Continuity with emoting

[axismundi]

No chance on a smarter emoting code that will change verb tenses to reflect the shift in continuity by replacing the sdesc at the beginning of an emote with the subjective "you"?  

That would be most awesome.  

Maybe even with a neat slashy in there, like grabs/grab and so on.[/quote]

Edited to add:  Well, the slashy thing is inane, but if you think about it, all Zalanthan emotes start with some sort of verb.  Emotes are usually (always?) in the present tense, in which verbs almost always end with the letter 's'.  There are verbs that also end with 'es' that follow basic rules.  Usage of linking verbs could be a simple swap of 'is' and 'are'.  Could a filter detect and drop an 's' or 'es' when displaying the character echo?

[Lizzie]

Well since you're the one typing the emote, you can make it whatever tense you wish. But since this is a simulation of "live action" one would think the present tense would suffice since everything is happening on the spot.

If you did:

The girl went off to the other room.

People standing there watching would wonder - if she -went- that means she was already gone - so how come I'm watching her leave -now-?

If you did:

The girl will go off to the other room.

Those same people will wonder why they think she is about to do that, if she's still standing there?

If you did:

The girl would have gone off to the other room.

Those folks will think, "How do we know that was her intention, since she's still here?"

If you did:

The girl might to off to the other room.

They'll think "that's something she's considering - which means it isn't an action, which means we're not supposed to know it. Do we just chalk it up to a MUSHer who doesn't understand emoting in this game and pretend we didn't see it, or do we assume it's a mindbender forcing us to know what she's thinking? Hmmmm....."

But:

The girl goes off to the other room.

Is clear, concise, in the moment, no room for ambiguity, and exactly what is happening right this moment.

Did you mean something else by your post? Because, the verbs within those emotes aren't hard coded in the game, it's the player who's typing them on the fly.

[Maso]

I think the OP meant to might be nice to have:

You see:

You pop a flower into you hair.

They see:

The girl pops a flower into her hair.

[GoodwinX]

Did you mean something else by your post? Because, the verbs within those emotes aren't hard coded in the game, it's the player who's typing them on the fly.

The OP meant verb conjugation due to grammatical person, not verb tense.

Edited to add: Emotes don't always start with a verb, by the way. I sometimes start mine with an adverb.

[Morgenes]

This is something that you might expect from another version of Armageddon, but likely will not appear in Armageddon 1.0.

[axismundi]

Did you mean something else by your post? Because, the verbs within those emotes aren't hard coded in the game, it's the player who's typing them on the fly.

The OP meant verb conjugation due to grammatical person, not verb tense.

Edited to add: Emotes don't always start with a verb, by the way. I sometimes start mine with an adverb.

Yeah, verb conjugation, not tense.  It would remain in the present tense.  Been awhile since I took an English course.  Anywho, interesting to start an emote with an adverb, I don't know if I've ever seen that.

Sorry for the confusion, Lizzie.

[Lizzie]

Oh! Okay. Well then never mind my previous post, and here's a new response:

You can use emotes in all different ways. I try to break them up here and there just so it isn't a wall of:

The girl does this.
The girl does that.
The girl does some more of this, doing that.
The girl changes and does some more of that instead, doing this.

You can do:

Doing this, the girl does that.
Doing that, the girl does this.
With a dash of pepper and churlish grin, the girl does that.
After awhile of mudsexing, the girl stops and goes to sleep.

If you have time, energy, and happen to think of it at the moment, you can even do this:

Several halflings sneak up to the blue-haired NPC. One of them, a little fellow with a brilliantly blue dyed fade, winks at the girl. Fluttering her silk-clad fingertips up to her lips, the girl suppresses a snicker as the anklebiters aim daggers at the NPC's skull.

with the code:

Code Select Expand

emote blah blah ~npc. Blah blah blah @. Blah blah, ~me blah blah blah %npc skull.

[GoodwinX]

Anywho, interesting to start an emote with an adverb, I don't know if I've ever seen that.

Really? I'm surprised you've never seen anything like:

Code Select Expand

> emote slowly lifts his sword.

You can use emotes in all different ways...

What he meant by what "starts" an emote is what comes directly after your sdesc, which in all of your examples except the last one is a verb. That being said, I'm a big fan of periods in the middle of emotes and I'd like to see them more. Obviously, that's a style issue and not a code issue.

[Gimfalisette]

Code Select Expand

emote Lazily, @ stretches ^me arms above ^me head

emote With a blatant sneer, @ stares at ~man

emote As ^me head bursts into flames, @ runs off, screaming

emote While executing an agile turn on the dance floor, @ sneaks a quick peek at %man bootay

emote easily lopes along through the room

emote wildly rolls ^me eyes at %idiot comment

pemote face nearly falls off at %man words

pemote After the punch, a few of @ teeth go flying through the air

Just thought I'd pop in with nothing but examples and no theory at all. I'm feeling blithe today.

[James de Monet]

Oh!  I left and came back because I forgot what it was that I thought I needed.  It would be nice to have conjugatory ability in instances of referencing the actions of others, e.g.

Code Select Expand


As ~nondescript wring\s ^nondescript hands, @ shake/s ^me head sadly.

You would see:
As the nondescript woman wrings her hands, you shake your head sadly.

(note you sub for sdesc)


The nondescript woman would see:
As you wring your hands, the unremarkable man shakes his head sadly.


The room would see:
As the nondescript woman wrings her hands, the unremarkable man shakes his head sadly.


Of course, the code would have to be smart enough to pull the target's keyword out of the emote.  Might get convoluted.

Editted because it's late and I can't think when Jose Cuervo keeps talking.

[Maso]

Oh!  I left and came back because I forgot what it was that I thought I needed.  It would be nice to have conjugatory ability in instances of referencing the actions of others, e.g.

Code Select Expand


As ~nondescript wring\s ^nondescript hands, @ shake/s ^me head sadly.

You would see:
As the nondescript woman wrings her hands, you shake your head sadly.

(note you sub for sdesc)


The nondescript woman would see:
As you wring your hands, the unremarkable man shakes his head sadly.


The room would see:
As the nondescript woman wrings her hands, the unremarkable man shakes his head sadly.


Of course, the code would have to be smart enough to pull the target's keyword out of the emote.  Might get convoluted.

Editted because it's late and I can't think when Jose Cuervo keeps talking.

Now thats the good stuff right there.

[Domino]

There is some really neat stuff involving perspective (you can change it to first, second, or third) and auto-adjusting emote echos depending on how you are viewing the world. I believe Morgenes is the one that's been working on this, and lot of ideas in this thread are already there. I've been playing around with it in 2.0 alpha-land, and I haven't been able to break it yet.

It's awesome.

[Stroker]

and I haven't been able to break it yet.

Weakling. I can break anything - a pencil, someone's arm, your will to live, etc.

[axismundi]

There's some good replies in here, thank you.  Even some things I didn't know you could do (like @, I wasn't aware armageddon had the repositioning character).  I'm also glad to hear that Morgenes is working on making the emote code even better.  Sweet.

- Axis

[a strange shadow]

The emote helpfiles are a bit dated and scattered, it's easy to miss something.

Here they are in their wordy glory.

Emote     (Communication)

An emote is an in-character expression of motion, or actions taken by your character. The emote command is used to express your character's actions to everyone in the room. Everyone will see your emote, whether or not they can actively see you.

You can use a special syntax for refering to other characters and objects in your emote. See 'help emoting' for the details, and for some examples, see 'help emote examples'.

Syntax:
   emote <message>

   Example:
   > emote waves to ~azroen
   What Azroen sees: Jhalavar waves to you.
   What everyone else sees: Jhalavar waves to Azroen.

   Notes:
   You can also use @ or "me" to place your short description arbitrarily
   within the emote. If you leave out the @, your character's sdesc will
   appear at the beginning of the emote, as normal.

   You can use ":" in place of the actual word "emote" to do an emote.

   You can use emotes with some actions, such as 'stand,' 'sit,' 'look,'
   'talk,' 'sing,' etcetera, as well as with movements, such as 'north
   (limping heavily).' For more information on this, see 'help command emotes'

Emote Examples     (Communication)

The following examples assume that you are playing the lean man, and that the other characters mentioned are in the same location as your PC. Note that you can refer to hard-coded objects (such as buildings, statues, and so on) in the same location as your character.

Example 1:

> emote clutches his head in pain.

What is seen by everyone:

The lean man clutches his head in pain.

Example 2:

> emote leads ~kank carefully around ~statue.

What is seen by everyone:

The lean man leads a yellow kank carefully around the tall stone statue.

Example 3:

> emote reaches out and shakes %blonde hand.

What is seen by the blonde man:

The lean man reaches out and shakes your hand.

What is seen by everyone else:

The lean man reaches out and shakes the blonde man's hand.

Example 4:

> emote laughs evilly at ~red while pulling ^red hair.

What is seen by the red-haired woman:

The lean man laughs evilly at you while pulling your hair.

What is seen by everyone else:

The lean man laughs evilly at the red-haired woman while pulling her hair.

Example 5:

> emote looks down at ~red, and smiles at !red.

What is seen by the red-haired woman:

The lean man looks down at you, and smiles at you.

What is seen by everyone else:

The lean man looks down at the red-haired woman, and smiles at her.

Note:
   You can also use @ or "me" to place your short description arbitrarily
   within the emote. If you leave out the @, your character's sdesc will
   appear at the beginning of the emote, as normal.

Example 6:

> emote His face breaking into a wide grin, @ turns to face ~blonde.

What is seen by everyone:

His face breaking into a wide grin, the lean man turns to face the blonde man.

Example 7:

> emote smiles, turning the mirror to face me.

What everyone sees:

The lean man smiles, turning the mirror to face the lean man. (This is currently a 'feature' of the code. Of course, a better emote

in this case would be "emote smiles, turning the mirror to face

himself.")

Emoting is something that takes practice to master, but there are a few things that new players should be made aware of. Here are some examples of bad emotes (i.e., what not to do):

Bad Example 1:

> emote shakes his head as he remembers the foolish way he took his pants off as a youth.

What is seen by everyone else:

The withered, balding man shakes his head as he remembers the foolish way he took his pants off as a youth.

(While emoted correctly, onlookers have no way of knowing what is going through another character's mind.)

Bad Example 2:

> emote wonders if you would sell him some water.

What is seen by everyone else:

The tattoed elf wonders if you would sell him some water.

(Again, emoted correctly, but this is information that should be conveyed through say or tell, or mimed out.)

Bad Example 3:

> emote looks down at ~blonde's hands.

What is seen by everyone else:

The lean man looks down at the blonde man's hands.

(OK so far, but ...)

What is seen by the blonde man:

The lean man looks down at you's hands.

(The % option should have been used here.)

Bad Example 4:

> emote looks up at ^red head.

What is seen by the red-haired woman:

The lean man looks up at your head.

(OK so far, but ...)

What is seen by everyone else:

The lean man looks up at her head.

(The % option should have been used here, as everyone else in the room has no reference to the red-haired woman's sdesc otherwise.)

Note:
   It is very bad role-playing etiquette to virtually force another PC, or
   an NPC, to do something by including them in an emote inappropriately.

Bad Example 5:

> emote laughs, watching ~blonde die horribly.

What is seen by the blonde man:

The lean man laughs, watching you die horribly.

What is seen by everyone else:

The lean man laughs, watching the blonde man die horribly.

Problem:

The blonde man is alive, and you may not have the authority to adjudge

that he has died.

Bad Example 6:

> emote cheers as ~building falls down.

What is seen by everyone:

The lean man cheers as the solid, red-brick building falls down.

Problem:

Unless your character has the IC authority to say so, the building is still standing.

Bad Example 7:

> emote laughs as ~red falls out of ^red seat, looking really ridiculous.

What is seen by the red-haired woman:

The lean man laughs as you falls out of your seat, looking really ridiculous.

What is seen by everyone else:

The lean man laughs as the red-haired woman falls out of her seat, looking really ridiculous.

Problem 1:

As you will have noticed, the grammar is incorrect for what the red- haired woman sees. Alas, this cannot be helped; in general, try to make the emote grammatically correct for what most people will see.

Problem 2:

The red-haired woman may be perfectly stable in her seat, and you may not have the authority to adjudge that she has fallen out of it.

Notes:
   Do not emote things that would not be visible, such as "emote looks
   sad because his mother died yesterday." It would be acceptable, however
   to do "emote looks sad." Some inclusion of intent may be appropriate,
   such as "emote smiles deviously." or "emote looks at the fruit
   greedily." but you should be careful about how far you take this.

   Be careful and sensible about what you have NPCs doing in your emotes.
   If you are playing an elven vagabond, an NPC templar would hardly bow
   and scrape to your character, for example.

Possessive Emote     (Communication)

This command is very similar to emote, except that it is used for possessive sentences. It will display your character's short description (sdesc) followed by a "'s" and then your message. It is used to express visible feelings, make gestures, or create visual images.

Pemote supports a small language which allows you to refer more effectively to other characters. See 'help emoting' for more details on using the language.

You can also use @ to place your short description arbitrarily within the emote.

Syntax:
   pemote <message>

   Examples:
   > pemote wound bleeds profusely.
   What everyone sees: Jhalavar's wound bleeds profusely.

   > pemote mirthless laugh taunts ~azroen.
   What is seen by Azroen: Jhalavar's mirthless laugh taunts you.
   What is seen by everyone else:
   Jhalavar's mirthless laugh taunts Azroen the Emerald-eyed Elf.

   > pemote His face breaking into a wide grin, @ eyes glint.
   What is seen: His face breaking into a wide grin, Jhalavar's eyes glint.

   Notes:
   Use the keyword command to make sure you are targeting the right person
   or object.

Command Emotes     (General)

Several commands allow you to provide an additional emote to the output of the command.

Syntax:
   <command> (pre-emote) <arguments> [post-emote]

   Example:
   > sit -nodding with dwarf (his eyes glancing towards ~elf)
   Nodding, you sit at a long table, his eyes glancing towards the elf.

   Both the pre-emote and post-emote are optional.

   Multiple options exist for specifying a command emote. A one-word
   emote, like "nodding", can be specified with a preceding dash, like
   -nodding. More complex emotes can be enclosed in parantheses (),
   square brackets [], or asterisks **.

   You can specify command emotes anywhere in the arguments to a command.
   If you include parenthesis () and square brackets in the same command,
   the parenthesis will always be considered pre-emote and square brackets
   the post-emote, regardless of where they appear in the arguments.

   Examples:

   > say -gruffly Got any spice?
   Gruffly, you ask, in sirihish, 'Got any spice?"

   > say [in a low voice] You got any spice?
   In a low voice, you ask, in sirihish: 'You got any spice?'

   > north *limping heavily*

   > look elf (with contempt)
   With contempt, you look at the elf.

   > look elf [with contempt]
   You look at the elf, with contempt.

   > look elf with contempt
   You look at the elf.

The following commands allow both pre and post emotes:

   arrange    drink    drop    eat
   ep    es    etwo    flee
   get    give    hitch    hold
   junk    look    pack    palm
   remove    rest    rs    rp
   rtwo    sip    sit    sleep
   slip    stand    taste    unhitch
   unpack    wake

The following commands allow only pre emotes:

   say    shout    sing    talk
   tell    whisper

The following commands allow only post emotes:

   down    east    north    south
   up    west

Note:
   The movement commands do not allow you to include references to other
   objects and players with the ~ syntax.

   Use the keyword command to make sure you have the right target.

Keyword     (General)

Keywords are how you refer to objects and characters in the game. Generally any word in the short description of an object or character should be a valid keyword, with the exception of 'a', 'an' or 'the'.

The 'keyword' command allows you to check what characters and objects in your current room have the specified keyword. You can use this to make sure you target the correct one in your emotes.

You can also use the keyword command to check the keywords in a container that you are holding (either in inventory or equipment) or in the room.

Syntax:
   keyword <keyword>
   keyword <keyword> <container>

   Examples:
   > keyword fruit
   In Inventory:
   1.fruit - a honey glazed horta fruit
   In the room:
   2.fruit - a rotten kalan fruit

   > keyword fruit knapsack
   In a canvas knapsack:
   1.fruit - a handful of dried fruit

   Notes:
   The order of output shows exactly how characters and objects are
   checked in the emote-like commands. You should be able to use the output
   of this command to help direct your emotes.

   When checking the keywords in a container, it might be smart to use the
   keyword command first to make sure you're referring to the right container.

   If you just want a count of how many of a particular keyword are in
   a container, use the 'count' command.

[flurry]

There is some really neat stuff involving perspective (you can change it to first, second, or third) and auto-adjusting emote echos depending on how you are viewing the world. I believe Morgenes is the one that's been working on this, and lot of ideas in this thread are already there. I've been playing around with it in 2.0 alpha-land, and I haven't been able to break it yet.

It's awesome.

That sounds really cool.  Right now we get a mix of second and third, so this would be great.

[brytta.leofa]

There is some really neat stuff involving perspective (you can change it to first, second, or third) and auto-adjusting emote echos depending on how you are viewing the world. I believe Morgenes is the one that's been working on this, and lot of ideas in this thread are already there. I've been playing around with it in 2.0 alpha-land, and I haven't been able to break it yet.

Ooooh! Now make it switchable from past tense to present tense.  And add a log feature to the player web portal, such that you can extract dekruftified logs from your characters' play in whatever person and tense you want (magickally generated from the server's omniscient data store).

The tall, muscular man frowned, taking a slow sip from the scarred, keg-like dwarf.
Bursting suddenly through the swinging doors, the lean, one-armed half-gortok entered from the north.
Resting a hand on the hilt of a tall, potted knife-plant, the lean, one-armed half-gortok growled, in western-accented dogahish: "I'm lookin' for the man that shot my paw!"

Yeahiknow, the bar keeps rising and rising and... ;-)