Needlessly complex Emoting system

[Eyeball]

Why not just print out the core part of the emoting help file, clip away the excess paper, and stick it somewhere near your monitor so you can visually refer to it when needed?

[WarriorPoet]

After 15+ years of playing I still only use ~ and %. Ever.

[valeria]

From a writing perspective, first and second person are inherently more immersive. I wouldn't want to have my immersion reduced, and my options limited, just because some people don't feel that they want or need the extra symbols. The immersive nature of the MUD (the think and feel commands most of all, but also the immersive and customizable emote system) are the reasons I stayed at this MUD, and why I keep coming back.

I do wish the problematic inconsistent displays were fixed, though.

You wouldn't be able to just change emotes, either, I don't think. If you want a full third-person system, you'd also need to change thinks and feels for consistency, as well as how combat displays, and a myriad of other things.

I don't think the emote symbols are needlessly complex. I think they are exactly as complex as necessary to allow us to customize our emotes.

[James de Monet]

I don't think you can do it with two symbols.  That might get you third person singular possessive with short and long forms, but it doesn't get you short embedded subjects (em looks after ~amos, blue eyes following where #amos went [gives "he"]), it doesn't get you short multiple possessive (em looks at ~talia, gesturing to his own eyes and then to +talia [gives "hers" instead of "her"]), and it doesn't get you self-referential (em looks aghast at ~amos, gesturing uncertainly to &me [gives "himself"]).

That being said, I absolutely like the current system.  Changing emote echoes to start with "you" or "your" to yourself would probably be way easier than changing everything else in the game.  Emoting is complex. But no more so than the English language.

For those intimidated:
Start with ~ and %.
Then add ! and ^.
Then reference the help file whenever you rarely need one of the others, or write your emotes so you don't.  Seems pretty straightforward.

[X-D]

First off...and here is the MOST important part. If You are targeting my PC and you emote like em looks at %bill shield then Bill gets Amos looks at your shield while the room gets Amos looks at Bill's shield. If you get rid of you/r etc and then have everybody seeing the same thing, including Bill or with other emotes if you are emoting something long and the target sees something like, "Amos looks over at you running his gaze up and down your gear". Well, the room also would see "Amos looks at bill running his gaze up and down your gear." Or even worse, the target sees his sdesc and then the rest...even more jarring because most the time Many of us would not even know we were the target, just assuming somebody with the same or close sdesc was being targeted. I essentially use only ~ % @ !, you can do nearly everything there, it becomes simple and nearly automatic and is easier then trying to figure out what pronoun and tense I need to actually type to not make the emote look stupid to myself, the target and the people in the room. I don't think I have used like ^ in more then ten years. And I am pretty sure I have never used = + or &. But I appreciate when others do.

[Lizzie]

The emoting system didn't used to be as "complex" as it is now. But most of us who lived through the change would use the phrase "more robust" rather than "more complex." You CAN do so much more with it, than you could with a more limited system. That doesn't mean you have to, but you can.

If it bothers you that much to have

Code Select Expand

emote With a huff, @ lifts ^me shield and gets ready to rumble with ~amos
display

With a huff, the tall handsome man lifts your shield and gets ready to rumble with the short stocky dwarf.

Then just make a few triggers on your world configuration. Have @ show your sdesc. Have any line that contains "emote" but NOT @, return your sdesc at the beginning of the line. And so on and so forth. It'll take some time to catch them all but once you have them, the only thing you'll ever have to do is find/replace the sdesc when you get a new character.

[cshoov]

Why not just print out the core part of the emoting help file, clip away the excess paper, and stick it somewhere near your monitor so you can visually refer to it when needed?

I have it written out on an index card. Took me less than two minutes to do.