Hearing people in another room or from a distance

[slvrmoontiger]

This is something that has bugged me for a long time. I know its will probably be extremely if not impossible to code, but figured I'd put it out there.

For those that have the Listen skill and hear a voice from a distance and heck even a shout. If you know that person and have heard them talk before you shouldn't have to look in that direction to figure out who it is. You should just be able to get their sdesc and know who it is. In real life if I hear a friend talking from another room I know its my friend, just because I know what he or she sounds like. Same should be true in this case.

[RogueGunslinger]

While I agree with the idea in principle. Whats so hard about typing 'l w', 'l n', 'l s', or 'l e'


Also yeah, really freaking hard to code whether you "know" someone or not, I imagine.

[slvrmoontiger]

Say ok I'm out in the wilds and I hear someone say something to the east. I look east and look there's that cloaked person with their hood up that's wearing a cloak like a dozen other people I know and probably a dozen more that I don't know wear. I guess you can get my point from that alone.

I understand that it would be probably impossible to code. I was just saying its one of the things the annoys me the most.

Also if I'm in the city and I hear someone say something by the time I do a l <insert direction here> they may already have moved on. Or I could here someone as I walk by or am following someone by. I'm not going to ask that person to turn around so I can look and see who was talking.

[Ouroboros]

The core issue I think has very little to do with the listen skill, and everything to do with the ability to identify characters. As it stands, that ability doesn't exist. If it did, your issue with listen would be addressed, just as many other issues would be as well.

Point in case, knowing the desc of someone you overhear isn't going to help much if they have their hood up and you can't separate them from another with the same hooded desc. Nor do I think that listen should override one's temp desc. Meaning you shouldn't see a cloaked figure, and overhear a tall, muscular man. If on the other hand you could tie a character to their name, you wouldn't have that issue.

On the flip side, what you might not be factoring into things is distance. If you're in the wild, each room is a fairly large distance. To the point I'm not even sure you should be able to hear someone in an adjacent wilderness room, let alone identify their voice. Even if inside the city though... Say you're passing outside a tavern and overhear someone talking inside. How likely would you be to overhear that in real life, through the ruckus of music and others talking, as well as whatever distance there might be between you and the person inside. Even assuming you could overhear that, are you certain you'd be able to instantly pick out their voice and identify them? Unless it's James Earl Jones talking, the chances seem slim.

So you might want to consider how much convenience the code already offers at the cost of realism. If you're asking for more convenience, it might be a tad much. If you're asking for more realism... Be careful what you wish for.

In my opinion, relying only on short descriptions is one of Arm's many charms. It's grown on me over the years and I've come to appreciate the realism it offers, even at the cost of convenience. Your mileage of course may vary.