What do you prefer when another is emoting?

[Scotch]

I prefer others to add in their own emotes when I'm emoting, but I havn't noticed much participation lately. This might just be me though...I have always felt roleplaying on Armageddon is like writing a book that could change any moment.

[Bestatte]

It depends on the situation, but if it's something my character -would- react to, then she -will- react to it. Otherwise I just watch and enjoy. Unless of course it's so piss-poor (like constant screen-scroll of 4-line emotes involving scratching one's chin or crossing one's legs) that I wanna smack the computer, in which case I find a reason for my character to walk away.

[X-D]

I'll just copy and paste bestatte's post.

[Delirium]

I'm an emote-addict. I try to make them as meaningful and as redundancy-free as possible, but I tend to emote often no matter what scene I'm in. And I love it when people react off of my "environment" emotes, just as I enjoy playing off of someone else's. I guess it's just one way to really help the world come alive.

Of course, if I'm braindead and completely lacking in inspiration, my emotes end up lackluster as well. Usually that's a sign for me to logoff.

[sarahjc]

One of my favorite things to do is emote on others emotes and I really like it when people involve me in their own. It is one of the best parts of the game, I also like to think of Arm as a book that just never ends and could go any way at any time, those kinds of emotes really bring the story to life for me.

[jmordetsky]

I guess that brings up another good discussion, how much is too much? I try to put an emote into anything I say, to give context to what I'm saying and denote how my characters feels, or looks like they feel at a given time.

Things I hate:

Rapid fire say or tells - you know, when the person your in a conversation with gives .5 seconds to respond before saying something else, which is normally a 360 rotation from what you're discussing...sucks

Rapid fire undescriptive emotes: The big breasted, totally super hot woman smiles. The big breasted totally super hot woman glances at you. The big breasted totally super hot woman smiles again.

Bad emoting in general: The big breasted totally super hot woman glances at you and nods and then smiles at you while nodding and glancing and smiling alot.


Things I like:

I actually enjoy the 4 line emotes that give me a really firm idea of who a character is and how they feel at a given moment.

People who think before they type.

[Northlander]

It really depends on the context, for me. If I'm sitting by a bar, and someone at a table emotes about a vNPC sauntering about his table, I won't go out of my way to interact with his emotes in my own.

However, what really makes a spar, or a confrontation, or any other situation where people move about eachother, fun, is when emotes tie together and work off of eachother.

[spawnloser]

Rapid fire say or tells - you know, when the person your in a conversation with gives .5 seconds to respond before saying something else, which is normally a 360 rotation from what you're discussing...sucks

I know at least one person that is like this...not doing the complete change of topic thing, but doesn't give anyone a chance to interject.  What really irks me is when this character does it to a noble.  The noble, to get a word in edge wise, once had to tell this character to shut up.

Myself, I believe that you should give someone the chance to say something after you say something, unless what you're saying next is a direct continuation of what you were saying, like if you can't fit a small speech into one say, use ellipses at the end of one say and continue in a second, starting with the ellipses.

Getting back on topic, however, no emotes is not necessarily bad...the person could be involved in a Way conversation and paying too close attention to emote...I do try to shoot things out here and there, so that people know I'm there and that my character isn't comatose, but still, at times, they'll be kinda sparse while chatting it up in my head with someone else or just myself.

[Rindan]

Back in the day I had a Kuraci.  One of the a Kuraci's duties in Luir's was to occasional take a gate guard.  Basically, you sit by the gate and 'keep things in order'.  Once in a blue moon something would happen, but more often then not you would just sit there for half of a day then go back to the barracks.  It was boring as hell if you just sat there for half of a day.

One 'game' we used to play to create a conflict then resolve it.  So, you would have two PCs sitting by the gate.  Suddenly one of them would emote:

The dusty Kuraci glances over towards the mouth of the gate where two groups of tribal looking humans have begun to congregate.

The dusty Kuraci watches as the two groups of tribal looking humans begin to argue back and forth in loud voice with one another, blocking the path into the gate.

At this point the other person at the gate would sort of 'lead on' with the rest of the story.

Stalking towards the gathering group of tribal humans blocking the gate, the mean Kuraci exclaims in Sirhish,
 "Break it up!  No fightin' in the outpost and no blockin' the gate!"

So on and so forth.  You can play it back and forth.  As a problem is resolved someone else can make up a new problem.  It turned what would have been a very dull duty into one that I actually look forward to.

[Quirk]

For me it very much depends on how realistic it is for my character to react to the emote. If I'm at the bar and someone emotes being jostled by an NPC, my character may reach to steady his drink; if I'm sitting at a table at the back of the room, I'm not going to throw out anything related to the jostling emote, though the odd bit of stretching or scratching may slip out at some later point, just to show my character's sitting doing nowt.

If other people are emoting while in conversation with my character, or while RPing being in close proximity to him, of course I'm going to respond.

To touch on jmordetsky's points... there's a happy medium. I too hate the ultra-fast:

The tall muscular man has arrived from the north.
The tall muscular man looks at you.
The tall muscular man sits at the bar.
The tall muscular man says in sirihish,
    "Hi"
The tall muscular man yawns.
The tall muscular man pushes off a wooden barstool and stands up.
The tall muscular man walks up.

... all occuring before you can finish off typing a nice look-emote.

On the other hand, if the person takes three slowly-typed lengthy emotes to reach the bar, my patience will wear thin. There is a middle ground. If you want to churn out multiple long emotes, you should be able to type like a team of spiders on a caffeine high. If you can't, please don't tax other people's patience. Long emotes aren't necessarily good emotes either... I've seen too much of this kind of thing lately:

As the bandy-legged plump dwarf pushes softly past his knees, the tall muscular man fastens teh straps on his pack, nodding as the long-legged red-eyed elf stands up from his seat at the bar whiel the bard softly plays high notes and smiles softly at him.

If I may rant for a moment...

Connecting multiple disjoint thoughts with "as" is a trick that you cannot grammatically get away with more than once. If there are too many threads of action to connect in one emote, split your emotes up. Have a care for spelling and grammar - a slightly shorter but correct emote is always preferable to an ungrammatical misspelled longer one. Don't wear out an adjective through overuse, whether in one emote or in several. The English language is huge. Be inventive in finding new ways to describe similar expressions or motions. And don't nod and smile all the time unless your character's neck is experiencing some kind of seizure and your character's face is scarred into a permanent rictus.

Rant over. To change topics, is it wrong to stretch to find an IC reason to kill someone who is a horrible emoter? :twisted:

Quirk

[Barzalene]

Rapid fire say or tells - you know, when the person your in a conversation with gives .5 seconds to respond before saying something else, which is normally a 360 rotation from what you're discussing...sucks

I know at least one person that is like this...not doing the complete change of topic thing, but doesn't give anyone a chance to interject.  What really irks me is when this character does it to a noble.  The noble, to get a word in edge wise, once had to tell this character to shut up.

Myself, I believe that you should give someone the chance to say something after you say something, unless what you're saying next is a direct continuation of what you were saying, like if you can't fit a small speech into one say, use ellipses at the end of one say and continue in a second, starting with the ellipses.

Getting back on topic, however, no emotes is not necessarily bad...the person could be involved in a Way conversation and paying too close attention to emote...I do try to shoot things out here and there, so that people know I'm there and that my character isn't comatose, but still, at times, they'll be kinda sparse while chatting it up in my head with someone else or just myself.

I'm almost sure this is me.

I have a friend from Texas. That's key, that he's from Texas. Cause they talk really slow there. I'm from NY. We don't talk as slow here. Sometimes when I'm on the phone with him, long distance, NY to Texas, he starts a sentence and I get bored waiting for him to finish it, so I give him a multible choice of answer. Kind of like this:
Mark :Have you talked with Tricia? How is ishe? Is she still...
(pause)
(more pause)
Me: Married? Smoking? Writing? Hoping to hear from you?
Mark: coming to visit you?


I'm almost sure that the rapid fire says are mine. But I stand by their realism, and my friend Mark from Texas does too.

[Angela Christine]

I'm almost sure that the rapid fire says are mine. But I stand by their realism, and my friend Mark from Texas does too.

I agree.  If your character is a chatterbox, or suffers from verbal diareaha when s/he is neverous or excited, then it is a-ok to keep talking without waiting and waiting for the other person to type out their oh so perfect response.  On the other hand, if your character is supposed to be a ponderous Jhon Wayne type, then you should follow his advice: "talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much."  

I hate the sort of "turn-based" conversation that often rule on MUSHes.  That only encourages people to go ever more slowly, play two games at once, or wash the dishes while waiting for your "turn" to talk to roll around again.  Fast talkers encourage people to keep working to type faster, think faster, talk faster.  Considering how long a simple conversation can take, both in terms IC time and OOC time, encouraging people to type faster is a good thing.

AC

[Bestatte]

(snip to what I wanna respond to)

As the bandy-legged plump dwarf pushes softly past his knees, the tall muscular man fastens teh straps on his pack, nodding as the long-legged red-eyed elf stands up from his seat at the bar whiel the bard softly plays high notes and smiles softly at him.

If I may rant for a moment...

Connecting multiple disjoint thoughts with "as" is a trick that you cannot grammatically get away with more than once. If there are too many threads of action to connect in one emote, split your emotes up. Have a care for spelling and grammar - a slightly shorter but correct emote is always preferable to an ungrammatical misspelled longer one. Don't wear out an adjective through overuse, whether in one emote or in several. The English language is huge. Be inventive in finding new ways to describe similar expressions or motions. And don't nod and smile all the time unless your character's neck is experiencing some kind of seizure and your character's face is scarred into a permanent rictus.

Rant over. To change topics, is it wrong to stretch to find an IC reason to kill someone who is a horrible emoter? :twisted:

Quirk

That was my point back when I was ranting about the whole "as" thing a few months ago! You said it better than I did though.

The bandy-legged dwarf smiles as he sits as he pulls out his skinning knife as he leans over the bar as a girl walks in as he cuts his fruit into sections as he takes a deep breath as he crosses his legs and smiles.

Just..don't..do..it.

As for finding an IC reason to kill someone who's a horrible emoter... if you CAN find an IC reason, I say go for it. Point'em out to me and I'll sharpen my massive vultite-banded steel katana of deth & destrukshun and join in. As I'm smiling, of course.

[spawnloser]

As I'm smiling, of course.

...and nodding.

[jmordetsky]

Some very valid points. I completely agree on 'as', how could you not.

As for the happy medium between spam talk/emote and turn based talk/emote, I feel your pain here as well, I guess it really just comes down to being sensative and doing what the story best requires...

As for needing 4 emotes to get to a bar, yea...thats annoying as well, but again, what the story dictates.

[X-D]

Hell, I consider the examples used on the 3 line emotes as some of the better ones, To me the most annoying thing ever is the ones that emote things in a crowded bar that nobody would ever notice or care about with a typing speed of 30WPM max.
specialy when talking.

tell man Hey, ya seen Goober around?

The short green eyed man's mossy orbs slowly travel down the length of his arm while he slides one booted foot back a fraction of an inch, he flicks a bit of invisible dust from his glossy black gloves.

(elapsed time so far 1min 5 seconds)


The short green eyed man looks over towards you, his mossy green orbs fixing on your face, his leather armors creaking quietly as he tells you in sirihish:"Nah aye 'n't s'n 'im in ah f'cken mont."
(combined time of 3min40seconds)


At this time you really wish your char was a magicker with the uber bolt of  nothing but a tiny pile of dust left over spell.

[Lazloth]

You guys are getting off topic here, incidentally.

If it's an emote my character would generally disregard, it doesn't necessarily follow that my player will do the same.

innocuous example:
em behind @, two children press their heads together and giggle, pointing toward ~someone.

[Tamarin]

Here are my rules:

- don't use passive voice.  Its confusing.

- don't refer to more than two people, including yourself, unless it is a simple look or a gesture.  And in that case don't go more than about 4.

- Place your sdesc near the start of the emote so people know its you and not someone else.

- Don't go over about two and a half lines of text (roughly 200 characters)

- Its ok to make two sentences out of the emote, as long as they are actions that happen either together, or right in tandem.

[Anonymous]

I like it when people emote.  Everyone's little draconian rules about what is a pleasing emote only seems to cloud the issue.  Not everyone is a grammar star, not everyone is a budding novelist.

Do emote.
Don't let other people's peeves about emoting prevent you from doing it.

[sacac]

Ok.. the best emotes that I love are something like this (Not for real)
Scene starts with you being 'Restrained' by a tempalr and hauled to jail.
A youth attempts to punch you in the face.
emote trys to dodge %youth hit, but is succesfully restrained by ~templar, and takes one hard to the chin.
A youth unslings his shield.
A youth attempts to get ~randomprisonguard to hold your legs.
emote curses at ~randomprisonguard as he lifts his legs from the ground.

I love those emotes that they ask you if your succesful without actually asking  :twisted:

semi-back on topic I love it when people use other's emotes to branch onto.

[Rindan]

Here are my rules:

- don't use passive voice.  Its confusing.

- don't refer to more than two people, including yourself, unless it is a simple look or a gesture.  And in that case don't go more than about 4.

- Place your sdesc near the start of the emote so people know its you and not someone else.

- Don't go over about two and a half lines of text (roughly 200 characters)

- Its ok to make two sentences out of the emote, as long as they are actions that happen either together, or right in tandem.

Passive voice?  Yeah, I agree, that is just good a good writing tip in general.

Multiple people in an emote?  Also a good idea to avoid due to the length which sdescs take up.  If you want to refer to everyone of a similar type, just refer to them with some other method to save yourself the pain of typing each ~ and cluttering your emote.  'Emote motions towards the dun-cloaked men around the table' works just fine.  So again, good advice.

Placing sdesc near the beginning of an emote?  I completely disagree.  Place the sdesc where ever it looks the best.  In fact, I generally try and change where it goes in just to avoid eyes sores.  Why do people have to know exactly who is making the emote?  So long as the intent of the emote is clear, I see absolutely no reason to not have your sdesc be the last words of the emote.  There is no good reason to do this, and in my opinion it improves emoting style to specifically avoid always having your emote start with your sdesc.  I find that having your sdesc appear in different places then what is expected makes it feel less like a canned emote and more like someone describing the scene.

Emotes already have a limit.  Depending upon your screen character length, it generally can't go more then two and a half lines anyways.

[Rindan]

A comment in general, I think you people are way the hell too anal.  I would rather someone emote out the twitches of their foot and spend four emotes going to the bar then not.  On rare occasion I have seen long winded emotes that didn't do anything for me, but that is a-okay.  I just chalk it up to someone trying to learn, or perhaps failing to explain what they meant.  Hell, to this day I emote certain things, then after a few seconds cringe because it came out sounding stupid.  I would rather someone try and fail then not try at all.  I know I sure as shit was not born with great emoting ability and spend a couple of years sending shitty emotes, I don't see a reason to get uppity on people who are not exactly there yet.

I don't even care if they take a long time.  Granted, during a conversation with such a person I generally might be annoyed, but if they spend five minutes in-between emotes describing how they are picking their teeth at the bar, more power to them.  I know that when I am bored I might sit down and just start describing a mundane detail with emotes and take my sweet time doing it.  If you don't like that it takes me five minutes to smoke my spice pipe, tough shit.  One line of text every minute is not going to cause your eyes to fall out.

Providing time is not an issue, it is better to be verbose and suck at it then it is to be silent.  At least the verbose person is trying, learning, and expressing him/herself.  People shouldn't be afraid to try and expand their emoting because someone is feels threatened by their attempts to describe their surroundings.  I encourage people to expand their emoting, yes, even if that means failing on occasion.  To hell if anyone else likes it.

[sacac]

well in my personal opinion.. Spreading my emotes should be done when you know what your doing Or atleast don't direct it towards and noble/templar/Hg killer that has blood-stains all over the place and keeps looking at you and licking there lips. (Just don't try it)...

But yes people.. try using stuff from your description in your emotes (Even though I'm not very good at emoting)