Tells and otells

Exer · Post by **Exer** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 4:12 pm

I've been in many situations where someone RP's a whisper over to an other character. And almost in each case, people in the room seem to react to it. This is poor RP in my mind but saying this, how about adding the ability to whisper?

It would work like a tell (No use of manna) but only if the person is in the same room. And should show:

Player X whispers something to Player Y

Thoughts?

Tempus · Post by **Tempus** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 4:24 pm

Surely this is already achievable with the current code:

Code: Select all

emote whispers something to $mybuddy
tell mybuddy Hey, wonder if they can guess what i said.

Sure, it might be nice to have an actual whisper command, which rogues might be able to overhear, but since people can use tells with no chance of eavesdropping, I don't think it would be widely used.

Nedylene · Post by **Nedylene** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 4:32 pm

I believe this subject has been brought up spurratically in the past and it has been discussed and no true conclusion has come from it. Coming from a player's point of view though there are many ways to simulate whispers such as this.. tells are an option as you do not need an amulet of communication to send tells to the same person in the room. You can easily make it a whisper through smotes. You also need to ask yourself would you rather see Mystra and Greg turn their coding attention to add something in such as whispers or would you like to see them continue working on the new character creation segment and things such as FK zoner which will enable more areas to be put into the mud quicker? There is only so much time to code things and one truelly needs to think which would they rather see done first?

Exer · Post by **Exer** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 5:09 pm

Point well taken. I'd rather see new areas myself as well

Thanks the feedback!
Cheers

Bragbub · Post by **Bragbub** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 6:10 pm

Actually I think a whole new whisper command would work better, and it would give people with the listen skill a chance to overhear what's been said. So listen could work both when checking for sneaking players, and whispering players. Just a thought anyway.

Andreas · Post by **Andreas** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 6:35 pm

I'm all for a whisper command but don't see it as a dire necessity. Would be (mostly) private with a chance for those with the appropriate skill to listen (detect noise?) and wouldn't cost mana. Oh, and obviously you'd only be able to use it with someone in the same room. I can happily wait for it some day

Rhytania · Post by **Rhytania** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 7:26 pm

Another plus is you can whisper to somebody you havent greeted, which is a big drawback with the current 'tell' system.

Rhelian · Post by **Rhelian** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:21 am

Tells also use mana - and a player with a low mana store (say a fighter, low int and wis, <25) cannot use that as a viable alternative. I think whisper would be a good command, probably with an echo like:

PlayerA whispers to PlayerB.

A successful listen check would yield

PlayerA whispers to PlayerB "message"

Cyric · Post by **Cyric** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:37 am

I would think players with the listen skill, though, would have to be considerably higher when discerning a whisper, than a simple noise one makes when entering or exiting a room. You have words, phrases, etc. to actually decipher, rather than noticing a twig snapping in the woods, or the chime of metal against metal.

Andreas · Post by **Andreas** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:35 pm

I've seen this function elseMU* actually.

WHISPER Tom Do you know where I can find a blue orchid?

Harry WHISPERS to you Do you know where I can find a blue orchid?

(Jane wants to hear what Harry is WHISPERING to Joe...)

LISTEN Harry

(Not sure how skill levels work exactly, but let's say Jane is an apprentice at LISTEN...)

Harry WHISPERS to Tom ...you... find... blue

Now the higher the skill level, the more the LISTENER would hear. Or maybe it could just work like the language code and scramble the words/letters.

Lukian · Post by **Lukian** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:06 pm

Andreas is a genius...

Andreas...I REALLY like your idea there...and that may (I'm no coder) be easy enough that its just a side job for the coders...(Coders, dont beat me!!! I'm sorry!!!) I would like to see a whisper command implemented...but as andreas said earlier...I think it can wait on some more areas and such...

Edited to remove advertisment for another mud. Please read help advertising in game.

Rhelian · Post by **Rhelian** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 11:36 pm

I think a scramble code would defeat the purpose of whispering, personally. Take languages at the moment - if you don't understand the language you can still (most of the time easilly) put together the correct sentence by looking at it for half a minute. I realise this isn't an IC method, but I can't think of anyone who hasn't done it at one time or another, myself included. An echo similar to

PlayerA whispers something to PlayerB you can't quite hear

would run if a listen check was made but was unsuccessful - maybe make listen an active skill like discern, if it's not already? You have to be actively listening in order to pick things up - like actively discerning to find hidden things - this could also be applied to room entrances, as no-one is continually listening for footfalls all the time. Also give a check to both whisperers that would echo "PlayerC seems to be listening very closely to your conversation" on a successful roll?

Just a few ideas.

Dominik · Post by **Dominik** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 1:31 am

I was just wondering...how might one RP it if, say, they are responding to someone over the Amulet, and suddenly something happens, to cause them to scream, or shout, or...whatever. I was thinking of something along the lines of.....

Player1 tells Player2 'I'm just walking through the forest at night, and...::yelps loudly::'

And the yelping could, for example, be caused by stumbling blindly into a tree. Because you wouldn't just continue talking into the amulet in that case. Just a thought. Any opinions, ideas, gripes, moans, or...well, other comments?

Ivaldi · Post by **Ivaldi** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 4:45 am

I had to do an interrupted tell in one of the first RPs I was involved in. It went along the lines of:
" I think I found [something related to the RP] and ye might want to see--uh--'ey! "
...which is basically the same as what you were thinking of, but I don't know if that was quite what the imm intended it to be like or not.

The main thing this made me wonder about is how a character actually uses the amulet of communication. Do you speak directly into it, or are you just concentrating hard on the words that you want to send? Clearly this would affect what the receiving character would see/hear/feel in their mind (I don't really know what happens when you receive a tell, either) when the sender is somehow interrupted.

Dominik · Post by **Dominik** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 7:54 am

I've always thought a character would either tilt their head and speak toward the amulet quietly enough that no one else in the room heard, or that, as was suggested, it was simple thought. Though I would think then that a mage would find it easier to concentrate (which is reflected by the concentration stat, I'm sure) that a Fighter. But, while everyone obviously pays attention to the amount on concentration their character has left, that adds a new level to the idea of RP. If a wizard can concentrate on the task easier, perhaps he or she would not run into the tree I earlier suggested, whereas a fighter might.

Tychina · Post by **Tychina** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 4:05 pm

mm I think this answers a question I had about them. I often find, tells can be very "cold" things. I have many times wished I could include emotion in a tell. Things said, without any sign of emotion can be so cold, sometimes rude sounding. People can take them the wrong way. Where as if you can include a bit of an emotional tone into it, then it is easier to figure out what the person meant.

I was not aware we were aloud to use the astericks in a tell, I have tried to avoid it, so as to avoid being thought to be using emotes. And while using astericks may not be the most asthetically pleasing way to insert emotion into a tell, I can think of no better way. So if this is alowed, then I may start doing that from now on.

Belose · Post by **Belose** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 8:46 am

There are times when you DO want to make an image soooo clear that no can mistake the point you are trying to make, wheter in mindspeaking, i.e. using a communication amulet, or whether in simple gestures and movements, and going to the point of leaving NO mistake in what you're trying to put across, i.e. smotes, and I think Belose does this remarkably well, if I do say so myself, therefore I have taken this time to inform everyone that this is mine... {Belose grins a Great Big Belose Grin}tm.

That's a trademark by the way... and don't be surprised if it comes in a mindspeak...hehehe....

This isn't my 2 cents, this is at least worth a quarter!

Senreen · Post by **Senreen** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 6:22 pm

Ok, I go afk for a while not too far southeast of Waterdeep, then I find myself stunned and I can't send a tell to get help.

Why not?

Arathin · Post by **Arathin** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 6:27 pm

Being stunned essentially means you are unconscious, unable to move any limbs or speak, so there would be no reason why you can send a tell...it's just like if you black out/receive a concussion, you don't remember it, you can't move, you just can't respond to any stimuli.

Player of Trathas
"May your pleasures be painful and your pains pleasurable."

Belose · Post by **Belose** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 9:53 pm

Trathas is right.... when you're sending tells, you are mindspeaking... and if you are stunned, that means your mind ISN'T working right....after having a concussion in a car wreck, I can DEFINITELY say that is true... I wasn't aware of anything for about 20 or 30 minutes after the wreck and then I wake up in the emergency room to a cop telling a nurse I hit a wrecker...

(which wasn't true, the wrecker hit me):x and THEN feeling the pain... head injuries are the strangest things... I couldn't even remeber the 3 to 5 seconds right before the wreck, so I hope this helps you understand a bit better...

Tells and otells

Whispering

RE:Whisper Command

RE: Whisper vs. Detect Noise/Listen

Amulet of Communication's Relation To RP.

Perceptions

Why can't you send a tell when you are stunned?