A while back Nepenthe or another Imm asked for ideas on adding tasteful color to the game.

Well, I took it a step further, and set up highlights in zMUD to see what it might look like. My original zMUD settings are a black background and white default text, set to bright.

All (White Aura)s were bolded white -- this made it very easy to see who I should target in large raids involving healers.

All (Burning) victims were colored bright red -- this gave them a cool feeling of urgency and uniqueness.

All (Pink) characters had their names bolded white (not to be confused with sanctuary where the entire short desc was bolded white).

All (Wanted) characters had their names dark grey.

All (Hide)rs were light grey.

All (Camo)flauged people were dark green.

All (Invis)ible people were denoted with ()'s. "(Nepenthe is here.)"

In some respects, it made pk'ing easier -- ie, in large fights, knowing who has sanctuary down, any thieves/assassins to attack, who's probably hurt from being burned, etc..

Problems arose when more than one effect existed on one character, in this case I had my settings supercede from immolation, to sanctuary, to visibility.

All in all, it was a welcome change to have this color in a world full of white, though was mildly distracting when one bit of color stood out. For example, I'd notice people on fire first in a large room.

Imms: Try it, then implement it. :-)

-E.

Americans will write 'Coca Cola' on it with white letters to reduce the communistic impression. :P

Please make it optional. I can't it when everything looks like a christmas tree.

n/t

>Please make it optional. I can't it when everything looks
>like a christmas tree.

If we did something with the auras, I know I'd personally prefer
a 'color aura' option over adding it to the overall color toggle.

Qaledus the Flooded, Beseiged by Rain

asdf

nt

I know some (a lot) of muds where it looks like someone puked playdough they highlight aura's, however, I think it would work better here than on most muds. After all, what's the most flags you could have on a character at any one time? (Red Aura) (White Aura) (Shield of Ice) (Invis) (Burning)... I'd say this is max, and that assumes you can see invis and detect evil, most of the time you're only going to see a flag or two on any one person, and these flags are things you REALLY want to know, so they should stand out IMHO. Just an idea. Also, strength loss leading to dropped weapons. Or trying to word when cursed. Or trying to cast while silenced. Being entwined (mostly for when in big fights). That sort of stuff.

Yeah, I like the idea of more/multiple options for coloring that are server-side driven. Adding tons of highlights isn't a really effective way to highlight things. At least, my client is sorta annoying about highlighting and it crashes more with tons of highlights.