suggestions for reducing spam in big events

[Cuttlefish]

I sent some suggestions related to the HRPT and all the spam in to the mud, but I thought people might want to discuss them here.  Here is the heavily redacted version of the email.  If you think anything is still too IC, please let me know and I'll edit it some more.  As it is, I think everything IC about it is gone.




I have a suggestion that might just apply to HRPT/RPT, but could also apply other times.  I was in an area with several Allanaki soldier's.  They emote drawing and sheathing their swords a LOT.  It would be good if either you could turn off this level of emotes systemwide (maybe they could check a flag) during RPTs.  This could also apply to their shouting emotes.  Either that, or just take it out.

For instance, here is one sequence:

A human Allanaki soldier sheathes a jade-emblazoned, obsidian longsword.
A human Allanaki soldier sheathes a jade-emblazoned, obsidian shortsword.
A human Allanaki soldier shouts, in sirihish:
    "To the Highlord's Glory!"
A human Allanaki soldier draws a jade-emblazoned, obsidian longsword.
A human Allanaki soldier draws a jade-emblazoned, obsidian shortsword.
A human Allanaki soldier slashes the [deleted] woman's neck,
connecting hard.
The [deleted] woman parries a human Allanaki soldier's attack.
A human Allanaki soldier slashes the [deleted] woman on her leg.
A human Allanaki soldier pierces the [deleted] woman, barely
grazing her body.
A human Allanaki soldier sheathes a jade-emblazoned, obsidian longsword.
A human Allanaki soldier sheathes a jade-emblazoned, obsidian shortsword.
A human Allanaki soldier shouts, in sirihish:
    "Militia! A criminal, here!"
A human Allanaki soldier draws a jade-emblazoned, obsidian longsword.
A human Allanaki soldier draws a jade-emblazoned, obsidian shortsword.
The [deleted] woman parries a human Allanaki soldier's attack.
The [deleted] woman parries a human Allanaki soldier's attack.
A human Allanaki soldier slashes the [deleted] woman on her neck,
wounding her.
A human Allanaki soldier pierces the [deleted] woman's body,
connecting hard.
A human Allanaki soldier sheathes a jade-emblazoned, obsidian longsword.
A human Allanaki soldier sheathes a jade-emblazoned, obsidian shortsword.
A human Allanaki soldier shouts, in sirihish:
    "To the Highlord's Glory!"
A human Allanaki soldier draws a jade-emblazoned, obsidian longsword.
A human Allanaki soldier draws a jade-emblazoned, obsidian shortsword.
A human Allanaki soldier slashes the [deleted] woman on her body.
A human Allanaki soldier pierces the [deleted] woman, barely
grazing her body.
A human Allanaki soldier lightly slashes the [deleted] woman's body.
A human Allanaki soldier lightly pierces the [deleted] woman's wrist.
The [deleted] woman stabs the [deleted] templar's
wrist, connecting hard.


This could have been cut down to:
A human Allanaki soldier slashes the [deleted] woman's neck,
connecting hard.
The [deleted] woman parries a human Allanaki soldier's attack.
A human Allanaki soldier slashes the [deleted] woman on her leg.
A human Allanaki soldier pierces the [deleted] woman, barely
grazing her body.
The [deleted] woman parries a human Allanaki soldier's attack.
The [deleted] woman parries a human Allanaki soldier's attack.
A human Allanaki soldier slashes the [deleted] woman on her neck,
wounding her.
A human Allanaki soldier pierces the [deleted] woman's body,
connecting hard.
A human Allanaki soldier slashes the [deleted] woman on her body.
A human Allanaki soldier pierces the [deleted] woman, barely
grazing her body.
A human Allanaki soldier lightly slashes the [deleted] woman's body.
A human Allanaki soldier lightly pierces the [deleted] woman's wrist.
The [deleted] woman stabs the [deleted] templar's
wrist, connecting hard.



Almost cut in half.  And this is just about 5 seconds worth of what went on in the HRPT.  This was repeated over and over and over.


The second suggestion was about a possible code change.  It would be nice if there were more than, say 3 corpses in a room if it would say:
A pile of corpses litter the room.
OR
Scattered corpses litter the ground.

And 'corpses' would be a container.  "Look in corpses" or "Look in pile" would list all the corpses.  When someone dies, the game automatically puts their corpse in the container.  Now, you could pull a corpse out of the pile if you wanted:

drag 2.corpse

You drag the body of the [deleted] woman out of the pile of corpses.

And then that body is listed in the room description.

Hopefully this idea makes sense.  It would prevent this:

[Room Name deleted] [NEW]
 [Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
  [Room desc deleted]
A [deleted] blocks the north exit.
An obsidian longsword lies here.
A one-handed obsidian axe with a gleaming crescent blade lies here.
A shortsword carved from bone is lying here.
The body of the [deleted] man lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of a [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] man lies crumpled on the floor.
An used round black shield lies here.
The body of [deleted] man lies crumpled on the floor.
A couple of thin-bladed bone knifes are here.
The body of a [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] human lies crumpled on the floor.
A blackened agafari-handled tomahawk with a sharp bone head lies here.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] man lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
A [deleted] warhammer has been placed here.
A short, straight obsidian blade lies here.
The body of the [deleted] woman lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] woman lies crumpled on the floor.
A long, twisted knife of obsidian lies here.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] woman lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
A small dagger with a thin blade and a hooked hilt sits here.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
A [deleted] lie here off to one side.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
A few obsidian daggers are here.
The body of the [deleted] lies crumpled on the floor.
A few chipped, obsidian daggers are here.
A [deleted weapon] lies here.
The body of the [deleted] woman lies crumpled on the floor.
A couple of slender bone swords are here.
The body of the [deleted] man lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] man lies crumpled on the floor.
The body of the [deleted] man lies crumpled on the floor.
A chitinous dagger with a forked blade is lying here.
A [deleted descriptive HRPT feature].
A [deleted descriptive HRPT feature].
The [deleted] is here, fighting the [deleted] templar.
The [deleted] is here, fighting the [deleted] templar.
The [deleted] man is standing here.
The [deleted] is standing here.
A human soldier of Tektolnes walks along here.
A human Allanaki soldier is here, fighting the [deleted].
A human Allanaki soldier is here, fighting the [deleted].
A human Allanaki soldier is here, fighting the [deleted].
The [deleted] is standing here.
The [deleted] templar is here, fighting the [deleted].
A unit of Allanaki light-infantry stands here in a loose formation.
The [deleted] man is here, weapons ready and stance low.
The [deleted] woman is standing here.
The [deleted] has a white glow flaring between his palms.
The [deleted] templar is standing here.
The [deleted] man is standing here.
The [deleted] man is standing here.
The [deleted] woman is here, fighting the [deleted].


23 bodies there.

Oh, and maybe a way to group people fighting a common enemy together if there are more than two or three.  And either don't make characters drop their weapon as they die or do the similar pile thing when there is a bunch of crap on the ground.  If you did all of the previous suggestions, here would be the cleaned up version:

[Room Name deleted] [NEW]
 [Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
[Room desc deleted]
  [Room desc deleted]
A [deleted] the north exit.
A pile of corpses litter the ground.
A stack of weapons and armor are strewn about the ground.
The [deleted] is here, fighting [deleted]
templar.
The [deleted] man is standing here.
The [deleted] is standing here.
A human soldier of Tektolnes walks along here.
A [deleted] is here, fighting:
A human Allanaki soldier
A human Allanaki soldier
A human Allanaki soldier
The [deleted] templar
The [deleted] woman
The [deleted] is standing here.
A unit of Allanaki light-infantry stands here in a loose formation.
The [deleted] man is here, weapons ready and stance low.
The [deleted] woman is standing here.
The [deleted] has a white glow flaring between his
palms.
The [deleted] templar is standing here.
The [deleted] man is standing here.
The [deleted] man is standing here.

Of course, I had to guess on some of that, as it was impossible from the room description (at least for me) to figure out how many [deleted] there actually was.

[Bestatte]

Some game codes support this, and Diku does too, to a degree. If you drop 20 twigs, you'll see "many twigs lay here" or something like that.

The problem is, you've got a bunch of different types of weapons and armor, and the coder would need to give each of them a special flag that calls them "generic armor" or "generic weapon," and then create a function that allows all generics in the room to be bundled together with a single text string.

I'm not sure if Diku would support that, because from what I understand, it isn't an object-oriented code. I know definitely that OO can support this, but it could be a major headache for a diku guru to do.

I like the idea though!

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I like the corpse idea. Additionally, I would code it like the camp fire is, ranging from a pile of corpses, to a huge mound of corpses. Also, I would, at times, suggest that not every corpse get put in the container. I say this because a room is a large area in general. Corpses will often be one atop another, but there will be those spread out as well.

[Cuttlefish]

Yeah, the whole pile thing did bother me if they weren't really in one pile.  That's why I also suggested "Scattered corpses litter the ground. " with "corpses" as the keyword instead of "pile".

Bestatte:  Good point.  How about this - "Items lie scattered about the room." with "items" as a keyword.  Yeah, it's imperfect, but much less imperfect then seeing 16 lines of items that were shown in that one example.

I'd really like to see this kind of code kick in when there were more than X items on the group + more than X people in the room.  Basically, if the total objects in the room is greater then, say, 12, do some compression.

In the example I gave, there were:
1 room name
9 lines of room desc
23 corpses
16 weapons
3 HRPT features
18 PCs/NPCs
----------------
70 lines of scroll


That's *70* lines of scroll, just for doing a "look", walking into the room, fleeing then coming back, etc.  This isn't just confusing because of "the heat of battle" or "the fog of war", this is like going BLIND from confusion.

[crymerci]

In another game I've played, when there were more than a certain number of items in the room (and I believe a corpse is just an item) there was an ability to lump it all together. I.e. "You see X, Y, Z, and some junk."  Or, "You see X, Y, Z, and a bunch of other stuff." Now at that point you can "look junk" or "look stuff" if you really want to see, but otherwise your room-entering spam is cut way down.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Just to let you know, the NPCs aren't 'emoting' drawing and sheathing their weapons. They're actually doing it. It happens when a PC does it as well... They draw their weapon, and it sends out an echo that lets everyone know it. They don't type 'draw weapon' then type 'emote draws a jade-emblazoned sword from his belt.'

Are you suggesting the draw/sheath echoes be removed? I'm not sure I agree with that... If I'm standing in a room with a guy, I'd like to be informed if he suddenly decided to draw his poisoned dagger without me needing to type 'look' every few seconds.

[Cuttlefish]

5DMW: No, I realized what it was shortly after sending it in.  Remember I have only been playing a week.  It's just the guards sheathing their swords, shouting, then drawing them.  It seems like maybe there's a better way around this?  I mean, this is just silly:

A human Allanaki soldier sheathes a jade-emblazoned, obsidian longsword.
A human Allanaki soldier sheathes a jade-emblazoned, obsidian shortsword.
A human Allanaki soldier shouts, in sirihish:
"To the Highlord's Glory!"
A human Allanaki soldier draws a jade-emblazoned, obsidian longsword.
A human Allanaki soldier draws a jade-emblazoned, obsidian shortsword.

And my suggestion was a conditional flag.  I think if they want these HRPTs to go a bit more smoothly, they need to do some conditional coding.  The way combat is structured and the way the guards act is fine for every day activities.  However, when RPT rolls around, it's just not a good system.  Possibly they could just act different when a templar gives them a certain order.  Like maybe some "ignore criminal code" command.

I don't know some of the specifics, just trying to get people thinking.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Okey-dokey. Just checking.

Or at least imposing a no-sheathe flag, and perhaps a no-subdue flag.

[Cuttlefish]

From the update:
New script for "compacting" things, making 1 large item from several
smaller ones.  Again only limited application at present. (Xygax)

Cool.  Don't know if this is related to my suggestion, but I can't wait to try it out.  <Goes in search of a littered room>