Unsex cloaks

[SuchDragonWow]

Fwiw I always thought rolling around with a group all hooded was pretty silly.  And not really necessary, as far as I can glean.  What is this, the inquisition?  Even raiders in my mind would be parading their ugly mugs.  Don't get me started on masks.  Rofl

[BadSkeelz]

Okay, let's take a game where the ability to see long distances is severely impaired, information gathering is a struggle involving multiple typed commands, and telling cloaked people apart in groups is a fucking nightmare, and let's make all of that worse.

It'd make the wastes more mysterious, dangerous, and nerf archer-snipers picking out the sponsored role from a group of 20. What's not to like?

[Harmless]

Because it isnt a perfect solution. If you come to recognize someone as wearing a certain cloak and being of a certain height and shape, then you should be able to recognize them again if they were to reappear after a period of not seeing them. If you follow someone walking further away from you in a group you will be able to track which shape was whom with that info even from far away. I agree that initially you wouldn't recognize them coming at you from far away. But there isn't the coding time available to account for subtle issues like that. What you are suggesting therefore is realistic in some situations and very unrealistic in others.

Furthermore we have the ability to RP having less information than the game gives us. You can RP not knowing who someone is in the distance even if OOCly you have a very good idea because you know how the code works.

I would rather have things stay generally as they are except giving people the option of making a gender ambiguous character. That way responsible roleplayers can portray what their character sees without forcing them to be unrealistically blinded to characteristics that should be apparent at a glance.

Finally the code already handles it pretty well in my opinion.

[Case]

Okay, let's take a game where the ability to see long distances is severely impaired, information gathering is a struggle involving multiple typed commands, and telling cloaked people apart in groups is a fucking nightmare, and let's make all of that worse.

It'd make the wastes more mysterious, dangerous, and nerf archer-snipers picking out the sponsored role from a group of 20. What's not to like?

Maybe kill/archery/spell targeting shouldn't use names or nicknames if hooded/masked whatever?

[Harmless]

Okay, let's take a game where the ability to see long distances is severely impaired, information gathering is a struggle involving multiple typed commands, and telling cloaked people apart in groups is a fucking nightmare, and let's make all of that worse.

It'd make the wastes more mysterious, dangerous, and nerf archer-snipers picking out the sponsored role from a group of 20. What's not to like?

Maybe kill/archery/spell targeting shouldn't use names or nicknames if hooded/masked whatever?

I had already brought a version of this up as a possible change 2 years ago in this thread.

[SuchDragonWow]

It really shouldn't.

[Desertman]

Eh, this would cause some unrealistic issues as well.

If I look north and see fifteen people wearing "a hooded brown military aba".

If my target is, "The massive, hulking man.", I should pretty easily be able to pick him out and shoot him despite the fact everyone around him is wearing the same cloak. (I could just do "shoot massive", if I knew one of his keywords I suppose, but if I've never seen him, I wouldn't know that. Whoever hired me to pick him off would have just told me, "He's huge. He's much bigger than most any other Bynner." Which would be enough for me to pick him out pretty easily....but now I can't....even though I would be able to realistically.)

Cloak =/= Everyone Looks The Same

A lot of cloaks don't even close in the front in fact and so at a distance you would still see all of their other gear. How do we account for that?

Just because there are four people wearing "Black Cloaks", I'm still going to know which one is the gemmer, because of the gem, even at a distance.

So on and so forth.

With all of that being said, I don't think I've ever shot anyone where I didn't know their keywords/their name, so, I'm just throwing out possibilities for the sake of refining the idea.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

Because it isnt a perfect solution. ... But there isn't the coding time available to account for subtle issues like that. What you are suggesting therefore is realistic in some situations and very unrealistic in others.

You just described every coding change ever made for the sake of "realism." (Looking at you, LookBuff2016, not that you would notice now...)

Honestly, I don't give a shit whether it functions in the city. If look worked this way in the desert it would, as Bad Skeelz said, increase the danger and mystery. No more seeing a rider on the horizon and knowing they're harmless because you can see what shade of blue their eyes are from way over here. (Not that there are dangerous PCs in the desert these days anyways...)

It would offer coded incentives to RP distances better while in the wastes.

Furthermore we have the ability to RP having less information than the game gives us. You can RP not knowing who someone is in the distance even if OOCly you have a very good idea because you know how the code works.

That sounds good on paper, but attempts to RP realistic things that the code doesn't enforce usually plays out for me like this:

Code Select Expand


Very Far to the East:
The azure-eyed, lightly-freckled man stands here.

Shading his eyes with a hand as he squints eastward, you say in Sirihish:
  "Someone on the horizon. Can't tell who this far out."

The tall muscular man glances eastward.

The tall muscular man says, in sirhish:
   "It's a guy with blue eyes and freckles. You need your eyes checked Malik."


[Case]

Eh, this would cause some unrealistic issues as well.

If I look north and see fifteen people wearing "a hooded brown military aba".

If my target is, "The massive, hulking man.", I should pretty easily be able to pick him out and shoot him despite the fact everyone around him is wearing the same cloak. (I could just do "shoot massive", if I knew one of his keywords I suppose, but if I've never seen him, I wouldn't know that. Whoever hired me to pick him off would have just told me, "He's huge. He's much bigger than most any other Bynner." Which would be enough for me to pick him out pretty easily....but now I can't....even though I would be able to realistically.)

Cloak =/= Everyone Looks The Same

A lot of cloaks don't even close in the front in fact and so at a distance you would still see all of their other gear. How do we account for that?

Just because there are four people wearing "Black Cloaks", I'm still going to know which one is the gemmer, because of the gem, even at a distance.

So on and so forth.

With all of that being said, I don't think I've ever shot anyone where I didn't know their keywords/their name, so, I'm just throwing out possibilities for the sake of refining the idea.

I still think this problem is easier to fix than people using name or nickname keywords for targetting.