Armageddon Player Tools and Utilities

[ShaLeah]

Isn't it just as bad to have the headless body of the blah-haired man?

Yes.

Never understood why it doesn't just say "a decapitated body," or some such. 

[James de Monet]

If you'd like a word list for your sdesc generator, let me know.

Man, there is some really great stuff in that file. So good that I feel bad stealing ones that were clearly inspired, and only have 1 appearance.


Alright, I need some input on this. I made a poll for it.

[BadSkeelz]

I like full sdesc beheaded corpses, even if it can get awkward at times. If you find the body of the notorious dick-tattooed bandit, I think you want to be sure you've found the body of the notorious dick-tattooed bandit.

[Beethoven]

Hey James de Monet, I love your limited char text editor! Just wanted to let you know that if you go over the character limit, it gives you a nasty-looking code error. Maybe you could put in a warning that you've gone over the allotted amount of characters, or cut it off, or whatever it is you intended, but as it stands I could see someone not figuring out what happened when they get redirected to a scary error page.

[James de Monet]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I noticed some weird behavior on my end, but it just refused to limit the length, it didn't pop up an unhandled exception.  I assume you mean the web based version? I wonder if it's browser dependent.

I'll take a look at it.  I have a couple fixes to make in the tutorial, too (like the error that appears if you try to enter blank text).

Lemme know if you guys see anything else!

[James de Monet]

Okay, I implemented a couple of fixes:

• Corrected the video in the tutorial to refer to the correct side of the screen
• Added some more highlighting to the tutorial videos for new player clarity
• Fixed the blank text entry bug in the tutorial
• Made the max page length feature in the text editor truncate correctly
• Added a ton of descriptive words to the sDesc generator
• Added a "force term agreement" box to the sDesc generator (not using it will allow you to see certain terms more frequently, but you might get 'the scrawny, huge-breasted male dwarf' for example)

Beethoven, I hope this will fix the problem you were seeing. Lemme know!

I would also like to point out that due to Valeria's diligence in tracking all of your lexical creativity, I was able to increase the number of raw descriptive words from 300 some to 700 some, which gives us an increase of total adjective terms from 4800 to 8000, for a final increase in possible unique sDescs from 91 million to 449 million!  

[James de Monet]

Also, although the poll seemed to find that recycling any sDesc term was fine, I steered away from those that seemed hyper-memorable (there weren't a ton), along with some that seemed a leetle too subjective, even if they did somehow slip through once before.

Finally, you may note that the generator doesn't currently produce any sDescs terms for facial hair. It didn't fit cleanly into the current algorithm, but maybe in the next update. We'll see.

Enjoy!


(P.S. Staff, if you see any terms in the generator that you would rather not see propagated IG, lemme know and I can take them out! There are a couple that are borderline, IMO, but they've been seen frequently enough to suggest acceptability.)

[Marauder Moe]

Heh, neat.

You've got a lot of banned sdesc words in there, though:
breed
stump
lass
brute
giantess
lad

I would also consider that not every sdesc must contain two descriptive elements.

[James de Monet]

Good eye. I don't even remember putting lad and lass in there. But giantess is banned? And breed? When did that happen?

There goes my dream of having "the effeminate, stumpy stump".


And yeah, true about having two adjectives. The generator will occasionally only give one if if can't find a second match based on your choices, but I didn't see any reason to generate them with one intentionally. After all, you can just pick one if you see one word you like. Or mix and match. It's really more just to give you ideas. Would you prefer it it gave one adjective descs sometimes (or three if they could fit)?



Edit: Nevermind, I found the "sDes words" helpfile. Man, that thing was kinda buried. Cool. Some in there I haven't implemented to balance out the ones I have to remove.

[Marauder Moe]

I would just give it like a 10% chance for a one-quality sdesc or something, that's about the frequency you see in game.

Might also want to try the "The <noun> with the <adjective> <eyes/hair/something>", as it comes up somewhat frequently (though personally I don't think it reads well).


Here's the banned sdesc word list: http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Sdesc%20Words

[James de Monet]

Heh, you ninja'd me. Yeah, a percent chance could work.

Although, looking at the file, the noun in the generator was actually "half-giantess" not "giantess". I wonder if that counts...  Hmm.

[Marauder Moe]

Dunno, though considering "elfess" is forbidden I suspect the "ess" suffix is the problem.

[James de Monet]

Dunno, though considering "elfess" is forbidden I suspect the "ess" suffix is the problem.

Salient point. I took those words out of the generator, and added some from the "definitely okay" list.

[valeria]

That word list is interesting.  I've seen 14 PC lasses and 3 PC lads in game, including some recently.  As well as a -giantess.  I suspect the word list is not very well enforced.

[Symphony]

That word list is interesting.  I've seen 14 PC lasses and 3 PC lads in game, including some recently.  As well as a -giantess.  I suspect the word list is not very well enforced.

When SDESCs are approved with 'rainbow' in them, no, not very well enforced. Nice tool though, JDM.


- Symph

[Rahnevyn]

That word list is interesting.  I've seen 14 PC lasses and 3 PC lads in game, including some recently.  As well as a -giantess.  I suspect the word list is not very well enforced.

When SDESCs are approved with 'rainbow' in them, no, not very well enforced. Nice tool though, JDM.

There's nothing wrong with the word 'rainbow' in an sdesc/mdesc. It's the same reason we'd allow terms like 'steely-eyed' or 'icy blue'. There's a difference between a thing existing in Zalanthas and being a suitable term for IC speech, and a thing existing in the English language, which is the medium we use to interact with the game and each other and describe things.

Now, where it gets tricky is where something exists in both Earth and Zalanthas, but is different between the two; for example, the sky. Is the correct term 'sky blue', or 'sky red'? Here I think we typically defer to the Zalanthan definition to keep up a greater sense of immersion inside the game. I typically edit measurements in descriptions from feet/yards/meters and kilograms to cords and ten-stones, for the same reason.

[Gimfalisette]

Now, where it gets tricky is where something exists in both Earth and Zalanthas, but is different between the two; for example, the sky. Is the correct term 'sky blue', or 'sky red'?

Tangent: I love "sky red" so much. I love every item that is desced that way, and I love PCs with "sky-haired" or whatever in their sdescs. I think it's the juxtaposition, the shattered expectation of what color the sky is that's inherent in the term, that makes it so immersive. I wish there were more terms like it.

[James de Monet]

Tangent: I love "sky red" so much. I love every item that is desced that way, and I love PCs with "sky-haired" or whatever in their sdescs. I think it's the juxtaposition, the shattered expectation of what color the sky is that's inherent in the term, that makes it so immersive. I wish there were more terms like it.

One could argue that "earth-toned" in Zalanthas would actually mean the color of sand, since brown soil is far less common of a ground covering. Could probably also work "sea-grey" as opposed to earth's "sea-green".  Maybe also "wine-blue" for things like kalan wine.

[Gimfalisette]

Could probably also work "sea-grey" as opposed to earth's "sea-green".  Maybe also "wine-blue" for things like kalan wine.

I love those! Make it happen.

[Delirium]

How the heck do you translate zalanthan time to real time? Say you want to know when in real time a certain zalanthan date will be?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

[Molten Heart]

.

[Delirium]

YES

[Aruven]

Wow i've always been doing time conversion math in my head. Meta breaking

[Kankfly]

This is amazing! Thank you!

[FamousAmos]

James, my newest lappy doesn't like the zipfile. Do you have anything else?