Helmets.

[Potaje]

[edited] Umm, no comment.

[rocketman]

Avoiding the back and forth of whether it's necessary or not:
Maybe have a flag for helmets with faceplates, similar (but opposite syntax)to cloaks with hoods?

wear <helmet>
- By default, faceplate would be up, and no sdesc covering would occur.

lower faceplate
- Helmet's sdesc active

raise faceplate
- Helmet's sdesc inactive

Retroactively outfitting it on current helms may be impractical, but just figured I'd toss this in the pile.

+1
I like this Idea.

[BleakOne]

For the record, I've seen the mistake happen numerous times, and even seen PCs die from it. It's hard to tell who is hitting who sometimes if there is a lot of fighting going on. Mistakes happen, even with other keywords available. It's not a case of "I just want to enter commands mindlessly" and more a case of "I don't want my 40-day warrior (or mul, or half giant, or fellah with a poisoned dagger) to kill someone stupidly in the heat of combat when they attack me mistakenly and I don't realize it".

Anyway, I'm all for the faceplate up/down option, even though most people would just never lower their faceplates.

[X-D]

I have yet to have a character killed or kill a character because of a keyword mistake. I've never even witnessed it happen because the times someone has accidently done it they just disengage. (before it was added people just fled) I've had a lot of characters, probably too many.


And as I said before: disengage

I guess this would be the difference between the less then 2 year players and those of us with 10-20 years playing.

I have killed or nearly killed at least 10 PCs from keyword errors, Had it happen to me once and seen it dozens of times.

And that was before the current flee code, which would assure death verses many PCs...I don't think you have ever come across a half-giant in combat, a HG can kill most anything PC wise in a single hit, and flee gives them a free one.

On top of that, I have to agree with anybody that argues this idea is not needed because helms are armor and needed. As it stands, if my PC takes a group out, all facewraps off and all hoods lowered, even if you could raise and lower your helms faceguard, Well, people would, in the end simply leave them up anyway.

Also, I have played on muds that have this idea...or had, and just saw it as a horrible annoyance the entire time, So, playability over realism in this case.

[A Large Bag]

I have yet to have a character killed or kill a character because of a keyword mistake. I've never even witnessed it happen because the times someone has accidently done it they just disengage. (before it was added people just fled) I've had a lot of characters, probably too many.


And as I said before: disengage

I guess this would be the difference between the less then 2 year players and those of us with 10-20 years playing.

I have killed or nearly killed at least 10 PCs from keyword errors, Had it happen to me once and seen it dozens of times.

And that was before the current flee code, which would assure death verses many PCs...I don't think you have ever come across a half-giant in combat, a HG can kill most anything PC wise in a single hit, and flee gives them a free one.

On top of that, I have to agree with anybody that argues this idea is not needed because helms are armor and needed. As it stands, if my PC takes a group out, all facewraps off and all hoods lowered, even if you could raise and lower your helms faceguard, Well, people would, in the end simply leave them up anyway.

Also, I have played on muds that have this idea...or had, and just saw it as a horrible annoyance the entire time, So, playability over realism in this case.

Wrong. I've played for about 16 years. From my perspective, you just have bad luck.

[Yam]

Oh snap.

[musashi]

There does reach a tipping point, after so many people have chimed in siting similar experiences, wherein one has to wonder if everyone else has had en masse, bad luck ... or if you've just had good luck.

[X-D]

That is not what I was wondering...

[MeTekillot]

But you all digress.

[musashi]

I wouldn't call it a digress. I would say that a fair number of people have concerns that the idea would lead to keyword mistarget related near death experiences. I'd rather see some ideas to address that than more "I just don't believe it's a problem because it hasn't happened to me personally yet.".

[Delirium]

Would be neat, but sometimes things from real life don't work in a text-based game. This is one of those times.

[A Large Bag]

I would say that a fair number of people have concerns that the idea would lead to keyword mistarget related near death experiences. I'd rather see some ideas to address that than more "I just don't believe it's a problem because it hasn't happened to me personally yet.".

As I would also like to see more solutions to address those concerns rather than: "It's such a problem I say no to the change." It works both ways. Some people have offered suggestions to limit these concerns. Others just keep saying: No, I don't like the idea because of "A' and I'm not going to offer any suggestions as how to make it better.

I would rather it be constructive from both sides of the argument. If it's as bad as some are making it out to be, well shit, let's just remove all items that cover up sdescs then. I had absolutely no idea it was so difficult for people to deal with. We can already deal with items that cover them up. This is just a different one, I don't believe it's going to show any increase in the amount of issues with it. And we'll never know unless we try it.

I already said I was going to bow out of it and got sucked back in again. I need to stop before I get annoyed and get myself into trouble. Have fun!

[Armaddict]

I have seen this done gloriously in other places.

It can be done, it's neat, but I won't pretend to say what needs to take priority and what doesn't.  But people saying this isn't viable aren't really stretching their possibilities muscles much, as the problems they're citing are actually relatively minor.

[musashi]

I would rather it be constructive from both sides of the argument. If it's as bad as some are making it out to be, well shit, let's just remove all items that cover up sdescs then. I had absolutely no idea it was so difficult for people to deal with. We can already deal with items that cover them up. This is just a different one, I don't believe it's going to show any increase in the amount of issues with it. And we'll never know unless we try it.

There is a qualitative difference between hoods and face wraps, and helments. It's already been pointed out. The difference is that there are no animals in the game named "white sand cloth" or "great cloak". So the mistargeting for those is very minimal.

If we had a sudden influx of "silt horror helmed" and "carru hide helmed" people that would be a whole different ball of wax.

Perhaps one solution could be changing the description of such items so they no longer blatantly displayed an animal name.

From carru to tanned leather, from silt horror to silt hued shell, or something of the like.

[BleakOne]

It is a relatively rare occurance for someone to die due to a keyword mixup. I've still seen four or five PCs die due to it, however, one of whom was a half-giant and one of whom was executed for accidently killing another. So I'd hesitate to add in a chance to increase the amount of accidental deaths. Dying to an OOC type accident sucks.

As for getting rid of other things that hide sdescs, with them it's not as much of a problem. There's not a whole lot of gortok-maned cloaks or scrab shell masks, and it's simple enough to just remove them. Removing your helmet, however, leaves you quite open to dying.

My constructive bit: Don't make it change sdescs. However, it would be funny if the muffled voice (could work for masks as well) would mess up your speech, similar to someone with Journeyman level in their language would speak. That would make people take their helmets off to talk, but not cause the noobs to get killed during mistakes. However, if this solution seems like a lot of staff work for a small gain.

Edit: Musashi ninja'd me. Curse you! 

[SpyGuy]

My constructive bit: Don't make it change sdescs. However, it would be funny if the muffled voice (could work for masks as well) would mess up your speech, similar to someone with Journeyman level in their language would speak. That would make people take their helmets off to talk, but not cause the noobs to get killed during mistakes. However, if this solution seems like a lot of staff work for a small gain.

Journeyman?!?  Wow, patrols would get interesting.

The uber-helmeted sergeant says in Sirihish, "Bfw's fo gill erme fish." [Let's go kill some gith.]

The tanklike trooper says in Sirihish, "Srege, nree otf ynur halfet." [Sarge, take off your helmet.]

The uber-helmeted sergeant says in Sirihish, "Wtft?" [What?]

The tanklike troopers says in Sirihish, pointing to his head, "Yuar hasmat!" [Your helmet!]

*helmet spam*

I still say helmet spam would get annoying.  And I'm still too lazy to even worry about it using emotes.

[Booya]

The spam would be ridiculous if every time someone entered a bar they entered, lowered their hood, took of their helmet, emoted doing such and then emoted going to the bar.  

If you use command emotes it can be done in three:

lower hood (looking all fly and shit as she enters the tavern)
Looking all fly and shit as she enters the tavern, the big-boobed bardass lowers her hood

remove helmet (prancing over to ~bar)
Prancing over to the bar, the big-boobed bardass removes her helmet

(showing off a little) sit bar [holding up two fingers]
Showing off a litte, the big-boobed bardass sits at the bar, holding up two fingers.


Still, it's kind of a hassle, and easy forget to take them off all the time.  Raising faceplates and/or tagging it onto the sdesc sounds like the best remedy. Even if people had their faceplates raised all the time it would make better sense than to have them always lowered.

Edit: On the other hand, it doesn't bother me that much and is one of those playability things where I just suspend disbelief.