Quick, short descriptions
 

Scenario: The mud in question is a mud based on modern gardening. It is roleplay enforced and completely in character at all times. I'm a builder whose task is to describe the various objects that may be used by the gardeners as roleplay props as well as leveling up their gardening skills, their garden, and their produce.

Question: I want to describe a bag of Miracle-Gro. (Assume that I've been allowed to use this item specifically by the copyright holders, so I am not breaking any copyright laws. Maybe they'll even pay me some advertising!) Which of the following two ways should I set the short description of the bag of Miracle-Gro (a fertilizer), and why would you pick that particular way?

1) Miracle-Gro

or

2) a green and yellow bag filled with fertilizer

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

In your scenario, where all characters would (I assume) be ICly literate and familiar with brand names, I might go with #1.

Of course, I prefer #2, though I don't really like it either, because it indicates what can be found in the bag. I'd prefer, "a green and yellow plastic bag" that you could then look inside and see, "a bag contains: fertilizer."

Or maybe your sdescs can handle restringing to indicate contents, which would be fairly easily achievable and pretty cool. It could get clunky in the restringing if people filled the bags with lots of items:
a green and yellow bag filled with the remains of a dandelion which seems to be missing its root, the remains of a tuft of crabgrass, the remains of a hunk of clover.

Anyway, by handling bags and such via container objects instead of whole objects, it allows more flexibility from a player standpoint. That way if they want to empty the bag and fill it back up with their own organic compost or use it as a weed collector as in the above example, thus reusing the bags, they'd be able to do that (hey you might have some real treehuggers in such a mud. Reduce, reuse, recycle. :D

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Neither. I'd call it "a green and yellow bag." Whether it's filled with Miracle-Gro, deadly poisonous grubs of death and destruction, or completely empty, isn't something that would be a constant. And if the bag is closed, you wouldn't have any idea -what- was in there, assuming something was in there. Which - if it was empty, would be - nothing.

Calling it Miracle-Gro just seems...too tacky and commercial. Like Tiger Woods wearing a Nike shirt. You know the only reason he wears it is because he's being paid to wear it. Not because he likes Nike shirts.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Except that, in the real world, anyone can tell a bag full of fertilizer from an empty bag. Open or closed, the empty bag will look... you know... empty.

Does the bag have the words "Miracle Grow" printed on it? Maybe that's hard to miss even at a quick glance. Is it a plain, brown sack? Then anything might be in it. Unless I can read the printing I can't tell miracle grow from plain grass seed.

Can the user learn after examining something? It would be pretty cool if, the first time you see the bag, it's just a bag... but once you examine it you know from then on that it's a bag of Miracle Grow.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

However, there are plenty of trademarks used in the modern world that are as good... no better... than words. I bet if you show a can of Coke with no letters but only the device, better than 90% of the population would know what it is... or at least would know what it is *supposed* to be. The same is probably true of a number of others, like the McDonalds arches.

This might even be true across the globe. I was somewhat surprised at how ubiquitous our Western brands were when I traveled in India. Even somewhat rural India.

So it all depends...

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Icons FTW.

I do like incognito's idea about an introduction system for all objects, not just players.

Characters could have knowledge sets that define what objects they immediately identify.

Players could assign their own names to every object in the game.

"Oh, you call that a bonegnawer? I call that a bonemasher...though I hear the dwarves call it a bonegrinder."

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Really??? REALLY?

Are you telling me that you cannot tell the difference between a full bag of fertilizer and an empty one from looking at it? You really can't tell the difference between a crumpled heap of plastic and a big 40 lb bag of fertilizer?

And I don't know how things work at the stores in your neighborhood, but when I buy fertilizer, there is information written very clearly, in large text, all over the bags. The brand name, the stuff inside, etc. are all printed on the outside of the bag. At a quick glance, I can tell if something is a bag of fertilizer or not.

I am perplexed by this world you are envisioning where people cannot tell the difference between full and empty bags, and are completely oblivious to the writing on the outside of bags.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Yeah, it's kind of a toss-up in how much information you want to give in a short description before it's no longer short. I was sort of thinking that in this case, once you use up the bag of Miracle-Gro, the item would basically dest simply because it's used up. The bag is really no longer necessarily, but instead of making people RP the mundane aspects of gardening (such as throwing away the empty bag), I figured it would be better just to destroy the item as it's used.

Yes. Anyone who gardens can identify a bag of Miracle-Gro from a long ways away, though lots of generic brands try to mimic the Miracle-Gro bag for marketing purposes. You only have to see the bag once to forever have it imprinted in your brain. (Well, that's how it was for me. I grew up with an avid gardener.) I'm having a hard time deciding on what I think is more appropriate. Sometimes, short descriptions are used to convey things that your character would know that you (the player) might not know.

Now that's a really good idea. You need to see it once, and then you basically know it forever. (Assuming that there's no solid blows to the noggin.)

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Very true. Part of the reason for creating these brands is so that they're recognizable in any language. When traveling through Thailand, all soft drink cans are printed in Thai, but all of them are highly recognizable. They don't even bother to print McDonalds anywhere in Thai or in English. You just see the arches from a mile away.

One of the points to establish in any game, I suppose, is when a certain thing has reached that kind of critical success in a game. For example, when is Excalibur known as Excalibur rather than "black-hilted longsword engraved with silver".

In my gardening case, the character would know Miracle-Gro as a specific brand of fertilizer, but do I need to convey it to the players differently? Does it need to be more like the following:

Miracle-Gro, a bag of fertilizer

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Well, you do have Miracle Gro fertilizer as well as Miracle Gro potting soil and a variety of other specific products associated with the Miracle Gro brand.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

You know, when this thread first got started it reeked of an attempt to throw more snark out about the way RPI do their short descs. This here.. just proved it.

Look, I know you two are not fond of the way RPI's do things. Yes, I know, we've had our laughs at Delerak and prof1515 because of the thing that have gone on here. I don't agree with everything the RPI games do, nor all of their (Delerak and prof1515) opinions. However, I did take the time to actually talk to them and find out more without the BS that was going on here. Honestly, they make a lot more sense.

However, continually making jabs after the conversation is over, is quite low really.

You both know how you would prefer to describe the object, and you both know that how to handle short descs is a matter of preference. This is nothing more than a way for you to have more to point and laugh at the RPI crowd about because they would prefer to not see the name, but merely a description of the bag, and then when you look in the bag you see fertilizer. This was made quite obvious when you, Threshold, lashed out at Jazuela like she's a fool for her preferred method of describing things.

You think the way RPI's do things is silly, we get it. There's no need to create a thread asking about which method is better and then rail against those that mention that they'd do it the RPI way.

Utterly ridiculous.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

The problem with this is that their are people who might not know about excalibur. Or people who don't see 'excalibur' they simply see a sword. No matter how much critical success or acclaim an item gets it should never be referred to as a name in game because you never know what type of characters might see the item and go "How the hell did I know that?"

On the topic of naming thing after you know what they are? I don't know too much about that one either. The whole point of keeping sdescs and not names for items is that it keeps it more realistic.

Besides the fact that you're using modern items as examples - miracle gro/soft drinks/mcdonalds as an example, think about the thousand other items that you couldn't use as an example, even if somebody names a sword or names a book, how can you justify naming that item in the game when their are character in the game who might not be able to read that title of the book? Or who might not know anything about that sword.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Whoa. This has nothing to do with RPIs or how they do anything.

I'm in the process of making several very difficult decisions on how to describe certain things and when they become "famous", which is why Miracle-Gro was used as the example. Already, Bakha has pointed out something that needs to be considered in allowing players to "brand name" something, and though you may not find this thread useful, the input that others have given has been extremely valuable for decisions that I'm making at this very moment.

No. What's utterly ridiculous is your post.

Not every discussion is about RPIs or whatever. Not everyone cares about what they do or how they do it. The discussions is long dead, and there's really no need to bring it up again. There's absolutely nothing to be gained by it. What is important is the individual preferences and the explanations behind them. I'm thankful that anyone bothered to respond in whatever way they chose to respond since decisions like this can be vital to your game. Obviously, I haven't made mine.

Can you please stop hi-jacking threads and making it about your preferred genre? I really don't care to discuss anything about RPIs any further. If I did, I would have titled this thread "Hey, how do RPIs do it?" I'll bet you anything that they do it in a million different ways as well.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Very true. That brings up a whole other question.

There are people who are able to recognize certain things based on the creator of the item. (Okay, Miracle-Gro would probably not be one of them.) For example, some people can just recognize things such as "This is Cartier watch" or " This is a Stradivarius." In order to possibly show that someone has achieved a level of fame, how jarring would it be in character to have a description such as "a Stradivarius violin" as the short?

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Woah. You really jumped to conclusions there. Though after all the vitriolic AFS threads I can understand why one might be tempted to assume later threads are lingering "after shocks." But I would like to note:

1) I did not start this thread. I replied because Jazuela said something that seemed a little excessive to me. I actually intended to post about the specific topic in the first post as well, but Jazuela's extreme post prompted a reply to her post first.

2) I am not familiar with the rules or conventions AFS muds have for short descriptions. So to claim that I was just looking for an opportunity to slag them for the way they do their descriptions is just incorrect. In all of those AFS threads, I do not even recall the matter of item short descriptions being discussed as one of their criterion.

3) I believe Milawe's intent is to actually get information. She is working on a new mud, and the people working on that mud want to "get things right."

Honestly, lets not look for the boogeyman in every shadow or under every bed. Not every thread or every discussion is secretly about AFS muds. This thread is about exactly what it claims to be about: discussing different ways to do short descriptions.

There are merits to a purely descriptive short description (a green and yellow bag of fertilizer), and there are merits to a more brief, concise description that sums up a lot of things in a short few words (a bag of Miracle-Gro). But neither method has anything to do inherently with AFS muds.

And as far as Jazuela's post: no matter which of those two methods you prefer, I don't think it is logical to say that a person would have no idea from a quick glance if a bag is full or empty. That is the kind of thing that is incredibly obvious right away, no? Also, if it has FERTILIZER printed in big letters on the bag, then I don't think requiring a detailed examination is necessary for a player to know it is something other than "grubs of death and destruction." Granted, the labeling could be wrong, but that is all the more reason for including the label information in the short desc. :)

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

It depends on what kind of information you want to convey.

1. Miracle-Gro Fertilizer

This object guarantees that what they hold, is indeed, a bag full of Miracle-Gro product fertilizer.

2. a green and yellow bag

This object guarantees that what they hold is a bag with specific color markings, but is silent about the actual contents of the bag.

3. a green and yellow bag labeled 'Miracle-Gro'

This object guarantees that what they hold is a bag with specific color markings which was once filled with Miracle-Gro product, but is silent about the actual contents of the bag at present.

This is one of the differences between RPI's and other MUD's. The ambiguous short description encourages players not to make assumptions about objects, but to simply view them in the broadest way possible. If you intend for the bag to have other uses, or for there to be a reason why someone might want to put something other than Miracle-Gro into it (i.e. perhaps a sneaky neighbor wants their garden to look the best), I don't see a huge reason why you cannot call out the contents in the short description.

> a green and yellow plastic bag
> a green and yellow bag of fertilizer
> a green and yellow bag labeled 'Miracle-Gro'

However, it's similar to several types of containers we use in RPI's.

> a leather waterskin

It's a container. It's supposed to contain water, by the description, but it could feasibly hold any kind of liquid substance from water to wine to oil to syrup. That's why you can look inside it, sniff it, taste it, etc... It just depends what you want the bag to be used for and how much depth you want.

-LoD

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I think this works best, for two reasons:
So "Miracle-Gro, a bag of fertilizer" tells you what you would quickly see on the outside of the bag, and also gives you 3 good identifiers for examining it more closely ("look bag", "look fertilizer", "look Miracle-Gro").

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

To relate this to something Bakha mentioned about how Miracle-Gro has different products -- yes, that is true, but if the purpose of the sdesc is to say to the player 'This is Miracle-Gro', I would still argue for the sdesc 'A bag of Miracle-Gro'. When I hear 'Miracle-Gro', I think fertilizer. Maybe that's just me, but no, I am representative of all people! ;). Similarly, if the purpose of the sdesc is not to be ambiguous, you want to go for the eyeball-kick of product placement. Abstracting the referant to its most common icon is I think the most effective way to communicate the message here.

I think this still works in fantasy/medieval settings, but of course it depends on the flavor of the game.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I guess I'm trying to pin-point exactly where it might be okay to use

a bag of Miracle-Gro

in the given situation and what that conveys to most players. The purpose is to quickly convey a LOT of information to the player in no more than 20-30 characters. A player could then examine it more closely including looking up the Wiki entry for Miracle-Gro if they want to know the company's history and background.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Consider how your sentences are constructed by the code. I know that I have our builders use an article (a, an, some, the, and others) before the word(s), but how it is handled can be codebase specific.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I meant for the ambiguity to apply to the contents of the bag, not to the object itself.

> a bag of Miracle-Gro

This object states rather than implies what the bag contains.

> a green and yellow plastic bag

This object is ambiguous for the sake of the character as there are other factors that could be involved. It does have something that everyone save color blind characters could see, which would be the color scheme of the bag -- which is often how people identify goods with which someone is unfamiliar. For example, someone might ask me to go to the hardware store and pick up some kind of lubricant. They'll tell me the name, but they will also tell me the shape and the color of the product.

Factors that exist in other games, which encourage forms of ambiguity are:

> Are there language barriers? Literacy barriers?

If that's the case, then perhaps objects like a green and yellow plastic bag would be preferred because they don't assume that the character can read, is familiar with the brand Miracle-Gro, or speaks English.

> Are there cultural or regional issues?

Are we assuming that everyone is going to be an adult that's grown up in a Western civilization and knows a thing or two about lawn care and/or planting? What if they are from a region where there's very little vegetation and they've never even seen a commercial fertilizer? All the fertilizer they've ever seen may be in the form of dung.

If I lived in another country and they told me to pick something up, telling me the name would do me no good. They'd have to tell me how it looked. That's part of the reason for why you may prefer a more ambiguous system.

There are lots of considerations to make, and you may feel that they're becoming too complicated -- but it all comes down to what you want to achieve and how deep a system you want to support. The broader strokes you paint, the more possibilities that you support. The more specific you become, the more narrow the playing field becomes. It's just a design choice -- not a right/wrong issue.

-LoD

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

The issue of brand name usage comes up a lot on MMOs that want to make use of paid advertising as a way to generate revenue. Anarchy Online, Hellgate:London (not really an MMO), and (soon) City of Heroes are some modern games that have done this. They have modern or futuristic settings which makes it easier for them.

In discussions I read on the topic, many players expressed the opinion that in modern settings, it is sometimes more jarring to *NOT* see brand name products. In a lot of respects, I agree with this view. I remember 10, 20 years ago you would almost never see brand name products on movies or TV shows. If someone had a can of beer, it would say "BEER" in big letters on the can. That always looked ridiculous to me. Now that product placement has become the rule rather than the exception, I think it actually makes the movie and TV worlds seem more real and alive.

If someone's game setting does not lend itself to our RL brands, I think it might still be a good idea to invent brands for your world. Obviously, it depends on your setting, the literacy or worldliness of your game's characters, etc. But it is definitely something to consider. Brand recognition has a deep, emotional power, which is why advertisers fight so hard to create it.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

If I were doing this, I would probably handle that via the main description as well. I would probably also have the ability to tell the maker of an item dependent on the skill of the person who is viewing the item. I'm still not sure that they should be able to tell definitively on first glance who the maker is. After all, art forgery still exists. Knock-off guccis can be found just about anywhere.

I would probably do it like this:

Allow crafters to sign their items.
Have skill level of crafter taken into account when an item is crafted.
When another master crafter (or maybe a master user of that item type) looks at an item, they can see with how much skill the item was crafted and get it when they assess the item. The accuracy of their judgement increases as their skill increases.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Right. I have no interest in a right or wrong discussion on how to do these things. We all know that it's a matter of preference. What I'm looking for is what you guys have given... how certain descriptions impact you, as a player. I guess I should have been more clear in that the bag isn't as important as what's IN the bag. It's just that you don't really cart fertilizer around (nowadays) in anything other than the original bag they were purchased in.

I guess a more "gamey" version would be something like this:

a black-hilted longsword inlaid with silver
a black-hilted longsword inlaid with silver
a black-hilted longsword inlaid with silver
Excalibur, the black-hilted longsword

At some point, I would assume that Excalibur has some quality that makes it stand out from other similar swords. At some point, does it become famous enough to be "known" by its name so that the name can appear in the short description? If I do choose to allow Excalibur to be the short description, what does this end up conveying to people?

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I agree. I want to be able to handle forgeries. I want to be able handle things like Miracle-Grub ripping off Miracle-Gro's main colors for their packaging, but I also want to arm (and reward) players when an item has reached a certain amount of fame.

Excellent suggestions. We've already designed the system itself, and I'm pretty confident in it. What I'm worried about now is specifically branding and "famous" items.

This is actually implemented for all players. A swordsman would likely be able to identify an extremely well-made sword, or a cook would likely be able to say, "Bah! This knife you sold me is a piece of crap!" even if they neither one of them can actually create those specific items themselves.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Okay, I'll try to stick specifically to this, then.

Here's how I've seen it handled:

A mastercrafter is allowed to create one masterpiece "recipe" per year. This is an item that is entirely new in the database. It can be made so that only they can craft it, or it can be made so that only they have the recipe. If someone steals the recipe or deconstructs the item and figures out the recipe, then they'd be able to craft it as well.

As for the issue of assigning "proper" names vs. common descriptions to the short descs: the way it's handled is that the person is producing a unique item that no one else can produce. While no one sees that it's "Bakha's Massive Codpiece for the Well-Endowed" they would see, "Wow! That guy has a shiny purple codpiece, and I've never seen one of those before. I wonder where he got it?" Then they find out that it's made by such and such mastercrafter.

I don't know, I'm just not sure that I buy the argument that eventually everyone will recognize Excalibur automatically when they walk into a room.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I don't think I'm making such an argument.

It's more of a "How do I distinguish Excalibur and give players the option to recognize it on sight?".

I figure that if someone does NOT want to have their character recognize Excalibur on sight (by name), they would still know "Wow, there's something special about this weapon" and roleplay accordingly, or they also have the option of ignoring it completely. Whereas, the more "gossipy", "know-it-all", or "well-learned" characters could easily say, "Oh, you're the wielder of Excalibur? I've heard of that sword, but I've never heard of you. How did you get that weapon? Is that the REAL Excalibur?"

I liked your masterpiece item scenario, but I think I'm possibly discussing something beyond that. Let's say we're wanting "Starry Night" specifically instead of a van Gogh painting. Does that make sense? What other options are there on giving characters the knowledge that this is "Starry Night" immediately without actually giving the object the short description of "Starry Night"? Or perhaps the best option is to simply show it as "Starry Night".

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

It's possible that you could code up an additional flag that is applied to characters and objects that are 'famous'. It can be toggled by a command in the game.

The flag denotes whether or not the player want their character to recognize these 'famous' items on sight, and if the item has a 'famou' flag & desc, that one is shown to them as the short desc instead. Or, perhaps, they still see the generic (maybe with an extra tidbit added to denote it seems familiar), but when they look at the item closer the long desc has an additional section that mentions that they recognize it as whatever it is supposed to be.

This sets up a convention though of walking into the room is just a quick glance around, and then actually looking at it makes it more regocnizeable.

Ex:

Player with flag toggled off:

sdesc: a black hilten longsword inlaid with silver.
ldesc: desc of the sword

Player with flag toggled on Option 1:
sdesc: Excalibur
ldesc: desc of sword

Player with flag toggled on Option 2:

sdesc: a familiar black hilted longsword inlaid with silver
ldesc: desc of sword You recognize it to be Excalibur.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Yeah, it's problematic. There are a few such items on Armageddon that are properly named (Magekiller, Heru's Sword, etc) and ICly famous. None of those have proper name sdescs, buuut (and this is a big but) they are almost all metal which in itself stands out in a world basically devoid of metal. They are also usually distinctly described in some way so that they stand out as out of the normal. I do, however, get that you're going for something a little different here in that players need to be able to produce such things. I also imagine you want a bit of "gee whiz" or "neat" factor for the players as they create nifty looking items that grow in popularity and spread throughout the mud, becoming the latest ingame rage.

Well, the artist always has the option of only producing one of those items to make it a unique masterpiece, but I do get that you're going for something a little different. I think what it comes down to is what's in theme and consistent with the rest of your game world. If a proper named short desc isn't going to stand out like a sore thumb (or maybe the whole point is to have it stand out like a sore thumb), then go for it. If it's going to be jarring and look weird, then choose a different route.

My main concern would be ,mass proliferation of masterpieces and brands in such a system. So, you don't have just Starry Night in a room. Instead you have:

This cozy bedroom is cozily arranged with lots of artwork hanging on the walls:
Starry Night
Guernica
Mona Lisa
The Scream
Sunflowers

And every single person's abode being decorated with "unique" items. Or, if you're looking at mass-produced instead of unique, every single persons' equipment containing, "Crown Jewels."

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Amazing.
An entire Mud based on modern gardening?
And a long thread discussing the short desc of one item in that Mud?

I don't want to scoff really, and I am a huge gardening fan, but aren't there more important things to discuss in such an original project?

Milawe, you should come around 4D some time and check out our gardening feature. It's not an entire gardening Mud, but it's a pretty nice feature, with 8 different garden plots, where you can sow your seeds and watch them grow. And unless you tend to the garden continuously, your crop will be eaten by insects, slugs, rabbits and other garden pests, trampled by kids chasing balls, wither and die from lack of water, and get suffocated by various weeds. I've promised a silver token to the first player that can get a full crop from all 8 plots, but so far nobody has succeeded, although it's quite possible.

My aunt, who is an enthusiastic amateur gardener, designed the feature, and the only thing she seems to have forgotten is some Miracle-Gro.
She'll probably come and play your Mud after it's up - that is, if she can tear herself away from her garden. :)

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I don't think her mud is actually based on gardening. I think she was trying to use an analogy without giving away exact details on a particular feature of her mud. ;) I could be wrong, though.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

But isn't it a lot more fun when they do? For some people... at least. :)

I imagine the movie Excalibur would have been a lot less exciting if every time King Arthur drew Excalibur people just thought "yeah, that's nice. You have a sword. So do the rest of us. Big deal." It would have been very anticlimactic.

This is starting to sound like another difference of viewpoint based on preference for simulation or story. Some people want a gritty, realistic simulation, and other people want an exciting, engaging storyline. If there are no givens or common frame of reference, it is hard for the characters in a story to relate to each other. Neither preference is better, but they are quite different.

But I think you are already alluding to that in some of your posts. Ultimately, the decision as to how "famous" an item can be, or whether brands are possible/feasible, depends on the type of world you have.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Additional thought:

Assuming you have multiple cultures and centers of civilization here.

Work with a culture skill. Skill is based on native culture and can gain through spending time in other cultures (exposure to language, time spent in city, commerce conducted within other cities). To use Threshold terms, one could be well-versed in Thracian culture but ignorant of Sablean culture.

Items would work the same way as characters. An item would be assigned a dynamic cultural value. As an item is traded and used within other cultures, it can gain value within that culture.

Now you combine the two. A person versed in Thracian culture would recognize an item with a high Thracian cultural value by its proper name. They might even have additional insight into its uses and properties. A Sablean, looking at the same item, might see a very basic item description without any additional information provided. Now, as an item gains in it's Sablean cultural value, the Sablean cultural expert might start to see more. At some value, you allow an item to cross over from its generic descriptive form to its proper name that the designer intended.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Yes, I really do want the gee whiz factor without everything and its mom having a proper name. However, I want the gee whiz factor without the jarring, "WTF. How do I know that weapon's name?" factor. It's kind of a fine line to draw, and it's something I've been debating for quite some time. I prefer to keep a short desc very short and a long desc full of details with additional detail descs if necessary.

Yeah, that's the problem. Is it going to be jarring or will it be more "Wow. That's different?" I totally want the "Wow!" factor and not the "Well, that's pretty out of character."

This would be acceptable to me only if the player has spent a fortune gathering these unique items and dedicated most of his/her online life to gathering these pieces. And in order to have them all in one room, he/she probably needs to be an art thief and hiding all the pieces together.

That's definitely not the goal. Unique will be unique on the scale of Excalibur and the One Ring. It's just a matter of deciding how to show their "uniqueness" and "fame" in a simple, informative way to players. There's lots of ways to do it. I'm just interested in hearing all the thoughts behind what people enjoy and what they would do themselves.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

ROFL. Yes, I am making a pay-for-perks, modern, roleplaying enforced gardening mud. I plan to make millions of it, and I'm looking for a coder. Would you be interested? :)

No, I kid. I made up the scenario because I was trying to get to a specific point without bogging people down with the specifics of a rather large game. I figured if I made the example modern and a bit outrageous it would be easier to talk about without it turning into a comparison of games. (I made a booboo.) Also, I'll admit that I never quite got over the law school exams that consisted of professors making us analyze the craziest, most unlikely scenarios and write multiple page essays. While it annoyed me in law school, I now see the appeal in writing those things.

Actually, Molly, that sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm at lose ends as far as games go at the moment. I may stop in and check out what sounds like a very interesting system.

Before you scoff, though, there's a very popular series of games out there that consists of nothing more than your character making the best farm ever. Your character gets married based on how well your farm is doing and how well you woo your spouse. You're expected to feed her based on the food you cook off the things you grow. Since the game is now on its 5th version, I wouldn't be too quick to scoff on the "modern farming" mud. (Maybe I'll make it after I'm done with my project.)

No, ultimately, I'm interested in what players of different games expect from a short description, how to treat an item becoming "famous", and how to give players the option of roleplaying that an item can be recognized or "known".

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

As an answer to the original question: As Zhiroc says, there have been times on TV where a red can has been shown and you instantly know its a coke can. This, in itself, can be amusing because we all like to think we're smart enough to catch it. I'd vote for the second option, a green and yellow bag filled with fertilizer, just for the fun of saying, "Hey, I've seen that bag before! I know what it is!"

Of course, this opinion is based on the fact that:

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I'm going to quickly throw out more ideas on my earlier one about cultural knowledge being a skill:

You could also differentiate between various classes of cultural knowledge: low and high. For instance, someone with a "low" cultural knowledge in the United States would probably be able to differentiate between powdered cocaine, powdered meth, and powdered heroin whereas a highbrow wouldn't. Converse, the highbrow would know the difference between a nice Alexander Valley Cab and an Australian Merlot.

Anyway, I know this is all getting very simulationist and offtopic for the OP's original intent, but I thought I'd throw the idea out there.

I should add, as I think my views are associated with the RPI viewpoint for the most part, that my suggestions don't really mirror RPI implementation. In an RPI, the broader, vaguer context would be coded, as LoD discussed in his post, with the "cultural" knowledge being gained ICly and ingame. There would never be a point where one's character codedly recognized the proper name for a generic looking object. The only problem with an RPI in this is that it makes veteran players who have a broad OOC knowledge of the game have an advantage over newbies who don't have that knowledge. An example that comes to mind from Armageddon is the IC lore surrounding "spice" (which Arm's version of drugs). I remember playing my first druggie PC whose background stated that he had been addicted to some specific spices for quite some time. Unfortunately, when faced with:
a pinch of golden brown spice
a pinch of viscous black spice
a pinch of moldy green spice
My addict couldn't tell you which of the spices was actually his spice of choice. Now, after playing that PC through his life and discovering all of this knowledge ICly, I was able to apply that knowledge to future underworld characters, but the problem is that OOC knowledge impacted my IC concept.

Anyway, I know I'm veering dangerously close to the RPI vs. The World thread, but I'm really just approaching this from a theoretical game design standpoint now.

Very cool original post to spark all of this, btw.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I very much like exploring this idea of "cultural knowledge" for certain items since cultural could be geographically based, racially based, or even religion based. This wouldn't be that hard to code and adds only a little bit of extra description. Ultimately, though, it still brings us back to "Starry Night" vs. "an swirled oil painting depicting a night sky", or are you saying that certain cultures/level of learning would allow a person to identify it as "Starry Night".

That's why it's so often hard to decide how to convey things to a player that a character would know that a player didn't have to learn completely him/herself. While the discovery can be extremely thrilling and immersive, I think I'm a firm believer that a player has choices when a character sometimes doesn't have a choice. For example, if there were a character on my roleplay enforced mud who had designed his character to be an art expert but absolutely was not one, I would want him to be able to identify "Starry Night", a painting on sight. He'd have to examine it closer to find out if it were a forgery or a reprint, but he could look glance at the picture and know it's "Starry Night" even if the player had no clue that it was a famous painting by van Gogh. At the same time, I would expect a player who was playing an uneducated brute from the northlands to ignore the name "Starry Night", a painting and say "Wow. That's an ugly picture of a bunch of colored circles." or whatever is appropriate.

OOC will always impact games in some way. I guess it's a matter of deciding how much knowledge to impart on a player and how much "discovery" the actual player should have to do.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

Right. You could attach exact numbers to it, but it might look something like this:

Person A:
A person well-versed in Sablean culture sees the painting and they see:
"Starry Night" as the sdesc.

Person B:
A person somewhat well-versed in Sablean culture sees instead:
A painting of a swirling night sky.
When they look at it more closely, they might see:
"This painting looks to be Starry Night."

Person C:
A person with little understanding of Sablean culture sees:
"A painting of a swirling night sky."
When they look at the painting more closely, they still get no indication of proper name.

Now imagine this scenario:
Person C, while ignorant of Sablean culture is well-versed in Thracian culture. Now imagine that the item Starry Night has gotten so well-known that it's crossed cultural boundaries. It receives a 100% value rating in Sablean culture as well as a 100% value rating in Thracian culture because the artist has become famous in both cultures. Now Person C will get the same message as person A did above because the item itself has transcended its culture and people from both Sablean and Thracian cultures know of the item.

This system could get ridiculously clunky, but it could also be interesting.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

It depends on the code I think. With a MOO-type of code where there are parent/child object setups, it wouldn't be clunky at all. It's been awhile since I've built with MOO but it would go something like this:

You want to start the game with Van Gogh being unknown to everyone. So -all- items with the parent of "van_gogh generaic object #42" will be flagged in the "famous" category of "0" on a scale of 0 (null, not at all) - 5 (with 5 being known by all PCs and sentient humanoid NPCs worldwide - which would be very rare).

Van Gogh shows up and starts painting in the town of Muffpuff. Everyone in Muffpuff eventually learns to recognize Van Gogh's stuff. The parent generic #42 gets a flag change: first, the flag of origin is checked to make sure it reads Muffpuff. Then, the fame flag will be changed to 1, indicating that ONLY people from Muffpuff will recognize ANY VanGogh paintings. In addition, the child of generic #42, item #177 which is titled "Starry Night," will have its fame flag toggled to 2, indicating that this specific item is recognized in both Muffpuff, and in the neighboring cities, but no further than that.

So now we have 20 VanGogh paintings, and generic #42 is a 4 fame, meaning every sentient humanoid game-wide, except cave-dwellers who never leave the tunnels of the caves and are considered a completely separate game component from the rest of the world (which is why a 5 fame would be rare). At this point, Starry Night is also flagged at 4, as are at least 10 other paintings. So generally speaking, the entire world would recognize a VanGogh when they saw it. They might not know the -name- of a specific painting, but they would all be able to identify his unique style.

You could even have master artists and appraisers, who exist to identify or create forgeries. So the master artist could create *a* Van Gogh style, that everyone who sees would recognize *as* a Van Gogh..even though they wouldn't know its name. They could then kill Van Gogh, so he can't deny ever making this painting, and tell everyone they found a lost painting of Van Gogh, and make a fortune on the fake. If the master artist's work is good enough, the master appraiser would never notice the difference. But if the master appraiser's skill is better than the master artist's skill, then he'd be called for a fraud, arrested, and banished to the caves, where he would never be allowed to see another Van Gogh for the rest of his miserable life.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

From what I read, the problem with an exact name for the item is that it may "destroy" the immersion feeling of a player in a RP Mud. This may make sense, true, but on the other hand, if it is done sparsely and thoughtfully you would be giving a player an option to role play around either knowing or not an specific item. I do know that as a player you carry around tons of OOC knowledge. I know this mainly from table-top D&D, where you had all these bestiaries and manuals you had read, you knew details about all the classes and many of the weapons, you knew about critters and their weaknesses etc. But there is no reason to believe that your Lvl 1 Thief should have known what the Lvl 5 Cleric was capable of. So, it was up to the player to role play accordingly and imbue their character with just enough knowledge and consciously decide to act as the character would with what the character would know instead of making decisions based on what the player knew. Hard, but all the more enjoyable when you worked to make it work.

So, in this context, I understand that RP RPI ASRP TSRP (Threshold style RP for those who didn't know), may want to be as immersed on their simulated reality as possible, but without a very elaborated code to work how famous a 'named' or 'unique' item is, and how recognizable an item should be (of course, what if my newly created character happens to be in a party with an older, knowledgeable character, who tells him about this immensely powerful sword with this particular engraving, these colours in the hilt, etc, etc ... well, my dumbinewbie should be able to recognize Excalibur should he not?,) you will be restricting and not enriching the experience a player can have. On the other hand, if you openly identify a famous or unique item, maybe even with a really soft code to determine how recognizable it is (maybe even a toggle flag players can turn off or something if they are playing some impaired character or similar) you are allowing the player to decide how he/she wants to role play the situation. If they decide they do not want to know Excalibur they can just role play accordingly, but if they do want to recognize it, then they have to option to Ohh and Ahh appropriately, which would not be an option if they were not shown the 'uniqueness' up front.

I hope it does make sense, maybe I am giving too much credit to Role Players and they really need to be spoon fed what they characters may or may not know and cannot decide for themselves how much they want to incorporate into their character's story, or maybe I am being too ignorant of the subject and it really is such a big deal to have anything that may be perceived as OOC shown to you when you are playing in a RP Mud. I do not know which is true or if there is a single right answer, I do know though, that if you over-restrict what a player can see, you are restricting the spontaneous awe at something you recognize on the spot ("Isn't that David Beckham??", "Woao, look they have the Mona Lisa on loan in this museum!!", "Hmmmmm must buy coke when the movie ends hmmmm hmmm coke when the movie ends hmmmmm")

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I think this thread is great.

Still more things come to mind:
Can simply having a certain skill allow one to recognize certain objects better? To me they're a bunch of pills. To my father-in-law the pharmacist, they're antibiotics. To me it's a guitar. To my brother, the guitar player, it's a fender stratocaster.

Can one artisan's work seem just like another's to the untrained eye? While certain artists are pretty distinctive, other's inspired a whole school of art. There are a whole bunch of impressionists whose work resembles Manet, for example. Could someone's apprentice make a work that looked like his master's?

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I once discussed a similar concept on Mud-Dev:

"As a 'cheap' alternative, you could use skills for this. Thus Bob, who has Survival 0, looks in the room and sees 'a tasty-looking mushroom', while Fred - with Survival 5, sees 'a deadly skull-cap toadstool'. This is not as 'nice' as learning about each object, but would be less cpu/memory intensive. Skills such as 'Occult' could be used for strange artifacts, whilst 'Melee' might show you 'A finely crafted steel katana' rather than 'a sword' - perhaps someone with a little Melee might see 'An oriental sword'."

The same concept also works very nicely for room descriptions - for example, someone with weak language skills might just see some old writing on a tomb, while an expert in ancient languages would see a warning message about the nasty undead creature trapped within.

Re: Quick, short descriptions
 

I think you're hitting the nail on the head here, Spoke, and why this is such a decision for me. There's probably no "right" answer, which is why the discussion helps work through all the possible issues in addition to possibly creating a few fun mechanics and code projects.

On Threshold, all of our unique objects are "named". People really like getting their hands on these things, and it's almost like graphics for them. They know they have something REALLY COOL, and I like to maintain that. Unfortunately, we didn't start out with a solid plan when we were creating items and their short descriptions, so a few things got "named" that probably shouldn't have been. Now, with a new game that has an incredible number of objects and the ability to create unique objects, I feel that having a naming protocol is the best way to go. So, my goal is how to I keep the "REALLY COOL" factor for some objects, and in giving all that information away in a single glance, how does that impact the discovery factor for other players? Some players really enjoy discovering not only areas but items as well, and they like that they're able to recognize things by sight that other people really don't know much about.

I lean more towards giving more information to players and letting them decide what their characters know, but I'm pretty intrigued by a "recognition system" for items as well as areas.