The Emote Character Limit is Damaging, Here's Why

[Kaathe]

Is the issue that you can't break your intended emote into two at all? Or that it's inconvenient when it comes up?  What are some examples, without using anything currently IC?

Personally, I don't think players should stack multiple consecutive actions into one emote because other PCs should have the time to interject, respond, and/or prepare. But if you're writing 249+ character emotes that are all happening in a brief moment then I'm both impressed and curious to see.

[geminferno]

Is the issue that you can't break your intended emote into two at all? Or that it's inconvenient when it comes up?  What are some examples, without using anything currently IC?

Personally, I don't think players should stack multiple consecutive actions into one emote because other PCs should have the time to interject, respond, and/or prepare. But if you're writing 249+ character emotes that are all happening in a brief moment then I'm both impressed and curious to see.

Where in the docs does it say that emoting is a single action taken? I can't find it anywhere so I'd like to read it if it exists! In my experience, if someone makes multiple actions in a single post then the other person can also respond to those actions if needed.

I've had the limit break up my posts with both speech and action many times. And not to mention I enjoy adding in my character's feelings into an emote when I don't have time to make a separate "feel" post.

Also, again, why would anyone try to make a long post while in the middle of a dire situation? Or when it doesn't call for it at all?

[Tailong]

If the character is increased who does it exactly hurt is the correct question.  Don't want t to read it, don't, don't want write one, don't. The objections don't really make sense.

[adri]

I support a limit increase but removing a cap entirely would be a bit much. Also, I think the longer you make emotes, the easier it would be to miss your character being addressed in them. Some kind of color variation or emphasis for that would be great if we're thinking of extending emote length. Just my two cents!

[Nao]

I wouldn't mind this too much, but I'm not a fan. Is it really that hard to hit enter after a period?

Why?
It slows things down.
Chances are you're squeezing more than one action into one emote, not giving me a chance to react between those actions.
I might miss something in the middle of that wall of text.

I don't like 20-line main descriptions, either. Chances are that the big picture gets lost in too much detail, and I probably don't have time to read it all AND react in a timely manner to meeting your PC for the first time. I much prefer 10 lines or shorter. 

[betweenford]

Is the issue that you can't break your intended emote into two at all? Or that it's inconvenient when it comes up?  What are some examples, without using anything currently IC?

Personally, I don't think players should stack multiple consecutive actions into one emote because other PCs should have the time to interject, respond, and/or prepare. But if you're writing 249+ character emotes that are all happening in a brief moment then I'm both impressed and curious to see.

sex. Theres one example people get flowery. Executions. Speeches.

[Kaathe]

Where in the docs does it say that emoting is a single action taken? I can't find it anywhere so I'd like to read it if it exists!

There are some help files suggesting it's one action, but nothing that says "only one action per emote or you're in trouble".  I also want to be clear my opinion was personal and not official by any means. https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/emoting https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/emote%20examples

I still think it would be valuable for everyone if there were some examples.

I'm curious how you add feelings into the emote in lieu of feel.

[mansa]

Q.
Is Diku capable of receiving input longer than 256 characters?

Q.
Would this change how the game parses and interprets text?

Q.
If we bump it up to 312 characters, would that break the game?

[Brokkr]

Where in the docs does it say that emoting is a single action taken? I can't find it anywhere so I'd like to read it if it exists! In my experience, if someone makes multiple actions in a single post then the other person can also respond to those actions if needed.

There is a native emoting style that has developed on Armageddon over the last nearly 30 years that most players follow. One action per emote and to a slightly lesser extent, one sentence per emote.

Not everything is written down in the helpfiles on the website.  There have been official Staff posts on the GDB for years and years, for one instance.  Some of those have been about not forcing actions on other people and as a corollary, not doing actions in emotes that others should be able to respond to but you give them no opportunity to do so by the nature of your emote.

[dumbstruck]

I still think it would be valuable for everyone if there were some examples.

Here's one that clocks in at 415:

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emote Pulling up her hood against the fierce howl of the scouring sands in the storm, @me leans
against %inix side, using it's massive bulk for shelter and brings an arm up to cover her face while
digging around in ~knapsack with eyes half slitted against the elements to protect them until she
can locate ~sunslits, pulling them on quickly to obscure the vivid gleam of emerald eyes in a prison
of styrax and bone.

416:

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emote Settling at the edge of ~stage, @me pulls out ~lute from ~case and begins tuning it, plucking
along slowly at the strings of it and adjusting the pegs. A curtain of drov-black silk, her hair falls to
partially obscure the look of concentration on her features, shielding her face from sight in deepening
shadows as the last dying rays of Suk-krath's setting comes with a darkening sky above the torchlit stage.

402:

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emote The crowd around @me slowly gathers with the dawn as ~templar and ~dwarf arrive at the foot of the
great Dragon statue at the Gate here, the milling slowly ceasing with opening words of the templar. Nodding
along, #me echoes the words silently to &me after the one leading the morning Devotions, fingers clasping
quietly along the hem of ^me ragged cloak before #me falls to ^me knees, prostrate.

[Patuk]

I still stand by this having no downsides. Keep your brief emotes if you want - you're welcome to. Limiting other people is unnecessary, and they should be free to have some more characters to write with.

[Filthy_Grey_Rat]

I don't personally like the idea of adding extra chars to the emote limit, but every example of a reason not to boils down to personal preference and a lot of semantics. After going through it, I've realized it's not that I want people to have shorter emotes, or to break their emotes into pieces, I merely want a chance to interrupt.

There's an ellipses in speech when you have too many characters. Like, if you're giving a long speech, and it's appended to the end...

And that's where, if you were going to interrupt a person being long winded, you can. It's /possible/ with longer limits to drop a huge wall of speech as if your character is rattling on and no one at all is interrupting them, but I'm not certain this will happen a lot. And people who do it will likely have me avoiding them IG. Although, thanks to MUD magic, I can just try 'say (interrupting %templar speech about midway) BOO! Get a job!'


Then there's the actual emote command, and it's own limits and uses. When my brain sees an emote three lines long, I typically skip past it mentally to whatever comes after next, to keep myself up to date with what's going on, and only go back to reread it if I notice it involves something specifically important to my char, like ~me, or some item I'm watching. That's fine, if it's longer, I'd just keep doing this. However, I'm personally worried that a trend of this type of emoting (emotes that are real long comparatively) will result in more people participating in a behavior I've noticed among a portion of players.

It's this thing where people throw out an emote, then wait for someone to respond, then throw out another emote, and a back and forth happens, over and over. One to one emotes. I used to rp like that, but I've changed how I do things over the years. I'll drop an emote, add any less than obvious parts of that emote to hemotes, think about what has just happened, was just said, and typically feel something, usually all before someone responds to the emote or say. I don't think there's anything we can change about the game to make people add more of the uncommon types of RP commands, so insisting their emotes remain so limited isn't going to help my personal worries on this matter, and that's fine.


All of that being said, I want to give a good storyteller all the tools they need to cooperate with my story, and tell their own. Adding an emotive action into speech will limit how much you can say, that limits creativity. Solo RP'ers will sometimes entertain themselves will vivid, flowery emotes because frankly, it doesn't seem like anyone's waiting on them. I've completely thrown away some emotes that were 'too long' and just said fuck it, because I wasn't counting my characters when I was illustrating how the wind blew around my cloak while alone in the wilderness. Another point of limiting creativity.  My personal experiences with singing have been sometimes obliterated by the char limits. Another point of limiting creativity.

To rebut some of the arguments against this change, I'd like to point out how much I'd love it if Inks dropped a 10 liner emote before killing my character, that'd be a lot more than I usually get from an assassination. Frankly, this should be a point in the favor of expanding RP. You CAN drop a long emote right before you kill someone, without complaining about how 'they might get away' if you have to RP with them. As far as single actions being taken per sentence, I'll oppose extending char limits when someone actually goes through this game and becomes an RP police force. I'm tired of nods being the extent of what I get back from other players, even when I'm codedly watching them. Or having someone steal from me when they just emoted watching me from across the room. How'd they cross so fast? There's a lot of iffy, not so concrete things to complain about when it comes to people's RP, and worrying that extending a char limit is going to change things for the worse doesn't seem realistic to me.

emote jumps up and down, turns around, bows to the templar, and walks off. Technically several actions right there, and I've seen people IG do some similar stuff. I can't interrupt that any more or any less than if they added the full limit of characters to the emote. Or doubled them. It's a player's personal RP quality that determines things like this. In the vast majority of my roleplay, I've often typed 'attempts to' or 'tries to' when touching or reaching into another char's personal space. This extension of benefit of a doubt regarding whether or not they LET me has rarely, rarely ever been reciprocated. If someone does some emoting that doesn't allow me to RP interfere, that's a personal trait of their RP, not a trait of the character limits on emotes.



Now this got a bit rambly, and maybe isn't as coherent as it could be, but none of that matters if you don't read this last part. More than a few players have expressed this desire, this request, that will improve their storytelling ability, and their enjoyment, and the reasons NOT to indulge them have little to do with the request itself, only what I believe to be semantic hypotheticals too vague to be constructively argued.

[Dar]

Strangely enough, but we share playerbase qualifications with MUSHs.  A lot of our good writers and evocative emoters enjoy playing in MUSH. This happened ... 7 years ago, but I once got 4 players to try Arm at the same time. All of them excellent roleplayers who were looking for a game with a greater aspect of "rough and tumble".

All 4 came to the same observations.  Emote limit was stifling and too many people stuck to basic emotes.  Im a pretty basic emoter myself and I argued emote does not equal role play and mostly carried my point across, but none of them stayed eventually.

I dont think extending emote limit will ruin anyones die and yet it will improve someone elses profoundly.   So why the hell not?

[dwarven fists of doom]

The only downside to this after playing MUSHes is sometimes the cadence of emoting can become slow as people type large paragraphs. Personally I have adapted to the limit and I think it allows for a better cadence and more opportunities for more roleplayers to get involved.

[Brisket]

Strangely enough, but we share playerbase qualifications with MUSHs.  A lot of our good writers and evocative emoters enjoy playing in MUSH. This happened ... 7 years ago, but I once got 4 players to try Arm at the same time. All of them excellent roleplayers who were looking for a game with a greater aspect of "rough and tumble".

All 4 came to the same observations.  Emote limit was stifling and too many people stuck to basic emotes.  Im a pretty basic emoter myself and I argued emote does not equal role play and mostly carried my point across, but none of them stayed eventually.

I dont think extending emote limit will ruin anyones die and yet it will improve someone elses profoundly.   So why the hell not?

This, I've recruited several people to try from MUSHes who were down and excited, but the character limit was so stifling that they lost interest.

Doubling it would get us more players and allow for more.. emotive.. emotes without forcing anyone to write more than em grunts. if the don't want to.

[Halaster]

As a player...

If I'm in a scene and it's busy or fast-paced, and I see a really long description emote, I will skim it as fast as I can or outright skip it.  Because I feel like I need to keep up with everything else , too.  While I'm reading that 4-line emote, that I agree is awesome and very descriptive, several other things happen, and I start to fall behind.  If it's a more personal or slow-paced scene, sure, I'll read them.

That is what makes ArmageddonMUD different than MUSH's, it is DIKU based and intended to be a bit more action-oriented and fast-paced.  We basically took a Hack-n-slash codebase and added (crap-tons of) Role-Playing elements on top of it.  It puts us in a kind of pretty unique spot being a mix of the two.  As a result, the emoting and storytelling aspect is different than a MUSH.

That said, I agree with others that it's not a 'big deal' if it was updated to accommodate others.  From that perspective, I lean a little towards changing it.


As a producer...

Like Brokkr said, I'm open to listening to the idea of changing it.


As a coder...

I looked into it, and you'd think it's a simple change, but if there's one thing I know about our code, it's rarely simple.  And that's true here, due to the nature of how C handles strings, it takes a lot of code/work.  While I could just simply update a variable that is used in emoting, that is also used in about 50 other places in the code.   So extensive testing would have to get done to make sure it doesn't break something else somewhere else.  Doable?  Yes.  Worth the effort?  Meh, I'm leaning towards no.

[geminferno]

That is what makes ArmageddonMUD different than MUSH's, it is DIKU based and intended to be a bit more action-oriented and fast-paced.  We basically took a Hack-n-slash codebase and added (crap-tons of) Role-Playing elements on top of it.  It puts us in a kind of pretty unique spot being a mix of the two.  As a result, the emoting and storytelling aspect is different than a MUSH.

My question is: why would you not accommodate the Roleplay Intensive aspect of the game by extending a character limit? If having roleplay as a requirement, then you shouldn't stunt the creativity of people by shortening their replies. Yes, it's fast-paced but it's still a roleplaying game for people who want to tell stories. Need room for words to tell stories.

[Armaddict]

That is what makes ArmageddonMUD different than MUSH's, it is DIKU based and intended to be a bit more action-oriented and fast-paced.  We basically took a Hack-n-slash codebase and added (crap-tons of) Role-Playing elements on top of it.  It puts us in a kind of pretty unique spot being a mix of the two.  As a result, the emoting and storytelling aspect is different than a MUSH.

My question is: why would you not accommodate the Roleplay Intensive aspect of the game by extending a character limit? If having roleplay as a requirement, then you shouldn't stunt the creativity of people by shortening their replies. Yes, it's fast-paced but it's still a roleplaying game for people who want to tell stories. Need room for words to tell stories.

Roleplay is not accentuated by more words and emotes, but creative expression of the narrative is.  Roleplaying being done well or poorly is determined by actions, not the description of them.

I don't particularly care if people are allowed more space for emotes.  But to demonstrate both the pros and cons of it:

A:

The tall, rangy man slowly comes into view over the crest of a dune, followed by the enormous bulk of his inix.  The gleaming scales of the beast of burden are ebon and dark, starkly contrasting the brighter, pale shade of chitin that its rider wears, and its claws spread as it powerfully pounds its steps into the ungracious support of the sand beneath.  The rider, meanwhile, glowers down upon the environs, a wordless sentinel seemingly unphased by Suk-Krath lowering towards the horizon and the imminent arrival of darkness.

B:

Code Select Expand

The tall, rangy man has arrived from the east, riding a glossy, black-shelled inix, rising over the crest of a dune.

Code Select Expand

The tall, rangy man sways gently atop a glossy, black-shelled inix as he rides, his pale armor gently clacking with the movements.

Code Select Expand

The tall, rangy man squints harshly as he watches the area as shadows lengthen in the evening.

The two methods are capable of distributing the exact same information to the reader.  A is generally going to be expressed as 'more interesting', long enough to build a cadence of words, and more free to expression.  However, A takes a lot more time to write, with empty space in all of that time while it's written.  A is also a lot more prone to flowery filling, because that's precisely what those of freedom of expression and emphasis on the words gives; flower-ness. This can be a tremendous strength that makes some scenes far more artful where a single emote can set the stage for a whole scene; it can also result in a dialogue filled with over-description and 'eyes that glimmer like morning sand-dew', where every single statement is inflated with similes, metaphors, and uber-inflation.

B has a -huge- amount of repetition of nouns and a certain directness that makes it very unappealing in a pure storytelling setting.  However, Armageddon is not a pure storytelling setting, and anyone saying otherwise is likely just complaining about the actions of another player.  B is a concise description of players, parts, and actions.  It is brief on purpose, because in even this period of briefness, other interaction is already at play, either from other players or from the world itself.  It is not generally 'exciting' to read, though some players are -very- gifted at putting in beautiful things in either a pointed way in a single emote, or in a methodical way over multiple emotes.  But it -is- adept at both conveying the needed information and the parts of it, as well as allowing for multiple people to be doing it at the same time.

B is and always has been highly stressed as an Armageddon strongpoint because of the nature of the game.  People lightheartedly make fun of tressy-tresses and porcelain skinned aides and handsome, white-teeth white knights...and it's not generally because they hate the player or want to fault them, but because the writing around it is jarring in comparison to the setting or its prevalence can feel out of place when you see it too often.  B is direct and cutting words, simple but effective, and with plenty of room to play around with throughout at scene to build narrative, description, and beauty through concise actions.  It is the direct opposite of A, where nicer floating cadences are what build the niceness of the picture in roughly the same period of time, but all at once, rather than through a series of reactable actions.

As I said, I've no problem with A being within the game.  It has great advantages as far as those slow scenes where you're more intent on building something great for someone to read in an otherwise relatively barren wasteland for deep prose.  But it -does- come with tradeoffs, and -will- impact the game over time, and -will- slow down scenes that other people may not want slowed down. This stated idea that extending the character limit is pure increase of roleplaying ability is false; the level of roleplay is already huge here, but just with a lower bar as far as sharing anything more than the needed information and with a high window of interaction.

[Hestia]

@Armaddict: There's also room for C:

The tall, rangy man has arrived from the east, riding a glossy, black-shelled inix, rising over the crest of a dune.

Swaying atop his mount as he rides, the tall rangy man's pale armor gently clacks with the movements. He squints
harshly, watching the area as shadows lengthen in the evening sky.

Using the emote system, you can place your character's sdesc somewhere other than the beginning of the sentence and give your two-line emote more creative "oomph" without overwhelming the reader.

[Barsook]

I honesty do like option C over the other two. Knowing the symbols that we can use to target allows this. That's why I like Arm's emoting system.

Even though I haven't masted it.

[geminferno]

@Armaddict:

There really is no con to it other than the coding difficulties Halaster stated. If someone wants to be descriptive in a situation where nothing potentially life threatening or too crowded, then what's the problem? If you don't want to read it, no one is forcing you. And that seems more like an emote that's done in a solo situation anyway. Some people want to describe actions in a bit of a more detailed way to get a point across. To add in thins that not only prove an action but give more perspective on it. For example:

The tall, rangy-skinned man reaches for a long-haired, redhead's hand.

Which hand is it? What does he do with her hand? Is his hand rough and calloused? Or surprisingly soft? Sometimes detail gives the emote substance and something to respond to. Which is my point here.

And the difference between roleplaying being done well and poorly is character development. You can be as descriptive as you want but if your character is completely flat then you're not doing what's intended as a roleplayer.

[Armaddict]

@Armaddict: There's also room for C:

The tall, rangy man has arrived from the east, riding a glossy, black-shelled inix, rising over the crest of a dune.

Swaying atop his mount as he rides, the tall rangy man's pale armor gently clacks with the movements. He squints
harshly, watching the area as shadows lengthen in the evening sky.

Using the emote system, you can place your character's sdesc somewhere other than the beginning of the sentence and give your two-line emote more creative "oomph" without overwhelming the reader.

Oh, I know.  But the nouns will be present in every emote.  There is variety, but the structure is overall the same.  Mostly, my emphasis was that B (and your C) is more based in creating short-term delivery of actions to progress narrative that people can interact with.  I have a very healthy respect for A, because I do enjoy reading narratives and seeing real, deep collaborative storytelling.  But there are some concerns about introducing it into Arm that I don't think outright cancel the idea, but need to be acknowledged by those who think they would stick to A, or that A being possible would be wholly a bonus.  There are boons and drawbacks.  There's a certain pacing of Arm that A will be challenged to engage with.

I love beautifully creative writing.  Love it.  I -do- read the long mdescs.  I do read item descriptions that someone spent a lot of time going into concise detail about their creation.  But Armageddon 'storytelling'  as a full narrative is completely integrated with the idea of movement, actions, and the idea that things are still progressing all around you even while you're still reacting to a thing that happened 2 minutes ago.  Play-by-post style, each post can take someone 10-30 minutes to write up their responses, and that's a whoooole lot of actions taking place in Armageddon.  But there have been, definitely, moments where I wanted to fully describe something, had to break it up into multiple emotes, and lost that ability to make something genuinely pleasing to read as a result.

Then again, as Patuk points out, I'm overly verbose.  I like big words in big sentences, sometimes.  They paint a picture more easily.

I favor expanding the limit, but hopefully without the same thing happening as what happened with, for example, 'think', where it started off as a way to enhance roleplaying and give opportunity to express things through another medium and more fully develop something...into a thing that people viewed as a requirement for good roleplay.

[creeper386]

I often think it's too long already. When someone drops a paragraph on me in an emoted say, it becomes really hard to keep track of the flow when I have to scroll up and read what actually was going on.

[Qzzrbl]

I don't know how I'd feel about an increase....

Seems sometimes, some people already try to cram a full ten minutes worth of action into a single emote.

[creeper386]

Personally, already people put too much into their emotes and says, that gets walls of text already. IMO.


Extending this to just let them include what, twice as much?

If your emote includes just so must stuff to hit the limit, personally I don't think you are interested in RP with others. Because you either are going to descriptive that it's not going to be readable except in one on one interactions, or you are including so many actions that IMO is basically powergaming.

Because now you aren't even letting me respond to anything. We already see it when people spam a bunch of emotes or says and you have to kind of retroactively go back and respond to them, sometimes out of order because you missed something.

If it was extended and became even slightly the norm, I'm not sure it'd be great to play.