The look command

[Shimrod]

This command isn't supposed to be a challenge, right?
I mean, the only possible way to know someone's status/rank (templars aside) is by looking at them. But by looking at them, you are potentially putting yourself in the position of NOT being deferential. How do I get around this?

I kind of understood "look" as quickly taking in a person and what they are wearing, not using some sort of lingering glance/meeting their eyes/etc. Am I off-base here?

[BlackMagic0]

I kind of understood "look" as quickly taking in a person and what they are wearing, not using some sort of lingering glance/meeting their eyes/etc. Am I off-base here?

I always do this.. Don't worry.. If they take it as a bad-look or such, they maybe just pissy IC and its IC reasons..
I have to look to see rank, if nobles, etc.. If nobles or just merchants and all that..

just do something like...

em takes a quick, sidelong glance at ~person
l person

If you really wanna point out its a quickie glance, that is.. If you wanna stare, throw that in a emote or the l..   l person (staring)
And then go back to what ever you were doing. 

[Gunnerblaster]

Always interesting about how when someone walks into a room, most PC's immediately drop what their doing - for a moment - to 'look' at them.

>The tall man has arrived from the east.
>The brown woman looks at the tall man.
>The nobly man looks at the tall man.
>The blind man looks at the tall man.

Am I the only one who finds this slightly amusing???

[Southie]

You can do things like...

>look (with a brief glance)
>look (eyes lowered respectfully)
>look (with a discrete turn of her head)

... and so on. That lets the other player know how you're looking at them.

You can also do:

>look man's cloak
>look man's signet
>look man's aba

And so on. That'll let you glance at something the person is wearing (if they're wearing anything with the keyword you put in), and that'll help you identify what they might be without a look echo.

Once you get a bit of experience, it becomes easier to tell who's important. Does the PC have a guard with them? Are they wearing a metal ring? Does their cloak have any obvious symbols of a noble or merchant house? Pay attention to details like that and you'll do fine.

[Gimfalisette]

The look command will take command emotes. USE THEM. They will help you indicate to the person you're looking at exactly how you're looking at them, so there's no interpretation needed.

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> look man (staring openly)

Staring openly, you look at the tall, muscular man.

> look woman (giving !woman a lingering up-and-down)

Giving her a lingering up-and-down, you look at the tall, curvaceous woman.

> look woman (sneering)

Sneering, you look at the tall, curvaceous woman.

> look man (briefly)

Briefly, you look at the tall, muscular man.

And no, look is not a challenge in and of itself. But using command emotes with it will help tell your target that.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuur. Southie just said the same thing

[Shimrod]

Thanks for the help, this clarifies it for me. I guess I was surprised look had an echo at all.

[Gimfalisette]

There are times when look does not echo: When you are looking at yourself, at an item, at the room you're in, or in a direction, if you do not attach a command emote. However, if you attach a command emote to the look command in those instances, it will echo. Which is very nifty.

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> look east (squinting into the glare of the blood-red, rising sun)

Squinting into the glare of the blood-red, rising sun, you look east.

> look sword (tracing a finger delicately along its razor-sharp blade)

Tracing a finger delicately along its razor-sharp blade, you look at the obsidian longsword.

> look (staring wild-eyed)

Staring wild-eyed, you look around the room.

[Gunnerblaster]

There are times when look does not echo: When you are looking at yourself, at an item, at the room you're in, or in a direction, if you do not attach a command emote. However, if you attach a command emote to the look command in those instances, it will echo. Which is very nifty.

Your shitting me?

Well I've learned something new.

Sweet-ness.

[amish overlord]

At one point in time this use to be vital to health of your character to look at everyone. Use to be least in nak, nobles killed you if you didn't acknowledge and bow to them(not all nobles but a few). I swear one of my guys die when my power went out do to one of these. Fortunately this has changed, nobles not getting po'd when not everyone stops and bows. and for some people habits die hard.

Amish Overlord 

[Conspiracy Theory]

The "look (with a brief glance)" thing doesn't hold water to me.

If you're "looking" at someone closely enough to observe their entire main description and every article of clothing/jewelry they're wearing then you're looking at them pretty closely. I govern my "looks" at other PCs pretty tightly for this purpose, and it is a pet peeve of mine when everyone in a busy, bustling barroom with VNPCs walking in and out multiple times per second that when one poor Joe walks in he's spammed with 10 "look (with a glance)" type deals.

If there's particular insignia I'd notice or somesuch I usually use "look man's cloak" or "look man's robes", or stuff like that, and then only take a full "look" if anything about their character would really pique mine's interest enough to take a really close, detailed look at them.

And if I do give them a look like this I am not at all surprised if their character takes notice, because yes, I -was- giving them a pretty close once-over.

[Jenred]

I always thought look should be hidden, (like it is with items, directions, etc) unless emoted specifically, or a tagged look.

You are looking at things all the time, and it would be annoying to see it echo on everything.

[Akaramu]

The "look (with a brief glance)" thing doesn't hold water to me.

If you're "looking" at someone closely enough to observe their entire main description and every article of clothing/jewelry they're wearing then you're looking at them pretty closely. I govern my "looks" at other PCs pretty tightly for this purpose, and it is a pet peeve of mine when everyone in a busy, bustling barroom with VNPCs walking in and out multiple times per second that when one poor Joe walks in he's spammed with 10 "look (with a glance)" type deals.

I believe most people do this to just take note of anything very easily noticeable, and possibly very important, that just seeing the sdesc doesn't provide. A red-eyed demon being worn on the head, all clothes being bloodied and burned, or weapons wielded.. maybe try to just trust those players to not take a detailed note of your mdesc until you sit down nearby and draw attention towards yourself. A few might immediately copy past it, but those are a minority.

Personally, I tend to just skim over all equipment worn and often don't read the mdesc at all. Especially if it is already hard to keep up with the other spam in a place packed full of socializing PCs.

[amish overlord]

I used look as a blind character, used it to figure what I might hear, the swishing of silk, creaking of leather, sound of other things. And to rp out recognizing peoples voices, even if wore a hooded cloak. Was mildly fun.

Amish Overlord 

[Agent_137]

The "look (with a brief glance)" thing doesn't hold water to me.

If you're "looking" at someone closely enough to observe their entire main description and every article of clothing/jewelry they're wearing then you're looking at them pretty closely. I govern my "looks" at other PCs pretty tightly for this purpose, and it is a pet peeve of mine when everyone in a busy, bustling barroom with VNPCs walking in and out multiple times per second that when one poor Joe walks in he's spammed with 10 "look (with a glance)" type deals.

If there's particular insignia I'd notice or somesuch I usually use "look man's cloak" or "look man's robes", or stuff like that, and then only take a full "look" if anything about their character would really pique mine's interest enough to take a really close, detailed look at them.

And if I do give them a look like this I am not at all surprised if their character takes notice, because yes, I -was- giving them a pretty close once-over.

Look is -not- a pretty close once-over. Otherwise, the imms would not have added the emote possibility to it (which was added about a year ago i think) that's how it was before. it's not how it is now.

Every look is noticeable to some degree, true. It echoes, so it's noticeable, so sayeth the code.

But it can be a brief glance. or a long hard look. That's what the emotes are for. That's why the Imms put it there. You're not doing yourself any good playing to a different rule.

[jstorrie]

>l man's cloak and >l man's ring tend to work well for me; you can throw in >l man's medallion, in Allanak. You will run into the occasional templar or noble who wears no cloak, no medallion, and no ring (or gloves!) but then it's their own damned fault for not being obviously upper-class, so fuck 'em.

[Gimfalisette]

I'm going to point out here that the OP is a newbie. Newbies don't know how to recognize the various insignia, or what all the pertinent keywords are to surreptitiously check out someone's equipment without actually invoking a "look" that echoes.

Give newbies a break. Look is just a look, that's all. And until we have some way of codedly knowing that OMG UR CHARACTER IS TOTALLY NAKED, DOOD without "look"ing...then folks just need to deal with the fact that look is a coded solution to the issue of needing to acquire pertinent information.

[mansa]

You can do:

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>assess -v <keyword>

This will give the echo, '<sdesc> glances at <sdesc>.'

This will tell you what approximate age someone is relative to their race, how large and how tall they are, as well as if they are ARMED.


I'd like it if it would tell people if they were a noble or a templar or an important person of rank as well, but alas, only in dreams


If you're a rogue, you can also use the 'peek' skill to see what people are wearing, discretely (depending on your skill).

[fallacy]

I wish we could get rid of the look echo.

[Wish]

I also would like to get rid of the look echo.  My char hasn't used look for months for just that reason.

[X-D]

Your PC must not like interaction.

The look echo  brings it. No matter what many of you think, without it there would be much less PC to PC interaction, specially with newbs. Who can at least figure that the one that looked at them might be a PC instead of the npc they have been saying to  for the last 10 minutes.

Have your client parse it out sometime and see how much more boring the game gets.

[Irulan]

I honestly just don't feel like the look echo is -that- big of a deal. Codedly it is the only way that you can get an overall glimse of what the person looks like easily and quickly.

look <person's> cloak works...but what if they are wearing a duster, or an aba? If thier hood is down you can't tell that without look, and I don't really want to sit there and go through:

l <person's> cloak
You do not see that here

think Damn
l <person's> aba
You do not see that here

continue ad naseum - when if I just -looked- at them, I would know what they were wearing easily and quickly.
In RL bars, people will 'people watch' all the time without it being distracting. I kind of think of the look command in a similar fashion. Unless someone is emoting out that they are staring my character down or something else very notable, I just tend to overlook it.

I guess I just don't really see it as a very big deal.

-Irulan

[aruna]

Code Select Expand


> look (staring wild-eyed)

Staring wild-eyed, you look around the room.

I love it when I learn something new.

[a strange shadow]

I always thought look should be hidden, (like it is with items, directions, etc) unless emoted specifically, or a tagged look.

You are looking at things all the time, and it would be annoying to see it echo on everything.

This.

[Gimfalisette]

Code Select Expand


> look (staring wild-eyed)

Staring wild-eyed, you look around the room.

I love it when I learn something new.

Here's another tip: In case your PC is paralyzed for some reason, but there's someone in the scene who is still interacting with you and you want to interact back, the look command is your one and only way to emote anything.

Code Select Expand

> look (staring blankly ahead, silent and motionless)

Staring blankly ahead, silent and motionless, you look around.

It's not perfect, but it's at least somewhat of a solution to being paralyzed and yet wanting to continue to interact and contribute. An imm gave me this tip when I wished up while paralyzed once, so I consider using look this way to be imm-sanctioned. Obviously it's not for emoting things you really couldn't do while paralyzed, duh.

[aruna]

Here's another tip: In case your PC is paralyzed for some reason, but there's someone in the scene who is still interacting with you and you want to interact back, the look command is your one and only way to emote anything.

I've only had a character that was paralyzed once, but she was also blinded, among other things; death followed swiftly. There was no hope for that one. In my catalogue of fond PC deaths, that one's caption reads "Overkill."

But thanks for the tip - I'll remember it for the future.