Should Scan Echo?

[Vettrock]

I just figured I'd make it a poll and see how people vote to go with the discussion in the other thread.

[Armaddict]

So now, whenever there's a hidden emoter, people will just scan, and no one will be able to tell they weren't scanning -before- the hidden emote?

That would blow.

[Lazloth]

You should probably read one of the threads about hidden emoting before posting on the topic.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

In some cases, it should echo, such as when you are in the middle of the desert, in a private room, or some othersuch. On city streets, in taverns, and indeed, typically in any populated room, it should not.

[Forest Junkie]

In some cases, it should echo, such as when you are in the middle of the desert, in a private room, or some othersuch. On city streets, in taverns, and indeed, typically in any populated room, it should not.

I agree.

[jhunter]

I must be missing something here...so -why- should it echo in those cases?

[sacac]

Because it would be obvious?

[mansa]

Why does it echo now?

Because some people believe it's an active act to scan through the crowds for someone.  They believe it's something you constantly have to do.  You make a very large effort to do.

Whereas, others regard the skill as an 'observation' type skill, where it's more of a 'gift' or a skill, rather than an act you constantly do.

[EvilRoeSlade]

As it stands, the code doesn't support either view.

[Zacharai]

I believe that it should be obvious that you're checking out the room.  The glassy-eyed people you usually meet are a bit different from the occasional investigatory type.

There are, have been, and will be many arguments about whether 'scan' or other skills should send out a room emote when you enact them.  I think scan is the poster child for room emotes -- if they didn't happen, people would be spamming it all the time.  Sure, you can get around it, just like you can get around the safeguards for real RP for every other skill.  Doesn't mean we should break down the walls for twinkdom.

I believe that every skill you have to type in to start is an 'active' skill.  It's argued that listen is a passive skill, but for some reason certain characters can hear better than others in a crowded bar.  Of course -- they are good at focusing on specific sounds, and blocking out extraneous noise.  That viewpoint doesn't mean they should twitch their ears for listening.  It's a product of their lifestyle, just like scan.  Scan is also active, though far more obvious, from peering deeply into the recesses of the room to taking a circuitous route back from the outhouse so you can check out a certain dark corner.

Instead of saying that scan shouldn't have a room echo, why don't you roll with it, and RP it out as long as it's up?  Don't spam, just throw down the occasional "talk (her eyes sweeping the crowd) Nah, next week, mebbe."

I've long believed that most code and syntax issues are best dealt with by 'rolling with it'.  Grammar and spelling mistakes (not typos), though, deserve an automatic extraction of the lower intestines.

[sacac]

scan- transitive verb examine something in detail: to subject something to a thorough examination

search- 1. transitive and intransitive verb examine thoroughly: to look into, over, or through something carefully in order to find somebody or something

look- 1. transitive and intransitive verb direct eyes: to turn the eyes toward or on something


I agree that scan should have an echo, simply because you are looking in detail.
you walk into the room and you do an involuntary scan when you see all the people in there. "Look"
When you scan, you look deeper into those crowds to see face. "Scan"
when you search you are looking through that room, as in actively walking around and scanning. "Search"
just IMHO

[My 2 sids]

By and large when people are actually looking for someone (or someone) others can tell this person is searching.  Go into any store/mall/private/public group of people and you can tell when someone is scanning the crowd or shelves or something, its just the way it is.  That's why I say that scan should echo.  

If people are dead set against scan echoing, I'd like to see a second scan that wouldn't echo.  Perhaps some of the more shady type people would know how to scan in a way not so obvious to everyone else.  Again, my point is that most people look like they're searching for something when they scan.

[Boggis]

While I'm not especially pushed about the echo I think it should be quite obvious that you're scanning a particular room. As far as I know scanning doesn't change your ldesc and, personally, I think it should. Scanning isn't just glancing around a room - its taking a much more indepth look to pick out things that normally wouldn't be noticed. I imagine it to be something like the bodyguards you see around important people - they're moving their heads back and forth and are clearly paying a great deal of attention to their surroundings. If the ldesc was changed to reflect the fact that your character is peering around this would remove people twinking by "turning it on" before entering a tavern or whatever. Might even remove the need for the echo as its not something that needs to be announced to the whole room when activated - but if you looked at the person its something that should be noticable about them.

My 2 sids idea about a second scan could also be applied here. Perhaps a kind of "casual looking scan" could branch off the full on scan once you got very good at it - it wouldn't be as complete a scan as the original skill but at least it wouldn't change your ldesc as it would look more casual.

[Tamarin]

When you scan, and someone is hidden, you do NOT get to see who they are.  They don't suddenly become visible.  Therefore, this is not an act of walking around and searching for someone.  All you get to see is a shadow or a blur.  How can you honestly say that people would notice this, if you are perfoming an action that really only gives you a cursory view of concealed people?

[Tamarin]

I imagine it to be something like the bodyguards you see around important people - they're moving their heads back and forth and are clearly paying a great deal of attention to their surroundings.

You are wrong.  That is guarding, and it's an entirely different skill than scanning.

[Quirk]

When you scan, and someone is hidden, you do NOT get to see who they are.  They don't suddenly become visible.  Therefore, this is not an act of walking around and searching for someone.  All you get to see is a shadow or a blur.  How can you honestly say that people would notice this, if you are perfoming an action that really only gives you a cursory view of concealed people?

Well... yes, you do. You can now "look" at them and get a wealth of information, rather more than the helpfile suggests you ought to. You have to be paying pretty close attention to notice every bulge in the curtains that could conceal someone, or construct every possible silhouette that could be behind the bushes you're riding past. Part of the problem is that the code must necessarily simplify a wide range of situations into one sparse command set. As anyone who's played "hide and seek" will testify, an imaginative and clever hider will not be discovered without searching every possible place of concealment, but which places are viable depends greatly on the opportunities the environment offers. If scan were merely a cursory glance at the naivest places to hide in, it should be vastly less powerful than it is. Even that cursory examination however would be noticeable if you kept it up for the period that scan codedly remains functional after activation - it's not difficult to spot the person craning their neck and staring round the room.

You are wrong. That is guarding, and it's an entirely different skill than scanning.

Not so. I suggest you read the skill_guard helpfile. Guarding involves putting your body between your charge and an advancing assailant, and can indeed be bypassed by those stealthy enough to evade the guard's notice.

Quirk

[Angela Christine]

Both scan and hide cover a wide range of situations.

Hiding _can_ be hiding under a table or in a wardrobe, but it can also be standing in a poorly lit corner of a tavern or blending in with a crowd.  It depends on the situation.  In a tavern you probably won't hide under a table, you'll just hang out in a shadowy corner and try to be unnoticable -- hidden in plain sight.  In a noble's estate you'd have to steal some livery to pull off the hidden in plain sight bit, so you may try hiding behind the curtains or under the bed.  In a common hovel you might dive into the pile of rags used as a bed by the flea ridden inhabitants, because that pile is the only place you _can_ hide.


If hide covers a variety of activities, then obviously scan must also be a variety of activities, to uncover the various kinds of hiding.  If you are have scan active while you are sitting in a tavern, then you are keeping an eye on who comes and goes, and where they are.  Instead of letting your eyes simply skim over figures in shadowy corners, you peer _more_ intently at people that seem to be suspiciously blending in with the environment.  People might notice that you have that thousand yard stare and always keep an eye on the exits, or they might not.  Getting drunk or using some kinds of spice should interfere with this sort of casual scan, and I hope it does.  Now if you are in less crowded area like a private home, scanning may very well indicate that you are moving around, looking behind the sofa and checking out the curtains for unusual lumps -- activities that most people would notice.  The Scan skill covers both passive and active scanning.


It would be appropriate for highly skilled Searchers to uncover hidden things besides hidden doors.  If you are looking behind the tapestries for hidden doors you might uncover a hidden person too.  However, to make this distinct from scanning, I'd have Searchers uncover hidden people rather than just spot them.  If successful the searcher's Search breaks the hider's Hide, and anybody can see them.  To keep Search from becoming over-powered, I'd make this possible only at very high skill levels, probably beyond what you can get from any subguild.  I don't think any guild starts with Search as a primary skill, so only fairly experienced characters would have the potential to unhide others.


AC

[Elfmolester]

Instead of letting your eyes simply skim over figures in shadowy corners, you peer _more_ intently at people that seem to be suspiciously blending in with the environment.

This is why I think that scan shouldn't have an echo...to me it is skimming over the figures in the corner...if your observant enough you spot that "someone" is there.
Then, if you want further detail, which does echo..you "look" at that "someone" directly.
This is just assuming that the look echo stays in if the scan echo were to go away.

Scan isn't specifically directed, that is also another reason that I believe it should have no echo. You can look about you carefully by just moving your eyes.
I totally don't picture it as standing up, moving about the room ducking under shit and looking behind everything. I do agree that search should also do as AC suggested.

This is just my opinion of it anyway.
*Yes, I know the echo says "You scan the area intently." But I never agreed with that either.*
I've always pictured it as more like a spot check of sorts.

[crymerci]

If scan is an active skill, then it should echo, and not only that, but it should not stay on, but merely give you an instant snapshot of what you can currently see in that room.

If scan is a passive skill like listen, and merely indicates a heightened awareness, rather than an active search, then it should not echo, and it should continue to stay active for a period of time.

As it stands now, the signals are mixed.  It is a hybrid.  There is an active component, in the standing and the echoing, but there is also a passive component in that it remains active for a time after you scan.  Unless it is more clearly defined as a skill, the people who see it as a passive skill will continue to turn it on before they go into a crowd, and the people who see it as active will make a point to act it out, and each side will think the other is wrong.

Personally I am in the "passive skill" group.  I think scan indicates a heightened sense of awareness, alertness, and perception.  I consider it analogous to the listen skill, and I don't care if people spam the shit out of it, as long as they use the results of what they see realistically.

[Angela Christine]

I totally don't picture it as standing up, moving about the room ducking under shit and looking behind everything.

Except that sometimes it is.  When you go into your private apartment and scan before getting busy with elvish catamite, that IS looking around behind the furnature and stuff, because the only way someone could be hidden would be to actualy be hidden, they can't just be blending in with the crowd if there is no crowd.  If the assasin is hiding under your bed, a quick glance around the room from the doorway won't catch them.

Scan can be both an active skill and a passive skill, depending on where and how it is being used.


AC

[Lazloth]

You "scan" then "look," to be precise, in the arm sense.
Much like crymerci, I think of it in terms of a "listen on" passivity.

[wizturbo]

AC brings up a good point.

If your literally throwing over furniture, stabbing at curtains and casting a torch light in every shadow...your very much ACTIVELY looking for hidden people.

I believe SEARCH should be the skill for this.  And I -highly- recommend that search EASILY find hidden people (meaning, you'd need a degree of higher hide skill to hide from a person searching).

Scan should be a passive skill of enhanced awareness of one's immediate surroundings.  Could that enhanced awareness spot a shoe sticking out from behind a sofa, or an odd shape in the shadows, sure...but not nearly as well as going into that shadow with a torch to search.  Should search find invisibile people...no...not at all.  That would be more in the 'scan' catagory, of happening to notice a blur near the sofa, etc.  Scan should also enhance ones ability to spot stealing, sneaking, to spot palming, and to possibly notice magickal effects of a more subtle nature.  

Simply, search should do more then just find hidden locations.  And scan should be more "user" friendly, being more of an always on state of awareness (if someone chooses to keep scan on, like some would keep listen on).

Just my twenty-five cents (yes...my opinions are worth more then yours, get over it *Grins*)

[Tamarin]

Oooooooooook.  Everyone shut the f**k up and take a deep breath.

In..................................and out........................good!

*repeat as necessary*

Now.  There are two schools of thought on what scan is.

1) A passive skill like listen that involves a general heightened awareness that may or may not be able to detect concealed persons.

2) An active skill that involves intensively searching an area with a level of scrutiny that requires very obvious movement.

Do you know what the solution is?  I do.  We need to split this skill into two components.  They should be as follows:

1) The passive skill should function if you are sitting down, though the level of information you can acquire from concealed sources, if you detect them, should be less than it currently is.  There should also be no echo, and it should be a toggle like listen.  Basically, the listen skill but for the eyes.

2) The active skill should require the user to be standing, and should echo to the entire room because you -are- acutally searching the area intently.  If you detect a concealed person, a significantly more detailed amount of information should be given to you.  It should be an immediate skill with no lasting effects upon your perception, AND it should have a -time delay.

This way, we can avoid all this nonsense about what scan is and isn't.  Two skills.

Thoughts?

[Agent_137]

be nice, lots of work for something that already -works-.

ergo: ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

[Tamarin]

be nice, lots of work for something that already -works-.

ergo: ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

I sadly disagree.  Of course the skill already works, but who would want to play a game that never makes changes to adapt to what the players want?  Sure combat works as it is.  Does that mean it should stagnate forever?  No.  We need progress, or this game will get old very quickly, and it will lose its player base.

For a topic that has been debated repeatedly and garnered a lot of serious posts in a limited amount of time, this cannot be ignored.  It's time for a solution.