The Emote Character Limit is Damaging, Here's Why

[Tailong]

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.

What? That makes no sense what so ever. If people are going out of their way to be expressive, they clearly have an interest in roleplay.

[creeper386]

I explained why, because someone having a wall of text, especially with mutliple actions, isn't letting people actually respond.


We are playing a game in actual time. We aren't writing a book, or a chapter or even a paragraph.

The game is about interaction, which requires back and forth.

If someone drops a way of text, rather it's in one long massive text, or just spamming a bunch of emotes or says, that kind of doesn't let someone respond in real time to .... anything.

[Svalinya]

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.

No one is saying this change would be explicitly for group scenes. Nothing wrong with descriptive emotes.

[Tailong]

I explained why, because someone having a wall of text, especially with mutliple actions, isn't letting people actually respond.


We are playing a game in actual time. We aren't writing a book, or a chapter or even a paragraph.

The game is about interaction, which requires back and forth.

If someone drops a way of text, rather it's in one long massive text, or just spamming a bunch of emotes or says, that kind of doesn't let someone respond in real time to .... anything.

With the current limit, no one is dropping a massive a wall of text, and the current expectation is that an emote is used to describe a single expression or action and a not a list, so if you seeing anything other, I'd be surprised.

[Riev]

I have seen people use three emotes to express their "one" emotion. I DO hit the truncation limit, at times, but it tells me "be more concise".

When that happens, though, its usually because my pre-emote on my 'tell' is so long, I get to say four actual words.

I don't know how often I've hit character limits on ACTUAL emotes.

[Pariah]

It's a double edged sword.

If you increase the emote size, you might get smacked with a wall of text.

But if you don't and you have a fast typer like me, You'll just get hit with three emotes in the same period of time.

Pick your poison, want it in one chunk or three?

[Riev]

Frankly, three.

And this is PURELY for twink reasons, but you could drop a wall of text that you expect someone to read, and then engage in combat or theft or any number of PvP actions while the PLAYER is reading, but the PC would be paying attention.

Sort of like "Let me <give> this heavy baobab log to this guy before I attack him, because weight affects combat".

[Pariah]

Sort of like "Let me <give> this heavy baobab log to this guy before I attack him, because weight affects combat".

I would file a player complaint and wish all soooooo fucking quick if someone pulled such twinky shit on me.

[Windstorm]

I'm a relatively new player to Armageddon, and to MUDs in general, really. However, I am no rookie when it comes to roleplaying. I've been roleplaying and telling stories for 13 years and I enjoy expressing my characters' feelings, describing their movements their facial expression, etc. because that's what makes roleplaying more immersive. I personally think the character limit on emotes is holding people back from really building lasting relationships and even roleplaying in general.

I want to be able to roleplay without having the flow stopped abruptly because I got too excited and wanted to give my roleplaying partner something to respond to. I know not everyone wants to see a wall of text, which is fine, but I also want to be able to make a response worthy of being... well, replied to. I feel it should be extended, or maybe even dismantled altogether.

There's too many instances where I get un-motivated because I get a one liner with barely anything to build upon. It makes me not even want to interact with other players sometimes. And before anyone tells me to "find another game without a character limit" I'm gonna stop you right there. I LOVE Armageddon. I think the concept is super fun and I like the thought of my character trying to survive in a fucked up world. I just wish for once I could get as much effort back as I put in.

Hello. Flowery emoter here. I've learned to just break things up into multiple emotes (and hemotes) on Armageddon compared with other places.

The pace here is meant to be faster with the back-and-forth. A bar scene in Armageddon with like 5ish active people is still able to be followed. On a MUSH everyone sort of takes turns and a scene with 5 people can take an hour to get through introductions, or people are just dropping paragraphs too rapidly for others to follow. It's a different flavor but once I got used to it I simply got used to packing things into the character limit and trying to make them more concise while also of my own style.

This is a problem I personally have in either environment. On Arm, I'm probably being too flowery by some peoples' measure. On a MUSH, I'm going too fast and people can't follow in the scene because I dislike "waiting my turn." Personally? I think the practice of both styles makes me a better writer.

That said, I could see the benefits to a slightly longer allowance. So, I'm not really of an opinion either way.

[cnemus]

I just want to go on the record as against making the limit longer.

(Some of the following has already been said in slightly different ways)

I realize most of the discussion here has to do with personal preference and there is nothing wrong with those preferences. My personal experience with MUDs, MUSHs, forum RP, and other games that have longer paragraph-RP is that the pacing is significantly slower. Some will like that. In other settings I like that. In Armageddon a lot can happen in a minute, I want to be able to act, react, and pivot RP direction.

I totally support anyone who wants to be more expressive than the current limit allows by using multiple emotes or other commands to do it. In para-RP in other places everyone pauses to let everyone have their turn. This makes sure you each are reacting and contributing to a single narrative without random posts altering the content while it is being written. There are situations where this happens in Arm, but a change like this affects all situations not just the ones it is ideal for.

Hard pass, please.

[Shalooonsh]

As an author, I can appreciate both sides of this debate, however, there's one very simple thing to keep in mind:

You may want more characters, and that's fine.  But there's a whole lot of people here who are here for fast paced interaction.  Allowing someone to write a paragraph in order to describe an action isn't conducive to fast paced interaction. 

Also, if you are finding the character length limiting -- check your client.  You should have an option in there for a command somewhere that allows you to insert another command.  Often you'll find it's the semi-colon. 

So if your normal rhythm is "emote does this and this and then that, and this other thing, while getting their phone out and dialing the Senate" then you can just break it up and have those fire through in rapid succession.

emote does this and this ; say (doing another thing) This and that; emote continues to pull out their phone and call the Senate.

.... which, to me, seems a whole lot easier than changing the coding on something so deeply ingrained into the game.

[ShaiHulud]

As an author, I can appreciate both sides of this debate, however, there's one very simple thing to keep in mind:

You may want more characters, and that's fine.  But there's a whole lot of people here who are here for fast paced interaction.  Allowing someone to write a paragraph in order to describe an action isn't conducive to fast paced interaction. 

Also, if you are finding the character length limiting -- check your client.  You should have an option in there for a command somewhere that allows you to insert another command.  Often you'll find it's the semi-colon. 

So if your normal rhythm is "emote does this and this and then that, and this other thing, while getting their phone out and dialing the Senate" then you can just break it up and have those fire through in rapid succession.

emote does this and this ; say (doing another thing) This and that; emote continues to pull out their phone and call the Senate.

.... which, to me, seems a whole lot easier than changing the coding on something so deeply ingrained into the game.

[Kronibas]

For me, the length of the emote should be situational.

If you're doing something that *should* be emoted *well*, like a Tuluki templar giving a tattoo, then there is no way it's not all that likely you're going to accomplish portraying that act accurately *via the written word* with the current emote character limit, using only one emote. But obviously, someone who has been tattooed a fair a bit IRL, like myself, might have more to say about that matter — because of vivid memories or the experience(s), maybe.

Thinking a little bit abstractedly here, but when you're studying poetry in a university setting, you usually learn about "enjambment," which is how poets will extend sentences from *edited here* one line or stanza  to the next, for practical and/or stylistic effect.

Similarly, this tactic can be used with the current emoting constraints: if you realize that the idea you're attempting to convey is a large or complex one, then go ahead, as you plan out how you'll write it, and just prepare for breaking the larger idea... into two smaller ones. By using introductory sentence elements for the second part of the idea (or both), it will not only be more aesthetically-pleasing, but it'll be easier to consume for those who view reading sentences of words, as opposed to code, as a chore.

At the end of the day, emoting length is like the flavors of ice cream: different people enjoy different things, and that's why there's more than just chocolate, or vanilla, at ice cream parlours. Since most of us will self-regulate and reserve longer emotes for times when it's appropriate — your Tuluki templar is tattooing someone, vs. in the middle of a Byn RPT with 30 people — then I don't see a problem with allowing longer emotes: twice as long as the current limit, even, seems fine.

Edited to add:  Also relevant to this entire question is how, as we play a game like Arm, we tend to go into "survival" or "skimming" mode. And sometimes, for very real reasons, it be can hard to turn this off. Recently, I have had to *force myself*, on account of new rooms/areas, to slow down... and actually read the damn words, reminding myself, consciously, that, although I have seen and read a lot of words on Arm, I haven't read *these* in particular and could be missing something if I don't.

Sometimes, we see so little that is "new," exciting, or actually intriguing, in the way of written descriptions (room-wise, player-wise, object-wise), that we might be cheating ourselves a little by not opening ourselves up a bit more, despite the fact the it at times runs contrary to deeply-ingrained survival instincts

[Kronibas]

I think, if done well enough and under the right set of circumstances, the written word has the capacity to elicit the same positive responses to writing as we've seen to the recent code changes.

We should... not underestimate how wickedly-talented some of the writers we have here are, and the environment should maybe strongly reinforce the notion that this is a place where near-unfettered creativity is highly encouraged.

[creeper386]

Take your tattoo example Kronibas. If you have gotten tattoos. Even with modern equipment, it takes some time.

That time shouldn't be condensed into one emote. Ever. No matter how well written it is.

In my opinion, if you want to write this elaborate emote that could cover an hour or more work in a tattoo. You might be writing a wonderful story. But you become the only author. You aren't letting others partake. Same if you want to describe any complex activity in one emote.

And if you want to take a minute to write an emote that covers how you flipped your cloak as you enter the room ... While everything else has gone on, and now they have to roll back some as you just now finished describing how you enter the room. Seems weird to me.

And honestly I'd argue a MUD, where you are writing a story with others in relatively real time, might not be the place for that.

If you break it up into three emotes. Spaced out to indicate time has past and that allows other to interact. Yes I'd much rather that. If you just go ahead and take the same out of time to type out, emote dha dah dah; emote dahd adad; emote dahdaha. Then the again, I don't think you are being at all considerate of other players.

[geminferno]

Wanna bump this to start up the discussion again if that's okay with you guys and staff.

[Halaster]

You're welcome to keep talking about it, but we're still not planning to change it.

[Kavrick]

I'll be honest, the arguments against the idea of a longer character limit talking about people who write too much doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If I'm writing a lot I'm just going to split up the emote/dialogue into multiple posts, which uses up more room than if I had it all in a single post.

[Pariah]

I'll be honest, the arguments against the idea of a longer character limit talking about people who write too much doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If I'm writing a lot I'm just going to split up the emote/dialogue into multiple posts, which uses up more room than if I had it all in a single post.

Agreed, and while I have seen some people who emote like this.

Open cloak (as a small smile comes across his face, he opens his cloak by first undoing the little leather straps and using a florist to sweep it behind his right side, causing a slight whoosh noise to come from the quick movement.)

Which I think it a little too dramatic, I don't hate it, I think oocly he's trying too hard and all that and I might chuckle at the silliness of it.  I'd rather have too much than too little.

I just hate the breaking of immersion that happens when you type out something and it goes...

Then the next emote is talk (continuing) or something like that.

While it's 💯% their choice as staff, I don't get why the limit feels like it's such an important part of code it can't be changed.

[Kavrick]

I'll be honest, the arguments against the idea of a longer character limit talking about people who write too much doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If I'm writing a lot I'm just going to split up the emote/dialogue into multiple posts, which uses up more room than if I had it all in a single post.

Agreed, and while I have seen some people who emote like this.

Open cloak (as a small smile comes across his face, he opens his cloak by first undoing the little leather straps and using a florist to sweep it behind his right side, causing a slight whoosh noise to come from the quick movement.)

Which I think it a little too dramatic, I don't hate it, I think oocly he's trying too hard and all that and I might chuckle at the silliness of it.  I'd rather have too much than too little.

I just hate the breaking of immersion that happens when you type out something and it goes...

Then the next emote is talk (continuing) or something like that.

While it's 💯% their choice as staff, I don't get why the limit feels like it's such an important part of code it can't be changed.

Honestly I prefer people who over-emote to people who never emote. Dramatic, flamboyant characters just tend to be more interesting to me but that's subjective.

[mansa]

You cannot recite AND use a command emote to describe how you're expressing yourself in a 4 line stanza.

[creeper386]

I'll be honest, the arguments against the idea of a longer character limit talking about people who write too much doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If I'm writing a lot I'm just going to split up the emote/dialogue into multiple posts, which uses up more room than if I had it all in a single post.

For me, it's not about "using up more room." The issue is, when emotes, talks, whatever take to long, there is little interaction. Add up to, a bigger emote limit, people start potentially taking multiple actions in one emote. Which borders on power emoting. It prevents someone from responding to one action, before you move onto the next. It becomes more round robin RP at that point instead of interaction. Feels way too much like play by post, message boards.

Can you still do this if you just type really fast or type it all up, with command separators in your editor ... Sure you can. But it still often has the same negative connotations for me, and your right in the case it would cause more screen scroll, but I'd rather not have this actively supported by the game.

Have I hit the say limit and been annoyed by it, sure. Something like the new clients ability to warn you when you are close to the character limit, is a great idea though.(Not sure if that actually got put in or not.) So you can plan around the limit, and not be caught unaware.