Developer Request: Quality of Life improvements to the game

[nessalin]

Open request for quality of life improvements to the game.

Primarily looking for suggestions in the following areas:

• Syntax improvements.
• Feedback from success/failure messages on commands that would be more informative or provide more context to the reason for the success/failure.  Such as changing, "You cannot lift that.", to, "You cannot life the dead body of the read-haired plumber."
• Added arguments to existing commands to better specify player intent on how they are trying to use the command.
• Reduction in typing, such as how some commands will auto-remove your gear before moving on to the next step, rather than giving an error of, "You must remove that first."

Please keep the thread on topic and be civil with one another.

Please do not attack suggestions posted by others.

[triste]

The ability to set a long desc while seated, resting or crafting, OR an echo stating that you cannot set ldesc in one of those states. I would prefer the first but if it is not possible the second would be nice as a few times I have seen people post "It took me 3 years to realize set ldesc doesn't work while you are sitting," etc.

[Wedi]

Can you fix it so that when you use a command like rescue/charge/trample/bash etc on a target that is not present, or does not fit meet the requirements of the skill to be used on them, there is no lag.

If I rescue someone that is not fighting right now, I still suffer the lag from the rescue skill as if I had attempted it.

[DesertT]

I'd like for the KICK echo to be less specific.  If I want to emote knee'ing somebody instead of actually doing a round house to the face....

[Hauwke]

The ability to set a long desc while seated, resting or crafting, OR an echo stating that you cannot set ldesc in one of those states. I would prefer the first but if it is not possible the second would be nice as a few times I have seen people post "It took me 3 years to realize set ldesc doesn't work while you are sitting," etc.

Hiding also.

[mansa]

Some of these are duplicates, but I'd just add them here:

***

Change the quit message, "But you are too excited to leave just yet!"
Option:
Change it to -> "You can't leave so soon after you were recently in combat.  Please wait a couple minutes."   or "You are too excited from your recent combat and need a couple minutes to settle down before you leave."  or something more polished than that.

***

Change "You're now wanted!"
option a:  Someone heard or saw that illegal thing you just did, and you're now WANTED by local authorities!
option b:  specify exactly what action was done to become wanted:
"You got caught STEALING, you are now Wanted!"
"You engaged in COMBAT, you are now Wanted!"

***

Please change the frown echo.  Sometimes you want a quick canned social.   I don't even know if it echoes properly to the room because it's something like 'What's bothering you?'   That echo, that's what's bothering me.


***

I think it would be interesting if we had the option to change some of the emote symbols to /other/ keys on the keyboard.

This might make things easier for people with international keyboards or people using phones.

example:
I want to be able to do this:
remap ~ to 7

and then

emote waves to 7man

***

I'd like to have syntax take into account the word "in" when typing commands into the game.

>put sword in bag
>pilot wagon in argosy
>place dagger in table

This could be expanded for more "english like" commands, like 'from', 'in', 'on', etc.

>get sword from bag
>take dagger from table

[Saiseiki]

The ability to set a long desc while seated, resting or crafting, OR an echo stating that you cannot set ldesc in one of those states. I would prefer the first but if it is not possible the second would be nice as a few times I have seen people post "It took me 3 years to realize set ldesc doesn't work while you are sitting," etc.

Hiding also.

+1 
I was one of those ignorant souls who thought I was setting a ldesc, and probably confused some folks while rp'ing around it.  Yikes! =)

[Brytta Léofa]

Allow us to say things to an unconscious PC/NPC. It's very flavorful.

Currently:

Code Select Expand

> tell amos You just had to keep pushin'!
Don't bother, he's sleeping.

Desired:

Code Select Expand

> tell amos You just had to keep pushin'!
(The tall, muscular man is not awake.)
You exclaim to the tall, muscular man, in sirihish,
  "You just had to keep pushin'!"

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

The ability to set a long desc while seated, resting or crafting, OR an echo stating that you cannot set ldesc in one of those states. I would prefer the first but if it is not possible the second would be nice as a few times I have seen people post "It took me 3 years to realize set ldesc doesn't work while you are sitting," etc.

Hiding also.

+1 
I was one of those ignorant souls who thought I was setting a ldesc, and probably confused some folks while rp'ing around it.  Yikes! =)

We can keep the idea that the thing you're sitting on is important by requiring you to include it in the ldesc.

>change ldesc sits here lazily at the bar
You are sitting on a grey stool at a black bar. You must include a black bar in your ldesc by using ~.

>change ldesc sits here lazily at ~bar
You are sitting on a grey stool at a black bar. You must include a black bar in your ldesc by using ~. A green ear bar is not a black bar.

>change ldesc sits here lazily at ~2.bar
Your new ldesc: the test PC sits lazily at a black bar

[mansa]

Is there anyway to include "look corpse's wounds" into an easier syntax?

Perhaps just automatically include it when you type 'look corpse" ?
Or maybe have a line item say "To view the corpse's wounds, type "look corpse's wounds" appended to the bottom of the corpse description?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Allow us to say things to an unconscious PC/NPC. It's very flavorful.

Currently:

Code Select Expand

> tell amos You just had to keep pushin'!
Don't bother, he's sleeping.

Desired:

Code Select Expand

> tell amos You just had to keep pushin'!
(The tall, muscular man is not awake.)
You exclaim to the tall, muscular man, in sirihish,
  "You just had to keep pushin'!"

Yes, except ...

Desired:

Code Select Expand

> tell amos You just had to keep pushin'!
(The tall, muscular man is not awake.)
You exclaim to the [i]unconscious[/i] tall, muscular man, in sirihish,
  "You just had to keep pushin'!"

Someone says something to you, but you are unconscious.


[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'd like for the KICK echo to be less specific.  If I want to emote knee'ing somebody instead of actually doing a round house to the face....

Yes. Normally, I'd just want kick to say, "You kick target" or "Your kick misses target" or "Your kick bounces off of ARMOR", etc.
I'd like to be able to add emotes to it.

>kick (lifting his boot and stomping)
Lifting his boot and stomping, your kick misses a grey mul.
Lifting his boot and stomping, your kick doubles a grey mul over in pain.
Lifting his boot and stomping, your kick is deflected by a silt-horror helm.

[Fernandezj]

The ability to set a long desc while seated, resting or crafting, OR an echo stating that you cannot set ldesc in one of those states. I would prefer the first but if it is not possible the second would be nice as a few times I have seen people post "It took me 3 years to realize set ldesc doesn't work while you are sitting," etc.

I have changed ldesc while sitting, resting and crafting and it changes it. Unless what it tells me my ldesc is, is not accurate. I.e. if I do change ldesc and then check my ldesc in score, it shows what I changed it to. If this is just lying to me, then yeah that should also be fixed!

[Fernandezj]

I don't know how to properly articulate this QoL but it has to do with crafting.

I have issues sometimes doing:
craft 2.item into whatever
(You can't find it!)

Or it initiates crafting, but then at the success/fail, I get the you can't find it.

[creeper386]

Lots of great responses! Love the kick emote.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Attempts at spam reduction.

put all.boots bag
You put five pairs of newbie boots into the brown bag.

Moving stuff around is so mind boggling spammy I never want to do it with other PCs around. Really anything to help reduce repeated spam messages like that would be great.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crafting seems to have come a LONG way since I last used it or I'm just really behind the times. But I'd still like something that would help me know what my character knows. I know a "here is all the things you can craft" isn't feasible for a variety of reasons, but some idea of what I could make given an item even if I am missing ingredients would be nice. Even if it's on just stuff that's easy for your character. Right now it seems crafting knowledge is very meta-gaming.

craft stone
You could make a smaller stone from that.
You think you could make a bone shafted hatchet if you had other material.

This would provide some direction, at least. Best idea I can think of. Maybe have to introduce a new flag, or skill cap to it so uber sekret vorpal swords don't appear here.

[creeper386]

Was going to edit with additional thought on another spam reduction idea, but concerned with someone missing it after reading my post already. So here's some spam.


ep knife from nightstand
The tall, well-preportioned man brandishes the stabby knife from the wood nightstand.
or
wear shirt from bed
blah blah blah, get the idea I hope.


Give it a longer delay. But one command, one output. Could extend to wear and such. Allow for things like grabbing stuff off shelves or laying out clothes on the bed. Without extra lines being sent.

[Fernandezj]

I love the spam reduction idea. On that, if there was a way to hide junking to the room unless maybe you emote attach to it.

Another crafting QoL: analyze doesn't do what the helpfile says, don't know if this is a bug or not. If its a bug, I can try to just request it, but it seems a mixture of the skill not working as intended, out of date helpfile (like many many others).

Next: lots of items have duplicate crafting recipes (adding alot of spam, and confusion). I.e. a certain item displays literally just duplicate prompts (usually at least 2). Some items create the same thing, but the "craft recipe" imply different.

[Fernandezj]

> Sneaking/hiding NPCs can be very confusing to newer people using scan. I interacted with one thinking it was something magical because the shadow code is not intuitive. Perhaps an updated sdesc to clarify this... "A whatever shadow is hiding here." Kinda vanilla, but I'm not an idea guy.

[Fernandezj]

Similar to reduction in commands. With crafting you can currently use things not in your inventory, if they are in the room. I'd like to see this expanded to boxes, crates, chests, etc.

Like... craft stone chest into whatever (gets the stone from the chest).

[creeper386]

Another crafting suggesing.

Sometimes when I do craft <material> it says I can make something but when I do craft <material> into <keyword>, keyword being taken by things in the list from the craft command and it says no recipes matched. The list of things I can craft doesn't actually accurately tell you what you are making. Unsure why the mismatch is but it's confusing. I don't know if this is a bug that should be reported or how the craft command jumbles things up to provide something that's not accurate.


Adding to craft items, itd be nice of some items like skins, not to have the same sdesc if they are tanned or not. Know it's not really a code thing as a builder thing so maybe this is the wrong place.

[Brytta Léofa]

An improvement to room capacity calculation. If I recall from what staff have said, rooms can/do have a hard limit put on the total weight they can contain.

Based on behavior, I think that check is currently:
- add up the weights of all objects in the room, including container contents.
- if total >= max: No, Amos, you can't drop that or put that in your locker.

The problem here is that dropping a large bag of stuff prevents people from using their lockers. It would be better if lockers remained usable and you couldn't drop the bag o' stuff in the first place.

My proposed solution: instead of summing the weights of all objects, sum the weights of all objects on the floor and the capacities of all top-level containers (lockers, chests, shelves, bags, etc., but not containers inside containers). This number should never be smaller than the current calculation, and it ensures that those containers can be used to their full capacity.

For bonus points:
- handle flexible containers (anything with keyword "bag"?) as though their contents are on the floor.
- do a single pass through the room db and update each room's capacity to be no smaller than the new calculation, so you don't get the dreaded picked-it-up-but-can't-put-down behavior.

[LindseyBalboa]

... if lockers/trunks/chests/bags/containers could have their own volume instead of for some weird reason sharing the room's volume, I would be sooooo happy.

Like, so happy.

Having to somehow explain that you dropped a bag of stuff so nobody can use the chests in the room is the most jarring thing that makes no sense in any way you explain it.

[Brytta Léofa]

When a container is not empty, offer it to a shopkeeper to see what they'll buy.

Code Select Expand

> offer bag shopkeeper
A tall, muscular shopkeeper looks through the contents of your large bag.
A tall, muscular shopkeeper says, in sirihish,
  "Yeah, I could take [some/all] of that. I'll give you 123 sid."
> barter
A tall, muscular shopkeeper gives you 123 coins in trade for:
- a slab of meat (5)
- the disembodied head of the tall, muscular man (3)
- a rack of ribs


Actually a pretty big QOL improvement versus moving things around piece by piece only to find that Joe doesn't want any of them.

[Brytta Léofa]

Code Select Expand

barter undo

[Fernandezj]

Any sort of stacked, common, one-two actions would be great.

I.e.
instead of:

Code Select Expand

get a
>You get a.
put a b.
>You put a in b.

You could do:

Code Select Expand

get a into b
>You get a and put it in b.