[MUD-Dev2] Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguardreviews and rants)

[John Buehler]

Richard A. Bartle writes:

> On 29 March 2007, John Buehler wrote:
> >Is a textual emote in a graphical environment a reasonable thing?
>         Sure it is. It works for speech, why not emotes?

Because emotes are visual and speech is not.  Typed speech is a crutch until
we can get voice working properly.  Whether that means player voices or
character voices, I have no idea.

> >I assume that players who are drawn to graphical settings are drawn to
> >them at least in part because they are graphical.  If they're going to
> >be using emotes, surely they want graphical emotes.
>         They seem to be fine using smileys without getting an "evil
> grin" or "sticking out tongue" animation.

The visuals for smiles are of dubious value in a 3D game where faces occupy
about the same space as ":)" in the chat window (and the character's mouth
far less).  If we go back to the "/bow" emote, I assume players would expect
an animation.

> >Graphical emoting isn't "such little effort".
>         You're right, it's not. Data-mining the beta to find out which
> of several hundred non-graphical emotes are the most popular and
> then adding appropriate animations would be a reasonable compromise.
>         Then again, if Blizzard are happy to animate /train and
> /chicken, why not /faint?

The assumption that the player base wants better support of emotes is the
very point of contention here.  /train and /chicken are toys.  Current
players like toys.  The fact that they are triggered the same way as an
emote is not supportive of emotes in any way.

Is /faint animated?  If not, perhaps it is because it is an emote and not a
toy.

> >In a computer-controlled environment why are we letting the player throw
> the
> >ball if the game is structured to only allow kicking it?
>         Because if the ball is about to hit someone in the groin at
> high speed, you're going to want to handle it before it reaches its
> destination.
>         If there's a legitimate use for a command, then on the whole
> you want it in. If people use it for illegitimate purposes, then
> you have to decide whether to ban it, keep it or try to separate
> the legitimate and illegitimate parts.

My question stands.  In a computer-controlled environment, why are we
letting the player throw the ball if the game is structured to only allow
kicking it?  The ball is not about to strike the player, so there's no need
to use hands.  The software knows the rules of the game and the situation
that the character is in.  There is no need for the character to be
permitted to do anything that is illegal.

Not that I even remember how this came up.

Richard, I'm gonna let this one go because we just plain disagree.  Feel
free to reply and finish out this thread with a summary.  I'd say that I'm
done with it.  I hope that players who would like a strong emote system get
it.

JB