A look in the crowd

[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?