Reducing spam?

Isolrem · Post by **Isolrem** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 1:00 am

Ever had situations in a larger party where :

Bob walks in from the north
Jean walks in from the north
Mike walks in from the north
Paul walks in from the north
Joe walks in from the north
Kate walks in from the north
A dude says to Bob, "Hey man, what's up?"
A dude says to Jean, "Hey girl, what's up?"
A dude says to Mike, "Hey man, what's up?"
A dude says to Paul, "Hey man, what's up?"
A dude says to Joe, "Hey man, what's up?"
A dude says to Kate, "Hey girl, what's up?"

Is it possible for the game to analyze its own output and shorten these sentences? The logarithm would look something like
1. get all output
2. remove all character names
3. group all similar outputs and reenter character names in a list form

This way the aforesaid spam becomes

Bob, John, Mike, Paul, Joe, and Kate walks in from the north.
A dude says to Bob, Mike, Paul, and Joe, "Hey man, what's up?"
A dude says to Jean and Kate, "Hey girl, what's up?"

Is this possible?

Hviti · Post by **Hviti** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 2:45 am

I think this already has been (to some degree) done, as groups now echo "X walks east followed by a large group" instead of everyone's walking echos appearing, which I believe got rid of far more group associated spam than that generated by mobs who address party members.

Also, honestly, even with a large group, I can only think of two or three mobs that are going to echo to all of your group members unless it's for a good reason (giving a quest or the like)...so I'm not sure that this generates too much spam. Bad for ppl with telent, but I guess you can always walk back into a room.

Isolrem · Post by **Isolrem** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 3:10 am

Yes, it happens the most often with giving quests, why shouldn't the spam be reduced when quests are given? It doesn't affect anything.
But it happens in many other cases, too.
If this was dungeon exploration, you would get 8 echoes whenever a trapped room is entered for eight people, with this method there would be 2, one for those it hit and one for those it missed.
There are also a number of mobs that will frequently if not always say something when you meet them. A fair number, considering every innkeeper is included in this category at least.

edit : It would be even more coding, but it could also check for item names when player names are the same, so instead of getting 20 echoes for wear all or get all pack you get one.

Sparlen · Post by **Sparlen** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 5:30 am

Really I see no problem with it, it is just spam. It is up to the PC to control the usage of spam, ex: Walking into an area and walking out, spamcasting, placing and getting items out of the pack, and just plain spamming of text. Grouping text would be to complex, and perhaps be hard to follow the rp very well...individual echos, and individual text is set there to seperate PCs.

Zach · Post by **Zach** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:52 pm

I agree with sparlen. The way it is. The code is less complicated and shorter.

FK does not need a complex code when it could be fixed by doing

smote walks in and says hello to the gathered people

and not

sayto girl hi
sayto ugly hi
sayto 7 hi
sayto may what are you doing, get away

that is something everyone could do to reduce the spam

people putting away things and getting things out... i would like to see something on the lines of 'someone gets some things from a black pack encrusted in blah blah blah'

sometimes you don't want EVERYONE to know what you get out of your bag

Sparlen · Post by **Sparlen** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 5:28 pm

Zach wrote:I agree with sparlen. The way it is. The code is less complicated and shorter.

FK does not need a complex code when it could be fixed by doing

smote walks in and says hello to the gathered people

and not

sayto girl hi
sayto ugly hi
sayto 7 hi
sayto may what are you doing, get away

that is something everyone could do to reduce the spam

people putting away things and getting things out... i would like to see something on the lines of 'someone gets some things from a black pack encrusted in blah blah blah'

sometimes you don't want EVERYONE to know what you get out of your bag

Agreed. I've been trying my hardest to do so, such as walking around the MS instead of walking in and out when I do not have business inside the MS. We all can do our little things to prevent over usage of spam, and there are somethings that we cant help.

Again it would not be healthy to change the code, it is simple enough for experienced players to use, and for newbies to understand.

Kelemvor · Post by **Kelemvor** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:31 pm

Isolrem is referring to mobs within the game which have greet programs triggered by a player walking in - the consequence for bigger groups being as many lines of greetings as there are characters in the group.

If the greet prog could be amended to recognise that there are more than X players and not do the say I suppose that would reduce the problem, but for quest mobs that might have consequences for players.

Personally I have no problem with it, it's no more spam than combat, getting food and drink from containers, or any of a dozen other necessities.

Zach · Post by **Zach** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 4:53 am

ahh for mobs... couldn't we switched the say command to a tell command?

Lorion · Post by **Lorion** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 5:31 am

And then, imagine you come in a group to do this quest, but only one actually will do the quest. So the group comes to the mob and he tells it just to this one PC. How would the others be supposed to know what he said then?

Mariela · Post by **Mariela** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 6:21 am

You know..
I like the fact the quests jump you. I don't find it to be spam.

What I find to be spam is people who go running into combat before other people in the group have a chance to read where one is at!

I dunno. I really think the amount of screen movement is really mild, all things concidering. I don't quite understand why people think they are getting spammed. But that's just me!

Dugald · Post by **Dugald** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 4:03 pm

I think the spam problem really only affects less than half of the players - which doesn't mean the other half shouldn't be courteous...only that we probably shouldn't have much of a say on these issues.

Lorion · Post by **Lorion** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 5:53 pm

If you are in a group of two or three, the spam really isn't that big. But one of the few times I played recently I was in a big group of around 10 people, and if some mob says two lines of text to each of these, it can get rather spammy. Granted, this is the exception rather than the rule, but i do understand the problem that some people have with it.

Zach · Post by **Zach** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 7:14 pm

well... if you are in a large group.. mob spamming happens and if you are prepaired for it... it is not all that bad... for those who have large screans and ZMudd there is no problem... log and scroll are sweet

Brar · Post by **Brar** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 9:21 pm

Zach wrote:well... if you are in a large group.. mob spamming happens and if you are prepaired for it... it is not all that bad... for those who have large screans and ZMudd there is no problem... log and scroll are sweet

I fail to understand? So, because some can afford to buy big screen and use zmud we should not care instead of trying to make it more playable for those with smaller screens?

If that's what you mean, it may sounds a bit selfish... so I hope I'm just not understand your sentense.

Sparlen · Post by **Sparlen** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 12:19 am

EDIT: Deleted.

Sparlen · Post by **Sparlen** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 12:20 am

Brar Golik wrote:
Zach wrote:well... if you are in a large group.. mob spamming happens and if you are prepaired for it... it is not all that bad... for those who have large screans and ZMudd there is no problem... log and scroll are sweet
I fail to understand? So, because some can afford to buy big screen and use zmud we should not care instead of trying to make it more playable for those with smaller screens?

If that's what you mean, it may sounds a bit selfish... so I hope I'm just not understand your sentense.

He is just merely stating his opinion of having a big screen and Zmud, the zmud download is not a big file and it will not take you 1-2 hours to download, 1-2 mins tops for 56K. Zach isn't being selfish. As playing with smaller screens, I have a small screen, it is hard, but anyone with common sense can figure out the rp, if it is missed.

Zach · Post by **Zach** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 12:51 am

i am not stating that.... i have an old mac laptop and the screen is quite small... 20 lines MAX and use fang (gods thank you!) some times when I am in a big group and the mob spams you if i can not look at the buffer then i can ask someone what I missed because he/she (bom) was talking over them

I am not trying to downplay yyour idea... just trying to give other ideas other then changing the hard code for the mobs

*shrugs* just my opinion sorry if i sounded harsh or shell fish

Brar · Post by **Brar** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 4:23 am

Zach wrote:i am not stating that.... i have an old mac laptop and the screen is quite small... 20 lines MAX and use fang (gods thank you!) some times when I am in a big group and the mob spams you if i can not look at the buffer then i can ask someone what I missed because he/she (bom) was talking over them

I am not trying to downplay yyour idea... just trying to give other ideas other then changing the hard code for the mobs

*shrugs* just my opinion sorry if i sounded harsh or shell fish

No, that's why I asked, english is not my first language and sometimes, things may not sounds as they should be when written.
No big deal, but in doubt I prefer to ask instead of making false assumption :p

Zach · Post by **Zach** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:46 am

It is alright Brar Golik... by some of my spelling... you would guess english was not my first language... or second