New Idea: Brief attention.

[Wolfsong]

I would like a 'brief emote' that I can toggle so I no longer have to look at the emotes of other people in the same room as me.

[musashi]

Well, make your own thread for that 

[Dalmeth]

I can ignore all irrelevant conversation by being an asshole.  It's pretty simple, really.

And there will never be a way to effectively communicate in a crowd of a twenty people.  Just move to a different room.

[Harmless]

Eh, it's not that hard ya'll. Stop whining for morgenes to do everything for you, whip out your coder hats, and get crackin', if you care so much.

#substitute {At your table, %0 "%1"} {At your table, %0 "<(color code of your choice)>%1<(default color code)>"}

That'd probably work in tin.tin. I'm not going to test it right at this moment, maybe later.

I have clever ideas for how to get emotes color coded based on a system where you "look tables" and populate variables for every sdesc sitting at YOUR table. Then, when one of your "tablemate" variables is found, it'll highlight the line for their emotes.

These variables will be cleared whenever the client detects "You stand up from %0" where %0 is the table you were sitting at. It'll detect which table you're sitting at with the same kind of line "You sit at %0" and temporarily store that as well. It'll be fantabulous.

But that's more work. In the meantime, one line as above will literally highlight every talk at your table for you, no fuss.

[maxid]

A bunch of junk

Except this doesn't work for people who don't know how to set up triggers and stuff, and it doesn't work for people who use the flash client.  Try to keep up with the conversation.

[Harmless]

 I'm trying to be helpful. Asking the imms for more commands isn't going to help you, getting a better mud client and learning how to set up substitutions (not triggers) is going to help you. A lot quicker, too.

edit: I made this more polite. Sorry. Also, it surprises me anyone still uses the flash client and posts on the GDB. I guess the thought of that didn't register.

[Agent_137]

Hey, I think Harmless is trying to say that If you can figure out Armageddon then you are smart enough to learn how to setup triggers for your client.

Same goes to setting up one of the free clients. I recommend mushclient if on windows.

You could spend 20-30 solving the problem and walk away with a new useful skill IRL. Or wait and hope indefinitely for this to be implemented by someone else. Your call.

p.s.
Hi to my old friends in this thread.

[Delirium]

Setting up triggers is pretty easy. Brief attention would still be cool. It was possible to wade through mass combat before 'brief combat' with the right amount of practice and color triggers. I still like the addition of brief combat. Think of brief attention as the socialite's equivalent.

Hi Agent!

[flurry]

I don't have a major problem with this, but I don't see it as something I'd want to use often, if at all. Unlike brief combat, this would be filtering out emotes and dialogue of other players. Granted, we all actively "filter" much of that out already, but with the likelihood of being aware of something noteworthy going on nearby, amid the more humdrum tavern noise.

[musashi]

The code also already filters out the dialouge you're referring to. Keep that in mind.

If you don't have listen on, and someone at a table other than yours uses just the talk command with no embedded emote, you won't see a thing.

However most people like to use the embedded emotes, in which case the whole room gets the "says something at their table" echo. Using the embedded emotes is cool and all, I'm all for it. But in a room of 12+ PC's who are all using it every time they "talk" at their table it generates a lot of spam that wouldn't even be there if they were just using talk without an emote attached.

[Harmless]

The code also already filters out the dialouge you're referring to. Keep that in mind.

If you don't have listen on, and someone at a table other than yours uses just the talk command with no embedded emote, you won't see a thing.

However most people like to use the embedded emotes, in which case the whole room gets the "says something at their table" echo. Using the embedded emotes is cool and all, I'm all for it. But in a room of 12+ PC's who are all using it every time they "talk" at their table it generates a lot of spam that wouldn't even be there if they were just using talk without an emote attached.

How interesting, I didn't know about that! Cool.

[Lizzie]

I don't have a major problem with this, but I don't see it as something I'd want to use often, if at all. Unlike brief combat, this would be filtering out emotes and dialogue of other players. Granted, we all actively "filter" much of that out already, but with the likelihood of being aware of something noteworthy going on nearby, amid the more humdrum tavern noise.

Seems to me this thread has side-railed, and people are now responding to the side-rail, believing that it's the topic. Here's the topic, summarized:

Concern:

a) There are events where multiple people are gathered, sitting at different tables, having their own conversations.
b) Many people don't have the listen skill, or have it turned off intentionally, or unintentionally, in an effort to reduce screen scroll and be able to pay attention to what's going on at their own table (or on stage, for instance).
c) When people at tables use "talk" in conjunction with emoting, the people who are *not* sitting at those tables, who do *not* have listen running, still have to see the "So and so does all kinds of things at her table, and says" stuff, in addition to the usual screen scroll of people they *can* hear (because they're either not at a table, or at the same table as the listener).

This happens to EVERYONE who either has listen turned off, or lacks the listen skill, in a room with multiple tables all occupied by people having "table-talk" conversations.

Since these people can't hear those conversations ANYWAY...

it would be nice to have a toggle to eliminate the emotes that come with those "table-talks."

Presently, talking, without emotes, already is filtered out. If I typed:
talk Hello Sue.

Then everyone who does NOT have listen running, or is NOT at my table, will not see me say anything, will not see any emote, that line will simply not exist for them.

Many of us think it'd be a great idea if this:

talk (smiling at ~sue) Hello Sue.

would be filtered out as well, under the same circumstances.

There seems to be no one "against" the idea, many people "for" the idea. As ideas go, it's a damned nice one. No one "needs" to ride a mount, we *could* be forced to walk everywhere. But the staff thought it'd be a neat idea to include, so voila - we have mounts. No one "needs" ansi color. But the staff thought it'd be a good idea to include it, so voila - we have ansi color. No one "needs" a mudclient to access the game, and *could* be forced to use Internet Explorer exclusively. But the staff thought it'd be a neat idea to make the game more easily accessable, and so voila - it is.

This is another one of those ideas that we don't "need," but would be nice.

[Delusion]

talk (lifting her hand to make some sort of obscene gesture at a noble) Worthless pampered good-for-nothing.

I don't really see erasing others' emotes as being a good thing at all.

[AmandaGreathouse]

I'm against it.

Much like the look situation where if someone is carrying a flaming longsword around, if you aren't seeing anything that anyone else at the other tables is doing, they could be sticking someone up with a weapon or any number of other things and you could potentially miss it.

I'm in favor of a situational option for this during RPTs. That's literally all.

Just because no one posts they aren't in favor doesn't mean everyone likes it, so I'll go ahead and post that I don't.

[Is Friday]

A built-in command to gag just talk emotes would be great, yeah.

[musashi]

I think much like the look debate, if you are naked, carrying a flaming sword, holding up people in a crowded tavern overtly (rather than Han Solo crossbow under the table style) or whatever else ... the onus is on you to emote that. And in the hypothetical case of this command, since only table talk emotes would be muted, it wouldn't effect your standard emote about being naked, or your draw weapon command to hold someone up. All of that would still echo as normal.

So I don't see that as a concern. I find it highly unlikely that someone with a flaming sword is gonna come into a tavern, sit down, only table talk emote about it ... and then on top of that have the people at his table also only table talk emote their reactions. I'm pretty sure this would be a non-issue.

[flurry]

Well, if someone includes a crucial detail in a talk emote, I don't see why they should also have to include it in another emote, for the benefit of anyone who may have talk emotes muted.

[musashi]

My point is that if you are naked, have a flaming sword, or anything else the whole room should notice right away ... then you should probably emote about it when you first walk in the room. Rather than take the "Well you didn't look at me so its your fault." Or in this case the "Well I emoted about it once I was sitting down quietly at a table." approach.

And even if someone did that, seems unlikely the party at the table who did catch the emote about the fiery aura of magick death (or just the people who happened to have this command turned off) would likewise only keep their reactions exclusively to table talk emotes. The whole thing sounds like hyperbole.

And on top of all THAT ... I imagine most people would only turn the brief on when things were crowded and starting to get spammy like at an RPT. Much like how most people brief combat only in big group situations.

[Rhyden]

I think much like the look debate, if you are naked, carrying a flaming sword, holding up people in a crowded tavern overtly (rather than Han Solo crossbow under the table style) or whatever else ... the onus is on you to emote that. And in the hypothetical case of this command, since only table talk emotes would be muted, it wouldn't effect your standard emote about being naked, or your draw weapon command to hold someone up. All of that would still echo as normal.

So I don't see that as a concern. I find it highly unlikely that someone with a flaming sword is gonna come into a tavern, sit down, only table talk emote about it ... and then on top of that have the people at his table also only table talk emote their reactions. I'm pretty sure this would be a non-issue.

Agreed. Can't see this idea promoting bad RP. Besides, it's being proposed as 'brief' code so you could always toggle it off if you have to see every talk/emote.

Personally, I would use the crap out of this idea. Less is more, and my characters are in general blissfully ignorant.

[flurry]

My point is that if you are naked, have a flaming sword, or anything else the whole room should notice right away ... then you should probably emote about it when you first walk in the room. Rather than take the "Well you didn't look at me so its your fault." Or in this case the "Well I emoted about it once I was sitting down quietly at a table." approach.

And even if someone did that, seems unlikely the party at the table who did catch the emote about the fiery aura of magick death (or just the people who happened to have this command turned off) would likewise only keep their reactions exclusively to table talk emotes. The whole thing sounds like hyperbole.

And on top of all THAT ... I imagine most people would only turn the brief on when things were crowded and starting to get spammy like at an RPT. Much like how most people brief combat only in big group situations.

I'm not that concerned about the extreme examples you mention here. Instead I'm thinking of more ordinary situations, like someone gesturing toward you, or glaring at you, etc., while conversing at another table. I bring that up not because I'm vehemently opposed to this idea, but to stress that it would be fundamentally different than brief combat.

[musashi]

I disagree that it would be though.

In practice I belive that practically all people who table talk emote are emoting for the benefit of the other people at their table to begin with because the emote is tied to the speech they are currently using which is ... again ... clearly for the benefit of the people at their table.

I've never seen something akin to:

Lifting a hand to signal a the fellow who isn't at the table with you currently,
the tall muscular man says in sirihish, at your table,
 "Hey Malik! Long time no see!"

If someone wants to get Malik's attention, they use the tell command targeting Malik and embed an emote into that. Or they might use just a standard emote if they only want to wave, dip a nod, etc, but have nothing verbal to add.

That's the norm that we already live in, and I dare say that if we had a brief table-talk-emote kind of feature ... people would be even more mindful to use tell and standard emote when trying to capture the attention of someone not at their table than they already presently are, making it even less of an issue.

But ... let's grant for the moment that it might happen ... and envision how it might play out.

The tall muscular man arrives from the south.

Lifting a hand in greeting to the tall muscular man while keeping
his focus on the tressy tressed woman, you say in sirihish, at your
table,
  "Hey look there's Amos."

The tall muscular man sits at a small table. Not yours.

You think: Hey! He didn't say hello back the arse!

You tell the tall muscular man in sirihish,
  "Amos you ass I waved hello!"

Glancing over, the tall muscular man tells you in sirihish,
  "Oh. Hey how are you?"

... ... And the scene goes on. I'm having a hard time envisioning a "crutial detail in a talk emote" as you put it that if missed would detract from the scene or from the general RP ... without conjuring up some very far fetched hyperbole.

Ok ... so you glare at someone or you gesture at them, and they don't notice ... what do you do ... next? The scene rolls on without missing a beat.

[Harmless]

brief combat for miss messages: miss messages are a binary type of data, 1's and 0's. 1=hit, 0=miss. No continuum of values for possible misinterpretation. 0's can always be safely ignored. Talk emotes aren't binary data, and though it may be a 0.1 you're screening out, that 0.1 might be a 1 to someone else and you may regret missing it.

Rather than add a command that's useful to a select group of people (If you want to argue it's a majority, you're still only sampling GDB users), 90-99% of the time, where 1-10% of the time they may end up really regretting it, or may be inadvertently causing a nuisance to those around them, I prefer that people who feel as strongly about this as they do just figure out the (very easy) ways to make dealing with screen scroll easier.

For example, DID YOU KNOW that there are mud clients out there (including mushclient) that support multi-window play, and that it is quite easy to filter out certain kinds of messages to alternate windows? That's right, you can easily have it so that messages at your table are copied to a different window that you can stare at happily, while other windows just go crazy with screenscroll. This is how, for instance, Dragonrealms ran, which was a very popular mud with literally 100 players in a room on regular occasions. Nobody in that game ever thought of blotting out lines of text because automatically their most important text was in select sub-windows.

A "brief attention" command is clumsy. It hits this issue with a sledgehammer, whereas this "problem" is an opportunity for players to expand their mudding skills with better clients and better "triggers" (I hate the term trigger, it's a shitty mushclient term).

[Sephiroto]

I'm not that concerned about the extreme examples you mention here. Instead I'm thinking of more ordinary situations, like someone gesturing toward you, or glaring at you, etc., while conversing at another table.

If you're sitting at a table in a restaurant, chatting with your buds and someone at another table gestures or glares toward you while talking at their table there's no certainty that you will notice.  In fact, in most cases you will not notice because people generally try not to attract the attention of others while talking about them indirectly.

At any rate, my support of this idea stands because it would serve as a quick and easy way for players to make playing the game more manageable under certain circumstances.

[Marauder Moe]

I'm not sure where I stand on this one.

Though, I'd probably be more in favor of it if it was possible to exempt talks/emotes that target you, your table, or your tablemates from being ignored.

I also kinda think it should be reset if you stand up from your table, thus it's a conscious effort on your part and you're that much less likely to forget it's on.

[musashi]

stuff

Yes with work you can create the same effect client side. It's just more convenient for a number of reasons if its a feature within the game itself. Here's one reason:

Not everyone has the luxery of playing the game exclusively from their personal computer. For example, I make frequent business trips. When I do I'm on my iPad and the clients available for it lack that functionality.

In college I often had large breaks inbetween classes and would often play the game in the computer lab, where I couldn't download a client and set up gags, triggers, filters, etc.

I bet other players have similiar situations.

As for the "It's fundamentally different from brief combat" line that's surfaced I can only say, so what if it is? Brief room shuts down the entire room description of the areas you move through (put in to cut spam out of large travel RPT's most likely). That certainly isn't blocking "binary information only", it's blocking entire paragraphs of potentionally "crutial" details about the game world and ... yet ... it's enriched the game as a feature and people enjoy making use of it to cut down on spam in certain situations.

I understand that you, personally, wouldn't use it. I don't understand how you think that translates into a reason why it shouldn't be an optional feature for other people. It's just a non-sequitur.

I'd probably be more in favor of it if it was possible to exempt talks/emotes that target you, your table, or your tablemates from being ignored.

Sure. I personally don't think it's that big a deal if you miss someone's odd table talk nod or glare in your direction once in awhile, and I don't think it would actually happen that often anyway for reasons I already got into when replying to flurry. But I'm not opposed to the idea of pushing through emotes that target you as a keyword, either.