Some changes to the emote/tmote system

Iocun

Tmoting is a great thing, once you get used to it. They do however have some limits and aspects that are, perhaps needlessly, hard to use.

Here are a few things I suggest to make them more intuitive:

1. It is currently impossible to start an emote with a comma in a correct fashion. This is relevant when you use prepending in order to construct things like:

"Just before the wave reaches Iocun, he takes a deep breath and dives below the surface."

If you try to achieve this with the command "em , he takes a deep breath and dives below the surface ++ just before the wave reaches", it will add a space between "Iocun" and the comma. I therefore suggest that whenever a comma comes at the start of an emote, the space between the emoter's name and the comma is removed, like it already happens for apostrophes (e.g. "em 's ears twitch slightly").

2. It is also currently impossible to use the extended functionalities of tmoting in the prepended part of a tmote. You can't thus make a tmote like "Casting a last glance at Sarapis, Iocun turns to leave", because Achaea won't allow the use of "$sarapis" in the prepended part of the emote. I believe this should be changed as well.

3. Last, but certainly not least, the whole syntax of prepending is very counter-intuitive. Achaea requires you to put the thing that will appear first in a tmote/emote as the very last thing with the ++ syntax. This makes it rather uncomfortable to write up emotes with prepended parts on the fly. I made a script to change this to allow writing emotes/tmotes in a different fashion, like: "em In a few quick strides Iocun crosses the room.". The script then searches the whole string for any appearance of my own name, and if there is one (like in this example), it will change the string to Achaea's syntax: "em crosses the room ++ in a few quick strides ".

I suggest that this should become the default way of prepending in Achaea: Search any emote/tmote texts for appearances of the user's name. If there are none, just emote normally with the name in front. If there are appearances, emote the whole thing as written, without adding the user's name in front. This would allow for a very easy and intuitive way of prepending.

Trevize

Iocun said:

2. It is also currently impossible to use the extended functionalities of tmoting in the prepended part of a tmote. You can't thus make a tmote like "Casting a last glance at Sarapis, Iocun turns to leave", because Achaea won't allow the use of "$sarapis" in the prepended part of the emote. I believe this should be changed as well.

I suggested this ages ago, and IIRC, was told the reason for this is so you know who performed the emote if more than one name is in it - the first one visible is always the player that used it.

Iocun

I don't get this, because you can still use other people's names in the prepended part, just not with the $ syntax.

So I can still do "em and nods ++ Trevize looks at" and prepend that it's you emoting, not me. Every third party in the room will see "Trevize looks at Iocun and nods."

The only thing in which this differs from actually using the tmote functionality is that it looks differently to you, the second person, but that's rather irrelevant for this purpose, as you'd know it wasn't you anyways.

Trevize

Yeah. Dunno. I'd still love it.

Nizaris

Like everything here, generally. I don't personally like point number three listed here (for the sole reason that I'm used to the current system), but then again, can see its value for new players. So, I guess that I approve. Besides, I'll get used to the new system, too.

Nim

Regarding #2, if this is an issue at all, the best solution isn't to prevent names from entering the pre-pended part of the emote, but to just give the name of the emoter a different color. Eg.

Casting a last glance at Sarapis, Iocun turns to leave.

For simplicity's sake, it could just use the already-existing Players color option. You could argue in favor of making a new color for this, and I wouldn't disagree, but that's still an option.

Regarding #3, alternatives might include:

• Adding a $me (and ^me) token, which, if found, causes all text prior to it to be prepended. If the emoter's name is colored (as per the above idea), you could color all uses of $me and any pronouns attached to it, but I disagree both with coloring the emoter's name more than once and with attaching pronouns to the token. Other names for the token might be viable, but I think $me works because ME is already used in some commands.
• I think Aetolia handles prepended text with parentheses, so that's an option too, eg. TMOTE (Casting a last glance at $Sarapis,) Iocun turns to leave

I'd personally prefer using something definite like the above suggestions (my favorite is the $me one), instead of just the first time I put my name, just so I don't accidentally put my name in an emote I don't want prepended, and forget to start said emote off with my name.

Iocun

Yeah, I guess the $me makes sense, as my suggestion would potentially be problematic for players who have names that are words as well (e.g. Will, Peak, Spire...).

EDIT: (Wouldn't actually be much of a problem though if it required you to actually capitalize your name. But $me is probably the cleaner solution.)

Tael

Nim said:

Regarding #2, if this is an issue at all, the best solution isn't to prevent names from entering the pre-pended part of the emote, but to just give the name of the emoter a different color. Eg.

Casting a last glance at Sarapis, Iocun turns to leave.

For simplicity's sake, it could just use the already-existing Players color option. You could argue in favor of making a new color for this, and I wouldn't disagree, but that's still an option.

Regarding #3, alternatives might include:

• Adding a $me (and ^me) token, which, if found, causes all text prior to it to be prepended. If the emoter's name is colored (as per the above idea), you could color all uses of $me and any pronouns attached to it, but I disagree both with coloring the emoter's name more than once and with attaching pronouns to the token. Other names for the token might be viable, but I think $me works because ME is already used in some commands.
• I think Aetolia handles prepended text with parentheses, so that's an option too, eg. TMOTE (Casting a last glance at $Sarapis,) Iocun turns to leave

I'd personally prefer using something definite like the above suggestions (my favorite is the $me one), instead of just the first time I put my name, just so I don't accidentally put my name in an emote I don't want prepended, and forget to start said emote off with my name.

It's a small and rare issue, but I would be really unhappy to see the names coloured like that given that there's no way to illusion the name in colour.

Nim

@Tael: Potentially viable in rare situations where you know the emote color of all of your victims, and it happens to be exactly the same amongst all of them, and you can illusion that color.

Ultimately, I don't think it's that huge of a nerf.

A better solution might be to give illusions more focus and gameplay than just sending lines to other people's screens. I'd love an illusionist class that could fake all sorts of things, from causing phantom afflictions to emotes to etc. and maybe give classes that have their own illusions a limited chunk of that full power that represents the class well. (eg serpents could get affliction-related stuff)

ETA: just so you know why I personally think illusioning emotes is so unviable, my opinion on that comes from ARENAWATCHing people and never really seeing any common colors used for things like emotes, or sometimes even says. There's even a forum thread about how some people use white emotes (which can't be illusioned, I think!), and that dice rolls could thus be faked, or something like that! (also, I'm not sure of a way to figure out someone's colors other than by ARENA WATCHing them, and they could simply change their colors every time they go into an arena, to keep anyone from knowing their "real life" settings)

Lynara

Regarding #3, I have something similar to Iocun's system, however it bypasses the issue of using your own name later on, such as 'em glances at $Ireth, who nods at her. Lynara then launches into a lengthy explanation.' - And, it's still intuitive. It works like such:

tm (After hearing the request,) looks at $Ayleth hesitantly for a moment. Lynara glances at $Ireth, who nods at her. Lynara then launches into a lengthy explanation.

which would send the following to Achaea:

tm looks at $Ayleth hesitantly for a moment. Lynara glances at $Ireth, who nods at her. Lynara then launches into a lengthy explanation. ++ After hearing the request,


Complex emotes can get complex for code to decipher automagically... making a 'start' and 'end' bit for the prepend is the easiest way to have prepended emotes work this way, in my opinion.

ETA: As far as 'colours' and 'illusions' and all that BS... Best way to keep yourself safe is to set a background colour on everything. I've got ones for tells, says, etcetera... makes it so I always know if someone has illusioned/hocuspocused something at me.

Iocun

Lynara said:

Regarding #3, I have something similar to Iocun's system, however it bypasses the issue of using your own name later on

I don't see how using your own name later on is a problem in my system. I do it all the time. My alias simply looks for the first appearance of my name and uses it as the emote's "anchor point", regardless of whether there are any others after this. It would have the same result as yours there.

Nim

@Iocun: Names that are also words (Will, Verily, etc.), as well as the possibility of wanting to start an emote off with your name, but forgetting to include it (because it's not required by default), and accidentally adding your name later on in the emote anyway.

They're not huge issues, but they are issues all the same.

Lynara

Iocun said:

Lynara said:

Regarding #3, I have something similar to Iocun's system, however it bypasses the issue of using your own name later on

I don't see how using your own name later on is a problem in my system. I do it all the time. My alias simply looks for the first appearance of my name and uses it as the emote's "anchor point", regardless of whether there are any others after this. It would have the same result as yours there.

Precisely, your system assumes that the first appearance is the anchor point - granted, in our particular examples, it was... However, it is not always necessarily... Granted, any time it is not, it can be modified to be proper, but I've had instances where I had my name in a prepend before, and didn't feel like fixing it.

Besides, was just giving another way that I'd like to see prepends working... Any way they make prepends work with the prepended part being intuitive, instead of being at the end of the emote, I'll be happy.

Eld

Lynara said:

Iocun said:

Lynara said:

Regarding #3, I have something similar to Iocun's system, however it bypasses the issue of using your own name later on

I don't see how using your own name later on is a problem in my system. I do it all the time. My alias simply looks for the first appearance of my name and uses it as the emote's "anchor point", regardless of whether there are any others after this. It would have the same result as yours there.

Precisely, your system assumes that the first appearance is the anchor point - granted, in our particular examples, it was... However, it is not always necessarily... Granted, any time it is not, it can be modified to be proper, but I've had instances where I had my name in a prepend before, and didn't feel like fixing it.

Besides, was just giving another way that I'd like to see prepends working... Any way they make prepends work with the prepended part being intuitive, instead of being at the end of the emote, I'll be happy.

The bolded is confusing. If your name is in the prepend, isn't that the same as only prepending that part of the prepend that comes before your name and folding the rest into the main emote? For (ugly, stilted) example:
  emote is confused on this issue, Eld writes a comment ++ Since
instead of
  emote writes a comment. ++ Since Eld is confused on this issue,

Pretty sure that's what @Iocun's system would do with
  em Since Eld is confused on this issue, Eld writes a comment.

Lynara

Eld said:

Lynara said:

Iocun said:

Lynara said:

Regarding #3, I have something similar to Iocun's system, however it bypasses the issue of using your own name later on

I don't see how using your own name later on is a problem in my system. I do it all the time. My alias simply looks for the first appearance of my name and uses it as the emote's "anchor point", regardless of whether there are any others after this. It would have the same result as yours there.

Precisely, your system assumes that the first appearance is the anchor point - granted, in our particular examples, it was... However, it is not always necessarily... Granted, any time it is not, it can be modified to be proper, but I've had instances where I had my name in a prepend before, and didn't feel like fixing it.

Besides, was just giving another way that I'd like to see prepends working... Any way they make prepends work with the prepended part being intuitive, instead of being at the end of the emote, I'll be happy.

The bolded is confusing. If your name is in the prepend, isn't that the same as only prepending that part of the prepend that comes before your name and folding the rest into the main emote? For (ugly, stilted) example:
  emote is confused on this issue, Eld writes a comment ++ Since
instead of
  emote writes a comment. ++ Since Eld is confused on this issue,

Pretty sure that's what @Iocun's system would do with
  em Since Eld is confused on this issue, Eld writes a comment.

I see your point. Conceded. Now I like Iocun's better than mine, durn you. Must go make my own version or find his. *shakefist*