I can hear you

[John]

What is an acceptable amount of the use of the Listen command? I know sitting there typing "listen on" 10 times after each other isn't, but what about the following situation:

I'm sitting at the bar in a tavern and there is a group of people at a table nearby. I try to turn listen on and it fails. Everyone leaves and then a couple of different people enter and sit at the same table. I try to turn listen on and again it fails.  One of the people leaves for about 15mins and a new person comes and sits at that table. I try to turn listen on and it works, but after a while it turns itself off. I try to turn it back on and fail.

Is it alright to try to turn listen on everytime a new group of people enter? I figure that there's a possibility I'd hear them, so I try to turn listen on to see if that's true.

Just want to know if I'm doing the wrong thing, similar situations to the one above have happened to several characters of mine and I've always been curious how often I should use listen, and now only do it when new people enter and sit at a table.

[Callisto]

I just enter the command until it works, myself - if my character wants to listen in on someone then shes going to keep making the attempt. I'm not sure how else you're supposed to work the listen skill, since listening in on people on a realism level depends on SO much more then making a skill check.

Its just a strange skill that works on strange mechanics - I'd like to be be able to turn listen on and off without a skill check, just because it makes little sense you can either hear everything in the room or nothing at all depending on a skill check. I liked the LISTEN skill on Forevers End Mud and Harsh Lands, where you can pick up bits and pieces of conversation depending on how skilled you are:

At a table in the north, the red-haired man speaks, with a broad smile:
  "... ... ... name ... ... Inbreed... Fale ... insane."

So you could pick up bits of information from whats being said based on how skilled you are at listening. It would also make listen less powerful, and make true information gathering that much more difficult.

Just my view/idea/exhausted ramblings.

[the halfling]

I know this is an ask the staff thingie.

But I really like Callisto's idea.

[John]

I don't see anything wrong with people replying to threads in the Ask the Staff section, I do it all the time. I personally only post here if I definetly want a staff's opinion on something cause there's a higher chance of getting it here, then say in the Code section.

[Bestatte]

Ask yourself the converse: When is it appropriate to turn listen OFF?

Answer: Whenever you don't feel like paying attention anymore.

And so the opposite must also be true: you turn it ON when you feel like paying attention.

Listen, to compare the in-game skill to real life, has only a small amount to do with hearing ability, and a HUGE amount to your attention span. Listening is an active verb. Hearing is not. If your ears are working correctly, you -will hear- whatever your physiology allows you to hear, every waking moment. Not so with listening. To listen, you must make some actual effort on a conscious or at least subconscious level.

Often, I'll log in and my character is already listening from the night before. I've come to the conclusion that she is just SO good at it, that her attention span is SO driven, that it's become a natural thing for her. It can be well over an hour before I have to "listen" again, so I just have her take her uncanny attention span in stride. I WILL turn Listen OFF sometimes, usually because there's just too much going on. And just like in real life, we tend to "tune out" when we're overwhelmed.

Hope that helps!

She who is not staff but answers stuff anyway just for fun

[John]

That's a pretty good way of putting it. I didn't quite think of it like that.

[Bestatte]

Little known fact about Bestatte's controller:

I'm legally deaf. I can hear, and in fact I'm supersensitive to high frequency sound. But casual conversation and TV are an anomaly to me. In ordered to distinguish one person talking from the next, or one set of words from another, I must actively and consciously listen.

I've become pretty good at selective listening, and trust me it is -not- selective hearing. My hearing abilities suck dead moose balls. My listening abilities, however, are pretty damned good. As long as I know I NEED to listen, I can, and do, and can hear the conversation. If I have no reason to listen, I just tune everything out and it all becomes a mass of noise floating around my head.

To me, my real life situation is *exactly* what the "listen" skill in Armageddon is like.

[Gem]

I don't know if it's possible for this to be implemented.  A while ago, I and a few other players discussed the possibility of adjusting the listen code.

Here's a scenario.
Gaj:  Sports bar, near hundred people, more during peak hours.  The noise level would be pretty close, if not equal to a modern bar/club.  People talking over people, music in background from the free bards trying to make an extra sid.  People trying to talk over the music...People getting sick, betting, arguing.  The noise level just keeps adding and adding.

Now, the point:  It was agreed that the listen skill should be spotty, or even near-ineffective in that type of environment.  
For those of you who would say, "It should be the player's decision on whether s/he heard the conversation at the next table, or across the room" - I do agree, it should be the player's choice.  But there are certain scenarios (such as the one stated above) where it just becomes unrealistic that a person can choose to listen to a convo at another table and catch every single word.

I have two, maybe three solutions in mind to propose:  
1.  As one of the previous poster said, how much you hear should be dependent on your skill.  In other words, you would pick up bits and pieces of the conversation.  "....Soandso.....screwed....trouble."

2.  Code only these high-traffic rooms to lower the effectiveness of your listen skill.  The result would be similar as #1 - you would only catch bits and pieces.

2a.  Code these high-traffic rooms to "throw" in random words into the conversation you're hearing.  Call it the bleed effect from the background conversation (background convo's, aside from the PCs).
Example:  "...Soandso....screwed....kank..."
Note:  The yellow text is to indicate the mis-heard word.
To reiterate this point (I'm not sure I was clear), PCs aren't the only ones who have conversations in taverns or high-traffic areas; there are VNPCs as well.  It makes sense that while a person is actively listening, s/he might pick up or mis-hear additional words.

I'm aware this'll make things harder on the eavesdroppers, but hey!  It'll make things interesting!  Your character will be left wondering, "Did that guy really screw a kank?  Or were they saying something else?"
It also gives extra value to the ones who goes the extra mile to get accurate information for their employers.

[crymerci]

Edit: posted in the wrong thread.

[Carnage]

Listening--

I'm listening to a song right now. Although it's all raucus (heavy metal) when listened to at once, if I focus, I can pick out one of the guitars playing. Everything else besides the guitar gets muted/dampened. However, I stare off into space because I have to focus. As I listen more and more to different music, I'll be able to focus on an instrument more and more. And since I can play guitar, the notes start forming in my head. As my ear develops, I'll pick up notes better.

I can listen into conversations, no matter what the noise level is. The hardest part is keeping focus. I can't do two things at once - talk (competently, anyway) and listen in. So I think if your character is maintaining a conversation, you shouldn't be able to listen. Or do anything too complicated, such as crafting.

Listening isn't hard. Bestatte is right, it's just about focusing.