A look in the crowd

[Blackmoon]

Does anyone else get annoyed when someone enters the room, singles out you and perhaps two other people who are sitting at opposite ends of the room by looking at them in a room full of VNPC, and walks out the door? Would it be possible to see thoughs particular people all in five seconds in the crowd? .... :?

Someone..tell me otherwise.

[spawnloser]

Um...so, what's your real beef with this?  That they come in and look at you and you can't respond fast enough to respond in some fashion before they leave?  It is possible for them to enter a room and look about, taking a look at a couple people but skimming past everyone else.  You do it when you walk into a place sometimes too.

[Rindan]

There is no way to glance at someone in Armageddon.  If I am looking for a particular type of person, I can't do the human thing and, scan the crowd, and instantly spot whatever I am looking for.  I can spot a police uniform in a crowd in RL in a few seconds, but I can't spot a militia uniform unless I look at each and every person in game.  I know that it happens often that I step into a tavern looking for a certain type of person, look at everyone, see that they are not there, then move on.  I see no problem with it.  Until Armageddon is a graphical game, there is going to be no other way to skim a crowd other then to look directly at each and every person.

[chang]

I can spot a police uniform in a crowd in RL in a few seconds, but I can't spot a militia uniform unless I look at each and every person in game.

I always thought militia dustcloaks and sun tabards should do the templar-robe thing and change a person's sdesc from man/woman to soldier
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The cold-eyed, rosy-cheeked soldier stands here, easy to spot.
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Plus its just plain cool.

[Northlander]

You know, that's a superb idea that I'm in full support of.

What I usually do is "l keyword's tabard" or "l keyword's cloak" and I'll find out that way, without sending out a big echo.
I always feel like they are collecting descs and equipment lists for their almighty list and their character's perfect memory when people look at my character.
And it's such a clumsy command...

[Angela Christine]

Maybe they didn't just glance at the three PCs, they might also have glanced at 47 VNPCs, but that doesn't echo.  

What I usually do is "l keyword's tabard" or "l keyword's cloak" and I'll find out that way, without sending out a big echo.
I always feel like they are collecting descs and equipment lists for their almighty list and their character's perfect memory when people look at my character.
And it's such a clumsy command...

Meh, it's an echo, but not a big echo.  I've never had trouble ignorring someone elses looks.

And why would someone want to make a giant equipment list?  What possible use could it be?  I can see it, maybe, if you stopped and looked at each item as well so that you would get the main descs too.  But a gigantic list of sdescs seems pointless.  Even if you wanted to do that, possbly because of some weird form of OCD, you'd probably take a class that can PEEK so that you could obsessively look at everyone's equipment lists without attacting attention and see more of the list than you will with a simple look.

Collecting PC sdescs is equally baffling.  I suppose if you record the date with the first instance of spotting the sdesc then you would have a rough guide to how long the PC has been active, allowing you to estimate how "powerful" they are likely to be, but that's a stretch.  Recording the sdesc without knowing the name doesn't make for a very good list, and recording the sdescs of all those characters that live less than 10 hours seems pointless.  Ok, I suppose knowing how many "tall, brown-haired man"s there were last year could be slightly ammusing, but it hardly seems worth the effort.

Seriously, if people walking into a room, looking around briefly and then leaving really gets your panties in a bunch then you should consider switching to decaf.  

AC

[Northlander]

Hey, I've read Orwell; I'm paranoid, alright?!

I so often see 'sdesc enters the building' 'sdesc looks down at you' 'sdesc leaves the building', and it annoys me. Not the 'looks down at' bit, either. I like emotes that say they look around the room, or over the vNPCs, because otherwise my PC might well feel singled out.

[Bestatte]

The only time it ever bothers me is if I have my ldesc set to:

The prima donna bitch-queen is sitting at the bar, facing the wall.

and their character does this:

The twenty-eyed noble enters the building and pauses at the entrance.

The twenty-eyed man looks up at you.

The twenty-eyed man whispers to you, in sirihish, "If you don't bow to me I'll kill you."


Or anything remotely resembling the above, not necessarily involving a noble or bowing but with the other guy assuming that I -also- have twenty eyes and would immediately respond to their presence.

Remember, just because I, the player, can see you're there, doesn't mean my character is looking in that direction. ESPECIALLY when I have my ldesc set to show everyone that I'm staring at a wall, or facing the OPPOSITE end of the building, or otherwise engaged in some mindless exercise that takes up all my attention.

Yes, your PC might be more important than mine. He/she probably is. But if my character isn't looking in your direction when you walk in, she won't respond to your gloriousness.

[Angry]

The twenty-eyed noble enters the building and pauses at the entrance.

The twenty-eyed man looks up at you.

The twenty-eyed man whispers to you, in sirihish, "If you don't bow to me I'll kill you."

If I ever catch someone doing that. I'll load a crossbow and shoot them. And then wish up for them to be brought back to life so I can shoot them again  :x

I so often see 'sdesc enters the building' 'sdesc looks down at you' 'sdesc leaves the building', and it annoys me. Not the 'looks down at' bit, either. I like emotes that say they look around the room, or over the vNPCs, because otherwise my PC might well feel singled out.

If by PC, you mean character. Why are they even noticing the person looking at you. It's a crowded tavern, I'm sure dozens of VNPCs look at you each night that you don't take notice of. That's right. It works both ways.

What shits me more then someone "look"ing at one person and leaving, are people chasing me to bow at me. CHASING me!!!!!! And then walking off. That's much worse then a mere look and leave.

[Bestatte]

Angry, give in to your dark side. Kill them all and let Tek sort them out! Do it! You know you want to.

[Northlander]

vNPCs are the newest fad in debate ammunition, and damn troublesome to argue against without seeming like a player who doesn't take the world into consideration. There's a danger in this, and that's that we might end up with 5 PCs by the bar and not one of them initiating conversation because they're afraid of ignoring all the vNPCs sitting there. Not blaming anyone though, I love firing them myself  

So, I've given this some more thought, and see some of your points. But first of all, let's make clear what I see as a problem. Without emoting, someone walks into a room, looks at you, and leaves the room.

This doesn't give you much to work with. You don't know if he stared at you, you don't know if he looked over the entire room as if looking for someone, you don't know if it was just that quick glance thousands of vNPCs throw at you every other second.

Previously, my characters, if they noticed this, might've thought it a bit odd. They might've looked straight back at the character if they had time to do so. Now, I say "if they noticed this" because it's not something my characters would do very often. If they're chatting with a merchant and someone walks in, looks at them, and leaves, then it'll naturally be ignored. But if my character is by a table, facing the door, keeping an eye on the people in the tavern, and someone walked in, looked at him, and left, without an emote that would let me know whether or not to react, then there'd be a chance of my character noticing this.

My argument would be that a 'look person' could be a pretty close look. An "l person's cloak" plus my character's sdesc might be all those vNPC looks give.

But, see, I've decided that, from now on, I'll ignore all looks that are without an emote. It's impossible to know how to react, so my character will simply not notice it.

[Sakra]

It's impossible to know how to react, so my character will simply not notice it.

The only way to get around that, is to change look to a 'glance', so everytime you look at someone, there is no echo, and you see what's on the head, the robe/aba/whatever, and possibly gloves/boots. Then, if you wanted to see everything they have, you could 'study' them, and it would give what the current look code does now.

[Lazloth]

But, see, I've decided that, from now on, I'll ignore all looks that are without an emote. It's impossible to know how to react, so my character will simply not notice it.

I think the generic look to-vict/to-room echoes should disappear.  (I guess I'm not the only one bothered by them.)

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I am in support of several ideas presented in this thread. Firstly, those who have suggested that the militia/legion cloaks be changed to change the PC's race or sex name to soldier. There would need to be a few more options, since soldiers are not all the same race.

IE: the massive mul becomes the massive mullish soldier, or the green-eyed, golden-haired man becomes the green-eyed, golden-haired soldier.

I am also in support of the removal of the look echo, but the information needs to be censored if there is no echo. The cap, the facewrap or veil or mask, the cloak, the weapons, and the short description are all that should be available if there is no echo. The other information should be available with a more studious gaze.

[Northlander]

I'm with you on the glance command. And I'd like to see weapons seen as well, as Venomz proposed. In fact, I would've suggested the command in my previous post - if I wasn't such a miserable coward when it comes to taking criticism  

The command would give you what your character would see with a brief look. It would be especially useful when one encounters raiders, to RP properly around the raider's items without asking for him to lop your head off.

Maybe it isn't needed, though. Speak up, you nay-sayers, you.

[spawnloser]

There is a 'glance' command.  It's called 'peek' and it's a skill.

[Ralin]

9 time out of 10 I emote when I'm 'looking', but usually I just look at whoever is in the room when I first walk in, if the person I'm currently looking for isn't there, I emote cussing to myself, stomping my foot, snapping my fingers, or pulling out a Nolan Ryan baseball card and try to hock it. (I could use the 'sid.) :wink: Seriously though, I try not to 'look' at someone in a room unless they 'look' at me first, I usually just emote 'raises eyes to so and so for a moment and nods' then go on with what I'm doing without actually using the 'look' command. -shrug-

[Delirium]

Actually, peek is more similar to a "study" command. The difference between a successful peek and a 'study' is whether or not they notice you.

Add in a 'study' command for everyone to use (soldiers and templars without peek could make use of it especially), change the 'study' echo to 'looks you over carefully' (or whatever the failed peek echo is), and then when someone looks you over carefully, they're studying you, and you can react appropriately, instead of insta-magickally knowing they've got some sort of thiefy guild :)

And 'look' could have the echo removed. It would be nice.

[spawnloser]

Why should 'look' have the emote removed?  Unless you're sneaky, someone should be able to notice you looking them over.  If you 'look' in a tavern, you can see a little bit about everyone there.  Actually 'looking' at people is more like looking them over carefully...getting a good look at them (their mdesc) and what they are all wearing.  I say leave the 'look' echo in at all costs.

[Delirium]

True. I'm still up for a universal 'study' command, though. It would give your character a chance to see what's under the cloak and what's in the inventory - and it would be blatantly obvious, so if someone's studying the other person, the other person can react accordingly. If it's a soldier studying you, you can pray to Tek that he doesn't notice the pinch of spice you have held behind your back.

"Peek" would be the sneaky version.

[Lazloth]

Why should 'look' have the emote removed?

Because it's fucking irritating when someone walks in/looks/moves on; because it's fucking irritating when someone looks at 12 people in machine-gun succession.  If it's something I'm expected to react to, you can have the courtesy of appending an emot'ish string to the function, otherwise, I'd just as well see the text gagged.

[Northlander]

Peek is nothing like the glance command we were discussing.

The glance would be just that, a brief look, where you'd see what's in their hands, what's on their head, what cloak they're wearing. It'd be just a brief look over the crowd, too common-place to be noticed or cared about by anyone, and that's what you catch of the targeted character.

A 'peek' is something quite different. You're focusing on one person and trying to make out what colour thong she's wearing. A failed peek gives the target a message saying someone's taking a bloody good look at him.

Just because a peek gives you an equipment list and the 'glance' command would as well does not mean they're similar. Compare the info you would get from one with what you'd get from the other and they're closer to being opposites.

That's not to say that a 'glance' command or any change is necessary; just felt the need to clear that up.

[spawnloser]

Well, Lazloth, don't pay attention to it.  If someone started looking you over, you should have the chance to react to it or at the very least the chance to notice it.  You can figure out if you notice it or not.  Now, if the look emote was taken out, what good would the skill 'peek' be?  Thieves could just walk in and look everyone over without anyone noticing and steal all their crap.  I really think that removing the emote on 'look' is a BAD idea.  Make thieves work for being unnoticed.

As far as the 'peek'/'glance' discussion goes...I understand that 'glance' and 'peek' are different, but everything you want 'glance' to do, 'peek' does.  'Peek' is a skill that allows you to see what someone's wearing and doesn't have an emote unless failed.  Now, from what everyone was talking about, the two issues here are people complaining about seeing people looking people over and that they can't see people's uniforms to pick them out.  Now, if you want to look people over without an emote going out so that people can notice it, play someone sneaky and practice up your sneaky-look-at-people-skill.  Simple.  Period.  You won't be able to convince me otherwise.  As I said already, to get someone's eq list without them seeing anything and you not needing any skill to do so is oh so wrong.  If you want to see if someone's a militia-member and not have to go looking at them, 'look (person)'s cloak' for everyone there...if it doesn't respond to 'cloak' try 'tabard' and you will then know if they are militia.  It's that easy.  The only other solution would be to have the outerwear part of the uniform give the person the 'soldier' sdesc so that you don't need to.  That you would need to convince the staff to do, and discussing that here is not going to get that done.  Use the 'idea' command to suggest it and stop arguing with everyone here.

[Northlander]

It doesn't matter that a peek shows what a glance would do, codewise. It's still not very proper to use a command implying you sneak behind people's backs and stare up their kilts when all your character does is glance over the crowd.

A peek gives more information on equipment than a regular look does. A glance would give less information on equipment than a regular look does. Neither shows the mdesc, which might be a bit odd in the peek case, but the sdesc should do fine in describing someone as far as a glance goes.

"Look person's cloak" works of course, and does the trick fairly well. A glance command would make the 'look' command more rare, noticeable and memorable.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing. Hoods would make people more anonymous. Sdescs would grow to become more important. Maybe bad overall. I suppose if someone feels strongly enough about it it a thread will be popping up soon enough on the code forum.

Entering, looking at people, and then leaving, is what the thread's supposed to be about, so I'll just trod away from "the glance discussion".

I doubt we can reach any kind of consensus, even among those of the players who write on the forums, on how to deal with this; it annoys some people, it doesn't bother others.

It seems a silly thing to get riled up over, really, and the simplest solution seems by far to be for those of us who find it annoying to ignore it, as it's obviously not a sentiment shared by all.

[spawnloser]

I would agree that 'look' going the way of the dinosaurs would be a bad thing.  Everyone should know people by 'looking' at them when they have their hoods up.  One reason I don't mind 'look' spam and don't support a 'glance' command.

[Quirk]

Look echoes are bad. There, I've said it. Why are they bad? Because the majority of players are conscious of the irritating issue of look spam, particularly in a crowded room, and try to find ways round it such as using "look X's cloak" and "look X's tabard".

So, why's that bad? Well, consider the case of someone walking into the tavern butt naked and making their way to a table. Unless they toss out an emote to say that they are in effect, butt naked, most of us won't look at them unless they look at us first. We might check out their cloak and tabard to satisfy ourselves they don't belong to any House or to the militia, but as far as looking at them goes... we might get round to it, later, when we have a cunning emote to append to the end of our look, but for now we're nice and polite to the six other players playing characters in the room and aren't going to add in our pointless "X looks at Y" spam.

Meanwhile, Mr Butt Naked is scratching his groin and wondering why no-one's commenting on his unique fashion decision. By the time he gets round to throwing out an emote, everyone should be past their initial reactions, and RPing round Mr Butt Naked becomes plain awkward.

I'm not saying here that people should use look more, especially not without emotes. Look spam is intensely aggravating and disrupting, just like people spamming eating food can be disruptive to keeping the thread of RP going. "What did you say, Lord Tor? I couldn't hear you over that half-breed's chomping and slurping."

It's not even as though you should notice everyone who glances at you either. When I get on a bus in RL and walk up the aisle to a seat, I pass a lot of people facing my way, all of whom would be likely to register any particularly unusual garb I was wearing. I couldn't normally tell you how many of them are looking in my direction; I might notice one or two who're looking me over more closely, but I really wouldn't know how many of the people looking in the same general direction as I happen to be in are actually giving me a once-over without turning their heads.

Please, please, let us have some form of glance command.

Quirk

[flurry]

I don't really have a problem with the look echo..but as a compromise..

What if look only echoed to the looker and the lookee, and not to anyone else?    That would reduce the spam plenty, and you would still know if someone is looking you over.

[spawnloser]

I don't really have a problem with the look echo..but as a compromise..

What if look only echoed to the looker and the lookee, and not to anyone else?    That would reduce the spam plenty, and you would still know if someone is looking you over.

...unless an emote was attached?

[flurry]

...unless an emote was attached?

Sounds good to me.

[Flaming Ocotillo]

I've never been able to come up with an understanding of why the look echo still exists. How many times have you seen:

The tall, muscular man turns around, looking at you.

The tall, muscular man looks down at you.

I mean, this happens a lot. Less so with "veteran" players, because they've been annoyed enough by the double spam to spare other players the irritation, but it does happen. What is the purpose of this echo, again?

The only purpose I see it having is as a tool to help PCs remain hidden, i.e. you see one of the PCs in a tavern look at you, and you know you've either failed your hide skill, or they've got the scan skill, so it's time to leave (or hide again). It also helps out people trying to remain undetected through magickal means; they know a glance in their direction probably means the char has the scan skill active, and has it raised to a certain level. Is this the reason the look echo exists? To be able to abuse attempts at remaining undetected with the code?