Tag Command

[Desertman]

After being involved in the most recent HRPT and also after previous discussions regarding yelling out your own name in combat when you need help in another thread, I had an idea.

What if you were able to "tag" your allies with their own names that would be visible only to yourself so that you would be able to identify them even when they had their hoods up?

It would basically work like this.

The tall muscular man.

tag tall Amos

You have tagged the tall muscular man with the name Amos

Now when you type look and see the tall muscular man in the room with you, you would see.

The tall muscular man. (Amos)

The (Amos) would be visible only to you. No other players would be able to see your tags.

If the tall muscular man raises his hood you would see.

The figure in a hooded brown aba. (Amos)

If they get attacked you would see.

The half-giant viciously bludgeons the figure in a hooded brown aba (Amos) on his head!

You could set up tags for the five/ten/fifteen people in your group that you would know well enough to recognize on the battlefield before the battle began and this would eliminate the need to shout your own name in combat, keep everything IC, and in theory eliminate a lot of confusion about "who is who".

The figure in a hooded brown aba (Amos) shouts in Sirihish, "I need help!"

Your tags would be reset/wiped out after you log out just like tdesc is now. This would prevent people from tagging everyone they see constantly. You would have to reset your tags on people every time you login to keep this from being abused. It would make it so it was only used, for the most part, in situations to prevent confusion during major combat engagements.

It is also just extremely useful for recognizing who is on your own team when you have 30+ people on each side of a battle. This would prevent you from attacking your own teammates and/or prevent you from not doing anything out of fear for attacking your own teammates.

You would know exactly who to rescue without an OOC work around trying to be introduced as an IC concept. Everyone is happy, and Amos is more likely to survive.

I didn't see this as a problem in the HRPT. I think it became quickly obvious to everyone around that if you shout your name in combat when you need help and you aren't fighting NPC's, you instantly get targeted by the opposing PC team.

[slvrmoontiger]

After being involved in the most recent HRPT and also after previous discussions regarding yelling out your own name in combat when you need help in another thread, I had an idea.

What if you were able to "tag" your allies with their own names that would be visible only to yourself so that you would be able to identify them even when they had their hoods up?

It would basically work like this.

The tall muscular man.

tag tall Amos

You have tagged the tall muscular man with the name Amos

Now when you type look and see the tall muscular man in the room with you, you would see.

The tall muscular man. (Amos)

The (Amos) would be visible only to you. No other players would be able to see your tags.

If the tall muscular man raises his hood you would see.

The figure in a hooded brown aba. (Amos)

If they get attacked you would see.

The half-giant viciously blungeons the figure in a hooded brown aba (Amos) on his head!

You could set up tags for the five/ten/fifteen people in your group that you would know well enough to recognize on the battlefield before the battle began and this would eliminate the need to shout your own name in combat, keep everything IC, and in theory eliminate a lot of confusion about "who is who".

The figure in a hooded brown aba (Amos) shouts in Sirihish, "I need help!"

Your tags would be reset/wiped out after you log out just like tdesc is now. This would prevent people from tagging everyone they see constantly. You would have to reset your tags on people every time you login to keep this from being abused. It make it so it was only used, for the most part, in situations to prevent confusion during major combat engagements.

It is also just extremely useful for recognizing who is on your own team when you have 30+ people on each side of a battle. This would prevent you from attacking your own teammates and/or prevent you from not doing anything out of fear for attacking your own teammates.

You would know exactly who to rescue without an OOC work around trying to be introduced as an IC concept. Everyone is happy, and Amos is more likely to survive.

I didn't see this as a problem in the HRPT. I think it became quickly obvious to everyone around that if you shout your name in combat when you need help and you aren't fighting NPC's, you instantly get targeted by the opposing PC team.

Good idea, but with all the screen scroll that there was with the last HRPT I doubt this would have mattered much.

[brytta.leofa]

title white.eyed.man sarge

[slvrmoontiger]

title white.eyed.man sarge

You are currently not riding white,eyed.man.

[Morrolan]

title white.eyed.man sarge

You are currently not riding white,eyed.man.

True, but give me two hours, and three bottles of bamberry spirits, and even that can be changed.

[Harmless]

Nice idea dman,

But I used to do this easily with my client and substitutions.

Now I just use highlights, I haven't tagged anyone (exactly as you show above) for years.

Since I figured out how to do multicolored highlights, I really no longer need tags. The unique colors of a person's sdesc get my attention and jog my memory, but still require me to recall.

#substitute {the tall, muscular man} {the <light red>tall, <green>muscular <default>man}

The tall, muscular man is here, bleeding profusely.

This is enough for me. I used it in the hrpt on key leaders and other things.

[Desertman]

Nice idea dman,

But I used to do this easily with my client and substitutions.

Now I just use highlights, I haven't tagged anyone (exactly as you show above) for years.

Since I figured out how to do multicolored highlights, I really no longer need tags. The unique colors of a person's sdesc get my attention and jog my memory, but still require me to recall.

#substitute {the tall, muscular man} {the <light red>tall, <green>muscular <default>man}

The tall, muscular man is here, bleeding profusely.

This is enough for me. I used it in the hrpt on key leaders and other things.

I like that.

My idea is really more for a room full of ten...a figure in a hooded brown military aba is here.

I'm not familiar with the highlight feature though. Does it remember who is who when they put their hoods up and they all look the same or does it no longer highlight them?

[Potaje]

Nice idea dman,

But I used to do this easily with my client and substitutions.

Now I just use highlights, I haven't tagged anyone (exactly as you show above) for years.

Since I figured out how to do multicolored highlights, I really no longer need tags. The unique colors of a person's sdesc get my attention and jog my memory, but still require me to recall.

#substitute {the tall, muscular man} {the <light red>tall, <green>muscular <default>man}

The tall, muscular man is here, bleeding profusely.

This is enough for me. I used it in the hrpt on key leaders and other things.

I like that.

My idea is really more for a room full of ten...a figure in a hooded brown military aba is here.

I'm not familiar with the highlight feature though. Does it remember who is who when they put their hoods up and they all look the same or does it no longer highlight them?

Nope once the hood goes up the highlighted words are gone, so they are not color identified.

[Desertman]

Nice idea dman,

But I used to do this easily with my client and substitutions.

Now I just use highlights, I haven't tagged anyone (exactly as you show above) for years.

Since I figured out how to do multicolored highlights, I really no longer need tags. The unique colors of a person's sdesc get my attention and jog my memory, but still require me to recall.

#substitute {the tall, muscular man} {the <light red>tall, <green>muscular <default>man}

The tall, muscular man is here, bleeding profusely.

This is enough for me. I used it in the hrpt on key leaders and other things.

I like that.

My idea is really more for a room full of ten...a figure in a hooded brown military aba is here.

I'm not familiar with the highlight feature though. Does it remember who is who when they put their hoods up and they all look the same or does it no longer highlight them?

Nope once the hood goes up the highlighted words are gone, so they are not color identified.

Crap, I was going to start using that too.   

[Harmless]

yes, with identical cloaks, there is no way to solve the issue. They have identical cloaks on, they look identical.

Your idea is a good one for dealing with that, but it'll give people information that they didn't before. It may be unrealistic in some circumstances, though I agree with you it'd be fine for others.

For instance, if it is a person with a hood, you look at them, and they look unique enough, then you should be able to tag them and have it stick regardless of cloak.

but, if they CHANGE the cloak... or the rest of their gear, then the tag should be wiped.

That's hard to code.

[Barsook]

Why not on the PC themselves, not the item?

[Desertman]

Why not on the PC themselves, not the item?

I did intend this for the PC themselves, not the item. You are tagging the PC, not their cloak.

The reason I want it wiped when you log out is to deal with Harmless' concern over them changing their gear to look completely different after the fact and thus not be recognizeable to you.

This was the best solution I could come up with.

There will be extremely rare instances where you tag somebody with one of their keywords, they wrong you, run to change all of their gear and put on a disguise, and you still have them tagged and see them again before you log out to clear your tags.

But, I think such occurances would be rare enough to make the gain far outweigh any potential negative.

If someone did abuse this in a rare instance like the one mentioned above, the occurances would be so minimal that staff could easily handle them.

[Desertman]

Your idea is a good one for dealing with that, but it'll give people information that they didn't before. It may be unrealistic in some circumstances, though I agree with you it'd be fine for others.

You are the one tagging them. No one else can see your tags. You have to know one of their keywords in order to tag them. If they have a hood up, refuse to tell you their name, and you don't Way-sniff them (which by the way is crap) to get one of their keywords, you won't be able to tag them. The idea is this allows you to recognize people in the middle of a hectic battle you already know well enough to realistically recognize at a glance in the middle of chaos.

This wouldn't apply to people you just met. People you don't know. People you don't care enough about to actually remember. Etc...etc...Basically, those people who you don't know well enough to know one of their actual keywords so that you can tag them to begin with.

You have to already know the guy is named Amos to tag him as Amos. You can't assign him keywords he doesn't actually have.

You wouldn't be getting anything you didn't know, because you HAVE to know it, in order to tag it.

I may be misunderstanding you though.

[Harmless]

No actually to be honest I just skimmed your original post, I see now what your solution is and I think it's fine.

Thanks for explaining that to me. Yeah, I think this might be alright... I'm a little nervous about it, having been a sneaky sneaky sooo many times, but I think it's probably fine.

[Barsook]

By the way, I dig this!

[Royal]

Give players to remove all the tags on them. Problem solved

[RogueGunslinger]

It should Reset when THEY log out, not you. This would prevent you always knowing who the master of disguise is, without seeing them change outfits.


That said I love this idea.

[AreteX]

I think at first glance this seems great.

The problem with this is I see people abusing it when Amos decides he wants to be a cloaked figure amongst a crowd.  You see it is Amos because you tagged him previously.  You as a player now know Amos is in the crowd without even looking at the figure.  How many people are going to abuse this?

Functionally it seems like one of those things that if used for good... is great, but if used for bad... frowny face.

[slvrmoontiger]

I agree with this. I think the reset period should be thought about carefully. I think if you lose sight of the person you tagged for a certain period of time say one IG hour or even half an IG day it should reset. But if you are with this person and stay with them and for the purposes of mass combat its a very good idea.

[Desertman]

It should Reset when THEY log out, not you. This would prevent you always knowing who the master of disguise is, without seeing them change outfits.


That said I love this idea.

Yeah, either/or really.

If they log out you lose your tag on them. When you log out you lose all of your tags.

I like that.

[Desertman]

I think at first glance this seems great.

The problem with this is I see people abusing it when Amos decides he wants to be a cloaked figure amongst a crowd.  You see it is Amos because you tagged him previously.  You as a player now know Amos is in the crowd without even looking at the figure.  How many people are going to abuse this?

Functionally it seems like one of those things that if used for good... is great, but if used for bad... frowny face.

You would lose your tag on Amos when he logged out or when you logged out.

The only way this would become an unrealistic issue is if Amos showed himself to you, you tagged him, he then ran off and changed into a disguise, and came back trying to pretend he was someone else in the same room as you, all in the same IC week. (All within one gaming session where neither of you logged in or out.)

It might happen sometimes. But I think it would be a very rare occurance.

I can't think of many/any times I had someone I knew in game run off and change into a disguise and come back into the same room with me trying to make it so I didn't know who they were....all in one playing session.

It could happen I agree. My point is it would be so rare as to be almost non-existant  for practical purposes.

[Desertman]

I agree with this. I think the reset period should be thought about carefully. I think if you lose sight of the person you tagged for a certain period of time say one IG hour or even half an IG day it should reset. But if you are with this person and stay with them and for the purposes of mass combat its a very good idea.

I'm fine with that too. Though I think it would be more difficult to code than that particular benefit might be worth.

Then again, heh, it might be very easy to code with our platform, I don't know. 

[Potaje]

And then there's this:

*a strange shadow is here* [Amos]

So this would be an aspect needing address. Because how can one know who that shadow  lurking is without looking. Granted perhaps Amos is with you and you know he slipped from sight. But I think that leaves a possibility of other shadows lurking or coming upon you an unrealistic distinction from that friend shadow over there.

I mean neither would be clear as to who is who, without closer observation. And a tag would eliminate that.

[AreteX]

It is not very unrealistic that you tagged Amos, and later in the night he tried to murder someone(or you) while wearing a mask/cloak/hood/bunny outfit.

But you saw him as Amos still.  People play for more than one IC day without logging in/out.

I get the idea/intent behind it and I actually like it a lot because I think it would functionally help out in combat situations.  You would know how is tanking that beetle/player, and you would know who to heal/rescue possibly instead of having, "AMOS NEEDS HEALING" type of scenarios but I am not sure I like the big brother aspect of it and being able to know immediately who someone is in a cloak when they walk into a room without looking at them... but then it might cut down on lookspam...

I like it, but see possible problems is all.

[slvrmoontiger]

I'm not sure its going to solve the problem of the scrolling that happened with the latest HRPT though. Scrolling was impossibly bad. I will remember to have my client full screened next time, but I doubt that will be much of a help. Looking back through logs I see several team members I could have happened but the scroll was so back I didn't notice it until it was too late.

[Harmless]

Maybe the tag refreshes itself on a chance-basis each time you look at or see the person in the room with you. If you separate, the more time you spend apart from the guy, the less likely the tag will survive; each additional hour spent not being in the same room with said person/seeing said person increases the risk of losing the tag.

If they log out, that wouldn't change it; it could keep your tag, but assuming they haven't been around for a while and you didn't see them, the tag would fade naturally.

Maybe the tag can disintegrate, like scribbles disintegrate, leading to possible funny confusion of a person's name.

A tall swarthy human (Bjornin) is here.

(5 hours later)

A tall swarthy human (Bjieara) has arrived from the east.

[MeTekillot]

There should be some sort of requirement to tag someone. Perhaps you cannot see a hooded person's tagged thing unless you are following them un-hooded when you give them the tag, to prevent someone tagging a hooded figure who stole from them and then running into that person at the bar and telling the Lord Templar about it.

[slvrmoontiger]

There should be some sort of requirement to tag someone. Perhaps you cannot see a hooded person's tagged thing unless you are following them un-hooded when you give them the tag, to prevent someone tagging a hooded figure who stole from them and then running into that person at the bar and telling the Lord Templar about it.

+1 Definitely should have the hood down in order to tag.

[Desertman]

There should be some sort of requirement to tag someone. Perhaps you cannot see a hooded person's tagged thing unless you are following them un-hooded when you give them the tag, to prevent someone tagging a hooded figure who stole from them and then running into that person at the bar and telling the Lord Templar about it.

They would have to know one of the hooded figure's actual keywords, either a name, alias, or sdesc word in order to tag them anyways.

You can't tag them with a random word or name. It has to be a keyword or a name they actually have. Meaning you have to know them better than "random hooded figure".

You would only be able to tag people you know well enough to know one of those things.

You couldn't randomly tag hooded figures.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I really wish you couldn't contact people with their added keywords.

[Desertman]

I really wish you couldn't contact people with their added keywords.

I just wish they would change one thing about the Way. Just one thing would fix all of the Way issues I have ever had.

When someone contacts you with the Way, it shouldn't say, "A foreign presence contacts your mind."

It should give you their sdesc.

The tall, muscular man has contacted your mind.

This would fix every issue I have ever had with the way. Every single issue. I'm not sure why it is ok for them to instantly know what you look like when they find your mind, but you have no idea who is hopping in and out of your head repeatedly.

[catchall]

When someone contacts you with the Way, it shouldn't say, "A foreign presence contacts your mind."

It should give you their sdesc.

That is a temptingly good idea, but it would introduce some issues of its own.  Accidentally contact someone because of keyword overlap? Now you have them griping in your head about why you contacted them.  Or Joe Newbie comes along with the same name as Joe Notorious PC and quickly learns all the people that Joe Notorious PC is associating with.

So there is a certain degree of tradeoff, although overall I would have to agree that your version probably wins.  The problems I mentioned can be mostly avoided by players getting into the habit of using multiple keywords when contacting. 

There would be other issues too, but WAY too IC to mention. 

[Hitsuchi]

I like the idea of a tag command, though I've not seen much problem with hidden ldescs. I consider it courtesy to have your coded hood down in a group, for example. Just so we can see the ldesc. Because everyone knows that Amos' beetle has white spots, or whatever.

What if you saw their ldesc with "hooded" added at the end if you tagged them? No immersion breaking, trigger-able on names if you'd like, and let's say you remove the robe/cloak/aba and re-wear it to clean the tags? That, or logout.

How about sharing your mind-picture over the Way? Like "hey I'm alive" without a message. Less waiting to see if it is a mis-Way or whatever. And many times, you simply want to make yourself known, not say anything substancial. Or a reverse-contact thing. More skills, not more auto-knowledge!

[mansa]

I really wish you couldn't contact people with their added keywords.

You can't ">contact figure" if they aren't in the same room anymore.

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,32919.0.html

[MeTekillot]

Showing sdesc when contacted would really bone mind-benders who are trying to be discreet. I would much rather have that you don't get someone's sdesc until you psi them, that way you're both on equal footing.

[Desertman]

Showing sdesc when contacted would really bone mind-benders who are trying to be discreet. I would much rather have that you don't get someone's sdesc until you psi them, that way you're both on equal footing.

Ummm. All I can say is it wouldn't bone mind-benders.

Find out IC.