[MUD-Dev] Re: Eye movement.

[James Wilson]

On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, quzah wrote:
>Hello everyone. I had another idea the other day, on something
>I've never seen implemented, that would make a great deal of
>sence to implement. Eye movement, or rather, the catching of
>the eye.

[snip]

>[In regards to Boffo entering the room from the north
>Buffy the mage, in deep concentration on a tome, facing NxNe
>{North by Northeast}
>would see something like]:
>
>A shadow passes over your tome for a moment and you faintly
>hear footsteps as someone passes.

yes, this would be great. Depending on the viewer's state and abilities, 
the same events should be described totally differently. The above is 
the tip of the iceberg - other applications that come to mind are infravision 
and social perceptual cues. The latter would be quite fascinating; the simplest
example of course is naming of characters and objects, but aesthetics and 
racial biases could also be wonderfully useful:

Bob, a troll, comes into view of Bertha, a troll who knows Bob, and
Bette, a human who doesn't. 

Bertha sees: 
	Bob emerges from the underbrush, fairly dripping with sexy masculinity.
	Bob looks at Bette with a surprised expression.
	Bob grins lecherously and says, "Hi Bertha, you shure look purty."

Bette sees: A hideous, warty, gray-green troll emerges from the underbrush,
caked in blood and grime.
	The gray-green troll looks at you hungrily.
	The gray-green troll grins evilly and grunts at the mud-brown troll.

One could also construct misperceptions between races, nations, and economic
classes of humans, of course. Members of a clan might notice details significant
only to their clan (or perhaps to an opposing clan). 

[snip]

>You step from the ally, into the somewhat brighter light of
>the plaza. Upon doing so, you notice a stranger clad in poofy
>blue pants, and an overly large shirt, turn and stare at you.
>Sheathed at their side is a sword, longish in size, by which
>hovers their hand. Their facial features do nothing to settle
>your lunch.
>
>The stranger flashes an odd little grin, and you hear a
>muffled clink when they shift their weight - probably the
>sound of heavy armor muffled by their odd clothing.

this sort of automatic perception would be good, but one must also consider that
we 'see' things differently as we are exposed to them once, twice, many times.
That is, if 'the stranger' comes through here several times in ten minutes, the
viewer doesn't need the full description that she got the first time she saw
him, AND should probably not call him 'the stranger' after she's seen him
several times. 'The little bug-eyed man' would be more apropos.

There is also a fuzzy distinction here between perception ("clink!") and
interpretation ("clinks are probably the sound of heavy armor"). Some
interpretation is a Good Thing in order to make people bigots (which is only
realistic) and make the environment a richer, but too much interpretation is a
Bad Thing when it gets in the way of the player using their imagination/wits.
Maybe you just report the clink and let the hearer decide if they think that's
armor or not. However, there are clinks and there are clinks; presumably a
dime-dropping clink would sound different from an armor-hitting-chain clink,
and the character (as opposed to the user) would be able to make that
distinction. So maybe you report it as above. This will be an important area
aesthetically, as the amount of interpretation provided will color every user's
experience. 

James (using kmail now, hopefully my lines are wrapping properly... death to
Outlook!)

p.s. isn't 'quzah!' what the zulus yell out in battle? ;)