Idea: temporary descriptions

[Marauder Moe]

I just had an interesting idea about adding a new description field to each character: a temporary description.  Have an extra sentence or two that is appended to the main description.  The difference, though, is that you can alter it with the change command.

For example:

>change tempdesc His hair is unkempt and his face is smudged with dirt.  

>look me

This is a human man.  Here is his main description. Blah blah blah eyes blah blah hair blah blah body.  His hair is unkempt and his face is smudged with dirt.  
The generic-looking man is in good condition.

But later he could clean up for his interview with Lord Fancypants without having to e-mail the staff for a description change.

>change tempdesc His hair has been slicked back and meticulously combed and his face is scrubbed clean.

or just

>change tempdesc

to clear it.


Other examples:

>change tempdesc A large purple bruise surrounds her left eye.

>change tempdesc His skin is charred and splattered with dried blood.

>change tempdesc Her long hair has been braided tightly, revealing slightly pointed ears.


Perhaps also we could have the tempdesc shown when using the assess command.  

Thoughts?

[As pointed out, this probably does belong in the Code Discussion forum.  Any staff: feel free to move it.]

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

This is an orgasmically good idea if it can, in fact, be done.
Anyways, I'd use it constantly if it were to be placed in.

[Larrath]

I'm absolutely in favor of this idea.

[RunningMountain]

I don't see why you can't just express all those things in your emotes?  

-RM

[EvilRoeSlade]

I don't see why you can't just express all those things in your emotes?  

Why NOT add, what's basically another way of emoting?  In my opinion, we can't enough of things like this.

[Larrath]

The reason is that it can get very tiresome to constantly emote about your blackeye whenever people are looking at you.  Sometimes people look at you and walk immediately away, sometimes people look at you without you ever knowing it.

This is extremely useful for explaining injuries, the way a hood is drawn, temporary sickness, makeup, hairstyle and cleanliness, and practically anything else.


This is a wonderful idea.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Wait a minute.  If this is to cater to people who look at you and then immediately walk away, then no, I don't want it.

I'd rather have a code that unceromoneously kills whoever looks at you, unless their next command is something other than a directional.

[RunningMountain]

Well, I still think emote works just fine, I'll admit it's a good idea, but there are tons of great ideas out there, it all comes down to do you really want it that bad to stop the coders from working on other things like the recent addition of 'watch' which is plainly a greater addition then adding a few lines to your mdesc, and it's not nearly as abuseable.

-RM

[Larrath]

This code will cater to everyone who looks at your character.

It will just spare everyone from having Amos go "Lord Fancypants?  Yeah, I saw him an hour ago, was looking as fine as ever" when Lord Fancypants was walking around with a battered face and one arm missing.


This will in no way assist or encourage anyone to look at people and walk immediately away.

[RunningMountain]

People already do it.  I don't think it's going to help.  Like I said it's a good idea, but do we really want the coders to take their time with it when they can work on something else?

-RM

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

RunningMountain wrote:

...and it's not nearly as abuseable.

Don't even attempt to whip out the 'abuseable' card. It's pretty much a subdued version of 'change ldesc'. Change ldesc is in no way more or less abuseable. I could type in, "change ldesc is here, surrounded by beautiful naked elven women", but I don't. Everything is abuseable. But we are big, grown-up mudders, and I think we can handle a little more versatility in how we display our characters.
Your point, however, on whether or not it's worth the effort to code, is valid. But I don't see why we can't just stick on it on the 'To Do' list, even if it is a few miles long.

[jstorrie]

> change tempdesc Noticing your gaze, the tall, muscular man slashes your face, doing horrific damage!

[wizturbo]

I really really really like this idea.

[Tamarin]

I love this idea, however, there is a slight problem.

If in your main desc, you already make reference to, for example, your hair, you would not be able to refer to that in your added little bit of desc because then there would be an inconsistency.

Eg.

This man is tall and muscular.  He has long, wavy hair that is black and neatly kept....
<blah blah blah>
<Extra desc starts here:>His hair is in complete disarray.

Doesn't work.

Now, what I think this would do, if it were implemented, is force people to write vastly better descriptions, ones that don't point to specific character traits such as hairstyle, posture, cleanliness, etc.  In my opinion, there are ways to describe a person's overall look without focusing on specifics, and that makes a better description.  Then this little tag could be used for specifics.

[Agent_137]

I vote for this,
and I would like to see it bumped up the priority list above other things to be coded.

Original poster, idea this in game.

[Larrath]

This should be moved to the Code Discussion forum.

Other than that, just to further explain how I view this thing added, I don't think it should be added to the mdesc just like any other line.


I view it like this:

Code Select Expand

> look ragamuffin
This guy has a muffin-shaped head and his skin is leathery and scarred, looking much like a rag.  His black hair is long and lusterous and shiny shiny shiny.

There is a long cut on the side of his cheek, and his hair has been ripped out of his head, leaving a massive wound on the top of his head.
The ragamuffin is in excellent condition.



The matter of inconsistency has been brought up, but I personally don't think it's a problem.  The tempdesc takes precedence over the mdesc in all cases.

As far as implementations go...well, I'm not a grand coder, but it really seems simple.  Creating an extra field for PC/NPCs, making the Look command include it together with the equipment list and all the other information it pulls out, and not add an extra space after the mdesc if the tempdesc is null.


And I do agree that I'd like to see it placed up relatively high on the to-code list.  As far as my understanding goes, this is pretty simple to code, and it will really add a lot.

[jhunter]

Maybe also have the temp desc show up to an assess as well. I know in some cases it won't make sense possibly...but in the cases of using the temp desc for injuries and such it'd make sense.

[Marauder Moe]

Thanks all.  Looks like there's some real support for this idea.  I honestly have no feel for how easy it would be to code, however.  I could see it being quite simple, but the Diku code is very old and this may in fact be very difficult to do.  Only the staff can say for sure.

I'll send an idea or an e-mail and see if I can attract some attention.  In the mean time, everyone keep hammering at it.  It may not be perfect and there are probably implications I haven't thought of yet, but the more thought it gets the stronger it becomes (unless a fatal flaw is exposed).

[Akaramu]

I'd probably like anything MM comes up with, but this is a particularly good idea (even though I vaguely remember it was suggested before).  :wink:

[Angela Christine]

I like it, some MUSHes have something like this (or allow you to completely re-write you description at will, which is a bit much I think).

As for inconsistancies, part of the purpose of the addition is to point out inconsistancies between the current situation and static code.  

:arrow:  The code says you are in excellent condition, but you had the tar beaten out of you the day before.   Adding in those bruises expresses current reality.

:arrow:  A scrab nearly pinches your head off (major hp loss, all dammage on the head and neck) and you decide that ought to leave a mark.  :mrgreen:  It will take days or weeks to get an "offical" scar added, and since you don't want to have have that scar change every few days it will probably be written as a fully-healed old scar.   In the mean time you can have a wound and then a fading livid scar in your description so people have the chance to ask: "What the feck happened to your neck?"

:arrow:  You dress up to go to a fancy ball at the Fale estate.  Now normally you keep your hair neatly braided, but for the ball you're going to go with ringlettes.  It wouldn't be worthwhile to have your main desc changed for the ball and then changed back.  So you add your fancy hairstyle and makeup to the end of your description, temporarily, so that people know you made an effort to pretty yourself up.   Then after the ball you easily remove the tempdesc, because you've gone back to your practical braid.

:arrow:  You're naked!  :cues porno music:  You don't want your nipple piercings, armpit tattoos, and the colour of your groin hair in your main desc, because most of the time that won't be visible.  How is anyone supposed to know if you are a natural blond or not if they can't see all your hair?  Huh, how?


I think it is fantastic.


AC

[SRB]

I'd use it.

[jmordetsky]

Is good.

[cyberpatrol_735]

I agree, this would be awesome, just a few changes would have to be made. People might also have to change their main desc to work around it.

[SykotikGith]

I like :lol:

[mansa]

It is a very interesting idea.  Also, the idea of having the 'change' be viewable with the 'assess' command should also be added to it.

However.

The description of the character is one of the very things that is still moderated and in control of the immortal staff.  The idea of being able to add our own 80 line description to append to the bottom of our main description, and have it changable, is something that the immortal staff will have to mull over themselves, and debate whether to give us players the power to do that.