[MUD-Dev2] Importance of emoting (Was: A rantagainstVanguardreviews and rants)

[John Buehler]

Richard A. Bartle writes:

> 	Summary: your primary argument against emotes is that it costs
> money to animate them; I counter with the observation that you don't
> have to animate them; you respond that players will be disappointed
> if they're not animated; I reply that they're more disappointed by
> not having them at all than by having them and their not being
> animated.

It's been a while since this thread ended, but I've been playing Eve Online
and have more anecdotes about emoting.

Eve players emote a lot.  And very inventively.  There are frequent uses of 

o7 (salute)
O.o (boggled eyes)
o/ (wave)
\o/ (cheer)

and many others besides.

At the same time, I notice that the length of any given chat message is
*considerably* longer and better-written than the sorts of things that I saw
in World of Warcraft.  Further, Eve Online is a complicated game.  It is
mentally taxing to figure out what you can do as a player as well as what
your character can do with ship equipment and so on.

Here's a theory: The sorts of challenges that Eve presents ends up
attracting gamers that are interested in expressing themselves.  They chat
at length and use emotes to enhance that chatting.  These are players that
are willing to work on gameplay, so they have the willingness to work on
chatting.

Corollary: Text MUDs produce the same filtering phenomenon.  Text MUD
players are willing to work.  Their enthusiasm begins with a desire to read
and to write.  Ergo, they are happy to expend energy in using emotes.

Eve Online does not currently have animated avatars.  Players see
spaceships, and those spaceships have no visible means of communication.  No
flashing lights or any such thing.  I have no idea how characters with
animated emotes would appeal to the sorts of players who participate in Eve
Online.

I wonder if the transience of a graphical emote has anything to do with
their use.  Consider the following:

1. "Yes, sir! o7" (that's a salute on the end)
2. "Yes, sir!" with a simultaneous graphical emote
3. An audio "Yes, sir!" with a simultaneous graphical emote

It would seem that 1. And 3. are properly symmetric in terms of transience
of the communication.  Having animated emotes with text chat (particularly
when logged) decouples the message from the emote.  I wonder if having a
little icon of my character saluting in place of the "o7" rendition would be
a good treatment.  Perhaps even animated if my mouse hovers over the
message.

Whoops, I'm drifting again.

JB