Die look echo, die!

[Quirk]

I remember one of my first PCs talking to a chick for like 10 minutes before I did a look and saw that she was naked.  Boy I felt stupid for having not noticed it and incorporated it into my play.

It did explain why I was called a pervert over the way.  It was a young little girl.

Look spam is annoying, particularly in crowded rooms. Many of us, being thoughtful souls, try to avoid worsening the problem by not looking. But then something along the lines of CRW's experience happens.

There's only one conceivable reason for look still to be in: as look is broken with "scan" so that every detail of the ranger hiding in the bushes or the secret invisible magicker is rendered visible, the echo serves to alert the poor person in hiding that they've been spotted and the person on the other side will, if sufficiently twinky, remember every detail of their description. This alerts them to the fact that they now have to kill said scanner swiftly if they want to prevent word getting out they're a secret magicker or a shady type.

I propose as resolution firstly that the information gathered by scan is modified to be in accordance with the helpfile i.e. deliberately incomplete, and secondly that this look echo is removed. This is one echo that cannot be described as an asset to the game.

Thoughts?

Quirk

[Bestatte]

Agreed with Quirk, with some suggestions:

1) Allow the target of "look" see that someone is looking at them, but remove the room echo.

2) Allow people who see via "scan" a hidden or invis person see only their "unhidden" sdesc and whatever clothes/weapons/etc. are normally viewable. In otherwords, remove the main desc from what the scanning person sees when they look, but leave everything else in.

2a) Continue to allow assess -v to work for scanners who use that on invis/hidden entities, since hunters still need to know if that hiding critter they're hunting is ripe for the picking or too much of a threat.

3) Currently, if I see a hiding goudra behind a bush, I could look at it, point to it, yell at it, interact with it (other than combat), and a dozen non-scanning people with me won't know what the hell I'm doing. I find this to be very unrealistic and jarring to the RP. I would like to be able to say, "Hey, new hunter buddy, this is what a goudra looks like! Just come here and peek over this bush, quietly or you'll scare it away." This would -not- give the other person the scan skill. It would only point out that one entity to the other person. If the entity moves to another room and hides, they would no longer be viewable by the person who didn't have scan. Perhaps "examine" might allow for such a feature, or perhaps a new feature could be added to people with the scan skill, and be dependent on how good they are at scanning.

4) The same as above, but for hunt. If I can see wagon marks in the dirt, why can't I show them to someone else? It won't give them the ability to hunt, but it would be a nice surprise for non-"hunt"ers to be capable of actually seeing what I show them through my RP. Perhaps they might not see as much. Maybe they'll only see the top 2 "layers" of tracks, and not be able to determine the time passed since those marks appeared. Or maybe they would see only if the marks were created by animal, humanoid, or vehicle - but not noticed "long-strided' or "quickly" or any of that stuff.

5) #3 and #4 would be only immediate and one-time results; all would revert to normal once the target moved or the hunting party moves to another room.

[Angela Christine]

I'm not going to touch invisibility, because I don't think that is necessarily appropriate to discuss.  The information should be in the relevent spell helpfiles, not on the public discussion board.  Obviously some effects should not be the same as simply hiding, but discussing it could ruin it for other people and take away some of the mystery.

1) I agree that it would be better if look only echoed to the target, unless an emote was attatched.  An average glance isn't overt enough that everyone in the room will notice.  

2) I'm not sure about changing what people see when they look at a hidden person.  Why wouldn't I notice that you have a third eye and blue skin, but still take note that you are wearing a green sandcloth anklewrap?  I can't see your hair, but I can see that you have a twig, feather, barette or leather thong -in- your hair.  See, it would just be too odd.  I've heard the stories of people abusing look, but I haven't seen it myself.  I've sat down next to people at the bar that I had looked at but shouldn't have been able to see well, and not recognised them.  In order for my character to recognise them I have to recognise them first, but my character should have a bunch of clues like the person's voice, stance, and gait that I usually do not have access to.  That kind of makes up for the fact that I get to see that they have a small scar on their chin, even if I shouldn't be able to see their chin well.

3) For hidden things, I would allow a successful scanner to use a new command, "reveal". To make sure that you don't reveal people you didn't see, the syntax would be "reveal <target>".  The command echo would be something like, "<revealer> points to <target>."  This would break the target's hide, but would not prevent them from re-hiding.  Skittish creatures might run away when revealed, and dangerous creatures might attack.  Lifting up the branch that tembo was hiding under so your friends can see it just isn't a smart thing to do.  :twisted:  

3d.2) Speaking of revealing hidden things I'd also like the "search" command to have a chance of auto-revealing someone hidden in a searched room.  If you are looking under the furnature, knocking on the walls, lifting up the rug, checking behind the paintings, and tugging on all the candle holders looking for a secret door, you ought to have some chance of spotting the guy hiding under the furniture, behind the curtains, or wherever he is hiding.  Scanning is just looking, searching is actually roaming around messing things up to look.  If search revealed a hidden person it would probably break their hide, not just alert the searcher, because other people will tend to look at the guy doing the searching.  This would also make search a slightly more valuable skill.   Shouldn't inconvience hiders much because search is a fairly uncommon skill, and if you try to use the command without the skill it takes like two hours to search on room, giving the hider plenty of time to escape detection.

4) As for "hunt," I'm not sure.  Sometimes tracks really are tracks, sometimes they are bits of fur or cloth left stuck to the shrubbery, sometimes it is just the way the grass is bent, or a small oily residue.  "Hunt" doesn't just look for obvious signs, it is also noticing and correctly interpreting subtle signs.  A hunter could show you the hair or bit of dung he found, but it wouldn't tell you much if you were not a hunter yourself.  On the other hand some signs -are- obvious.  Any fool should be able to spot the trail left by an inix or bahamet charging through the grasslands, or a mekillot walking though soft sand.  Wagon tracks ought to be fairly obvious as well, and from my experience using "hunt" they usually are, times when I can't find my own kank's tracks I can still spot wagon tracks.  A gigantic, mek-powered argosy will leave noticable tracks in almost any terrain.  

On the whole, I don't think people should be able to force the code vouch for their tracking claims.  What if the tracker is lying?  He says he's spotted a trail, but he's just talking out his ass, either because he wants to lead you astray or because he can't find the right trail but doesn't want to admit it.  He can still point to some scuff marks or dead grass and tell you it is a trail sign, but he won't be able to get the code to back him up because there is no coded trail to reveal.  If you don't trust your guide, then have two or three trackers rather than just one, so they can verify eachother.


Angela Christine

[X-D]

I disagree with the removel of the look echo.

The Look echo, like so many things in the game is something to let you the player know something is happening, it is up to you to decide if your char sees it or not. And we cannot totally depend on people always emoting when they should.

If you are playing a guard to lord fancy pants, you are -activly- watching around you for people with any type of interest in your charge.

If somebody looks at my char, I get to decide if he/she noticed it, and so do the people around me, and that is a good thing, if my char is doing something and does not notice somebody looking at him/her there is still a chance that one of the people watching his back will, or, maybe they won't but either way, it makes for interesting play.

Anybody who thinks it has nothing to add to the game has not really put a lot of thought into it.

Besides, it is already possible for some people to look at your char without anybody noticing, you propose everybody have this skill.

[Quirk]

I disagree with the removel of the look echo.

The Look echo, like so many things in the game is something to let you the player know something is happening, it is up to you to decide if your char sees it or not. And we cannot totally depend on people always emoting when they should.

If you are playing a guard to lord fancy pants, you are -activly- watching around you for people with any type of interest in your charge.

If somebody looks at my char, I get to decide if he/she noticed it, and so do the people around me, and that is a good thing, if my char is doing something and does not notice somebody looking at him/her there is still a chance that one of the people watching his back will, or, maybe they won't but either way, it makes for interesting play.

Uh, when you pass someone in the street in RL, they will get enough of a look at you to figure out, say, whether you're naked or clothed. Almost everybody facing your direction will note any major irregularities of dress, or significant physical deformities such as missing arms or legs. In game this is not the case. You should be able to pretty much assume everyone you pass looked at you well enough to determine what colour cloak you're wearing, whether you're brandishing a weapon, etc. To RP that they did anything more than face your way unless they specifically emoted studying you more closely verges on abuse, IMO, simply because of the difficulty of telling the most elementary things about the person they're facing without using it. There is no sensible RP that can be drawn from that situation.

Anybody who thinks it has nothing to add to the game has not really put a lot of thought into it.

Besides, it is already possible for some people to look at your char without anybody noticing, you propose everybody have this skill.

The command you're thinking of gives more information than "look". It would still give more information than "look" if there were no echo. Its advantage lies in the information it gives rather than the silent echo.

Quirk

[Anonymous]

Funnily enough, I was thinking about this last night. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

I play another RPI that has no look echo.  I don't know if it's a good thing or not.  I have nothing to base this on, but I think that without the look echo there is even less interaction.  After a look echo the target's player knows that they are being observed (their PC may or may not notice it) and they also know the PC doing the looking is not linkdead.  Since the target's player knows they are being observed, they probably feel more inclined to describe their actions.

As far as having look only echo to the target, I'd be bummed by that.  One of my favorite ways to look at someone is to do it after the person I am talking to has.

The old:

>l elf eyes following %man gaze

In the end, I just don't see the harm in the look command's echo.  It may only be a minor positive in my mind, but there's still no reason to remove it.

Bleeding retinas are not a reason.

[X-D]

Quirk, I'm one of those people that notices most people that look at me IRL, just aggressive paranoid I guess, My wife notices even more when people look at me, specialy if it appears they are trying not too.

The command you're thinking of gives more information than "look". It would still give more information than "look" if there were no echo. Its advantage lies in the information it gives rather than the silent echo.

Actually, I was not even talking about that command, the other way simply uses look, and so, gives no extra info, but still has no room echo or an echo to the char being looked at.

Another thing though, newbies often have a hard enough time telling who is a pc and who is not, at least if there is a look echo they have a better chance, other wise refer to CRW's post.

Look echo, mildly annoying at times, but still a good thing.

[Bestatte]

XD, what did you think about the idea of removing the -room's- local echo of the look command, while still having the target of the "look" see that he is being looked at (and by whom)?

That way, you won't see what I (and many others) so often see that just makes me wanna laugh...

The blue-haired guy walks in the room.
This guy looks at the blue-haired guy.
That guy looks at the blue-haired guy.
The other guy looks at the blue-haired guy.
The woman looks at the blue-haired guy.
The blue-haired guy looks at this guy.
The blue-haired guy looks at that guy.
The blue-haired guy looks at the other guy.
The blue-haired guy looks at the woman.

and so on and so forth, with the occasional repeat because the screen just scrolls so fast that the first guy missed half the blue-haired guy's description and has to do it all over again.

It just looks really stupid, and it happens often enough that I can really appreciate some kind of change where only the blue-haired guy would see everyone looking at him, instead of the entire room.

[X-D]

I don't like removing the room echo either.


But, I'll tell you what would make everybody happy.


A toggle for the look room echo.


nolook on: your char only sees when people look at him/her
nolook off: Same as it is now.


Simple, easy and nobody need argue, though to me it would be the same as brief mode. (I've still never toggled it on)

How's that? Hhmmm, Actually, I see uses for that, at least for the player, your char is talking to some sweet f-me at a small dim table, nolook on, why, you really only have eyes for her (grin).

Sitting alone in the corner watching the tavern happenings, nolook off.

But a global removel of the echo, I'm 100% against it.

[flurry]

One other option would be a way to turn off look echos, so the people who really don't like them don't have to see them.   (Edit:  Oops, X-D beat me to it.)

I personally don't mind the look echos.



As for the example of the naked person...I think in a case like that, the player of the naked PC has some responsibility to somehow at least hint at it, either through words or actions.  If there's something that obvious, that someone should see, by all means - call attention to it one way or another.  

I remember with a previous character, my PC was talking to someone in the same clan.   It was in a working (not sleeping) area, so normally one would expect people to be fully dressed.   While the other PC was talking, he emoted scratching his bare chest.    (He wasn't naked - just shirtless)  Otherwise, I never would have noticed - maybe not even if I "looked" if I wasn't paying close attention.   That definitely did add to the scene, and as a player I did appreciate the other player calling attention to it with an emote.

[Tlaloc]

Personally, I don't think there is a problem with the 'look echo' itself.

The problem happens when people use 'look' alittle unrealistically. If you use 'look' in a way that you'd really only be using it, it can be just fine in a crowded setting.

Good examples (in my opinion):

Look at a someone you're talking to, or right before speaking to them.
Look at someone who catches your attention, in an interesting way (for example, if a guy has three eyes, or motioned to you, or pulled out a sword; NOT someone who simply walked in the room).
Look at only those people who are in your PC's 'field of vision'.

Bad examples (in my opinion):

Looking at everyone who walks into the room, when they walk into the room.
Looking at everyone in a room, when you walk into a room.

[JollyGreenGiant]

I don't think I'd like having my look echoes turned off.  For one thing, as spam goes, it's pretty minimal; it's not it adds all that much reading material.  For another, they're pretty easy to skim through if it isn't information you're interested in.  Why shouldn't it be visible?  It's an action, after all, and a reasonably visible one.  If you're being furtive about it, you can always tag that on with an emote, and leave it up to other people to decide to react to it or not.  Anyway.  I'd sorely protest killing the look echo, unless as X-D suggested, it was voluntary.

[Lazloth]

One other option would be a way to turn off look echos, so the people who really don't like them don't have to see them.   (Edit:  Oops, X-D beat me to it.)

If you two are not being flippant, the player can just as easily gag that info flow with any client worth twenty cents.

I despise look echoes, regardless of whether we're talking victim or room broadcast.  I won't dig it up on the gdb to hyperlink, but just like I believe listen should be an active skill, 'monitoring' a room, an individual, et.al. [watch <arg>, cough cough] could solve a lot of this.

[Quirk]

Personally, I don't think there is a problem with the 'look echo' itself.

The problem happens when people use 'look' alittle unrealistically. If you use 'look' in a way that you'd really only be using it, it can be just fine in a crowded setting.

Good examples (in my opinion):

Look at a someone you're talking to, or right before speaking to them.
Look at someone who catches your attention, in an interesting way (for example, if a guy has three eyes, or motioned to you, or pulled out a sword; NOT someone who simply walked in the room).
Look at only those people who are in your PC's 'field of vision'.

I agree absolutely on the look before talking to someone. While talking to them may be too late... I often see people asking questions like "Excuse me, Mister, do you know of any Kuracis round here?" then looking at the person they're speaking to only to discover that in fact they're speaking to one already. It's not that easy to overlook the huge cloak draping the person at the next seat.

If someone pulls out a sword, everyone will look at them. If they walk into the room with a huge halberd, unless they specifically emote what they're carrying no-one will notice save by looking at them.

Even if people accept as field of view their table only, you still end up with the common situation of almost every PC in the tavern being at the bar, someone sitting down and being spammed with a half-dozen look echoes. Disruptive to RP? Certainly. Necessary? Well, yes, if it turns out that PC is remarkable in any way.

My gripe is chiefly that things one could hardly avoid noticing if one was facing in the right direction go unnoticed; people should emote them, of course, but a large number do not. On the other hand, a sufficiently large percentage of the playerbase seem to find the look echo so unaesthetic as to avoid its use unless strictly necessary, and this leads to awkward situations. I believe this problem would be redressed to a very large extent by removing the echo, as players would not feel so embarrassed about sending what is effectively command spam to everyone else's screen every time someone sits at the bar at which they are.

Quirk

Bad examples (in my opinion):

Looking at everyone who walks into the room, when they walk into the room.
Looking at everyone in a room, when you walk into a room.

Well when I walk into a room, I glance over everyone in real life. Limited by how many people are in the room of course but at least a cursory glance.

Say you are in your living room someone walks through. I look at each and every person no matter I have known them 20 years etc.Not stare but a briefl look.

I guess I am paranoid. But I don't think they all know I am eyeballing them.

[Sakra]

Wasn't this already discussed here?:

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5909

[Angela Christine]

Everything old is new again.  

The trouble is that you need to look at someone before you can tell if there is anything about them that is noticable enough to grab your attention and make you look at them.  Until you have looked at them there is no way to tell if you would look at them.  You can't do a quick glance, and you can't scan the crowd looking for something out of place.  In that circumstance I do not think it is unrealistic for a person to "look" at every non-virtual person that crosses their line of sight (you don't need to look at the virtual people because they never do or have anything that would attract your attention).  It may be unrealistic if you are busy or engaged in lively conversation, but if you are just sitting there like a wart on a half-giant's butt there is no reason not to.

Things you ought to see with a quick glance:

Main desc - to check for freakish or significant features
Neck - to check for gems, slave collars or Tuluki tattoos
About body - to check for clan affiliated cloak
Hands - to check for brandished weapons, or Tuluki caste tattoos
Fingers - to check for those shiny silver rings

Unfortunately there is no way to see those things without invoking the evil "look" command.  

Personally, I gave up worrying about look spam a long time ago.  If my character is looking for a certain kind of cloak or just scanning the crowd as it mills around, then I feel a-ok about using the look command on every damn PC and NPC I see.  If everyone else decides to look at someone because I looked at him, well, that isn't my problem.  It isn't much spam, as spam goes.


Angela Christine

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

The most logical solution to this problem is as follows:

Be able to toggle whether you want to or do not want to see the look echo in reference to others looking at others.

This does not break the look system, it does not remove it from the game for those who don't care, and it does remove it for those who do not want to see it.

[Rindan]

The problem with doing as Tlaloc suggests and only looking when it is reasonable is because you don't always know when it is reasonable.  For instance, I played a gemmed magiker.  My gemmed enjoy the company of other gemmed.  He went out of his way to find other gemmed and interact with them.  I would say it is safe to say that he had his eyes glued for any sort of elementalist robe or dull black gems someone might be wearing.  Elementalist robes in particular are very noticeable features.  In fact, he probably would have taken note of anyone who color coordinates a little too much as gemmed have a habit of picking a color that relates to their element and covering themselves in it so they are a walking advertisement.  I imagine it would have been pretty hard for anyone but a very discreetly dressed elementalist to avoid my elementalist's eye.

Look is simply the easiest way to check and see if my character notices anything out of a place.  Granted, 'look gem' is probably one way to also do it, but if my eyes are open for a number of different type of people it really doesn't fit my needs.  Some times people walk in and, if you simply looked at them would instantly notice one thing or another out of place.  The only way to see if anything is out of place enough for your character to notice is to look.  Repeat and add nauseam.  

Personally, I error on the side of too many looks then too few.  It is one of the few times when I would rather have too much information instead of too little.  If someone comes in and it is something I would notice, I would prefer to notice.  95% of the time I look, scan, and dismiss.  I don't really gather any information other then that there is nothing out of place.  Unfortunately, despite the fact that both ICly and OOCly I just glanced, saw nothing worth looking at, and moved on, look still echoes.  What is the solution?  Eh, I don't know to be honest.  I pesonally will just keep being an ass hole to the rest of the MUD and look when I feel like it with no regard to how much it spams others.

[Anonymous]

I think adding a (naked) flag to char's sdesc when they are not wearing things flagged to cover up certain parts of the body would be cool. Then you'd have a choice of whether or not to look at them further and get more detail, instead of having to look at them directly to find out if they are naked.
After all, someone standing around naked in public would be pretty obvious without having to stare directly at them.

[Testing]

It seems to me that of all commands in the entire game, "look" should be the one that people fear to use the least.  But as it is now there are times I'd be more confident typing "steal" than "look."  When people are afraid to actually look around, there's probably a problem.

When someone is looking at a character in such a way as to make that character cognizant of the fact that they are being looked at, it typically comes with an emote of some sort as well.  Therefore that would make them aware.  But I don't see why a person shouldn't be able to know what people are wearing in the bar without having to spam everyone there, and then be spammed in return.  There's no denying that as it is right now most players have their characters walking about the world apparently staring at their feet, except for those occasions when either looked at, or when a hooded figure enters the room.

[Quo]

I had been in favour of removing that weird all-heads-turn-...'s-way-and-everyone-notices-everyone-else looking as well. Just for the experience, I gagged them from the mud output, and all of a sudden other scenes seemed a lot more difficult on me as reader.

I have always been reluctant to add to the spam myself, and often missed obvious details that I should have noticed and reacted upon.  I was about to brightly suggest adding an emote to the generic 'look' message when I read the help page just to make sure. /blushes/.

But you know, now I'm wondering if this is a rarely used feature, if everyone is still feeling so uneasy about it? Why don't those wanting to give detail as to where they look, or if they're examining someone, searching for something, or just vaguely glancing someones way use the ingenious

look <someone> <emotion>

command? That way not only there would ba a lot more variety to all those stares, it could as well be used to define the positions of everyone around to the unsuspecting guy who just stumbled into the crows. A lot of '... is standing here' would all of a sudden shift into their respective places on the set, avoiding many an awkward situation in return.

Together with the check for bright crimson and yellow striped cloaks that was suggested earlier, it might even give some sense to the spam.

[Quirk]

But you know, now I'm wondering if this is a rarely used feature, if everyone is still feeling so uneasy about it? Why don't those wanting to give detail as to where they look, or if they're examining someone, searching for something, or just vaguely glancing someones way use the ingenious

look <someone> <emotion>

command? That way not only there would ba a lot more variety to all those stares, it could as well be used to define the positions of everyone around to the unsuspecting guy who just stumbled into the crows. A lot of '... is standing here' would all of a sudden shift into their respective places on the set, avoiding many an awkward situation in return.

Uh, this is exactly the problem. I would all but never do a look without an emote; unfortunately there are only so many ways to phrase the look that add to the scene. There is no way to look over a number of people as you pass them on the way to the bar without a) spamming everyone and b) delivering several lame-looking similar emotes. Other people suffering from similar lacks of inspiration or merely showing concern for their fellow players likewise avoid using "look" as much as would be realistic, with the end result that they don't notice things that they certainly should notice.

Quirk

[Lazloth]

Lazloth still likes ridding the world of look spam, to both room and victim; perhaps victim can receive a 'perception check' [skill, room size, stats, who knows] to notice.

Players will be able to emote their 'looks' and not feel twinky about checking everyone out in a given public setting.

[growingall]

I like the look echo.. there is options for shady activity?

Now, If I am looking for a Bynner when I go to the inn, of course I need to start typing

look char 1
look char 2

How else am I to see who wears those -quite obvious- brown mantles of the Tzai Byn?

But it'd be strange to do it with every NP/NPC every time I walk into a room.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Add a glance command?  Gives less information than look, leaves out the mdesc, doesn't echo.

[Dan]

I personally don't see the problem here, and why people get so uptight about someone looking at someone else. It isn't like its to the point where you have to scroll back a whole page becuase someone walked into the bar. It also isn't like everyone in the tavern is turning and looking at whoever just stepped in, 1% of the people there did if every pc in the room looks. Don't forget about all the vnpc and npc, just roll with the punches.

Sidenote is that I like Venoms Idea of a toggle.

[spawnloser]

I say leave the look echo in.  Unless the staff wants to go through a major recoding effort just to stop you all from being annoyed, of course.  I say leave it the way it is.

I say leave the look echo in.  Unless the staff wants to go through a major recoding effort just to stop you all from being annoyed, of course.  I say leave it the way it is.

I dont think this would take major effort at all.

Like commenting out showtoroom(msg) pretty much.

[spawnloser]

Meh, I still think it's a stupid fix for everyone being annoyed...the problem would be having to come up with a way for people to notice it, because you should be able to notice it sometimes...and that would be a coding effort.

[X-D]

I think it is dumb to worry about all around, you don't like the look echo, either ignore it or have your client parse it out. There, problem solved.

Then I can use consider on ya all I want :twisted: