Whoops, wrong keyword

[Sephiroto]

Have you ever had your character killed or almost killed because someone used the wrong keyword with a spell, kill, or hit?  I have.

What if we had a "friend" flag? This flag would be similar to hitch in the light that we would be unable to attack a "friend" unless we unflagged (unhitched) them, similar to what we seem to have with mounts now.  This would prevent a lot of keyword screwups, especially when 6 people with their hoods up are in the same room.

[Vanth]

You could encourage your friends to use the 'keyword' command to check their targets.

[Sephiroto]

Same thing with mounts, but we fixed that didn't we?

[Dar]

You could encourage your friends to use the 'keyword' command to check their targets.

That sounds good on paper, but on practice, when things happen withing 'seconds'. It's very easy to do a knee jerk and attack someone wrong. And if people are leaving/fleeing, coming back. Keyword is all messed up. By the time you figure things out whom to attack, and who is under attack, you've lost half your minions.

A 'friend' flag could 'reaaallly' help.

[Vanth]

Well, when 6 people with hoods up are in the same room, and spells and weapons are flying, and people are fleeing and coming back, things should be confusing.

[Sephiroto]

Well, when 6 people with hoods up are in the same room, and spells and weapons are flying, and people are fleeing and coming back, things should be confusing.

If you think about Armageddon through the eyes of a telnet client, then yes.

A Legion cloak is different than a Kuraci cloak is different than a Militia cloak.
Knights wore coat of arms to help not be confused with their enemies when fighting in large groups.  Soldiers had face-covering helmets, ninjas and samurai their masks, and knights their visors.  Their sdescs were hidden.  For the most part they didn't accidentally massacre their brothers in arms.

The time it takes to type "keyword cloak" or "keyword facewrap", decipher the a target, and type "kill 5.cloak" is unacceptable in regards the the amount of time you have to make decisions and enter commands in a combat situation.  It wasn't that long ago that I almost accidentally killed a NPC soldier because of a keyword slip up.  There is no way that any commoner, noble, or templar would, in their right mind, make that mistake, even amidst confusion.

I understand it would make extra work for the coders to add features to help avoid OOC confusion of who's who in combat.  It's not my idea here to bombard the staff with a bunch of extra features and needless crap.  I honestly think that entering a combat situation with a predisposition of who -not- to attack would be a significant bonus that the players would enjoy.

[Dar]

Not as confusing as they are due to the limitations of text. Not when screwing up a keyword can end a plot of half a year time. I personally consider it an 'ooc' mistake, not an ic error.

[IntuitiveApathy]

Well, when 6 people with hoods up are in the same room, and spells and weapons are flying, and people are fleeing and coming back, things should be confusing.

I think what they're talking about is when your character has decided/would know who they wouldn't attack going into a scrum like that.

For instance:  there's 6 cloaked people, but the guys on your team are all wearing blue-coloured cloaks, while the guys you want to off are all wearing brown-coloured cloaks.  In this case, my character does not want to attack anyone wearing blue, because they think they're on their side.  But if I were to type, 'kill brown', I may very well end up attacking my friend, the brown-eyed girl (even though she's wearing a blue cloak).  I would then say that's a coded limitation and OOC mistake, not a proper IC mistake.

How would you prevent yourself from attacking your own people?  Some sort of new toggle similar to mercy, linked to clans or individuals or even keywords?

Of course, if I had my 'safeword' on, and one of my enemies happens to be wearing a blue-coloured cloak as well, and I don't attack them, then that's a perfectly sneaky IC consequence and an example of how IC confusion should work as opposed to OOC confusion.

---

But here's yet another example of OOC confusion that is unrelated to the above problem:

One of my characters was killed by two cloak-wearing PCs.  Both were approximately the same height and both were wearing the same kind of cloak.  However, one was a magicker and one was not.  I knew this because the magicker started magicking.  However, I had no OOC way to tell my character to go after the magicker, because there was no way for me to codedly distinguish the two PCs despite the IC knowledge that the one to the left with all the pretty effects and waving hands was the magicker (and not the one to the right with the nice swords).  If I could have, then perhaps my character would've survived the encounter.

That latter sort of problem is a much more difficult code problem to solve.

[Jarek]

Well, when 6 people with hoods up are in the same room, and spells and weapons are flying, and people are fleeing and coming back, things should be confusing.

[sarcasm]  Yes, because I don't know about you, but when I'm out with my friends, and they have their hoods up on their jackets, I have a hard time knowing who they are when we play basketball, because it is so confusing, and hard to distinguish, between people you know. [/sarcasm]

Or maybe that's just the way it is in game.

[Clearsighted]

Well, when 6 people with hoods up are in the same room, and spells and weapons are flying, and people are fleeing and coming back, things should be confusing.

If you think about Armageddon through the eyes of a telnet client, then yes.

A Legion cloak is different than a Kuraci cloak is different than a Militia cloak.
Knights wore coat of arms to help not be confused with their enemies when fighting in large groups.  Soldiers had face-covering helmets, ninjas and samurai their masks, and knights their visors.  Their sdescs were hidden.  For the most part they didn't accidentally massacre their brothers in arms.

The time it takes to type "keyword cloak" or "keyword facewrap", decipher the a target, and type "kill 5.cloak" is unacceptable in regards the the amount of time you have to make decisions and enter commands in a combat situation.  It wasn't that long ago that I almost accidentally killed a NPC soldier because of a keyword slip up.  There is no way that any commoner, noble, or templar would, in their right mind, make that mistake, even amidst confusion.

I understand it would make extra work for the coders to add features to help avoid OOC confusion of who's who in combat.  It's not my idea here to bombard the staff with a bunch of extra features and needless crap.  I honestly think that entering a combat situation with a predisposition of who -not- to attack would be a significant bonus that the players would enjoy.

Pretty well said.

[mansa]

I think a better situation would be to have the ability to turn off the sdesc keywords.

You can use someone's name.  You can use someone's present short description keywords, but not their keywords underneath their cloak.

Toggleable for the user, when they want to not have the mistake of hitting the incorrect 'crimson' or the incorrect 'brown'.

[Sephiroto]

While that is a nice suggestion, it only solves half the problem.   It doesn't address the issue for sdesc-hiding items like cloaks, masks, or facewraps.

Anyway, if you know your target's name already there's a near 100% chance that you wouldn't accidentally and OOCly kill your buddy anyway.

[Chettaman]

In the middle of the hunt...

Code Select Expand

A shadow is here

A short figure in an inky black greatcloak has arrived from the north.

>kill shadow
You slash the short figure in an inky black greatcloak hard on the neck!
you slash the short figure in an inky black greatcloak hard on his foot!
He reels from the blow!

Shout Oh shit! Sorry Shadow!

The short figure in an inky black greatcloak exclaims to you in northern accented sirihish:
Krath-damn, fella!? I'd hate to see what you did to your mother when she caught you... *beep*

You slash the short figure in an inky black greatcloak hard on the neck!
The short figure in an inky black greatcloak crumples to the ground.
A shadow moves east.