Hemote

[JollyGreenGiant]

In brief:
Command: hemote
Effects: Works like an emote, but only those who can see you, see the emote.

After reading the posts on emoting while hidden, I suddenly realized that there are a couple of very important scenarios being overlooked, here.  Hopefully without giving anything away...

There are times when you and another player might very well not be visible to the casual observer, but you are to each other.  You want to be able to interact with the other person via normal emotes, but anyone else in the room is going to get a barrage of "someone" emotes.  You can't take care of it with changing ldescs unless you spam look every 2 seconds, and thinks won't do much in 99% of the cases either.

This type of thing may not come up on a daily basis, but it does come up, and it would definitely create a very jarring and strange scene in the room, one that I can see being very difficult for anyone besides the two hidden people (and anyone that can see them) to play out.  If for no other reason, I think it necessitates an hemote.

It also solves all of the "emoting while hidden" argumentation.  Ok, not all.  A good portion of.  But it has other uses, even above and beyond that.  

Imagine this - Guard (who has a high scan) is doing his thing, guarding Noble, who is waiting for a something from Spy.  Noble is occupied with other business, say, in Tavern.  Spy sneaks in, emote taps on Guard's shoulder, emote slips his hand into Guard's pocket, and plants Object.  Guard then leans over and whispers in Noble's ear.

Without hemote, the room gets the rather annoying message, "Someone taps Guard on the shoulder.  Someone discretely slips his hand into Guard's pocket."  Yuck.  With hemote, only Guard, and anyone else who noticed the shadow in the room, see what happened.  Cool for those who should be able to see what was going on.  Cool for those who should not.  Maybe not a perfect example of why it'd be fabulous to have the command, but I think it illustrates the point.

And now, a poll.

[Lazloth]

semote!

[JollyGreenGiant]

Oh, and for those who worry about it being difficult to code, it'd probably be a copy and paste job for the most part.  Currently, if you emote while hidden, those that can see you, see you do the emote with whatever sdesc they have on you.  Those who can't see you, see "someone".  All you really have to do is copy that functionality, and then instead of replacing an sdesc with "someone", just suppress the output entirely.  Leave the rest as is.

[Lazloth]

It's marginally more tricky, the way I envision it, but certainly not difficult to implement.  You'd need a hash or list for people succeeding the 'check' to witness the emote, as well as anyone included in the string (presumably).  There's no reason to copy/paste, just an ancillary for loop and flag that the emote is 'hidden'/'silent'/targetted.

[Rindan]

I personally like it.  While I do rail on people who feel the desire to emote out whatever sneaky thing they are doing, I rail on them because I don't want to see the information.  I do however understand the desire to try and explain one's self if for no other reason then personal satisfaction.  I would have liked to of had this ability when I have played sneaky characters.  I would leave it so that people can still hidden emote with a normal emote and get the 'someone' effect.  There are times when the someone effect is needed and it would be a shame to loose it, though I don't think that is what you were proposing.

I suggest making it so that such an hemote does not look any different to the emoter from a normal emote.  In other words, regardless if the emoter is hidden or not, the hemote echo should look the same as a normal emote echo.  

There are only two thing I would add.  First, I would also include a phemote that would be the hidden emote equivalent of pemote.  Second, I would make sure to put in the help file for the hidden emotes that hidden emotes really are for subtle actions that are not going to be noticed.  While hidden in a busy tavern, it probably would not be appropriate to 'hemote draws his six foot tall claymore and begins to stalk stealthily towards ~noble'.

Yes, there is some room for abuse.  People could hemote thing that really should be visible, but I could emote things that are completely unrealistic.  Using the emote command I imagine I could fool most people into thinking my pick pocket is a delfier.  Whatever minor abuse that would occur would be well worth it for the increased ability to express one's self when hidden and for what I would assume would lead to the end of hidden emotes passing on OOC information.

[Ueda]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9...ect

I'm trying to count the number of times I could of used this!

[Tamarin]

I can't see a reason to -not- have this....

[spawnloser]

Nope...neither can I...except for coding effort.  I don't know how much that would come to and if it is worth it in that respect.

[sacac]

Personally.. I don't like the idea of semote.. because.. it is a lot of work for something that has a chance of not changing anything.. Ueda.. if you want to not be seen.. then don't emote things that don't affect the room..
If you want to be seen as something else.. just pemote it.. like a flicker of a flame revealing Someone's figure. Easy to ignore.. If you ask me..
Don't use emote to emote.. use pemote..