything ill about it. I know I'm usually alone in the opinions of pacing. I don't have any problems seeing other players doing that and making the most but, for me it feels terrible.