Temporary descriptions (semi repost / better forum)

[Marauder Moe]

Over a year ago I (re?)introduced the idea of temporary descriptions (tdesc) in this thread: http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10862&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I still love the idea and at the time it seemed to have a lot of support.  I never seemed to get any solid staff response, though.  Is it on the immortal to-do list?  Is anyone working on it?  Maybe one of the new guys?  :wink:

Just want to at least know that the idea hasn't been forgotten.

[Agent_137]

I remember this. it would be fantastically sweet. Did you ever idea it ingame?

[Marauder Moe]

I don't remember.  I know I at least emailed the mud account about it, though.

[Dakkon Black]

Always thought this was fantastic. Go into the grimy shit of the sewers, and append the fact that you stink like shit and have it covering your legs up to your knees in your tdesc.

Hopefully before someone complains that it could be abused I'll suggest that I could also emote being a 50 cord tall marshmallow man with super powers right now.

Go Tdesc!

[LauraMars]

This is an amazing idea.  YES PLEASE.

[spawnloser]

Sorry, guys and gal... http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16676

[Dakkon Black]

I say we revolt, Halster can't st-

*transmission ends*

[Halaster]

Well, someone else may think it's a great idea and veto me and do it.  I'm just stating my opinion.

[Agent_137]

It doesn't have that much more room for abuse than change ldesc, or the EMOTE command.

As a matter of fact, the emote command has much more abuse potential than a line or two in some one's mdesc. I mean, who reads that crap anyway?

[Bestatte]

Bad comparison though. Emote is a one-shot deal. It shows up, and then it's done. The only people who will see it are those who are there, the moment the emoter hits the enter key. A temp desc will last until it reverts back to its original state, which means everyone and their brother will have the opportunity to see something like this:

l twink
Teh man u c is huge mussles thin face long flowin har liek elf in lr0d of teh rings...

etc. etc.

And you'll keep seeing it until a staff member is alerted to it, or until twinkie changes it. I think the idea of secondary descriptions is great, but the implementation of a "temp" description might not be the way to go about it.

[Desertman (not logged in)]

Well that is not a very good excuse for doing away with the skill all together. If there is someone flat stupid enough to put....The man u c...so on and so forth in thier desc....I would expect the players who fell witness to such bad writing to either A. Explain to the new player that they cannot do that....B.Wish up about it.....C. Find an IC reason to do away with the character to teach the player a lesson...(Yes C has happened lol). These are exactly what everyone does now when they see someone doing horrible, Y U 8 Mih Kank? emotes. People do not put enough faith in the player base in my opinion, in six years of play I have never seen anything that anyone has done that might make me think this code should not be used, I may be wrong, but in instances where one person is fucking up, the players around them usually resolve it themselves or are prudent enough to quickly inform the staff. It is not a -new- problem, it is just -another- problem that will weed out it twists and turns over time, just like every other skill and ability in the game has done throughout the years.

[LoD]

People do not put enough faith in the player base in my opinion...

It's not a question of faith in the playerbase.  It's a question of controls.  Halaster has a legitimite problem with allowing any PC to add a description line to their PC without any supervision or approval from the Imm staff to make sure that it's consistent with their current description, doesn't break any basic rules, doesn't constitute some sort of abuse, etc...

Rules are not implemented because of a lack of faith in the masses.  Rules are implemented because a criminal few demonstrate repeatedly that a rule must be made to stop abusive behavior.  While I agree that this feature would be both useful and a lot of fun, I can also see where it may lead to abuses.

Now, perhaps it could still be implemented for use at a certain level of karma so tha the Imms have some control over who is able to make use of this feature.  A karma level one, perhaps, that is then removed if the feature is ever abused.  That way, you don't have new players being confused and adding something incorrect, but the Imms can demonstrate their trust by allowing players to still use the feature down the road.

Just a suggestion as a possible way to still include the feature.

-LoD

[Medena]

It seems to me that a temporary desc is no more abusable than a drop desc.  While a bad drop desc -can- be corrected by another player who comes along it also has the potential to be seen by a lot more players than a temp desc before being corrected.

Tell me, when was the last time you saw:

The packsack lies here ticking like there is a big fat atomic bomb in it.

or

lolz, the packsack is coverd n shit n stuffz tht u cant see, lolz

Ever?  Didn't think so.

[Desertman (not logged in)]

I cant say I have either Medena. Which is my point exactly. Sure this has potential for abuse,,,but is a temporary change to desc...not permenant...so it can be fixed just as fast as it is abused, just like emote, change ldesc, drop, and various other skills that do pretty much the same thing as this skill, "allowing you to add specific text for elaboration and better understanding"...I think the main issue people are having is it is changing the way a person looks in thier minds....but it isnt changing how someone looks, you can still see the entire desc...you still know who they are no matter how much they try to hide it...all they are doing is adding a little snippet to the end to let those that see them better understand an occurance that has happened to them...They might be covered in blood....Thier entrails could be hanging out.....and if they dont emote that to every single person that walks in the room....you can potentially have an entire room of pcs who dont realize they are stepping all over Bob's guts....which seems alot worse for the game than some newbie screwing up and putting...."Has hair like the lord of the rings"....which will be corrected by the first pc that sees him.

[LoD]

All of the examples being given seem to concern l337 speak or something completely out of the ordinary as compared to something more subtle, yet abusive.

This man stands over five cords in height, broad shoulders framing a heavy frame.  His coppery skin has been layered in silvery scars, most likely the result of more than a few scuffles.  Clumped about his brow in a chaotic swirl is a mop of matted, wisps of which dangle about his murky eyes below.  His eyes seem to glow an eerie red.

It's borderline.  It is a mutation?  Is it magick?  Should it really be there?  There's a lot of questions that can come up as a result of someone adding a questionable tagline.  As with an emote, object drop or ldesc, players can easily disregard or change them if they are out of place.  But a desc change won't be changed unless by an Imm (or the player) and that may just not be something they want.

Even taglines that seem okay aren't always fine for descriptions because they aren't maintained ALL the time:

-His expression is melancholy and it looks like he's been crying.
-His teeth part in a feral grin as he notices you looking at him.
-She constantly looks over her shoulder, seemingly paranoid.
-I have extremely good strength, #$%^es!
-He radiates with an aura of confidence and power.
-Little rats chitter at you from the depths of his monstrous beard.

-LoD

[ale six]

Everyone who makes it in the game has the ability to write an mdesc that passes standards. The rules for tdesc could be the exact same as for an mdesc (no actions, no silliness, etc). If people abused the feature, it could just be disabled for their account.

I think it'd be nice to have a way to reflect semi-permanent but still changeable aspects of an appearance. Specifics of a hairstyle, or if the character looks weary and tired, or if they're bruised or gashed up and so on.

On the other hand people might forget to update the thing when needs be. And you can always bring stuff like that out in emotes. Still, I like the idea and I don't think the worries of abuse are that big a deal.

[Halaster]

Everyone who makes it in the game has the ability to write an mdesc that passes standards.

Not entirely true.  We edit quite a few descriptions to make them fit the standards for new players.  Once someone has made a couple of character, we stop being so nice and start rejecting, but the first few we tend to be lenient and just fix the mistakes for them so that they 'pass'.

I like LoD's idea about having it karma-based.  I was thinking along those lines too.  I wonder, though, if it would be a problem in that "Oh, that dude can add a tdesc, he must have karma".  Not that it's such a horrible thing to know another person has karma, but something to think about.

[EvilRoeSlade]

If somebody is playing a half-giant or a gemmed magicker than that's a pretty good indication that they have karma.  It's no big deal.

However, if an ability like this were karma-based, then suddenly you would have a way to tell if someone DOESN'T have karma.  Which I really don't like.

[Maybe42or54]

Putting the Tdesc at 1 karma wouldn't be much of a problem, I think.

However, I don't like the idea that imms have to approve the Tdesc for everyone. Highly abuseable? So is emote. Can they somehow do more more damage with this, than emote? Yea sure. I really can't think of a situation that abuses Tdesc where a simple emote would not.

Someone please enlighten me.

[RunningMountain]

What's the difference between this and change ldesc, or scribble, or any of the other potentially abuseable commands. You can argue it anyway you want, lots of stuff is abuseable, that's no reason to say it shouldn't be implemented if it's a good idea. Imagine where we would be if someone said change ldesc was too abuseable to put in. We'd all just be standing around.

[jhunter]

I agree. I don't see this as being any more abusable than emote, ldesc, and locdesc at all. It seems to me that it has exactly the same potential for abuse and would be easy enough to catch I think.

[Agent_137]

I think the potential benefit greatly outwieghs any potential abuse.

Imagine if we didn't have change ldesc. Or drop descriptions.

Further, Tempdesc should reset on logging out. Otherwise it's not very temporary, is it?

Plus, it'd be way to easy to forget that you were bloodied up from combat, and then walk into the mess hall 3 IC weeks later, still bloodied up.

[jhunter]

I think the potential benefit greatly outwieghs any potential abuse.

Imagine if we didn't have change ldesc. Or drop descriptions.

Further, Tempdesc should reset on logging out. Otherwise it's not very temporary, is it?

Plus, it'd be way to easy to forget that you were bloodied up from combat, and then walk into the mess hall 3 IC weeks later, still bloodied up.

Good idea.

[Rindan]

I think you could make a tdesc as abusable as change ldesc.  As others have already mentioned, making it so that it resets each time you quit would help alleviate people bleeding in their tdesc for months on end because they forgot they changed it.  

As far as policing goes, I could see two things that might help.  

First, make the tdesc clearly marked.  Don't just slap it in at the end of the mdesc.  Give it a space break, an indentation, or something to point it out as a tdesc.  This way, you know it isn't an approved description.  If someone throws in that they have glowing red eyes, you can just treat it like they emoted that they have glowing red eyes, not as if glow red eyes is a part of their approved description.  This also leads to quicker reporting of abuse.  I would be hesitant to report a poor mdesc because I assume it has already passed an imms eyes and their might be a reason for any oddities in it.  I would be pretty quick to report a tdesc that seems insane as I know it hasn't meet any sort of approval.

Second, if a coder is feeling ambitious, throw in the ability to get a 'who' of all the tdesc currently being used in the game.  So, an imm can type "who –t" (or whatever) and they get a who list with tdesc appended to each name.  This way, at a glance they can see if there is anything really outlandish going on.  That said, I think if the tdesc is clearly marked, there is not much need for policing beyond what is already done for a simple emote.

I don't really like the idea making it karma restricted.  If it is clearly marked as not being apart from the mdesc and it resets each time the player quits, I don't see a reason to police it any harder then emoting or ldesc changes.  It isn't any more open to abuse then any other emote command.  Parceling out what I consider to be a pretty trivial RP device based upon karma doesn't seem to me to offer much benefit and will almost certainly led to resentment.  I have met a few n00bs who have emoted poorly or emoted inappropriate things and didn't have my eyes bleed out of my skull.  I imagine if I can tolerate the tall, muscular man and the tall, dark haired man fumbling with the emote command when they are still new to the game, I can tolerate them fumbling with the tdesc command.

[path]

Oh.. I just realized.. everything I had to say... has already been said. In any event. I'm strongly in favor.