Shattered Kingdoms

I've been doing some searching, and I've seen a few threads devoted to this subject, but there has never been any resolution and I wondered if there was a reason for that?

I'm not a coder. I don't know how difficult it would be to code any of this. I can understand completely if it's too much of a hassle, but with the direction you guys seem to be taking and the quality of roleplay I've witnessed thus far, I think it would make sense to give the players some more tools to further expand their roleplay.

So, here goes... For each of the below A) represents the command, B) represents the target's view and C) represents the view of all others in the room.

1.) Targetted emotes.

A) emote smiles at #rotund warmly, raking her gaze over &rotund belongings.

B) Jane smiles at you warmly, raking her gaze over your belongings.

C) Jane smiles at John (or rotund if not greeted) warmly, raking her gaze over his belongings.

2.) Emoted says.

A) sayto Jane (with a slight frown) I don't know what you're talking about!

B) John exclaims to you, with a slight frown, I don't know what you're talking about!

C) John exclaims to a freckled female human, with a slight frown, I don't know what you're talking about!

I understand that not everyone is going to care enough to use these commands. There are some people here who probably prefer the leveling/pking aspect more than the roleplaying aspect. But it would be great for those of us who are.

I've found in the past that mudding can be so much more immersive when your character is targetted in second person. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this, but more importantly, someone who can actually make these kinds of changes happen. (IE - The Coder Gods whom we love above all others!!)

I don't like number two. It'll cut down on already scarce emotes.

Sometimes I think people only use emotes with me because of shame.

I use stuff more along the lines of 1

You're right, there have been a few threads dedicated to this idea, but I think it's too much of a hassle to create said emotes. It's much easier and immersive, in my opinion, to refer to players by their race/adjective in emotes, rather than worrying about using names. (It also helps in remembering what someone's adjective is, because once I greet someone I forget their adjective 3/4 of the time)

There's been threads in the past with stuff like this. I'm a huge fan of the first one, and not as huge of the second. I say we get this, as well as some of the action features that were discussed before.

*pokes Dulrik*

What do you think, oh great coder?

sleeper

At the risk of sounding corny, I am so glad to see people who are rather new to playing take such a great and devoted interest into roleplay so quickly. In my experience, that is rather rare nowadays.

Ashokia makes a really good point. Granted I recently come back from a short break from SK, so I wouldn't recall anyone posting anything similar to this in the forums, but I myself have always wondered about such an idea. I never bothered to mention anything for similar reasons. Coding. I use emotes constantly when I interact with other players and was so happy when pemotes came about.

I must admit I thoroughly like both of your ideas and could forsee myself using them throughout the game in the future. However, I think you might be right when you say that coding something like this might be a bit.....indepth or complicated. I could be wrong, as I do not know how to code either.

As I've said before, I come from a past of two roleplay intensive muds. I was a bit surprised to find SK didn't have a lot of the roleplay tools I am used to because it seems with a little tweaking you guys could appeal a lot more to the hardcore roleplayers out there.

That's not to say I want the mud to become overrun with people who think three sentence emotes are cool. (They really aren't people.) But there is a select crowd of us out there who really enjoy the balance of good, solid roleplay with the element of danger brought in with PK.

One of the reasons I quickly gave up on Armageddon was because it was BORING. Everyone just sat in a tavern all day trying to out-emote each other because with the perma death, people were really afraid to PK.

One of the reasons I left my first mud was because they went from being a mud where fun was the main focus, to where roleplay was the main focus, and it ended up that you had the head evil bad-ass putting on a play (and taking on the role of the leading lady) because people were so afraid to PK after a crack-down on PK without rp reasons. (Picture Ben doing this and you'll see how ridiculous it is...)

The final straw, as I've stated before, was when they banned my dyslexic cousin because his spelling and grammar weren't up to par, never mind the fact that he was a good roleplayer.

My second mud was able to balance the PK and roleplay aspects of the game in a much better way. You had those people who were fairly good at both. You had people who were great at roleplay and not so great at pk and vice versa. It was a better mix. Of course, the people who were into the rp more were always whining about the pkers and the pkers were always bitching about the rpers. I think that is going to happen on any mud, no matter what.

I don't want to turn SK into either of those muds, however. SK is fine just as it is. Now that I know what I'm doing with the training system, I'm finding it to be greatly enjoyable. I've fairly easily been able to find roleplay and get into it, even being a newbie. The only thing that is off for me is not having that flexibility with my emotes that I am used to. I like to target other people. It's what makes them feel included in the roleplay, and there is something infinitely more compelling about seeing she smiles at you, as opposed to she smiles at a rotund gnome.

As to the speech emote, it is a useful tool, but you don't need it. If I had to pick between 1 or 2, I would definitely pick 1. Instead of

sayto gnome (smiling brightly) Hey there!

you could easily do

emote smiles brightly at #gnome.; sayto gnome Hey there!

Would I love to see other roleplay tools? You betcha! Some of the things I've seen in the past (on various other muds) would be short descriptions, poses, think, accents, walk-in/walk-out commands.

The reason I didn't bring those up? Because if the immstaff wanted stuff like this, it would be in the game already.

The reason I'm fighting for the emote is because it is a compromise I can live with. I don't need the other stuff. Sure it's nice and it helps flesh out my character, but it is just not as necessary. I think you will find a lot of people will start using emotes more than socials if this change is implimented. I haven't used socials in more than ten years, and I've been using them here because then I know I am at least able to target the other player.

On a side (and completely different note) why can't people whisper in the game? It's been bugging me for days...

The first idea of targeted emotes I've wanted since I started playing.
I really hope it does get implemented one day, but after playing for years you get used to it.

And your comment on whispering, why not just use tell?

Because it seems kind of silly that I would use a tell when the person was standing right there and rather than expending my 'mystical energy' I could just open my mouth and whisper?

Because everyone is SK, including you, is so loud and obnoxious they find it impossible to open their mouth only to whisper?