Masks/Facewraps

[titansfan]

I see this has been mentioned in two other threads already. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Go at it here!

I think they should hide the mdesc but all the articles of armor or clothing should still be visible. I don't know if people have suggested it completely masking you or what. But I find hiding the mdesc to be acceptable and realistic.

[RogueGunslinger]

Hide the mdesc. Please, for kraths sake, hide the mdesc.

You can still see their height and weight, you can still assess-v to get an idea of their age. These things should be more than enough to represent that "I just knew it was so-and-so" feeling you get when watching someone you know with a helmet on or somesuch. The idea here is you don't KNOW for sure. You've got a feeling. Also, if that person wants to recognize having a limp, or a strange gait, or a certain set to their shoulders, then this is something that should be left for emote, hemote and semotes.

[Sav]

For, uh, retroactive context:

On the one hand, I totally get this, because I've played on games where masks/hoods hid your mdesc and it's still a little weird to me that they don't on Arm. On the other hand, I've recognized friends plenty of times when they were wearing motorcycle helmets/masks/wigs/facing away from me/etc. Just because you have a Pikachu mask on doesn't mean that you don't still walk with that weird swing to your left leg, or that you aren't still 6'2" and stupidly visible, or that you aren't wearing the exact same outfit you were two hours ago.

[RogueGunslinger]

The thing that bothers me about this is that there ARE mdesc covering masks in the game. They're super special rare items because of this, but there's no explanation whatsoever as to the difference in this sort of mask and the kind that aren't rare. It feel very unrealistic to me. Either get rid of them all for your OOC reasons of limiting them, or make them all realistic.

[Nyr]

The thing that bothers me about this is that there ARE mdesc covering masks in the game.

citation needed

[Yam]

On one hand, people are often more recognizable by mannerisms, tone of voice, gait, stature, and other intangibles that cannot be represented in the game than mere physical characteristics. This makes mdesc recognition useful as you can decide whether or not you recognize someone (oocly via their mdesc, icly via other intangibles) or not. On the other, leaving mdescs always visible takes a lot of skullduggery out of the game.

Ultimately I don't think masks or facewraps should remove mdescs. Characters should be able to know whether or not they recognize someone and be trusted not to take elements of an mdesc they wouldn't otherwise be able to recognize. If you think someone has abused this, like said some thief was a man with a star-shaped scar on his face when the dude was wearing a facewrap, send in a player complaint.

My optimal solution would be for characters to have both regular mdescs and their concealed mdescs. The regular mdesc would be replaced by the concealed mdesc when the character wore a mask/facewrap + a cloak with a raised hood, and would only describe physical characteristics visible in that garb.

I think straight up mdesc removal is too unrealistic and abusable.

[Yam]

The thing that bothers me about this is that there ARE mdesc covering masks in the game.

citation needed

They got changed ages ago.

[A Large Bag]

I have, and always will support making more common ways for people to hide their mdescs. The fact that you can see it, no matter the lengths taken by people trying not to be recognized, is abused -far- more than the opposite ever could be. (And many times, that abuse results in the person unrealistically being recognized and hunted/killed.) The excuses for being able to recognize someone who is covered up are far less likely to be the case than not being able to recognize them when their features are disguised.

[RogueGunslinger]

The thing that bothers me about this is that there ARE mdesc covering masks in the game.

citation needed

They got changed ages ago.

Personally saw it on a Kuraci(pretty sure) member about 3-4 months ago. Don't have logs though. It didn't make the mdesc go away so much as it replaced it with a description of the mask. The mask had the Kuraci(definitely some clan) insignia on it so it was clearly a clan item.

[Cerelum]

I've always thought that masks should block the mdesc.

You guys do have some valid points about the way people hold themselves, walk and talk, but all that can be faked or changed if effort is made to do so.

I would rather the masks actually act as masks, so that the player oocly doesn't instantly know who I am because they've talked to me every day for a week and have looked at me hundreds of times and remember that my mdesc has some unique word like drov or baobob.

It's really irritating when you buy your character a totally different set of gear/clothes, then throw on a mask or facewrap to have someone look at you as you walk in the bar and go, "Hey Amos! New clothes?"

[Cerelum]

To answer this question, we had masks that hid mdescs and we had a multitude of issues with people abusing their anonymous powers.

Not trying to be a smartass, but how do you abuse anonymity any more then how it works now.  If I walk my character into the other city where nobody knows me, I am anonymous until I remove my mask, nobody knows my sdesc, my name.  How does having no Mdesc give any MORE abuseable status then that?

[RogueGunslinger]

To answer this question, we had masks that hid mdescs and we had a multitude of issues with people abusing their anonymous powers.

Not trying to be a smartass, but how do you abuse anonymity any more then how it works now.  If I walk my character into the other city where nobody knows me, I am anonymous until I remove my mask, nobody knows my sdesc, my name.  How does having no Mdesc give any MORE abuseable status then that?

Or hide/sneak, for that matter. Hell that obscures EVERYTHING.

[marko]

Masks used to cover the mdesc with a new one the way RoguesGunslinger described.

If I remember correctly, they were removed because of 'abuse' by the players.

People would pop on a mask go on a killing spree take off the mask and that was that.  

I, personally, feel that masks should alter the mdesc somehow (perhaps replacing every second or third word with gibberish) or there should be a chance of either seeing the mask's desc or the real desc of the player.

IE, the scary masked guy wearing a raindbow pony mask stands here.

>l pony

You see a rainbow pony desc.

>l pony

You see a rainbow pony desc.

>l pony

You see the real desc.

Basically, someone would have to spam look masked person to figure out who it is.  Why?  Because that's how it is in real life.  Is it fair?  I think it's a compromise (I have always been partial to simply allowing masks to cover up descriptions even if they cover up body descriptions) that would have them in the game.

Thing is, is there really a benefit to having mask items in the game?  Do they really add to the game?  If everyone winds up wearing masks all the time then what's the point?  I can see people carrying four or ten masks on them and switching them out as they walk along.  The biggest shift that I felt happened when masks were completely removed (they were so ridiculously hard to get in the first place that it didn't make a big difference) was a minor drop in pkilling.  That's -perception- on my part and, no, I have no hard facts or statistics to back it up.  This is all feeling from me.  

Anyway, while I think masks should conceal descs I'm okay with them not.  I don't think it's a major issue in any shape.  If you get close enough to kill someone and they look at you instead of running away or dying then you've done it wrong in the first place.  


edit: clarity and added missing words.. masked words?

[A Large Bag]

Not to mention that people have a hard enough time identifying (people they don't know) -without- any sort of disguise in real life. People are too easily able to identify disguised people in this game to the point it is being abused more than the opposite ever could and more detrimentally to the victim of the abuse than the opposite could ever be. I'd be fine with masks garbling every other word of the mdesc randomly or something so if you have time to keep checking them out you can get more of it piece by piece. But them covering up nothing at all, is totally lopsided to abuse the other way.

[Nyr]

1.  No, there are no mdesc hiding objects out there for players to use.

2.  A recent (ish) thread that quotes older posts on this issue.

3.  Another post having a little to do with the matter of stealth skills.

[titansfan]

*Sigh* I guess I'm just stuck on the opinion that people are more mature these days...

[Yam]

Not to mention that people have a hard enough time identifying (people they don't know) -without- any sort of disguise in real life. People are too easily able to identify disguised people in this game to the point it is being abused more than the opposite ever could and more detrimentally to the victim of the abuse than the opposite could ever be. I'd be fine with masks garbling every other word of the mdesc randomly or something so if you have time to keep checking them out you can get more of it piece by piece. But them covering up nothing at all, is totally lopsided to abuse the other way.

I dunno. With no unique identifier of gait (which is major), voice (which is even more major) and other characteristics that are hard/impossible to disguise, a visible descriptor of some sort is necessary. Otherwise you have the unrealistic situation of not recognizing some guy you've known for five years talking to you at the bar because he's wearing a slab of obsidian over his face.

[A Large Bag]

Not to mention that people have a hard enough time identifying (people they don't know) -without- any sort of disguise in real life. People are too easily able to identify disguised people in this game to the point it is being abused more than the opposite ever could and more detrimentally to the victim of the abuse than the opposite could ever be. I'd be fine with masks garbling every other word of the mdesc randomly or something so if you have time to keep checking them out you can get more of it piece by piece. But them covering up nothing at all, is totally lopsided to abuse the other way.

I dunno. With no unique identifier of gait (which is major), voice (which is even more major) and other characteristics that are hard/impossible to disguise, a visible descriptor of some sort is necessary. Otherwise you have the unrealistic situation of not recognizing some guy you've known for five years talking to you at the bar because he's wearing a slab of obsidian over his face.

That's where it should be up to the person you're playing with to roleplay correctly so you do recognize them. On a positive note: That sort of abuse isn't going to typically end with -your- pc being hunted or killed. Where currently, someone abusing the fact they can see the whole main desc typically results in the victim of the abuse being killed, hunted, or some detrimental thing happening to them because of it.

[Schrodingers Cat]

To answer this question, we had masks that hid mdescs and we had a multitude of issues with people abusing their anonymous powers.

Not trying to be a smartass, but how do you abuse anonymity any more then how it works now.  If I walk my character into the other city where nobody knows me, I am anonymous until I remove my mask, nobody knows my sdesc, my name.  How does having no Mdesc give any MORE abuseable status then that?

The difference is an mdesc makes someone somewhat identifiable as opposed to having no identifiable information at all (other than what's available from assess).  If you're missing a leg, or a hand or maybe you are a hunchback or you have broad shoulders or a huge chest, or abnormally long limbs, or some other body feature that isn't covered up, it's going to be hidden with an mdesc hiding mask.

Don't get me wrong, love the idea of being able to cover up to try to avoid identification.  The problem is the code just doesn't do it realistically, with mdesc hiding masks and without.   Though I think it'd be extremely cool to have different levels of description information, like sex, eyes, face, head, body, etc that'd allow someone to incrementally conceal different parts of their description depending on which method or combination of methods (masks, hoods, cloaks, bandages, veils, bananas, dusters, etc) they used.  Maybe someday the code might work this way.  One can hope.

[RogueGunslinger]

I guess I'll just keep on being that "somone who's voice strangely comes from somewhere" for all my clandestine encounters.

Thanks for ruining my Batman concept guys.

[Kismetic]

Since this is code discussion, I'll put out the idea that certain objects (masks, certain cloaks, hood items) could be flagged to allow an 'hdesc,' a settable feature that can be used in place of the real mdesc.  Like tdesc, it can be altered to taste with the particular item, and if abused, karma can be docked, et cetera.

The problem with masks hiding mdescs, however, is that you're asking your newly anonymous PC to be a floating, masked head.  Jarring, and simply stupid.  Without some sort of replacement desc, it would be just as bad as the roleplay you claim to be so egregious.  Which I've yet to see, btw.  In fact, I've seen a good deal of roleplay done to ignore that gem your tdesc is covering, or ignoring a friend who is wearing a mask, and similar situations.

[RogueGunslinger]

Since this is code discussion, I'll put out the idea that certain objects (masks, certain cloaks, hood items) could be flagged to allow an 'hdesc,' a settable feature that can be used in place of the real mdesc.  Like tdesc, it can be altered to taste with the particular item, and if abused, karma can be docked, et cetera.

The problem with masks hiding mdescs, however, is that you're asking your newly anonymous PC to be a floating, masked head.  Jarring, and simply stupid.  Without some sort of replacement desc, it would be just as bad as the roleplay you claim to be so egregious.  Which I've yet to see, btw.  In fact, I've seen a good deal of roleplay done to ignore that gem your tdesc is covering, or ignoring a friend who is wearing a mask, and similar situations.

You still see height, weight, age, sex and racial differences.... Hardly a "floating head".

[Rhyden]

To answer this question, we had masks that hid mdescs and we had a multitude of issues with people abusing their anonymous powers.

So staff do not trust players with mdesc-hiding objects, but trust players enough to rp accordingly with masks and mdescs visible. Interesting.

Personally, I think masks should hide mdescs. Would be neat if you could at least see the masked person's eye color or something.

And ultimately, staff should put a little bit more trust in players. I think we as a playerbase have matured. So if one masked person does go on a killing spree, dock karma or write them a negative account note. There's no reason the whole playerbase should have to suffer because of immature players from the past.

[Sav]

I mean this more in a wouldn't-this-be-neat-way than a CODERS, ASSEMBLE way, but it'd be interesting to have this based on perception skill. Yam's right that with mask code as it currently stands we're basically self-policing ourselves in terms of whether our characters would realistically recognize someone who was concealed, and while I think in general Arm players are pretty good about these things, I get that there's a potential for abuse.

I have acquaintances who literally will not recognize me if I'm wearing contact lenses when they usually see me in glasses. These are the people who would be unquestionably fooled by the Superman/Clark Kent thing if they worked at the Daily Planet, and I have no explanation for this, but whatever, they exist, I know them, and I confuse them when I when I say hello to them on days when I don't look how they expected me to.

I have other acquaintances who have recognized me from across the street, in a clothing style they'd never seen me in before, with a hood up, at night, facing away from them, in a part of the city they had no reason to expect me to be in. This happens less often, but these are the kind of people I would absolutely expect to recognize Amos regardless of whatever stupid shit he was wearing on his head. They also usually give me a heart attack.

If you stuck two guys with the same build in motorcycle helmets in front of me, even if they weren't moving, I would still be able to tell you which one was my brother. (I know this from experience.) If you stuck my ex in a crowd full of people wearing costumes, I would still do a double take and freak out a little because oh my god I know those shoulders and that gait and the way they balance. (I know this from experience, too.) On the other hand, if you put me in a hat, apparently half the people I work with would have no idea who I am because they prioritized perception last.

[Is Friday]

I guess I'll just keep on being that "somone who's voice strangely comes from somewhere" for all my clandestine encounters.

Thanks for ruining my Batman concept guys.

Code Select Expand

Dumping a load of dubious-looking ingredients into a pot and stirring methodically, the buxom, brown-haired maidservant asks, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Well, we're short on bread like the rest of the city, but lucky for you, we'll always have stew. Or there's desert rations. What do you want for breakfast?"

From somewhere, Someone says, in southern-accented sirihish:
"JUSTICE."

Someone subdues the buxom, brown-haired maidservant despite her struggles to get away.