Shattered Kingdoms

Recently, I've started having trouble managing all the different sources of activity I receive at once. Specifically, there are times when I'm in the middle an in-depth conversation with one or two people in person, and I'm having to handle cabal chatter, as well as three, four, maybe five people through tells. Usually, it's really not that hard to handle, but occasionally I find it's incredibly hard to keep focused, especially when I'm in the middle of a REALLY involved debate or discussion, and more and more often I just completely forget to respond to people, prompting the obligatory "are you there?" or "if now's not a good time...". It doesn't help that I'm not a super fast typist (probably average around these parts), so I can't just take everything down as it hits me, lest I have exorbitant delays in certain areas of interest.

So, my question is, how do you all manage yourselves when you're handling multiple sources of interest? I'm interested in what you priests have to say, in particular, as priests definitely get the largest amount of traffic, what with rezzing/curing/gating/enchanting/brewing to do, in addition to your religion and cabal/tribunal duties. I've found that the tell/group tell catcher script is exceedingly useful, but that doesn't help me keep focused mentally. This is a pretty vague question, but I'm a little flustered - probably four or five times today, someone had to prod me to get a response out of me, because I just totally lose track. Thoughts, tips, suggestions, personal stories, horror stories? Plzk?

Firstly, I would increase my screen buffer in Zmud...to contain a million or so lines... So you can scroll back and see who wrote while you were busy talking to someone else...

And then just do one thing at a time if you have to... Its perfecly allowed to just knock someone off with a "Rather busy, be a moment..." and then when a natural "pause" (Doesn't have to be more than a couple of seconds to get off a "I will return you once an opportunity presents itself." or something like that...)

If this isn't enough, then keep a notepad up, and take notes... Like... JeanV - Rezbegging
Eur0 - Enchantbegging
Konge - Wanting Mudsexx
Sklz - Wanting phat brew
Konge - Wanting more mudsexx
Konge - Asking for oral mudsexx
Konge - Begging for hot mud-rod...

And so on and so forth...

Hope this helped...some of it was constructive at least...

JeanV

I don't mud at all without a notebook.

I have my buffer set to 99999 lines. And I'm used to having three or four people talking to me at once, but lately its just gotten waaaaay out of hand. I logged in the last time and literally had like 12 people hitting me with information and requests for audiences and all sorts of things.

I've actually had to use quiet mode, which I hate doing, the last two times I've logged in just to get important rp done.

Usually what I do is tell religion and cabal seekers that as soon as I'm done with my current rp ill hit them. Then tell all the religion seekers to meet me at one time and then get all the cabal seekers at once. I try to do the major diplomatic rp first. Like if a new group is asking for a change in diplomacy that generally takes precedence over anything else. It's a juggling act and sometimes I forget about people. Huge scroll buffer helps immensely though.

Maybe this is included in your tell-catcher, but I use a large seperate window for tells on my client. It's a nice way to keep these requests seperate from your detailed conversation and actions, so you don't need to scroll back.

I also recommend being frank about your limits. Just as in real-life, your character can't do everything. It's better to tell teller #4 you're too busy right now than to keep everybody waiting. Recording the name and getting back to him is quite good enough.

With that comes the question of priorities. The more you submit to casual requests, the more of them you'll get. Priests need to be a little jealous of their time, if they're going to accomplish their own objectives.

I think the most simple answer to your problem is to tell people to hold on a second. When I was playing Cyril, it was pretty common to be handling an internal Talon issue on the trib channel, be negotiating with the Empire and/or Hammer through tells and then entering into a debate or two in person, or perhaps RPing or simply chatting.

I think it shows a certain amount of courtesy to let people know you're distracted and will make time for them as soon as you can, and that way you can focus on the tasks at hand and not stress yourself out too much.

So far the tips suggested are good. It helps to run at higher resolutions, 1280x1024, as well as a large scroll-back buffer. Prioritise your gameplay will of course help.

Something that I also do, is to have my client perform event sounds with colors and triggers. If someone does cabal chat, someone sayto me, and send tells, it will make a little sound. You could also do this to footsteps, summon attempts and so on.

Another little helper is what's called tab completion. MUSHClient does it. Once a few beginning letters are typed, hitting the 'tab' key will allow the client to complete it all-together. I find this little feature very useful in time management.

Finally, I have noticed Corathir sends long sentences. I don't mind either way, but you could consider breaking it down, send what you have at a period. To keep the roleplay flowing, since you claim to be a slow typist (I don't agree, btw), and avoid the "Any time before Christmas" comments.

At the end of the day, it's tough to be helper + cabal leader + paragon, but, you'll get through it.

I may be offering duplicate advice, but zmud (cmud now, I think?) and many other clients let you build your own windows and print information to them. I used to have a few scripts that would copy cabal text, tells, group talk, and immtalk all to new windows so I didn't miss anything and I could review the information quickly.

It's probably the best solution for catching things that scrolly by too fast.

My god, if I could figure out a way to get that for combat...

SPAM-B-GONE!!!

Quiet mode owns.