Reading Aloud

[Erythil]

This isn't an idea for a new piece of code in the game, but rather a small program someone who was especially enterprising might be able to create.  I'd do it myself, but I totally lack the requisite skills.  Anyway.

There's a lot of stuff written down in books on armageddon, and there are some people with characters who might be inclined to share the information in these books.  The problem is, actually reading from a book verbatim is a huge headache -- it requires lots of copying and pasting and then fiddling with the text buffer limit for the 'say' or 'recite' commands.

It would be neat if there was a way to input block text into a small program, and then have it spit out pre-made recites or says so that the number of copy-pastes could be kept to a minimum.

This might encourage more sharing and recording of older events IG.

[Harmless]

you can do this with a spreadsheet, erythil.

You would type the "recite ( blah blah) " part into one box, then add a space at the end

then you would paste the block of text from the book into the spreadsheet

and you would then copy and paste a formula in that adds the text from the book into a command with four lines per command, separated by /

it'd look like this, let's say cell A1 is where you typed in "recite (blah blah) "

=A1&&B1&&" / "&&B2&&" / "&&B3&&" / "&&B4

then you could just rinse and repeat

[Erythil]

I was always terrible at spreadsheets, but I'll see if I can figure out how to make this work!

[Lizzie]

I was always terrible at spreadsheets, but I'll see if I can figure out how to make this work!

There actually is a way you can do it within the script function of your game client.

First, you'll have to either open notepad, or your client's text editor. Then, squeeze the editor's screen until it's narrow enough to only hold enough text in one line, to fit the game screen output. Now, you have the line limits and don't have to do any "enter" nonsense for each individual line. Put your word-wrap ON.

Then, copy and paste the ENTIRE thing into that editor.

Then, find the recitation stops - the end of a sentence, or the beginning of a profound or dramatic phrase - and insert your "recite (pausing dramatically as she faces ~gortok) or whatever. The semicolon ( is the symbol to stack commands. You'll use that at the end of the previous line, and the beginning of the pause symbol, then again after the pause symbol, and after the next line. By "line" I mean - whatever text your character is reciting, whether that's literally 1 notepad's width of line, or three.

If you do this in your game client, you can do a recitation, then add a %timer 3 (or whatever code your client uses) to force a pause just long enough for the audience to read it. Usually a 2 or 3 second pause is enough.

Then shoot the whole thing into a script, name it "Recitation Script #47" and run it in a private spot in the game. That way you can work out any kinks before the presentation.