Proposal for new command: DIAGNOSE

[Bestatte]

Before submitting this idea to the staff, I'd like some feedback. Suggestions for improvement, reasons why it isn't as good an idea as I thought it might be, or even "YAH AWESOME" if you find no fault with it and think it's a great idea.

Currently, players have no way to determine what is wrong with Joe Linkdead, who is sitting there in the middle of the street, mortally wounded. Or even the guy who got into combat during a dizzying RPT and the scrollback just doesn't go back far enough for him to see why he's bleeding profusely and he's got blood on everything and is sweating like a glass of ice in an oven.

DIAGNOSE is my proposed command, with a modifier for people with the poison/brew skills to see even more.

First required would be a modification to the code (if it doesn't already come with it) that will place a temporary line on a character file indicating the last hit he took in combat, and/or the last poison he suffered from (if applicable). Once the character is healed, the line of code would fall off the character file since it is no longer needed.

Diagnose <victim> would call that string, and return it with an IC echo. A few examples:

The green-skinned man appears to suffer from a blow to the head with a blunt object.

The perky-titted woman appears to suffer from a piercing wound in her torso.
(if the diagnoser has poison/brew):
The perky-titted woman also appears to suffer from some kind of poison.
(if the diagnoser is actually pretty good with poison/brew):
The perky-titted woman also appears to suffer from peraine poisoning.

This will help people really get a feel for what's going on with the wounded person - and in fact, if the "bleeding badly" person was merely sparring - the room code could replace the injury line with:

The green-skinned man appears to have been sparring recently.

And that way people can stop gasping and gawking and telling him to stop bleeding all over the floor, when in fact he just spent the last half hour roleplaying getting bruised and battered and not bleeding at all.

Thoughts, concerns, kudos?

Edited to add:

IN the last thing about sparring - maybe if he was being attacked with a sparring weapon AND wasn't poisoned - then the echo would tell the diagnoser that he was hit with a sparring weapon. Rather than the fact that he was in a sparring circle determine the diagnose.

[Sir Diealot]

I really like that.. I'm sure there are tweaks that need to be done..

One might be a poison grouping, similar poisons and such having a chance to mix signals to the DIAGNOSEer.. It'd be kind of a lot of work on staff's end, but definitely a useful idea.

[Bestatte]

Thanks to a friend who was just talking with me in IM about it, some additional "necessary" things:

ANY kind of burn, no matter what caused it (wink):

The victim appears to have suffered a burn to the face.

ANY kind of fall, no matter what caused it (wink)

The victim appears to have suffered a fall.

Unconscious without any combat engaged (no matter why - wink)

The victim appears to have passed out.

Blood loss caused by other than a weapon or burn:

The victim's skin is covered in blood, and you are unable to determine the cause of the injury.***

*** This could also be the "default" diagnosis for someone who has neither the bandage nor the poison/brew skill, for any victim who is actually suffering from bloodloss (as opposed to a sparring incident, which would always default as being a sparring incident)

[sarahjc]

I think this is a great Idea, it would add so much to Roleplay of the game and the downside would be a huge undertaking to code it. More food for thought..

I have seen it twice where a person has come into the tavern dying of "thirst" and the code has it so that he is bleeding heavily.  Or a person has a coded "Spice Addiction" and he is all of a sudden, bleeding heavily.

There is a dead guy in the middle of the street and -nobody- knows how he was killed cause nobody saw the giant bahamet come tarring through the city five minutes ago and tare him to shreds.

Or the such and such man drags himself into the barracks and we all have to not emote around his wounds until he does, because we cannot see the gaping hole in his side or the huge rip in his arm or leg.




My thoughts are this:

Give some people the diagnose skill, maybe those who also get bandage. Code bandage to work hand and in hand with diagnose.  If I have a large wound on my chest, a bandage on my forehead is not helping me.
This skill as it gets better will also be able to detect what it was that killed people and what people are suffering from if it is something other than a visible flesh wound.



Code major wounds so that people can see them, like a wear flag that disappears over time maybe over the course of a RL day or two time frame.. I know this would need new wear locations, so my idea is to have wear on skin locations.  The only thing you can have on those locations being markings..

The Such and such man is using:

On head                        a neon bandana
On skin on head           a massive welt


This I think will also enforce the fact that you should be Rp'ing out wounds and stop people from twinking out their fighting skills. You will look really silly if you come strolling into the tavern gingerly covered in welts, smashed bones (severe cases), and slash marks.




Fix the damage code so that it links up to what the person is suffering from. If I am dying from hunger, I should not be bleeding. I should be looking feeble and thin, on the verge of death.  Or  if I am dying of thirst, my lips should be cracked and dry and my eyes bloodshot and I should look like I have some sort of delirium.

But those are just my thoughts. And good idea Bestatte.

[Bestatte]

Thanks. The idea of injury locations and severety has been brought up in previous threads, and I figured I'd try it from a different angle. Regarding injury locations though - imagine if the guy has cuts and bruises and a kajillion marks in every possible location. The screen scroll would be so massive that 5 people looking at 5 massively injured victimes at the same time is likely to crash the mud.

So rather than that..something more vague - just a simple descriptive line:

The victim has stabwounds in his head, neck, and torso. He has contusions and marks of a blunt object on his head, face, and legs. He has slash marks on his arms, legs, and feet.

Now you know that you don't need to bandage his face, because it's not bleeding - just banged up. Then you can focus more on the bleeding wounds and decide RP-wise which one you feel you can tackle the most efficiently.

But - that's a whole nuther topic, the injury location stuff. This is strictly to diagnose the most recent injury, and what kind of injury it is.

[Pantoufle]

Neat idea.

[Krath]

Neat idea.

[Pantoufle]

...maybe you could diagnose people afflicted with poison too.

[Marauder Moe]

And corpses!  Don't forget diagnosing corpses.

[Bestatte]

...maybe you could diagnose people afflicted with poison too.

Middle of my first post:

Diagnose <victim> would call that string, and return it with an IC echo. A few examples:

The green-skinned man appears to suffer from a blow to the head with a blunt object.

The perky-titted woman appears to suffer from a piercing wound in her torso.
(if the diagnoser has poison/brew):
The perky-titted woman also appears to suffer from some kind of poison.
(if the diagnoser is actually pretty good with poison/brew):
The perky-titted woman also appears to suffer from peraine poisoning.  

Sorry - I know I'm long-winded and it's easy to miss stuff in my posts!

<ducks>

[Anonymous]

Nice idea but no one would use it likely. I know I wouldn't.

[Pantoufle]

Sorry - I know I'm long-winded and it's easy to miss stuff in my posts!

Doh!  Sorry, I confess I did kinda just skim through your post and throw out a quick reply there.  Guess you already covered the poison part then.  You weren't really long winded, though, Bestatte.  Not this time .

Nice idea but no one would use it likely. I know I wouldn't.

Are you kidding man?  I'd diagnose peeps every single time I see someone injured or "is standing here, bleeding profusely" and such.  And I don't really care that you posted anonymously, I just felt like giving you a hard time since that seems to be the trend here .

[Delirium]

I like the idea. Lots.

I'd also like to see 'bleeding' messages changed to something else, anyway.

So and so stands here, looking moderately hurt.
Instead of
So and so stands here, bleeding heavily.

Or something like that. What I don't want to see is wounds showing up with a simple 'look' though. It's already hard enough to keep the description and eq spam down.

[Agent_137]

Nice idea but no one would use it likely. I know I wouldn't.

Are you kidding man?  I'd diagnose peeps every single time I see someone injured or "is standing here, bleeding profusely" and such.  And I don't really care that you posted anonymously, I just felt like giving you a hard time since that seems to be the trend here .

[Pantoufle]

Or something like that. What I don't want to see is wounds showing up with a simple 'look' though. It's already hard enough to keep the description and eq spam down.

Well, I definately agree with that too.  Though ya'll need to just start dressing down a little if you wanna cut back on eq. spam.  And I tell you what, kids... when I see an eq. list so big the mdesc scrolls off the screen, I don't really bother to read any of it.  To make matters worse, it's even doubly spammed with dusty, bloodied, sweat-stained stained used worn tattered flags anyway ... but that's a different thread.

The extremely gigantic and obese figure in a dusty sweat-stained mekillot-hide greatcloak of dust-spattered timeworn leather embroidered in ruby-red scorpions wearing a dusty sweat-stained bloodied black silk grey-veined veil dappled in Kenku embroidery walks off the set.

[Larrath]

The extremely gigantic and obese figure in a dusty sweat-stained mekillot-hide greatcloak of dust-spattered timeworn leather embroidered in ruby-red scorpions wearing a dusty sweat-stained bloodied black silk grey-veined veil dappled in Kenku embroidery walks off the set.

You forgot mentioning that they were walking off while swinging their dusty arms that glisten with sweat as they whistle a casual tune to themselves.


It sounds extremely useful, and something our physicians could really enjoy having as a skill.

I don't think bashing weapons should leave visible marks unless they did some massive damage, but it's generally an excellent idea.  Same goes for thirst/hunger damage.  Maybe, in the future, there could be a special set of hp that would be used for hunger and thirst and whatever other internal damage, so you can still be damaged or dying but look just fine from a distance.