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Old 03-18-2005, 01:48 AM   #1
Feral Hound
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Hello there. I'm hoping someone here can help me out with my roleplaying, specifically, emoting. So if you have any advice or tips or recommendations about how you like to flesh out a scene then please leave them below.

I'm also looking to read some logs of the MUDs you guys play to get some ideas. Don't be shy to leave a link or point me in the direction of where I can read some RP logs. I'm over at Dragon's gate, which is an interesting combination of hack n slash with an above average roleplaying atmosphere. RP is virtually mandatory, but enforced leniently. You have people that try to RP, but its very rare that you get any sort of really elaborate, 2+ line emotes.

So anyway, I'm trying to spice up my playing time with some colorful emotes. As I said before, anything you can contribute to help me out is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

player of Lii
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Old 03-18-2005, 09:45 AM   #2
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Old 03-18-2005, 10:25 AM   #3
Jazuela
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I'm not familiar with D-gate's emoting system, so I'd have to preface this by saying it depends on the commands you have available to you.

For me, I like to break things up a bit. One line might be just a nod to someone. The next line might indicate a wave to you, with the tavern's light bouncing off the ruby ring on my finger. Some examples of emotes I might do (using the system of the game I play, which allows for wonderful variety):

The setting: I'm the cowgirl chick, walking down the street. I get to the room where the templar guy is, and I need to talk to him.

>Approaching with her gaze respectfully averted, the cowgirl chick bows to the templar.

>The cowgirl chick tells the templar, in sirihish, "d00d i need 2 talk 2 u"

>His eyes narrowing suspiciously as he regards her, the templar tells the cowgirl chick, in sirihish, "w00t"

>The cowgirl chick fidgets nervously with the shredded lining of her bedraggled and filthy blue silk gown.

>Clearing her throat and staring at the enormous cleavage on the chest of the templar's buxom guard, the cowgirl chick tells the templar, in sirihish, "i pwned j00 other gard last nite b/c he stoled my steal dagger of d00m & destrukshun!"

>The templar gestures and utters a phrase of magic.

BEEP!
Welcome to Armageddon!
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Old 03-18-2005, 11:08 AM   #4
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There's a collection of Armageddon logs available at

Most of those will probably be helpful. When I emote, I don't try to force things; I write what I want as I want. One emote can be a detailed three line emote and the next can be "emote snickers hoarsely".
I personally prefer emotes to be as detailed as possible, but it's not a crime or anyone's fault if they used a social once a day. Sometimes people are lazy, tired, or too excited to really sit down and type a long emote, and that's fine.
Definitely don't go to the thesaurus and find the most difficult way to describe a shrug. A couple of big words can help the atmosphere when they're appropriate, but they'll just make you look silly or like a snob if you overuse them, not to mention that some people simply won't understand your emotes and will get annoyed.

Doing unusual things that can't be described by a social are good practice for emoting. Taking out that longsword of yours and doing a few combat routines for practice is good. Just start with how you position yourself and the sword and picture the movement from there, and then describe it as quickly or as slowly as you want.

Another thing that I find helps fleshing out a scene is to include more senses (smell in particular, nothing describes a location better than how it smells like) or to emote a couple of virtual NPCs. If you're in a tavern or at some healer's altar, you can briefly mention someone sitting nearby with an emote, and possibly interact with them a little or to explain what they look like and what they are doing.

Finally, remember that a room usually isn't a clear space with all of the people and objects stuck to one wall; if you need to go from one place to the other, use an emote for that. Maybe you nearly bumped into someone, maybe you stopped to look outside, or maybe you just had to walk around the fountain. You could be striding, or running to cower, or just strolling over...there are many options.

Experiment and you'll find that a style will come to you. To develop that style further, just pick up a new word at a time and take it slowly. Both roleplaying and detailed 'high quality' emoting take time getting used to. Nobody is really born with it.
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Old 03-18-2005, 12:27 PM   #5
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Well if you're looking for emoting prowess, is deffinately the place to be. Most muds have a plethora of emotes which have predetermined parameters.

In Accursed Lands you're not only given free use of emotes but you're also given a possesive emote (pemote).

We also have a forum which should provide some examples of open emotes as well.

You can connect to the game at:

WEB:



CLIENT:

IP : accursed-lands.com
PORT : 8888
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Old 03-18-2005, 04:43 PM   #6
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Well, since I wasn't able to log into accursed-lands as it crashed whenever I typed in a character name, I can't say for sure what your emote system is like. But, if by possesive emotes you mean just having a 's added to the end of your name, that isn't very special. Most muds that are RP enforced (that I've played at least) will output "Dude's head is big." if dude types emote 's head is big.

Some examples of the abilities given to the emote command in SoI(I believe HL and Arm have similar abilities):
•a symbol(~) which can be placed before a person's keyword to show that person's name in your emote to all but that person who sees "you"
•a symbol(*) which can be placed before an item's keyword to include that item name in your emote
•you can do 's as I said earlier.
• a symbol(@) that can be used in the middle of an emote to have your sdesc appear there instead of at the beggining. Like "emote eats cheese" might say "A fat, ugly man eats cheese." but "emote quickly, @ eats cheese" would say "Quickly, a fat, ugly man eats cheese."

And back on topic, if you need help with emotes, there are some examples and do's and don'ts on SoI's emote guide. Just click on the following link and chose the emoting guide.
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Old 03-18-2005, 05:55 PM   #7
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I think he might mean targetted emotes - eg:

> emote @zadmar grins
Your character grins at Zadmar.
(KaVir grins at you.)

> emote @zadmar waves at you
Your character waves at Zadmar.
(KaVir waves at you.)

> emote @zadmar pats you on your head
Your character pats Zadmar on his head.
(KaVir pats you on your head.)

> emote @zadmar thinks you're your own worst enemy...
Your character thinks Zadmar is his own worst enemy...
(KaVir thinks you're your own worst enemy...)

> emote @zadmar looks at you carefully, as if thinking about you
Your character looks at Zadmar carefully, as if thinking about him.
(KaVir looks at you carefully, as if thinking about you.)

> emote @zadmar looks at you carefully, trying to decide if you are dangerous
Your character looks at Zadmar carefully, trying to decide if he is dangerous.
(KaVir looks at you carefully, trying to decide if you are dangerous.)
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Old 03-18-2005, 06:17 PM   #8
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It's a matter of syntax KaVir, and the three games mentioned previously all have the ability, using different syntax.

>emote @zadmar grins.
becomes
>emote grins at ~zadmar.

> emote @zadmar waves at you
becomes
>emote waves at ~zadmar.

> emote @zadmar pats you on your head
becomes
>emote pats ~zadmar on ^zadmar head.

etc.. and..

>emote eyes %zadmar cloak with a predatory grin.
(KaVir eyes your cloak with a predatory grin.)

and so on and so forth.
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Old 03-18-2005, 09:35 PM   #9
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Hmm...this emote system seems really complicated...the example would make it seem like your MUD actually converts contractions like 'you're' to 'you are' and searches for pronouns 'you' and 'your' and then changes the first 'you' to the targetted character's name, and the other 'you's to 'him' or 'her', then changes 'your' to 'his' or 'her' and then correspondingly conjugates the verb (in your example, from 'are' to 'is' ). Is your system really that advanced or is that a bad example or is it just a hardcoded emote?

I'm just curious, because it seems pretty nifty if it works the way you show it.

(Heh, maybe its much simpler and I'm just getting confused, by the way. Sorry if that's the case.)

EDIT: I thought I should just add that I was referring to the process by which the game converts from "emote @zadmar thinks you're your own worst enemy..." to what you see, which is "Your character thinks Zadmar is his own worst enemy."
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Old 03-19-2005, 11:12 AM   #10
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You shouldn't use things that people can't tell in emotes (like thinking).

-Dragon Master's Emote Tip
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Old 03-19-2005, 02:33 PM   #11
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The examples I gave are 'good' ones - it's possible to confuse the system into producing wierd results.  However the results always look fine for the target, and generally look fine for other people in the room, so IMO it's not really too big an issue.  People can easily skip the @ (or 'to', which works the same way) and perform a normal style emote if they prefer, and my mud is a non-RP mud anyway - I just fancied providing a little extra flexibility.

Emote is just a tool - if you want to control how a player uses it (at least in this sort of way), you'll have to do so outside of the code.
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Old 03-20-2005, 06:20 PM   #12
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Thanks for the tips folks. Compared to some of the examples, here, I would have to say that DGate's emote system is very basic. All character actions begin with the character's name. Most of the RP commands (smile for example) are open ended, so it allows for a good amount of creativity. But like I said, nearly all of the RP commands, even /emote, begin with the character's name.

And yeah, I agree with whoever mentioned that its bad form to RP something that isn't detectable by one of the senses. Thanks again for the tips.
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Old 03-20-2005, 06:42 PM   #13
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Ah okay, I'm very familiar with that kind of emoting too. A couple of things to keep in mind:

Avoid getting stuck in the rut of using "as".

Meaning:

Joe smiles as he waves toward the blue painted table.

Joe approaches the table, his cloak swirling around his ankles as he walks.

Joe points to an empty chair as he pulls it out.

You can use while, and and, alternatively. You can also break it up into two sentences, though I wouldn't suggest doing it too often.

Joe points to an empty chair and pulls it out from under the table.

Joe approaches the table. His cloak swirls around his ankles with each step.

Joe smiles while waving toward a blue-painted table.

I would also suggest, if your staff admin are open to player suggestions, that you ask them if it's possible to add to the emoting system. Allow for possessives (Joe's cloak swirls around his ankles while he steps toward the table.), targetting, (Joe smiles at you while lifting a hand to wave in your direction/Joe smiles at Sue while lifting a hand to wave in her direction), and variable placement of both the enactor and the target (With a wave and a smile, Joe approaches your table and pulls out a chair.)
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Old 03-20-2005, 07:19 PM   #14
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To clarify, Accursed Lands does indeed have the tilde symbol which is used to direct your emotes or pemotes at other characters.

I also concur.. emotes which invoke introspective information is downright horrible.
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Old 03-21-2005, 01:35 PM   #15
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Please point me to an implementation of emote which prevents such possibilities.
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Old 03-21-2005, 02:39 PM   #16
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I don't think he meant the implementation of emoting, but the emotes themselves that give direct insight on their thoughts. For example: 'emote rubs at his chin, his thoughts on the previous day's battle'

I doubt there's any way to 'prevent' such a thing except through player's moderating such a thing themselves, and rules against it.

Perhaps I misunderstood your request, though...

-WP
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Old 03-21-2005, 04:18 PM   #17
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KaVir, please note the topic of this thread, and the category it's in. FeralHound wasn't asking about code implementation. He is asking for roleplaying tips using emote as an existing tool.

As such, some of us are offering our own tidbits of advice on ways HE can roleplay, using emote, and making suggestions on things for HIM to avoid, in his own roleplaying efforts.

Some of us are suggesting that HE avoid using emote to portray his own character's thoughts. I don't think anyone here is arguing that the actual command can or cannot be implemented to prevent it. Except you.
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Old 03-21-2005, 05:24 PM   #18
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Thanks Jaz, that's pretty much what I was getting at. I don't use "as" all that much, but I do use and a lot. Sometimes I don't even use anything, I just break it up with a comma. FOr instance.

Lii gestures subtly, waving his hands about.

But its getting to the point where most of my emotes are looking like some variation of the above. Like I said, what you can do is pretty limited when every single emote begins with the char's name.

Interesting that you mentioned breaking it up with two sentences. I've been doing that more and more lately. Why did you say you wouldn't recommend doing it often?

Also the /emote command in DGate makes it so the character's action is in parenthesis. For some reason it looks a little...out of place. I'm getting over my dislike for it though. I figure who cares, parenthesis never killed anyone. Still, that would be the closest DG could come to a possessive emote. And because of coding limitations, there would have to be a space between the char's name and the 's. It just looks...messy. But anyway, thanks for the tips. I'll definitely keep it in mind.

On an unrelated note, I tried Armageddon for a few days. I quit eventually out of frustration. I decided I didn't have the patience to start up a new MUD, especially one with a 6 month learning curve. No offense, that game is just too hard.
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Old 03-21-2005, 07:26 PM   #19
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Old 03-22-2005, 12:37 AM   #20
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Well said.
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