Also, breaking descs down into portions removes some of the artistry from the mdesc.

The way I remember mdescs, and probably most others, is that I memorize the general length and shape of the description, as well as the first and last lines.
Take off a couple of lines, or the first one, and a lot of people will have trouble recognizing right away.

Scrambling letters isn't the way.  If someone is wearing a mask, I should still be able to see that giant pink tattoo on his entire palm.  If they are wearing a mask using the 'modular' descriptions, I won't be able to tell that to the templar when I'm describing what the spy looked like.

Throwing in my two sids, I have to say I don't like the idea of masking descriptions in the way the OP proposes.  It makes sense for languages, but  not for this IMHO.  Some things should be really easy to discern and other things impossible, and this treats them all the same.  On top of that, I think the concern about new players is legitimate.

I love the idea of modular descriptions, in some form or other.  If it were optional, it shouldn't make the application process too daunting.

I've wondered before - how do you describe something (like a birthmark) that should be distinctive if seen but that would be obscured under ordinary circumstances?   Right now I think you're kind of stuck with leaving it out, unless it can be handled by the tattoo or scar code.   It's a separate (and probably less important) problem than the hooked/masked issue, but I think there could be a common fix with modular descriptions.

I'm a guess I am a horrible non-collaborator because I absolutely disagree with everyone.  In my opinion, anyone with a 10 'sid black sandcloth mask over their face should have their mdesc and sdesc hidden.

If I were to come up behind you in a park with a simple black hoodie, black mask, and some generic non-descript clothing and robe you, you would NEVER be able to identify me in a police line up.  At best you could tell the police my race, my height, and my gender.  Yes, you could look at my hands and see judge how rough they are, and maybe you could see my eye color, but what in the hell would you tell the police?  I saw the callused hand, blue eyed man?  He was six feet tall and had a wide gate?  Please.  People have a very hard time identifying criminals that rob without taking any precautions to conceal their identity.  Make even the slightest attempt to conceal one's identity and there is pretty much no hope of telling who they are.  At best, if the criminal is stupid they will have a unique set of tattoos or strange equipment... something Armageddon already has.

The balance in Armageddon is flung WAY over to it being FAR too easy to identify people, especially when they are taking pains to avoid identification.  This combined with the fact that there are rarely more then 20-50 active people in a single area makes hiding your identity simply impossible.  If you want to do something where you need to conceal your identity, you can just throw that idea out as things stand.  An anonymous mugging is completely impossible unless you kill the victim.  Want to be an assassin that conceals his identity?  It is completely impossible without imm intervention even then a 10 'sid stip of sandcloth should be able to do the trick.

More anonymity in this game wouldn't hurt this game in the slightest.  In fact, I think it would drastically improve the criminal underworlds as people could try some underhand activity without sacrificing the ability to ever be seen by humanity again.  

If I had a magik wand, I would make it so that hoods work in the manner they do today.  I would then make it so that any strip of sandcloth, facewrap, or mask worn on your face would conceal your sdesc and mdesc.  Don't want people dressed like muggers wandering around the streets?  Tell them to take off their face wraps.  Would this make Luir's, Red Storm, and the 'rinth sketchier?  Hell yes.  Good.

Honestly, while I think that jmordetsky's idea is a good one and would be an improvement from what we currently have, I completely agree with Rindan.

It's far too easy for people to identify your pc. Almost so bad that you'd think there was a team from CSI following your pc about...and this team....has The Way.

The fact of the matter is, without technology, if the person doesn't go around mouthing off about what they did...it is much easier in RL to conceal yourself.
Even with it, a guy robbed a bank here just a couple months ago wearing basically the equivalent to a hood and facewrap (all camo hunting gear), noone can tell them anything other than that it was a white male around 6' and the tellers looked him straight in the face at a close distance. Noone can remember any small details about him and cannot even agree upon what color his eyes were.

Your main desc is there all the time, even if most of it would be covered up. People twink, magickally knowing everything they can see because they can. See, another problem with it is that even if they were too pumped at the time of the encounter to remember what you looked like from seeing your main desc (which is perfectly realistic)....they can still scroll back and read it again with better accuracy than a modern security camera. (Completely unrealistic)

I guess I should read these things in depth like the rest of you.

Agreed with Rindan and Jhunter.

I always hated that as a result of masks being so heavily sought after, valuable, and powerful, we removed 'masking' descriptions altogether, rather than making it so common that it was no big deal.  I always though it would be somewhat commonplace in certain areas, while kind of...strange, in the others, and perhaps suspicious or attention drawing, but not out of the ordinary.  For example...face wraps outside in a storm, or out in the desert, or in the labyrinth, I don't think a 'mask' would be that uncommon at all.  They aren't particularly hard to make, all you need is sandcloth.

As to the arguments that you have to see -some- part of their body with mask.  It gives you their general height and weight with their description, and you can assess.  And I find it odd that the criminals are constantly asked to trust their victims to play things out correctly, and not take advantage of the benefits their given.  Why can't I ask all you victims to trust the masked to use emotes to describe what features you -would- notice?  They're asking the same thing, but it is always made into the responsibility of one side to trust the other.

Basically...I think masks should come back.  And be in style.

You become pretty jaded after a while when dealing with how most criminal-type PCs are going to do things, especially in cities. Steal. Fail. Run. North.

It seems no matter how hard you try no one will ever turn themselves in, even when it starts becoming inevitable. So am I going to wait for them to emote something? Nope.

And is it right that they can mask an entire main description that might have 2 lines of their face and 6 lines of their body, tattoos and other shit I might notice? I don't think so.

If I can land a subdue THEN I'll start emoting. Until people start going against the grain and realizing that getting caught sometimes ISN'T always a bad thing. Can't stand the number of people that constntly try to run from you, it's like everyone even non-elves are world-class sprinters. There are always exceptions to the rule but in this case, very little. So, I vote keep it the way it is, a main description has too much useful things.  

When I am asked whether I got a description or not, I can say yeah I caught this and that. Instead of going. Oh, no, he stood there for 5 minutes fighting with us, but through his mask I couldn't see his eye color, any distinguishing marks anywhere else on his body or anything.

I think the only way an MDESC should be hidden is if someone is clothed from head to toe in black sandcloth or armor. And is wearing a mask/wrap or whatever. Then I might accept it. I mean every wear location too, so you can't see any flesh.

-RM

My last post kind of got me thinking. It would be interesting if certain combonations of equipment did that. Like say the code might recognize that your head, face, neck, body, legs, feet, wrists, forearms, arms, hands, are all covered in a certain item. We can take black sandcloth for example. And you're wearing a hood and a facewrap. That should take your MDESC away, because there is nothing noticeable about that person. In fact the same might be said for someone wearing a lot of armor and then donning a mask or greathelm or something. Can't notice anything about them.  

I just don't like the idea of someone wearing a mask, pants and a shirt, and you can't see that they are hunched over or their build or any scars or tattoos that are in MDESC and not coded on the person. Maybe if we got away from MDESC tattoos and scars it would help, but still.

Skeptical as always but trying to help with the problem. It is a problem. Frusterating for both ends of the spectrum (criminal and crime-fighter) which I have played.

You know what else would be interesting? Being able to submit for unique tattoos or scars DURING character creation. Optional of course. But that would lead away from all those scorpion-tattooed, black-inked, or just crazy tattoos that are only in the MDESC. If people could submit a certain amount for each location which could be edited by staff that would get rid of the tattoo/scar problem. So then instead of being.

The tattooed, scarred man whom has no damn tattoos or scars coded on him.
You can be.

The tattooed, scarred man who has all his tattoos/scars preloaded on him right when he gets in game and has NO NEED to describe it in his MDESC because the player was allowed to describe it in character creation and get it coded on their characters body.  Now that would help.

-RM

I disagree with the OP. Alot. If mdescs were "scrambled" like that, then I just wouldn't really bother reading them. It treats -all- feature of a mdesc the same and masks them, which isn't realistic. Now, I agree with the original point the OP made and think that something needs to be done and IMO it needs to be all or nothing. Either masks/hoods/wraps need to conceal your identity completely or they need to be left as is.

I have a hunch that if the scrambled letter thing were IG it wouldn't go over well. It just seems cumbersome and slightly annoying to me. Yes, it makes sense for languages because when they speak, nothing they say is comprehensible or makes sense to the ears of our characters. However, physical traits -are- comprehensible. If he had a "sxar" on his hand and it was actually a tattooed star, I'd recognize that. However, with this code, I'd probably say it was a scar and it just wouldn't make very much sense at all that I confused those two things.

Personally, I agree most with Rindan. Just make hoods/masks/wraps completely conceal the mdesc and deal with the drawbacks of that. I think that they are considerably less than what we're dealing with now.

Quote from: "Puppet"I think that they are considerably less than what we're dealing with now.

Yep, right now there are -too many- negatives going the opposite way.

QuoteWhen I am asked whether I got a description or not, I can say yeah I caught this and that. Instead of going. Oh, no, he stood there for 5 minutes fighting with us, but through his mask I couldn't see his eye color, any distinguishing marks anywhere else on his body or anything.

That's where it is unrealistic. It is more common that in a dangerous or adrenaline-pumping situation you won't notice small details like the color of their eyes. If you can do this with any accuracy in RL then you are the exception, not the rule.

QuoteYou become pretty jaded after a while when dealing with how most criminal-type PCs are going to do things, especially in cities. Steal. Fail. Run. North.

You become pretty jaded when you are the criminal that has everything stacked OOCly against you. The other side of the coin is that people -rarely- want to play the victim, they rarely -don't- see who it was that attempted to steal from them, even though the code supports whether or not you notice -who- bumped you or whatever.
It is far too easy to identify someone who is trying not to be easily identified.
People, more often than not will accuse you because you are the only pc in the room that they know of. No matter what, if someone wants to be twinky and abuse the extra information they get from being able to see your whole main desc, save it, scroll back because they can't quite remember (which is all the equivalent of -every- damned pc in the game having a photographic memory), etc..you are left with doing whatever it takes to try and survive. Most of the time...it isn't actually the victim pc's life on the line...it's the criminal's life that is probably over if caught.

QuoteIf I can land a subdue THEN I'll start emoting.

If you can land a subdue, what difference does it make if they're desc is covered by a mask? You've got them...pull it off their head.

The only problem with masks covering main desc is that people won't be able to easily catch people who are trying to conceal themselves. I don't see that as a problem, plenty realistic to me. More realistic than the reasons for it not being that way without special help from the staff.

Quotealways hated that as a result of masks being so heavily sought after, valuable, and powerful, we removed 'masking' descriptions altogether, rather than making it so common that it was no big deal. I always though it would be somewhat commonplace in certain areas, while kind of...strange, in the others, and perhaps suspicious or attention drawing, but not out of the ordinary. For example...face wraps outside in a storm, or out in the desert, or in the labyrinth, I don't think a 'mask' would be that uncommon at all. They aren't particularly hard to make, all you need is sandcloth.

That is exactly the problem. I think it was a mistake of judgment to make them rare as well.  You make something rare, you put more value on it. What should've been done is they should've been made very easy to get and then you remove the excess value of them being rare.


As things are now, I really think that the criminally-minded are getting OOCly fucked over by being so easy to identify and I think the people playing the victims are getting screwed out of some fun rp as well. I would honestly -love- to have that fear of:
"Damned raiders...robbed me...least I'm not dead. But shit, as far as I know....they could be in this very tavern with me."

...and have it be an actual fear OOC for me as the player, instead of just my pc's feelings, because OOCly I know they -are- sitting in the damned tavern with me.

I've played positions of power on both sides of the law in the game.

Masks - they were common for a time.  And a lot of people had them.  It sucked.  Plain and simple.  From the criminal point of view - you had dorks coming in from the law-abiding groups wearing a mask and going nuts.  From the law point of view - you had dorks coming in from the criminal groups wearing a mask and going nuts.

The problem with masks as they are (in that they conceal the full main desc) is that it grants the wearer 'free reign' to go on wild killing sprees, criminal runs, or whatever.  Not to mention people began protesting that should they be able to commit a crime in a law zone without being wanted when they take off the mask...  (Who WAS THAT MASKED CRUSADER?!)

Basically, I am very happy concealing masks were pulled from the game in the form that they were in.  They were, to put it simply, abused.  Why would I call it abuse?  Because the same individuals who weren't wearing full concealment masks wouldn't do the same activities to any degree of them.  Therefore, somehow, their behavior changed due to the mask.  And really, it shouldn't to that extent - yes, it may allow some to be a little more wild when hidden behind the mask but I'm talking complete changes of character, people becoming serial murderers, noble aides turning into crazy criminals that rampage in wild killing sprees.  

The idea about having a mask scramble the main desc isn't a bad one and it makes sense.  A face object could have a scrambling rating from say, one to fifty five.  That way things like sheer faceclothes would mess up someone's desc as would a full cover mask of say, featureless obsidian.

Another thought would be to allow other objects apart from face objects to have a scrambling factor.  IE, a cloak with its hood up could max out at 15.  So by combining a cloak and a mask - you get an even more distorted main desc.  At no time do I think that main desc should ever be completely jibberish.

Why never reaching the point of 100% scrambling - because you can always tell something of someone's appearance even if it is their height and weight - or a glimpse of the hair colour, some hint as to the skin colour, maybe some distiguishing mark like glowing eyes - something might be noticed.  I'm not saying that it would and with a main desc 55% jibberish - you'll have a hard time figuring out who the person was already.  Of course, we'll get people who will go back into their logs and analyze the description over and over and over and over until they can figure it out - but there isn't a lot we can do about that.  Personally, I'd consider that bad form unless, for whatever reason, your character has a perfect memory of everything.

The real question is - is this worth going through the effort to code, test, and then migrate all the existing objects over?  I'm not certain.  While I think it's a nifty idea and concept - but from my experiences I've seen masks abused time and time again.  

There are noteable exceptions to this but for the most part that's what I remember happening for the majority of the time.

Anyway, all that to say, I like the idea and I think it'd be beneficial to the game as a whole.  But, I rather not see full hide masks in the game again.

Quote from: "RunningMountain"
When I am asked whether I got a description or not, I can say yeah I caught this and that. Instead of going. Oh, no, he stood there for 5 minutes fighting with us, but through his mask I couldn't see his eye color, any distinguishing marks anywhere else on his body or anything.

So let us say you are fighting with a masked man in a generic hooded cloak for five minutes.  What on earth are you going to tell your templar?  Assess –v gives you a damn good idea what his race is, and a simple look will point out any odd equipment or tattoos that are not concealed.  If you have peek, you could even see a few things that are concealed on his persona that might help in identification later. The simple fact of the matter is that if you are fighting a masked man with a 10 'sid bandana wraped around his face wearing anything other then skin tight clothing, you are going to know close to nothing about him.  Maybe you saw his eyes.  Who cares?  How many people in Allanak have blue eyes?  How many people have brown hair? You might catch some tattoos or scars, but when it really comes down to it, unless there is something very unique about him, you will have absolutely nothing to go on.  GOOD.

What do you tell your templar?  You tell your templar the exact same thing you would tell a police officer if a masked man robbed you.  He had a mask on.  Unless he was wearing something obvious, or had a unique tattoo, you have absolutely no chance of identifying him.  Your templar should backhand you if you tell him his eye color and pass that off as 'identification'.  Hell, even a tattoo or a scar probably wouldn't be of any help in identification unless you had a list of suspects and only one of them had said tattoo.  Seeing as how Armageddon has roughly 20-50 active players in one area at a time who are all the obvious suspects, that is probably far more help then you should realistically be given.

Are there exception when you can identify a masked man?  Sure.  However, those are exceptions.  The general rule is that masked people are close to impossible to identify.  The code should reflect the rule, not the rare exception.  If someone has a mask on, chances are he is going out of his way to not be identified and has covered up the obvious markers.  You shouldn't be able to identify him.

Quote from: "marko"They were, to put it simply, abused.  Why would I call it abuse?  Because the same individuals who weren't wearing full concealment masks wouldn't do the same activities to any degree of them.  Therefore, somehow, their behavior changed due to the mask.  And really, it shouldn't to that extent - yes, it may allow some to be a little more wild when hidden behind the mask but I'm talking complete changes of character, people becoming serial murderers, noble aides turning into crazy criminals that rampage in wild killing sprees.

The imm stick of beat downs is for noble aids that decide to become crazy criminals that go on killing sprees because they figured out how to tie a piece of sandcloth over their face.

As it stands, behavior is radically skewed because not only is perfect identification of people easy, but once you have identified someone they basically have to leave the city if they want to avoid further contact because there are all of 30 active players to pick from.  The community pressure to not do bad things is far more akin to living in a small tribal village then it is like living in a city of half of a million.  

Playing a criminal in Armageddon is a headache in juggling OOC worries about being identified.  No one is ever mugged on the street because even if the instant city wide alert system manned by uber guards of d00m that can not be snuck passed didn't tear you apart, one simple look from the victim and you basically can considered yourself banned from the city proper until the day that guy dies.  That is not realistic.  

If I had to pick between walking home at night in city where I live in real life or Allanak, I would pick Allanak every time.  Allanak is significantly safer, and it isn't like I live in the ghettos of L.A.

I am saying leave the uber guards and the city wide alert system.  Leave it so that the pool of suspects is only the 30 active players in the area.  Leave it so that if you are an elf and commit a crime the list of suspects drops to 3.  Leave it so that being the one active elven 'rinther means that you get arrested every 30 seconds because obviously you must be apart of some 'rinth plot seeing as how there are only five of you.  Leave it so that unless you simply leave Allanak proper it is always trivial for any law bringer to find you.  Yes, leave everything that stacks the game radically against any sort of realistic criminal activity and throw the criminals a bone.  Let them wear a bandana as a mask so that at the very least you need to do an equipment/scars/tattoo match before instantly knowing exactly who the mask villain was.  At worst, the ability to completely wipe out any unlawful activity in a city of half of a million poor will be slightly reduced.

I know, I know, dying to another PC or having your dagger stolen would be a tragedy, but I think it would add a little more atmosphere.  As it stands, I have not been killed by another non-Templar PC in years, and I have never in the 6-8+ years I have been playing this game been pick pocketed.  I have had much worse happen to me in the real city that I live in where the police kinda-sorta give a damn.

That is just wrong.

Quote from: "Rindan"What do you tell your templar?  You tell your templar the exact same thing you would tell a police officer if a masked man robbed you.  He had a mask on.  Unless he was wearing something obvious, or had a unique tattoo, you have absolutely no chance of identifying him.  Your templar should backhand you if you tell him his eye color and pass that off as 'identification'.  Hell, even a tattoo or a scar probably wouldn't be of any help in identification unless you had a list of suspects and only one of them had said tattoo.  Seeing as how Armageddon has roughly 20-50 active players in one area at a time who are all the obvious suspects, that is probably far more help then you should realistically be given.

Are there exception when you can identify a masked man?  Sure.  However, those are exceptions.  The general rule is that masked people are close to impossible to identify.  The code should reflect the rule, not the rare exception.  If someone has a mask on, chances are he is going out of his way to not be identified and has covered up the obvious markers.  You shouldn't be able to identify him.

Well, I disagree for the same reasons as I posted that a mask should never completely someone's main description.  Main descriptions contain far more information than facial features.

What are you are suggesting is that the person who has a main desc that includes such tidbits as: long white hair to the middle of their back, is a hunchback, has nine fingers, has one leg noticeably shorter than the other, has purple skin, and has an obnoxiously foul smell coming from a series of puss ridden boils - would be entirely undescribeable because they wear something that covers part of their face.

I really don't see how you can say that you shouldn't be able to notice any of these traits because of a face wrapped up in sandcloth or covered by a plank of wood.

How would I describe someone if they were a masked crusader wearing green tights... well, after getting past the green tights - I'd point out the incredibly scrawny body that is almost skeletal, that they have reaaaaaally long arms and short legs, and oddly enough, a potbelly.

Just because Batman has a full costume that covers up everything doesn't mean that anyone with half a brain can't figure out who Robin was.

The point - a mask does not a concealing costume make.  Therefore a mask should not grant 100% concealment of someone's maindesc - it simply does not make sense.  Partial concealment makes sense but full - I can't find any way to justify that.

Masks aren't abused in concept, they are abused in practice.

No one will argue with you that someone dressed in a heavy cloak and sandcloth mask would be difficult to identify.  What they should argue is that Armageddon doesn't allow for many of the other methods through which people are often identified.

When the masked bandit flees, do the VNPC or NPC's that know him/her, witness their attack, see them removing clothing, remember them from a previous day, etc...report in?  Not usually.  Do they come forward with information about how they've seen this person a few times before and know where his cousin's brother's friend Jojo lives?  Not usually.

Do your masked attackers have coded wounds on their body for the next few IC weeks showing where they were attacked by you specifically?  Does the wound match your particular weapon type, angle and strength of cut?  Not usually.

There are limited ways in the game for people to identify one another, and that is why these mask objects hold such power.  Not because they are overpowered in concept, but because any object that removes or lessens our limited methods of identification to the degree old mdesc-hiding masks did, you have a lot of room for potential abuse.

-LoD

I like the idea about making separate descriptions.

"This man, Lord templar. -tries to describe the robber to templar- "This mxo is tulm. Hi is hqndsome. He wilx mxdsex you. Hx has a sxar xn his hxnd. He just tried to rob me!"

"What the.. You two, throw this fellar into the cells for a couple of weeks for speaking gibberish and wasting my time."

So what's Hexxaex and Xygax wearing?  :lol:

Quote from: "Rindan"

I know, I know, dying to another PC or having your dagger stolen would be a tragedy, but I think it would add a little more atmosphere.  As it stands, I have not been killed by another non-Templar PC in years, and I have never in the 6-8+ years I have been playing this game been pick pocketed.  I have had much worse happen to me in the real city that I live in where the police kinda-sorta give a damn.

That is just wrong.

Dyeing to another pc or just a dagger stolen would be great. Does that happen? Except for the first one, yea. Except when I have been stolen from it was all my newbie coin within 3 minutes of logging onto the game, or my collection of 8 throwing knives and 3 chakrams and and a couple shortswords, or my three pairs of expensive boots, or my entire set of snakeskin clothing that I was saving for cross dressing day. It hardly is -just- a dagger. I've been killed by other pcs for the stupidest reasons you could think of, also.

Once your pc is identified as a thief/raider/assassin, your social life is dead because even those non-twinky, super Rp'ers, take that information from the twinky Rp'ers and abuse it (or what have you.)

A soldier PC identifies you, despite how dressed up you got, and the PC templar uses that information to harass/kill/outcast you. It has always appeared that way to me. I've never heard of a templar going "Yea, like there isn't fifty thousand scrawny people with scars all over the place and makes a bynner blush with how much they say fuck. Catch him next time soldier, it isn't my job to do it for you. If he got away, he got away. I'm not wasting an hour of my time to catch a pick-pocket that stole from a tier 1 borsail noble's aide."

Have you ever heard of those?

I like the new direction the mud has gone since everyone doesn't wear a mask and sit in a tavern talking to their friends without ever removing those facewraps, hoods, hats, and whatever else they had.

Don't piss in your own nest.  Don't socialize in the same places your victims socialize, then you don't have to worry about them recognising you.  


Angela Christine

SO live in Tuluk, steal in allanak, then go back to Tuluk?

Probably not, that would be a little much for a petty pickpocket.  But a pickpocket might live in the 'rinth, socialize in 'rinthi taverns, and work in the commoner's quarter or the merchant's quarter.  A higher class criminal, like a skilled assassin, burglar or spy, might work in Allanak but live in Red Storm when they want to kick back and relax.

Nobody said a life of crime would be easy.  Hunters don't complain that they have to travel to hunt.  Raiders don't complain that they have to travel to raid.  Miners don't complain that they have to travel to raid.  You can't just wait for opportunity to come to you.  Unless you have some dull gate-guarding job you are probably going to have to travel a little for work, that travel might be moving between neighbourhoods to buy and sell goods, or moving between cities to avoid angry mobs.


Ideally people would be able to work and live in neighbourhoods in a single hometown, but that probably isn't going to be practical unless/untill there are hundreds of people logged in at a time.  Most people that hang out in the Trader's Inn won't go into the Gaj, and vice versa, but there is still more social movment within Allanak than you would expect in a real city.  


Angela Christine

I, personally, would hate if everyone's description was forced to conform to the exact same template as everyone else. It would make for rather boring reading

QuoteCan't stand the number of people that constntly try to run from you, it's like everyone even non-elves are world-class sprinters.

I think just about everyone would at least try to bolt if they were faced with a situation like this. I've never seen a fat kid just stand there and wait for the bullies to get him because he's not a world class sprinter.

Yes it's a constant debate. Crime vs Law. I don't think we should get into it here.