When the emotive art goes bad...

[Vesperas]

Occassionally, I will find that one player who absolutely loves to emote.

You know... the one that somehow manages to consistantly throw out three-or-more-line emotes, one after another, about the most mundane of actions (sitting, smiling, blinking).

I don't know how the rest of the playerbase feels about this, but after a while, this just gets annoying.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE and ENCOURAGE the use of emote whenever possible -- in fact, I'd be fairly insulted if someone just tried to use the code on or around me with no regard to scenery, situation, or audience.  

But even I begin to lose my patience trying to read a paragraph describing how someone's eyes glitter in the lightning-fast pulsation of light from the fluctuating atomic activity of Zalanthas' burning sun-star.

Over and over.


Does anyone think it would ever be appropriate to ask another player to 'tone it down'?

I love being totally immersed in my surroundings, but sometimes excessiveness actually hurts it.

[EonBlueApocalypse]

It's a bit much to discourage emoting.  Rather, why not encourage using semote/hemote for like ...  blinking?

[Hymwen]

While I'd never actually ask them to stop, I can get annyed when a player continually emotes just to emote. Especially if it's in already spammy settings, such as a full tavern or an RPT.

[Rhyden]

I remember this one player who emoted 3-line emoted -every- single emote, say, tell, talk, whisper or shout they ever made. I mean, it's ok sometimes, but when I'm seeing paragraph after paragraph, I just stop reading, and it starts to get a bit jarring.

[Xygax]

Don't go ooc to complain about the other player's emoting.  Feel free to use the request tool to provide them with feedback, however.

For myself, the wordy emotes are only irritating if I'm dependant on that other person for something to happen, and in addition to being wordy, they don't type fast.

If the long emotes that aren't bottlenecking you are still bothering you, try reading them for mistakes.  I always find it fun watching to see if people will smile and frown in the same emote, for example.

-- X

[EonBlueApocalypse]

There's a line between immersing yourself into your character and contributing to everyone elses experience.  I think most people know to tone it down when things get busy, and I really don't mind if someone emotes alot in a smaller group or a private session.

I think if they don't know this, they can read this thread and find out.  Good lookin' out, OP.

[Briarfox]

It's a bit much to discourage emoting.  Rather, why not encourage using semote/hemote for like ...  blinking?

I have to agree. That is a positive approach and likely to be taken into consideration more readily then being asked to 'tone it down' which could hurt someone's feelings.

[ale six]

I personally like to save the long emotes for and see them in the serious RP scenes (and mudsex).

Otherwise, I'm just as happy if someone tosses out a one or two-liner if they can keep pace with things. It's funny when somebody throws a huge whale of an emote... five actions too late.

[KingOfSpades]

I like the emotes that use all the new words the kid learned from his 11th grade vocabulary book. I seriously think some people search for the most rare and uinque word to express stupid things....

Bombastic or verbose....

I once died looking up a word from dictionary.com. Turned out the word I was looking up was another word for the word "attack".

Only time I pull off a million emotes per hour is if I am in a tavern full of people who are idle. THen I like the use lots of the virtual enviornment to get the idlers in the 'mood'.

[Vesperas]

I once had the urge to try and engage one of these folks in an emote battle.
Sadly, I knew I would lose.

[rishenko]

Oh hell no.    The length of an emote and the overuse of command emotes is highly subjective.  Everybody has a different idea of length and what is acceptable, and to me a lot of it depends on how fast the typist is.  If they can pull off a Robert Jordan emote in ten seconds flat, power to 'em!  Otherwise, stick to Hemingway.  Remember, one man's squirt of a McDonald's mustard packet is another man's Grey Poupon.

[Briarfox]

Remember, one man's squirt of a McDonald's mustard packet is another man's Grey Poupon.

:shock:

LOL! I have to agree. Everyone is different, I know it can be tiresome to read a 'book' emote sometimes, but it is unfair to try and limit people to your preferences. I personally -love- to see emoting, even alot of it, it is far better then the alternative of no emoting at all.

[EonBlueApocalypse]

I disagree with this, Rishenko.  Consider that people have to read these, too.  And keep up.  It depends on the environment, and sometimes too much takes away from your contribution.

[rishenko]

I disagree with this, Rishenko.  Consider that people have to read these, too.  And keep up.  It depends on the environment, and sometimes too much takes away from your contribution.

Well, hopefully people are using at least a little common sense.  Just because you're a court reporter doesn't mean you need to flaunt it.

[LauraMars]

I don't mind long emotes.  I don't mind short emotes.  I do mind people who use the same emote for every talk or say, but I'm not going to start a thread whining about it.

People are emoting.  This is good, because in a text game, you must learn to read.  Live and let live.

Rock on.

[MarshallStaxx]

I'd love it if someone coded a plug-in for my mud client that linked all my emotes to Thesaurus.com.
Then I could come up with some colourful words rather than my rather limited pallete.

[Ghost]

I don't mind long emotes, or short emotes.  All I want is to get an idea how the other PC is responding and how fast.  Usually, the players I see are good in that sense.

Once in a life time, I get to meet someone writing a long emote and taking like 2-5 minutes for each say/talk/emote and what not.  That nearly drives me crazy.  And I usually cut it to the chase and leave (if I can) the person there if that happens.

[moab]

I think emoting is the life blood of the game.
When I find someone who likes to emote two or three lines to describe something then I feel I'm experiencing the game at its finest.

If emoting bothered me I would go play WOW or something.

I'm here because people are smart, like to think about things and like to describe what they are doing.

Personally, it annoys me when someone uses only code _most_ of the time.

I think it's ironical that someone (anyone) would complain about reading text on a text-only game.

LOL.

[moab]

I don't mind long emotes.  I don't mind short emotes.  I do mind people who use the same emote for every talk or say, but I'm not going to start a thread whining about it.

People are emoting.  This is good, because in a text game, you must learn to read.  Live and let live.

Rock on.

btw, I love Laura Mars.

[EonBlueApocalypse]

I don't think anyone is saying that we don't like to read.  

I think the point was that, if you are capable of typing very fast and the room is crowded, then some people can take away from the RP.  I have been guilty of this in the past, being a fairly fast writer and typer.  Eventually, I learned that it was just as important to 'share the stage' with my fellow players when the game becomes fast-paced.

[Pantoufle]

Call me silly but I don't like playing when the PC count of a room goes past 4.  This is because it becomes to spammy and difficult to focus on who is who for me, let alone focus on my own character.  I like to imagine the world around me as though I were in a storybook.  When I can no longer do that, my enjoyment goes down the drain and I feel like logging out.

I like to emote as much as I can and I like to be as descriptive as possible.  I also prefer to interact around players who do the same (rather than those who are always "nodding simply").  Having said that, I have a personal pet peeve of making emotes longer than 2 lines.  I don't mind reading it from others, but I just hate doing it myself.  I don't even know why, I think it just looks awkward without the formating possible on a MUSH.  In instances such as this, I simply emote twice.  But I try to make my greatest focus emoting descriptively yet with brevity.  It really is an art form and as I've suggested in Sanvean's post about obscure keywords, it's one of those things where if someone tries and fails at least they are trying.  Furthermore, I actually don't mind waiting for someone to type out a descriptive emote as long as it's not an ungodly amount of time.  It actually gives me something to look forward to (assuming they know what they're doing).

The trick to descriptive but short emotes is knowing when to clip certain words.  It's not necessary to use the ~item in every single emote.  Sometimes you can just emote 'his sword' or 'the table', instead of reminding us for the umpteenth time that the table is smooth and polished, made of marble, etc -- especially since that may not even be the focus of what your emote is trying to say.  I've also even used phrases such as "nodding to his table companions" instead of using "nodding to ~man and ~woman simultaneously."  Everyone knows who I am nodding to, so why flood the emote with their keyword when you can, instead, focus on HOW you nodding.  Are you nodding brusquely?  Emphatically?  Indifferently?  And so on.

[LauraMars]

Addendum: For the most part, I find that stressful spam is not emotes, it is Doing Stuff.

Peak hours in Ye Merry Taverne, and my screen ain't scrolling at 60 mph cause we're all describing what we're doing with eloquence and grace.  We're standing, sitting, getting, putting, leaving, entering, and sometimes we're killing (combat!) We've also got the nodding, smiling grinners at large, and it doesn't take much effort to type "nods" (it's so popular.)  The result being a mile long list of one line echoes to the room that just went up my screen like a speeding bullet.

So leave the long emoters alone.  It gives a visual break, and at least when they're typing those out they aren't getting 40 things from their backpack.

Much as I hate to go on about this, I suppose Pantoufle did have a point about brevity.  Exercise a little creativity.  No need to use the coded keyword for every object every time.

[Vynestra]

I agree with Laura. Long emoters in a tavern are actually better I think than a bunch of nods, smiles, stand up and sit downs. As long as people arent stringing together a bunch of different actions in their one long emote I am great with that style.

Good emoting is like good s3x: Slow at times, fast at other times, rough and raw, and deep and meaningful at other times.  Bad emoting is like bad s3x: sometimes you gag.

[LoD]

I don't know how the rest of the playerbase feels about this, but after a while, this just gets annoying.

I've only ever met one or two characters that emote in such a way, so I can't say that it's been a real problem for me in the many years that I've played the game.  Emoting is great.  Emoting to enhance and describe the atmosphere is even better.  Clegane is a great player for bringing the surrounding world alive in their emotes; a good example of someone who uses large words and fairly long sentences to create a profound statement with their character.

It might be helpful to consider what your emote is telling the people around you.

What happened?

The tall, muscular man trips.

Why did it happen?

The tall, muscular man trips over the chest.

How did it happen?

The tall, muscular man's right boot catches the lid of a plain baobab chest as he steps forward, causing him to tumble forward to the ground.

...and the Kitchen Sink

As the left calf muscle flexes tightly, the tall, muscular man steps forward with his right foot, the string of his dusty boot catching on a bone hook protruding from the plain baobab chest carelessly pulled away from the wall, pitching him forward to land roughly upon the stone floor of the crowded barracks.

There's certainly nothing wrong about the last emote, but the game happens at a pace where reading through lines of emoted text can be cumbersome if other actions are taking place.  For the same reason I mentioned on the "new text idea", I prefer blocks of text to be broken up over several steps for ease of reading.

Easier to Read

The tall, muscular man steps forward with his right foot, the string of his dusty boot catching on a bone hook protruding from a plain baobab chest.

Pitching forward to land roughly on the stone floor, the tall, muscular man mutters loudly to himself as he pulls himself to his feet, rubbing his knee.

Everyone has a different style, and I think that lengthy emotes are always better than no emotes at all.  However, the long "winded" emoters of the game may want to consider breaking down their movements into smaller, more readable actions.

-LoD

[jhunter]

The only gripe I have is, as LoD said, with a couple of people I have interacted with in the past who go way too far with their emoting. These are the same people, as someone earlier said, who keep you waiting far too long for responses.

I have only encountered two people that I felt went to the point of it becoming annoying.