The way and emotions

[UnderSeven]

This is actually something that the child and way post brought to me.  I've been playing arm a long time and sometimes people put emotions over the way with *'s.  It seems to be pretty widely accepted that to some degree, the way can be used in such a way.. I personally agree that the way is probably not really words in the first place.  So thoughts, emotions, maybe even imagines could be argueable.  But is this really something we can agree on? And more over, if so can we have something added to psi like say emotes?  

(the reason this isn't in code or rp dis is because I felt it fit in both and therefore put it in general)

[Tarx04]

I have seen emotions expressed in the Way before, also.  I think it's okay.

[Cuusardo]

Adding emotions to the Way conveys a stronger message to the person you're in contact with.  It also lets them know if you're being flippant, or if you're being serious, for example.

[Anonymous]

I know one very old Templar who sent nothing but an image over the way with *'s around it.  Fun stuff.

[UnderSeven]

Thats part of the point of this post.

If instead of having to manually add the *'s or whatever the hell you choose to enclose it with, it would be neat if we had a form of ()'s that we could add emotions with, with the slight difference where with the way you don't have to say anything after the ()'s.  So you could send emotions or words and it could be somewhat coded.. Why?  Well for the same reason it's coded into say.

[Morrolan]

Yes, I would like to be able to:

psi (with an overwhelming wave of confusion) Marcy?  No, sorry, wrong mind.

With an overwhelming wave of confusion, the gruff graduate student sends you a telepathic message:
   "Marcy?  No, sorry, wrong mind. "


and even

psimote touches your mind briefly, with a warm glow of friendship.

Telepathically, the gruff graduate student touches your mind briefly, with a warm glow of friendship.

This would be pretty cool.

Question one: Does anyone else agree?
Question two: What kinds of abuse could it be used for?
Question three: How hard would it be to impliment?

Morrolan

[Lasakar]

Sounds cool!

[Akaramu]

That would definitely be more elegant than the *xxx* emotes, they keep reminding me of chatrooms.

[sarahjc]

I like it as well..

[Quo]

I love it!

I just stumbled over an old log where -only- through emotions and images over the way a very dense atmosphere and plot was build. During the whole scene, only very few of the messages contained words.

Many of those impressions wouldn't have fit into the syntax suggested before though. It would be nice if there was a psionic 'impression' that was less tailored for language.

Of course, the liberties taken using the psionic message as it is now allow for all these variants, at the slight inconvenience of having to interpret different styles of formatting the non-verbal content of the message.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Not a bad idea at all.

[spawnloser]

I like the idea of psi emotes.

[Bestatte]

I would say no to psimote for a variety of reasons, some of which are IC. But one of them is that I don't like the possibility of having to deal with something like this:

The gruff graduate student sends the thought of himself wearing the new earring you gave him last tuesday and beaming happily at you.

or however it would be formatted. If he wants to show off his new earring he can damned well find me and show it off. I have experienced situations in other games where there is little restriction on what's acceptable for the "thought-net," and it detracts rather than adds to the RP, because it removes any need to actually meet people face to face.

But adding emotes to "verbal" psis I think would be terrific.

I'd want to stick to emotional sensations rather than imagery. My preference and again, for the same reason as I outlined in the psimote concern. A sense of warmth, a sense of irony, amusement, sadness, wryly, etc. You're projecting your thoughts with the "psi" skill, not images, not movement. And while yes, our thoughts can contain images, there are  probably IC repercussions of that which should not be discussed OOCly, concerning psionics in general.

Edited because I wasn't paying attention to my spelling.

[Malifaxis]

Psimote is killer.  Much kudos, Morrolan.  I see absolutely no problem with it.  You can send emotions with your messages, why can't you send them without?  You can send images as well... I see absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be possible to just send feelings.

Psi emotions with messages are awesome, and add flavor.

That is all.

[Anonymous]

Considering that nobody has ever clearly deliniated the what and how of Psionics in this game, I don't see what the issue is with feelings and images being conveyed as well.  A psimote would be great.

[Delirium]

Yes to feelings, no to images.

[Ghost]

psimote touches your mind briefly, with a warm glow of friendship.

Telepathically, the gruff graduate student touches your mind briefly, with a warm glow of friendship.

Morrolan

One of my PCs got that message.  Well, it did not include friendly, but it was lightly touching my mind. :shock:

[Wintermute]

Morrolan pwnz j00 with psimote!

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yes to feelings, no to images.

Why?

[sacac]

I have only one thing to add.. Restrictions.. you can't send images of yourself.. Because how would you show yourself in someone else's mind without a mirror to see yourself exactly?

I think it is ok to send images of something you can see.. not any thing you can't. Because how do you know enough about it to send an -image- of it?

I typed this before reading Deleriums.. So I change my mind..
I think we should have images.

[Anonymous]

Posting as guest intentionally.
I think there's reasons why images shouldn't be allowed for people who don't have the actual psionicist class. Hopefully that sentence is enough and I don't know all that much about how it works but I think the entire issue is riding close to being way too IC to mention more.

[Trenidor]

Hmm I kinda like the idea...but it could go either way...

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think there's reasons why images shouldn't be allowed for people who don't have the actual psionicist class. Hopefully that sentence is enough and I don't know all that much about how it works but I think the entire issue is riding close to being way too IC to mention more.

When I think about this, I agree. Feelings, but no images.

Or, if images, clear-cut images that do not infringe upon other talents....not sure how to really say that and I have to go to work, so...uhm...g'night.

[flurry]

The ideas seem cool to me.


And I have no problem with either emotions or images conveyed via the Way.    Tastes, odors, sounds and textures might be pushing it a bit.    But you never know.

I vote yes. That it is a good idea.

[ShaLeah]

Lots of yesses.

I like the idea but I think it would be borderline PSI shit to be able to convey perfect images like that through the Way.

I'd opt for a variation of:

The image of the <sdesc> wavers slightly in your mind, (rest of emote)

So that if I sent you:

psimote sitting in a pitch black room with an eerie green glow to it.
psi (full of fear) Templar... got me... HELP!

You'd see:

The image of the short, fat puertorican wavers slightly in your mind, as if she is sitting in a pitch black room with an eerie green glow to it.

The short, fat puertorican sends you a telepathic message full of fear:
  "Templar... got me... HELP!"

Needless to say this would only be doable by people who are very experienced with the Way.
Normal people would be able to send emotions and maybe small images if they concentrate, images that are too long would be too draining for the normal people to send.
Psionisists should be able to send thoughts and emotions as well as images of self or others.

The "touch" I think should remain a psi thing only, it always freaks me out when I feel one of those.  Maybe even go as far as having PSI's capable of altering a target's mood. Sort of like:

contact nobleaide

You contact the manly, muscular stud through the Way.

convey A sense of suspicion enters your mind.

The manly man would of course get...
A sense of suspicion enters your mind.

Maybe 15 mnts later you send...
convey Fear and dread pierce through you for an instant as images of murdering (whoever) flash through your mind.

Oh the thinks you can think.

Back on track, I like the idea, I think it becomes kind of intruding upon Psi things and just for shits and giggles, I threw in some scattered thoughts. It's 432 AM, give me a break.

[Angela Christine]

This idea was popular with the GDB crowd last time it was brought up too (you didn't think it was a new idea, did you?) but then Sanvean nixed it.

AC

[ShaLeah]

This idea was popular with the GDB crowd last time it was brought up too (you didn't think it was a new idea, did you?) but then Sanvean nixed it.

AC

No miss smarty pants, I didn... okay so I did... shoot me!
*snort*
You're not the boss of me.

[Quo]

This idea was popular with the GDB crowd last time it was brought up too (you didn't think it was a new idea, did you?) but then Sanvean nixed it.

Please - can you give a pointer to the thread?
I found another thread on this 'new' GDB where the last post (Naatoks) is supporting my ideas about the way.

It seems to be a problem that lacking restrictions, there are about as many ideas about the way as there are players. While IC the chars may have as many weird theories about the way as they may feel inclined to, as a player I would like to know where I am taking my liberties with formatting the messages too far.

To me, there's a difference between consciously sending an image (which  is most likely special and could be restcited to a separate skill) and lack of training or shielding that would allow a more skilled counterpart to glimpse the reflections of the surroundings as the twisted mind of my char represents them. That is why I preferred to call them psionic impressions rather than messages, and would place them on a less conscious level. Brief glimpses of 'raw sensual input' that has not yet been filtered by consciousness and thought.

I think it's safe to give a few examples with only one side quoted, you can easily make up something to match the other side of the contact.

*a drifting mind, detached and unfocussed. The sound of water running, steadily and with an oddly lulling quality to it*
*shaken from trance, the dazed mind of ... jumps awake all of a sudden*

*a nagging sense of hunger growing to consciousness*
*a closeup on a pattern wooden stripes woven together, the regularity oddly fascinating*
*a brief, blurred impression of a basket, a remote taste of fruit, too distant to be real*

I like to think that other peoples minds are dangerous things to explore, especially if they are not trained or focussed enough to control what is gleamed from them.

There was my flame-bait. I better go and fetch my asbestos  

[Malifaxis]

Images:

This sounds fine, other people have done it in the past. -San

On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, (myemail account) wrote:

> Hullo esteemed staffers,
>
> I have a question about the way... is it possible to transmit small,
vague images through it?  I have been playing it as if it is, not doing
it commonly or anything, but on ocassion sending someone's face or some
such small image.
>
> I have been playing it as an *extremely* painful thing to do.  If you
would like to see this not happen, I'm totally cool with that, and I
will absolutely stop.  The reason I thought it was possible is because
of the fact that when one party is inebriated, they see a wavering
picture of the other party on the psi contact.
>
> I do hope I haven't been f'ing this up, and fully apologize if I have
been.  I look forward to your answer, either way.

[SailorMars]

I've seen *blah blah* used to denote emotion.

*violent and intense* You're going to die.

The actual psymote (heh instead of psimote, so there wouldn't be issues with abbreviations) idea I really like. I agree that good form would be emotions only, not images or making someone's ears ring, etc. Well, unless they were a mind bender and then they could probably do a lot more than that.

[Jacques]

While I think the psiemote thing is a cool idea, I actually like the "*" thing better. Why? Two reasons. One, it tends to limit people in their choice of emotions to the most basic - the ones that EVERYONE seems to know and have a reference to. Happiness, fear, sadness... not "feeling slightly annoyed but with a hint of contagious happiness". I tend to think that your average joe SHOULDN'T be able to send very detailed emotions over the Way - who's to say that everyone feels the intricacies of those emotions the same way? Your "hint of contagious happiness" might be equivalent to my "nervous laughter". Keeping things short gives a bit of allowance for this, and helps to encourage people to RP things out more face to face where they CAN show the more detailed stuff.  Second, it's DIFFERENT. It immediately lets me know, from a purely OOC perspective, that this is something out of the ordinary that my character is experiencing. It could NEVER be confused, even at a quick glance, with an actual emote from someone in the room.

Just my $0.02.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

You know, Jaq....that is a point. I elect to add the emote to psi like it is on say...IE: psi (with intense rage) GIMMI MY CHEDDAR, MAN!

The young black male sends you a telepathic message with intense rage: "GIMMI MY CHEDDAR, MAN!"

[Sanvean]

This idea was popular with the GDB crowd last time it was brought up too (you didn't think it was a new idea, did you?) but then Sanvean nixed it.

Are you sure about this? I remember turning down an idea for emotes attached to think, which I will not go into in detail, lest a horde of people jump again on that particular bandwagon.

As far as images go, many people use them, and I've got no quarrel with it. I'm not sure I'm seeing a really compelling reason for using a psi-emote command other than it doesn't look as nice to have the asterisks.

I have qualms about the implementation proposed, because I could see someone doing something like:

psiemote kills you

yielding:
Over the Way, the short fat dumpy templar kills you.

Maybe we could just assume that people wouldn't abuse it, but every time I think something like that, someone turns around and proves me wrong by doing something like taking all the chairs out of the Trader's in order to sell them.  :p

I like the idea in some ways, but I'd like the form tweaked some so the abuse potential is diminished. If y'all can figure that out, then maybe.

[samsara]

You can sell the chairs?
Whew, no more scrab hunting.


To keep the post on topic, I think there's plenty of versatility with *blah* and it doesn't detract from anything at least with me.

[Carnage]

psiemote kills you

yielding:
Over the Way, the short fat dumpy templar kills you.

emote slays you!

emote You have been slayed by @!

[Sanvean]

Yes. But I think for new players that's going to be a lot more confusing than the emote.

Is there a better reason to put work into this command over something else than aesthetics?

[UnderSeven]

psiemote kills you

yielding:
Over the Way, the short fat dumpy templar kills you.

Change the wording of the message?

Instead:
Over the way, the so and so person sends you the message of <either message text or emote.>

Example
psi Hi, how ya doing

Over the way, so and so sends you the message of, "hi how ya doing?"

or

psiemote kills you.

Over the way, so and so sends you the message of kills you.

Okay, so that wouldn't be abusive as it's clearly nothing, lets try something else.

psiemote killing you

Over the way, so and so sends you the message of killing you.

Okay, here I feel it's no longer a problem because instead of it being like a powerplayed psiemote making people think somehing that isn't happening, it's instead more like an image.  Like if you got that you'd imagine the templar imagining over the way killing you.  And since San already stated she didn't feel there was anything wrong with that, then I see no problem.

By putting in the word 'of' it makes it clear what is happening is nothing more than a message, it's not something that is actually happening to you.  I'm sure someone could think of some creative way to try trickery even with this, but I feel the code would make it clear that it wasn't anything more in such a case.-

[Angela Christine]

Are you sure about this? I remember turning down an idea for emotes attached to think, which I will not go into in detail, lest a horde of people jump again on that particular bandwagon.

Nope, I'm not absolutely certain.  I have a pretty good memory for things I've read, but it's not perfect.  Archiving on the new board is a chancy thing, and searching the archives of the old board is just too painful to contemplate.    So I could be confusing a thinkemote idea for a psiemote idea.  Now that I've let down my legions of fans I'll slink away quietly.


AC

[spawnloser]

I dunno...I think there is a way to word it.  Perhaps like...

Code Select Expand

psimote dread
You send to (this sdesc for rent) a feeling of dread.
The other person would see...

Code Select Expand

The (my mother dressed this sdesc) sends you a feeling of dread.
This would prevent a true emote over the way...it is always a feeling and everyone would recognize the syntax so that abuse would (if attempted) look ridiculous and thus noone with half a brain would attempt it in the first place.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Spawnloser, I think that you've solved the problem. Ingenious.

[spawnloser]

Danke.

[Delirium]

psi *a feeling of dread*

[spawnloser]

Oh, understood, Delirium.  I do that.  It would just be neat if the code would support that.

psi (dread) Dude!
The dude in the hoodie sends you via the way, accompanied by a feeling of dread:
 "Dude!"

[Lazloth]

The dude in the hoodie sends you via the way, accompanied by a feeling of dread:
 "Dude!"

And how would you handle images or (weakly) or the myriad of other expressions that cannot be accompanied as a feeling?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Allow emotes to be attached to psi messages and to nothing else. No psiemote...nothing. Just: psi (a sense of fear trickling through) Bbbbbbaaaadddd!

It would look just like say emotes.

A sense of fear trickling through, the young black male sends you a telepathic message: "Bbbbbaaaadddd!"

Simple, efficient.

[Anonymous]

One thing I worry about allowing this, though, is deceptive emotions in a psi and whether or not they are appropriate.

>think Man, I hate this guy.

>psi *Cheefully* Hey best buddy, how's it going!

> think I'm going to kill him if I can get him in that room.

> psi *Warmly* I've got some good news to share with you in the torture chamber!


I'm not saying that's bad...but I'm not convinced it's good either.  I guess it's all part of the ambiguity of the way.

[spawnloser]

Actually, I think Venomz has the idea...add them to psi messages like emotes can be added to say or talk already.  Then it just comes down to syntax.

[sacac]

I think the psyemotes would be uncontrollable IC..
Unless your a mind bender..
So since you would hate the guy.. you would send the *Mild hate* or something like that to him with each Psi

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Bah. It is quite simple IRL to control your thoughts for a brief period of time. If it were not, there would be far mor murders. So, for you to think one thing and send (remember, using the way to send messages has been described by staff as a effort-filled task) another thing should not be hard at all.

[Carnage]

psi *a feeling of dread*

say *Raising his fists* Aye gov'nah, le's fight!

Is this a MUD or an AOL chatroom? When the little stars start to appear I begin to get confused and angry and start to break windows and punch people in the face.

[Delirium]

I was illustrating a point, Carnage.

I don't agree with imagery in psionic communication, either. Emotions are another story. If you have a mind-to-mind link with someone, emotion would probably be the easiest thing to send.

[Anonymous]

I was illustrating a point, Carnage.

I don't agree with imagery in psionic communication, either. Emotions are another story. If you have a mind-to-mind link with someone, emotion would probably be the easiest thing to send.

I hate to do this, because I think it's part of what keeps the mud alive that players and staff sometimes have good discourse, but when an overlord says something is fine to be done in game, I sort of take that as the papal seal on the action.  What is it you do not like about sending or receiving images over the way?

There is definitely imagery in psionics, and there is even a rare message involving someone's image in your mind from use of one of the non-karma psionic skills.

So, if a PC sends you a *hazy image* are you going to acknowledge it in game?

[spawnloser]

psi *a feeling of dread*

say *Raising his fists* Aye gov'nah, le's fight!

Is this a MUD or an AOL chatroom? When the little stars start to appear I begin to get confused and angry and start to break windows and punch people in the face.

So you're in support of some kind of psi emote too, Carnage?

[Carnage]

psi *a feeling of dread*

say *Raising his fists* Aye gov'nah, le's fight!

Is this a MUD or an AOL chatroom? When the little stars start to appear I begin to get confused and angry and start to break windows and punch people in the face.

So you're in support of some kind of psi emote too, Carnage?

I wouldn't say 'support'. I really don't care if it goes in or not, I'm just bringing up a few points. I do the stupid ** crap and I hate it because it reminds me of crap like :::walks into the cellar and sayz hey baby:::.

[Trenidor]

This is a way old post so...mleh


I picture the way as what giladreal on Lord of the Rings does when she sees frodo with the ring the first time. In the forest.

Anyway, it comes into the mind via a voice, the person's voice.

Therefore, emotions could not be portrayed, unless it is about tone of voice.

Just my Humble opinion though...