Moods - Nice Addition or Poor Implementation?

Sarapis

Silas said:

turning Achaea into Fable or GTA,

Our characters also have health, I should point out, just like GTA V and Fable, no doubt cementing in everybody's mind that Achaea is like them in every way. Why, just this morning I car-jacked a sweet ride in Ashtan before enjoying a lovely 3d cut-scene, opened up with my sniper rifle on a civilian crowd, got away from the cops during a car chase in Cyrene, and finished it off with 18 holes on one of Targossas's lovely golf courses.

Exactly like Achaea, in other words. 

Klendathu

Jarrod said:

1) I can't disable seeing the moods of others

Please make this a thing ^^^

Sarapis said:

Silas said:

turning Achaea into Fable or GTA,

Our characters also have health, I should point out, just like GTA V and Fable, no doubt cementing in everybody's mind that Achaea is like them in every way. Why, just this morning I car-jacked a sweet ride in Ashtan before enjoying a lovely 3d cut-scene, opened up with my sniper rifle on a civilian crowd, got away from the cops during a car chase in Cyrene, and finished it off with 18 holes on one of Targossas's lovely golf courses.

Exactly like Achaea, in other words. 

Me thinks @Sarapis maybe a touch on the sarcastic side...

Sarapis

Cooper said:

Nim said:

Yeah. If they wanted to make money off of it, they could've done a dumb thing where you have to pay to access your class mood or order mood or whatever, but letting people blatantly be things they are not is kind of jarring.

They are making money off of it by introducing a crown sale and then only selling them for crowns. I bet credit sales are through the roof right now.

@Nim But they can do those things, just as surely as someone can purchase the firelash ability with lessons, or bracers of frost or eagles' wings with credits.

@Cooper Kind of an average month overall, despite a very strong start. Moods haven't given a giant boost really. Only 14 of the elemental moods purchased so far, and 8 of the shadow ones. So 22 people in the game have elemental moods, out of over 800 people who logged in today (though some people may have multiple elemental moods...I can't tell without digging deeper.)

Aktillum

I didn't think the elemental moods were that bland, I considered picking up the Ice mood but couldn't find cheap crowns on market. Then they rolled out the Blue Dragon mood and the text is considerably cooler than Ice anyways. I don't feel my RP experience is jarred by people talking to me from the shadows or through the fire and flames of Dragonforce* and whatnot, though it will be funny when some 18yo alt is walking around with them.

(*new mood idea - heavy metal: Epic guitar solos duel in the background as you tell X, "bla bla bla."

Jarrod

Sarapis said:

Cooper said:

Nim said:

Yeah. If they wanted to make money off of it, they could've done a dumb thing where you have to pay to access your class mood or order mood or whatever, but letting people blatantly be things they are not is kind of jarring.

They are making money off of it by introducing a crown sale and then only selling them for crowns. I bet credit sales are through the roof right now.

@Nim But they can do those things, just as surely as someone can purchase the firelash ability with lessons, or bracers of frost or eagles' wings with credits.

@Cooper Kind of an average month overall, despite a very strong start. Moods haven't given a giant boost really. Only 14 of the elemental moods purchased so far, and 8 of the shadow ones. So 22 people in the game have elemental moods, out of over 800 people who logged in today (though some people may have multiple elemental moods...I can't tell without digging deeper.)

Sounds like 7 other people need mood adjustments.

Gog

Poses would have been a lot better for RP. The moods system seems poorly thoughtout imho... would rather be able to do custom tells/says instead of hardcoded voice/accent and room and look poses. Not gonna lie, after I saw the moods in the shop of wonders "Money Grab" immediately came to mind. It's not a bad thing, I want Achaea to make more money, it's just with the direction houses are going it I think they want to see more RP, but this seems like a step backward to add in more hardcoded RP. Also, I agree with some of the moods being too divine in nature. It's almost worst than godmodders.

Sena

I don't think this should be mutually exclusive with poses at all, it's a very different thing that happens to also modify your room appearance. Unless the official stance is that poses aren't coming because of moods, I wouldn't compare the two.

Gog

I didn't mean to compare the two, was just agreeing with Kayeil.

Bonko

Sarapis said:

Silas said:

turning Achaea into Fable or GTA,

Our characters also have health, I should point out, just like GTA V and Fable, no doubt cementing in everybody's mind that Achaea is like them in every way. Why, just this morning I car-jacked a sweet ride in Ashtan before enjoying a lovely 3d cut-scene, opened up with my sniper rifle on a civilian crowd, got away from the cops during a car chase in Cyrene, and finished it off with 18 holes on one of Targossas's lovely golf courses.

Exactly like Achaea, in other words. 

And you didn't get shrubbed for doing all of that?

What am I doing wrong?

Please teach me.

Amanu

@Bonko‌

Up, down, Up, down, left, right, triangle, square, x, circle(x3)

Amanu

Never leave home without them.

Karai

I tend to think it a bit odd that people can pay for control over an element for a phenomena they have no association with. Shadow or wind, for instance. I can see Darkwalkers taking it, or Wind with Vastar, and I can see it as a Dragon mood given what they are capable of. I just don't see how a mortal can cause my vision to darken by just TELLing me things. Although @Sobriquet has that effect sometimes. Dreamy voice and all, at least how I imagine it. He still hasn't made that video for me. 8-|

Just be careful with this, is all I'm saying. More standard moods, too please. I'm loving those.

I also hate seeing 18 year olds with this stuff, but that's more jealousy and angst.. and the market for crowns being ridiculous.

Caladbolg

My only complaint with moods so far is it screwed up my chat window .. @Karai fix please

Trey

Karai said:

I tend to think it a bit odd that people can pay for control over an element for a phenomena they have no association with. Shadow or wind, for instance. I can see Darkwalkers taking it, or Wind with Vastar, and I can see it as a Dragon mood given what they are capable of. I just don't see how a mortal can cause my vision to darken by just TELLing me things. Although @Sobriquet has that effect sometimes. Dreamy voice and all, at least how I imagine it. He still hasn't made that video for me. 8-|

Just be careful with this, is all I'm saying. More standard moods, too please. I'm loving those.

I also hate seeing 18 year olds with this stuff, but that's more jealousy and angst.. and the market for crowns being ridiculous.

Point made, but I think Shadow is appropriate for Serpents, Necros and Occultists. Necros in particular, what with Shroud and Darkness.

Silas

Sarapis said:

Silas said:

turning Achaea into Fable or GTA,

Our characters also have health, I should point out, just like GTA V and Fable, no doubt cementing in everybody's mind that Achaea is like them in every way. Why, just this morning I car-jacked a sweet ride in Ashtan before enjoying a lovely 3d cut-scene, opened up with my sniper rifle on a civilian crowd, got away from the cops during a car chase in Cyrene, and finished it off with 18 holes on one of Targossas's lovely golf courses.

Exactly like Achaea, in other words. 

I mean, you can get snarky and defensive about if if you want - that's your choice - but I don't see how that's a productive response to constructive criticism.

Nakari

I just pretend that all elemental moods are done with overzealous use of illusions. 

Mithridates

I gotta say that moods immediately make me judge a character.  A person goes from respectful to a cartoon based on their mood.  Like @Colgano, I like him and all but when I see him swaggering out to the ether, I just laugh. Can't take that seriously. 

Sarapis

Bonko said:

Sarapis said:

Silas said:

turning Achaea into Fable or GTA,

Our characters also have health, I should point out, just like GTA V and Fable, no doubt cementing in everybody's mind that Achaea is like them in every way. Why, just this morning I car-jacked a sweet ride in Ashtan before enjoying a lovely 3d cut-scene, opened up with my sniper rifle on a civilian crowd, got away from the cops during a car chase in Cyrene, and finished it off with 18 holes on one of Targossas's lovely golf courses.

Exactly like Achaea, in other words. 

And you didn't get shrubbed for doing all of that?

What am I doing wrong?

Please teach me.

Well, the 6 star response is a God coming down to zap you, but I managed to fight her off with a combination of QQing and closing my client window simultaneously. 

Sarapis

Silas said:

Sarapis said:

Silas said:

turning Achaea into Fable or GTA,

Our characters also have health, I should point out, just like GTA V and Fable, no doubt cementing in everybody's mind that Achaea is like them in every way. Why, just this morning I car-jacked a sweet ride in Ashtan before enjoying a lovely 3d cut-scene, opened up with my sniper rifle on a civilian crowd, got away from the cops during a car chase in Cyrene, and finished it off with 18 holes on one of Targossas's lovely golf courses.

Exactly like Achaea, in other words. 

I mean, you can get snarky and defensive about if if you want - that's your choice - but I don't see how that's a productive response to constructive criticism.

Oh, got no problem with constructive criticism and welcome it. The part of the post I quoted was not constructive, however. I did actually respond to one constructive part of your post, but having reviewed the emotions, I didn't see any that force an emotional reaction on players. They just tell you what's happening, which they should do. Is there one that I missed in my review? I agree that we don't want players eliciting emotional reactions via moods from others.

Darktalon

I am having a little trouble understanding people's point about the events caused by moods. I mean, you can already be a paladin dwarf, do all kinds of amazing things, get bored, kill yourself, become an occultist troll and then learn to totally new amazing things in the span of an hour. Then summon your mount from anywhere, get your friend to teleport you through magic holes to distant places and fight giant monsters, throw the monster bodies on an altar to make a god happy and if you are really bored, kill yourself again, learn all new things and start all over.

But someone causing the wind to blow is odd? Maybe I am mistake but aren't those the limited ones from crowns? So not many people will even bother with them, they are the equivalent of minor artifacts which also give you more abilities.

I get the point people are making about introducing them and have a credit special with crowns, but Achaea is a business. Don't buy them if you dislike them.

Personally I feel like it will end up the same as the voices people have given themselves. I don't even bother reading whatever accent/sauve/sultry thing they use and skip right to the words.

Aktillum

But these are way better than voices/accents. I cringe whenever someone speaks with a "Horkvali accent" or some other X race accent. That's like saying you have a black, white or Asian accent. Your accent comes from your locality, people, gdi.

Accipiter

I don't really like how easy it is to sort of forget what mood you are in. If you use an accent/voice you might not notice for a fair time that you were in a mood from when you logged in yesterday. Might be an idea to clear mood on logout.

Nakari

Aktillum said:

But these are way better than voices/accents. I cringe whenever someone speaks with a "Horkvali accent" or some other X race accent. That's like saying you have a black, white or Asian accent. Your accent comes from your locality, people, gdi.

I don't think that's entirely fair. Different racial languages are going to have different pronunciation and grammar and the like, and a 'racial accent' is likely going to refer to someone who, learning achaean as a second language after the racial tongue (not all that unimaginable), applies some of the common pronunciations quirks to achaean.

Jacen

I always took the racial accents to be the different pronunciations of the sounds that language is built on (I'm sure there's better words for all this, but I'm not a language person ) meaning like, a Horkval might not be physically able to to make the "shh" sound and so it might come out "sss" or something.

Aerek

Also the actual anatomy of the different races could influence their speech. It might not be the most creative use of accents ever, but I think it's a valid one. Race doesn't influence much these days, and there are plenty of folks who I actually don't know or remember their race, because I don't look at descriptions often anymore. If you want to use accents to remind folks of your race and reinforce your race as a defining aspect of your character, I think that's fine.

Aepas

Aktillum said:

But these are way better than voices/accents. I cringe whenever someone speaks with a "Horkvali accent" or some other X race accent. That's like saying you have a black, white or Asian accent. Your accent comes from your locality, people, gdi.

90% chance black and white people are going to talk differently.

Aktillum

Aepas said:

Aktillum said:

But these are way better than voices/accents. I cringe whenever someone speaks with a "Horkvali accent" or some other X race accent. That's like saying you have a black, white or Asian accent. Your accent comes from your locality, people, gdi.

90% chance black and white people are going to talk differently.

Not really, no.

Jarrod

Aktillum said:

But these are way better than voices/accents. I cringe whenever someone speaks with a "Horkvali accent" or some other X race accent. That's like saying you have a black, white or Asian accent. Your accent comes from your locality, people, gdi.

This is 100% incorrect. Saying a 'Horkvali' accent is the same as saying a 'German' or 'French' accent, which is what people do.

Horkvali is a language.

Horkval is a race.

Your ignorance is upsetting you, not what's actually occuring.

Aalm

I don't know if this is possible since the moods have been rolled out and people have paid for them.

It might be nice to make the moods fully customizable but subject to Divine approval, in the spirit of customizations for most items, a system that allows a lot of stuff but blocks out stuff that the Garden sees as inappropriate. So, give several blank slots such as Say and Shout and have the player fill them out, send to Customizations, and they determine whether it's suitable in Achaea, and also appraise it for cost.

The Shop of Wonders in this system could sell "tokens" like the silver tokens representing abstract concepts -- such as wind or fire -- that allow certain things for the moods that are normally NOT allowed. So, if @Jarrod wants his Shadow Matrix, he buys the 4 crown thingie and customizations would work with him to make it unique but in the spirit of Achaea. I think this would allow people to be on fire for whom that makes sense, (such as Lord Deucalion's Order,) and Lord Twilight people get to be covered in darkness, and so on. Lord Deucalion's follower being ablaze in white fire is not really DBZ-like. It does fit in with the player's Order and concept.

All of this WOULD require more involvement by the staff but I think would eliminate the possibility of resemblance to GTA or something. And it would probably make the whole thing a lot more liked by the players because of the extent of customization and differentiation it would allow. Which WOULD cause more credit and crown sales.

Jamethiel

The shadows deepen and intensify as I tell you that those who know my character would find that mood to be quite fitting.