Think? (testing out polls)

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Do you want think to show a char's thoughts again?

Yes
10
45%
No
9
41%
Undecided
3
14%
 
Total votes: 22

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Kortha
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Think? (testing out polls)

#1 Post by Kortha » Fri Jun 24, 2005 10:03 pm

I'm just curious how many people want think to have an option for saying your char's thoughts like it used to. I have several reasons for wanting it to be re-implemented, and it'd be nice to discuss various pros and cons that others see.

PROS:

1) A lot of people fake think anyway.
2) It's fun to make players realize your char says one thing and thinks another.
3) I used to get a good laugh when my char thought the same thing as someone else's char, without premeditation.

CONS:

1) It could cause spam which isn't really useful IC. (If someone's gonna overuse official think, they'll probably overuse a fake think emote too though.)
2) It could be used to piss players off, i.e. making fun of their char repeatedly in a way where their char can't do anything about it.
3) Bad RPers could become mindreaders. (I never saw this happening back when it was implemented.)

So what's everyone else think?
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#2 Post by tessa » Fri Jun 24, 2005 10:46 pm

I'm iffy on it, but since everyone who liked it emotes it now anyway, whether it's officially readded or not, it'll still be used, I think.

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#3 Post by iza » Sat Jun 25, 2005 12:59 am

I think everyone that has been around me lately knows i like to use thinks. However with no guildlines or ever having used a RP tool like it, i have made some mistakes in using them. But this is what i think of them:

1. First off i don't consider a think a spam, just like i wouldn't consider a converstation with say and tell spam.

2. Trust me on this, when your with good RPer, think and emotes greatly enhance RP scenes and entertainment value.

3. I know i've this a couple times already and while fun and funny in somecases, making fun of a chars through a think, esspecially more then once can be annoying and unfair to the other person. I'll try not to do it in the future. :(

4. It is a great Ic way to tell ooc info that otherwise may never come out. Such as the background of a char or the best RP event in the history of a char that they are forced to keep secret. However in cases like these you need to be able to trust the other player will understand their doesn't yet know the info.Sure beats the hell out of going @say my char doesn't like yours but will never tell you why.

5. I have begun cutting back on using thinks in crowded places, most people don't give a damn anyways. I've also stopped thinking things that i don't emote in one way or a another or don't plan to say to the char in the near future. Usually i reserve thinks to hunting times when other RP is usually scarce anyways.

Overall i see use for them, there is the potential for abuse but alot of things can be abused in the game.

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Kortha
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#4 Post by Kortha » Sat Jun 25, 2005 2:14 pm

Note to Abh or whoever's running this thing: There was supposed to be a 3rd choice for "undecided" but it wouldn't put it in the actual poll. I dunno if it's buggy or if I did something wrong.
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#5 Post by Abharsair » Sat Jun 25, 2005 7:13 pm

Kortha wrote:Note to Abh or whoever's running this thing: There was supposed to be a 3rd choice for "undecided" but it wouldn't put it in the actual poll. I dunno if it's buggy or if I did something wrong.
I edited your post and had no problems adding a third choice.

Concerning the original topic: Yes, you might like expressing something with thoughts, and yes, it might be easier to let people know about your character's background by using it, but people showed me enough proof for how some players used "think" in a very ugly way, namely to insult someone else's char without giving him/her the opportunity to smack the other one's stupid smirk from his face.

Sure, those were supposedly thoughts and a good roleplayer shouldn't be affected by it. Not to mention that an insult against one's char is not an insult against the player itself. But that doesn't change the fact that it was very obvious in the case examples I had to read that the sole intention of the "think"-user was to annoy and insult the other one without having to fear retribution. And sorry, this emote wasn't intended for that.

I am also aware that some use now "emote" to simulate "think". Well, they do it on their own risk, because if someone else acts on it and considers it as muttering some thoughts without being aware of it, I sure won't punish him for that.

To end my lengthy note, I want to add that in my opinion there are enough ways to express one's thoughts without making everyone else a mind-reader. A face can show many emotions, but most people limit those emotions to the standard ones with predefined emotes and don't fully use the potential of the "emote" command. But well, that's just my opinion.
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#6 Post by stilgar » Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:20 pm

Abharsair wrote: To end my lengthy note, I want to add that in my opinion there are enough ways to express one's thoughts without making everyone else a mind-reader. A face can show many emotions, but most people limit those emotions to the standard ones with predefined emotes and don't fully use the potential of the "emote" command. But well, that's just my opinion.
Mostly correct, though in some IC situations things just happen too quickly to do or figure out the right emotions. Maybe a revision of current emotes, and/or a possibility to have a limited number of personal pre-defined emotions could improve the personal RP and character expression a lot.

ps: Yes, I know there is already a way to do it with predefined aliases, as you recognised I already use them :twisted: Though.. a possibility like the above would be just SOOOO great.. imagine : a MUD where yo can create your own emotions! :mrgreen:
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#7 Post by lirynel » Sun Jun 26, 2005 7:14 am

I can see both sides of the argument for 'think' and for using emotes. I'll agree that sometimes it's just so much quicker and easier, especially if ther are a lot of people about and you want a quick response, to use the built in emotes. I do find that there are a lot of what I would consider to be 'obvious' adverbs missing though. Perhaps some more could be added, please?

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#8 Post by Abharsair » Sun Jun 26, 2005 8:15 am

lirynel wrote:I do find that there are a lot of what I would consider to be 'obvious' adverbs missing though. Perhaps some more could be added, please?
Make suggestions for new adverbs and we'll implement them. The only condition is that it should fit as adverb for all emotes. While for example "brightly" would fit for "smile", it wouldn't really make a lot of sense for "snore".
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#9 Post by jezz » Sun Jun 26, 2005 8:34 am

Just an example:

Last day Jezz entered the inn, and two half-elves entered short later. They both looked at Jezz and one of them thought:

"Since when they allow corpses to enter this inn?"

Maybe the phrase isn't correct 100%, the one who did it can say if I'm mistaken :)

Jezz had to stand that kind of "thoughts" massively when the command was implemented... and even now that it doesn't exist, he still has to stand the emotes. So please, NO, don't implement it back ;)

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#10 Post by iza » Mon Jun 27, 2005 12:08 am

That was me, sorry, like i said i'm not doing that anymore. :(

However had you stayed a little longer i probably would have asked you why you looked like a walking corpse...and i did already know you were Jezz and that you could kill my char for even asking.

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#11 Post by valder » Mon Jun 27, 2005 9:20 am

Considering the emphasis on IC appropriateness in Geas, I think "thinks" should stay out. Seeing people's thoughts would be more distracting than OOC messages. OOC I know to ignore; how should I react to thoughts? Ignore those as well? If they are there to ignore, then why implement them?

Unless there is an excellent IC reason for it, nobody should ever know what you think until you openly express it with words, swords, or ritual dance.
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#12 Post by tannorath » Mon Jun 27, 2005 10:28 am

Abharsair pretty much said it all!
I am not a hardcore roleplayer, but in my opinion, since none of the races we have in Geas are telepatic, i don't see how 'think' can fint in.
Plus, everything that can be said with think, can be said with different, emotes or with 'say', with the sole difference that the teller must take responsability for what he said, which is the right thing to do!

This is just my opinion anyway :), so i voted NO to 'think'

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#13 Post by yegerfin » Tue Jun 28, 2005 4:42 pm

I actually quite liked old think command, and i'm also one of those who uses emote to replace it...

Though i mostly use it to make POs have a laugh, not to piss them off ;), and don't usually expect char to do anything about yeger's thoughts ic-ly...

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#14 Post by anglachel » Wed Jun 29, 2005 2:51 am

What about to bring 'think' back in the game and say that it is a
expression of opinion in all cases!
We can say the the thoughts are recognised by the facial expression,
bearing and gestures of the thinker?
Or by very complex thoughts, the other simple has thought loud? :wink:
So thoughts it must not be ignored, and the person in room
show a reaction, if they want.

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#15 Post by chara » Wed Jun 29, 2005 3:24 am

I like that idea, Anglachel. That's similar to how I always thought of the think command (which I enjoyed using).

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#16 Post by tessa » Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:29 am

I agree, for example, if someone looked at Jezz and thought that corpse line, I'm sure he could recognize a hint of disgust on the thinker's face.

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#17 Post by Abharsair » Wed Jun 29, 2005 5:36 am

tessa wrote:I agree, for example, if someone looked at Jezz and thought that corpse line, I'm sure he could recognize a hint of disgust on the thinker's face.
But what would be the advantage of ".oO{ Whoa, that dude stinks}" over "emote's face shows a hint of disgust.". For me "think" adds nothing to the atmosphere of the game (except for maybe a chuckle or two when Yegerfin dreams of boars, but that becomes also less amusing afte the 83rd time you see it), and looks completely and utterly out of place, not too mention that it is not very consistent with the rest of the game..
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#18 Post by tessa » Wed Jun 29, 2005 5:42 am

Abharsair wrote:
tessa wrote:I agree, for example, if someone looked at Jezz and thought that corpse line, I'm sure he could recognize a hint of disgust on the thinker's face.
But what would be the advantage of ".oO{ Whoa, that dude stinks}" over "emote's face shows a hint of disgust.". For me "think" adds nothing to the atmosphere of the game (except for maybe a chuckle or two when Yegerfin dreams of boars, but that becomes also less amusing afte the 83rd time you see it), and looks completely and utterly out of place, not too mention that it is not very consistent with the rest of the game..
Well, I'm not saying they *should* be added, but if they were, or they were used, people should be able to read the expressions on faces, I mean.

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#19 Post by valder » Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:06 am

Dictionary.com wrote:emote

<chat> (emotion) A command used on talk systems and MUDs
to indicate the performance of an action, usually a facial
expression of emotional state.
It would seem to me we don't need "thinks" to convey facial expressions!

Thoughts are about as private a thing as you can possibly imagine. Using them as a public mode of communication just doesn't make any sense. If we want an atmosphere of realistic RP, we should respond only to the actions and words that are a result of one's thoughts.

Institutionalizing telepathy is a drastic course, just for the sake of saving people some typing in their emotes!
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#20 Post by Kortha » Wed Jun 29, 2005 11:21 am

I've always seen thinks as more of a way to entertain the other players with things your char would never actually say. It doesn't always work the way it was planned though.

Kor thinks . o O (Vuk mud wrestling... O.o)
Taynan says ewww.
At which point I said uhh that was a think, and Tay spent several minutes trying to explain why he's able to tell what dwarves are thinking about. Facial expression wouldn't have been a reliable indicator in this case, because Kor wouldn't be able to decide whether to drool or puke, and most likely appeared shocked if anything. So if it ever does get implemented again, there'd need to be an obvious statement that this kind of thing isn't kosher.

As for using them to piss others off, that's just bad form. If I typed in everything Kor's thinking, there'd be a lot of "boy that guy's an idiot" and so on, which would be unnecessary considering her actions generally make it obvious who she thinks is an idiot anyway. But if she ever got in a situation where she was forced to be overly nice to someone she can't stand, having her think "ugh, just give me pink bunny slippers and get it over with" would be ok in my book, because she wouldn't be able to let her true feelings show and it'd be entertaining to players while not actually insulting the person in question.

Excuse the massive rambling, I'm not coherent yet. :P
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