Practicalities of Interaction

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ewelyn
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Practicalities of Interaction

#1 Post by ewelyn » Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:22 pm

I do not know about you people, but I often find myself out-of-sync in the following aspects:
  • Too slow/too fast tempo in conversation exchange
    Conversation changes while I'm still typing
    Different topics going on at the same time, hard to focus on what
    Sometimes trying to get thesaurus/translation, action is over
I try to adjust my own tempo to the others, but many times I just find myself staring at the screen at what the others are doing.

Anyone else having this problem? :(

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ewelyn
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#2 Post by ewelyn » Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:31 pm

And now that I read this again... this was not a criticism to anyone else.

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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#3 Post by Skragna » Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:33 pm

People consider Skragna an idiot because of his race, but when I do say something, I try to keep it short, concise, and to the point. Only every once in a while do I say something long-winded.

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luminier
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#4 Post by luminier » Fri Nov 16, 2012 7:20 pm

^^ what does that have to do with Ewelyn's post? haha

I am guilty of this. Especially when I really get into the conversation my hands start flying and I type out about 5-7 lines of lots of words.

Ill try to slow down and wait for a response... haha
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#5 Post by shiad » Fri Nov 16, 2012 7:35 pm

Ditto what L'guy said.

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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#6 Post by glorfindel » Fri Nov 16, 2012 8:14 pm

Haha,

I've had the problem more then once, but then Glorfindel is one character to try to talk in exceptionally complicated / long winded sentences, so I'm probably not making that better.

Also, for me, my eyes can not really focus on conversation strands if there are six or more people, so I usually tend to be very quiet if that happens.

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luminier
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#7 Post by luminier » Fri Nov 16, 2012 11:50 pm

It's okay Glor, chalk it up to good ol Shaolin ponderances.
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#8 Post by Skragna » Sat Nov 17, 2012 12:33 am

I don't often do more than a nod, ponder, think, or text one-liner when it's not something profound, really. That's how I get around topics flying around so fast.

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Delia
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#9 Post by Delia » Sat Nov 17, 2012 2:09 am

I try not to write short novels with a single say, preferring short sentences so that my response times remain reasonable and there is still time left for an emote. This way the other party does not have to read five lines of text, possibly check the dictionary and think of a response while I am already ready with the next short novel. Works the other way around as well, btw.

I am easily distacted by multiple says flying towards the ceiling so I tend to be quiet during mass meetings or choose a solid point of focus and follow that.

Not being a native with the english language I often have to look up words from the dictionary which can bog down fast-paced scenes.
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#10 Post by Zehren » Sat Nov 17, 2012 3:43 am

I typically break up Zehren's statements into shorter says - sometimes leading to odd results. If the person(s) Zehren is interacting with state something "mid-speech", I will usually go "Zehren says: Furthermore, based upon this, we can safel - ah, yes. *nods*"

I will typically have Zehren largely ignore conversation changes - as many might have experienced, he jumps from topic to topic without much regard for if the red thread is very visible. This is largely due to my take on the hobbit mind, though.

Different topics at the same time - does this refer to a conversation including various topics at once (as Zehren is prone to), or various people chatting about different things? When there are several conversations going on at once somewhere, I will typically have my character simply latch onto one.

I also try to adjust my tempi to those others have. If someone uses a barrage of short lines, I will do as well. If someone writes a paragraph at the time, I will as well.

I make use of the following websites when I find myself in need of some uplooking:
http://thesaurus.com/
http://www.etymonline.com/
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#11 Post by Drayn » Sat Nov 17, 2012 7:05 pm

A mud I used to play had a built in dictionary, so you could check words without having to switch screens. You'd just type:

dict polysyllabiphobia

And it'd find the definition for you. Not sure how they managed that, but maybe it's something the technological geniuses that are the wiz crew could cobble something together? Might help with people who check dictionaries a lot. The other thing (which I use) are tab completes, just type the first few letters and hit tab to finish them off. I tend to use that for long names to avoid people dying of typos when I'm requesting a heal :D

rcure gorflingdale
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rcure glorfiddle, gorillaflap, grobblefidigt.....elf

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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#12 Post by Zehren » Sun Nov 18, 2012 6:29 am

Drayn wrote: And it'd find the definition for you. Not sure how they managed that, but maybe it's something the technological geniuses that are the wiz crew could cobble something together? Might help with people who check dictionaries a lot. The other thing (which I use) are tab completes, just type the first few letters and hit tab to finish them off. I tend to use that for long names to avoid people dying of typos when I'm requesting a heal :D

rcure gorflingdale
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rcure glorfiddle, gorillaflap, grobblefidigt.....elf
remember gorillaflap as Gor
rememberextra Gor with Gorillaflap
lay hands on Gor
say There you go, Gorillaflap.
Drayn wrote:Zehren, the Karmassassin!

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ewelyn
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#13 Post by ewelyn » Sun Nov 18, 2012 7:49 am

Drayn wrote:A mud I used to play had a built in dictionary, so you could check words without having to switch screens. You'd just type:

dict polysyllabiphobia
That's a really nice idea! Having a thesaurus "thes insomnia" give you "restlessness,etc,etc,etc" would be nice too..
The other thing (which I use) are tab completes, just type the first few letters and hit tab to finish them off. I tend to use that for long names to avoid people dying of typos when I'm requesting a heal :D

rcure gorflingdale
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rcure glorfiddle, gorillaflap, grobblefidigt.....elf
Glad I am not the only one! You get something "Luminier is bleeding heavily!" and then you're sitting there trying to type "rclott luminier" really quick. The good guys bleed not just for a good cause :) So I've started recently just typing "rclott" and then enter.. then you have at least 10 seconds or so to calmly type "release clott luminier" :) I did use something telnet-like up til just a few weeks ago (which I actually prefer to the "action mode" of a regular client) .. telnet is not made for saving people's lives ;)
Last edited by ewelyn on Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

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ewelyn
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#14 Post by ewelyn » Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:03 am

Delia wrote:I try not to write short novels with a single say, preferring short sentences so that my response times remain reasonable and there is still time left for an emote. This way the other party does not have to read five lines of text, possibly check the dictionary and think of a response while I am already ready with the next short novel. Works the other way around as well, btw.

I am easily distacted by multiple says flying towards the ceiling so I tend to be quiet during mass meetings or choose a solid point of focus and follow
I actually thought about the same thing, but came to opposite conclusion that it would be better if I wrote the full sentence (everything included), before I fire it off. Then it would be easy to take turns and no confusion on whose turn it is (will the other one say something more? no because she wrote all in one sentence).. but it is hard to make this work and I often end up just writing a part of a sentence. Especially if a new character comes entering the room, and I often just have to erase a long sentence..

I also find it difficult to do much reasonable things with "mass meetings", but at the same time Ewelyn has some incentives to mingle with the "commoners" in Elvandar. Not sure if a Cardinal should be that easily accessible, but well.. the hard thing really is to know who are part of which conversation and where it is appropriate to "jump in" and still make sense :)

And on a similiar thought that Zehren brought up, I also think it's probably even harder for an elf, because you probably want to be more coherent with a red thread throughout the whole sentence exchange... while a hobbit can switch topics and pretty forget. I am not sure where humans end up on this scale, but I guess they are supposed to be more practically minded than elves..? :roll:

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Allurana
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#15 Post by Allurana » Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:34 am

Drayn wrote:I tend to use that for long names to avoid people dying of typos when I'm requesting a heal :D

rcure gorflingdale
Who?
rcure glorfiddle, gorillaflap, grobblefidigt.....elf
Be careful with giving in to the temptation of using "elf" for targeting- too easily can the wrong elf walk in at the right time. They especially like doing it in time for attacks.
ewelyn wrote:Glad I am not the only one! You get something "Luminier is bleeding heavily!" and then you're sitting there trying to type "rclott luminier" really quick.
I remember that feeling. Though I remedied it by setting up a client-side alias that modified my mud-side aliases to target the name specified, so I only ever had to type the name once, and then just cast normally afterwards.

Of course, this doesn't work so well if you have multiple teammates to deal with, but I had a different alias setup for that.

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Cuetlachtli
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Re: Practicalities of Interaction

#16 Post by Cuetlachtli » Sun Dec 23, 2012 2:37 pm

I think there's something in the game helpfiles about how to play the game or something that says that it's best not to speed-play. I am actually not sure if this was in this MUDs helpfile or another one, but it seems like it was for newbies.

Basically it said that there's no point in conversing and answering as fast as you can, that it's better to consider what someone's said and take some time to think of a thoughtful response.

I think it everyone did this, some things might be easier. But...I am VERY guilty of typing out long responses and sometimes responding pretty quickly. Usually if I am talking with someone I TRY to stay focused on that conversation, and TRY to allow the person to respond before moving on. Of course, as has been said a few times already, mass discussions can become much more difficult. I don't think there is much that can be done about that.

Other than maybe just make your character reference back to something that might have been said several sentences ago to make sure your valuable input gets transmitted to us, the other players! :)

Also, I often handle talking on top of each other like Zheren does, with it basically being like I was interrupted and then responding as if cut off. I think that's a good way to start out writing your idea without deleting all the text and also make it seem a bit more dynamic. Even though it might then make it seem like Geas is a very rude world where everyone just interrupts each other.

Hey, it's a cultural thing.

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