Let me start by saying that I'd never want CF to be a high color MUD. We've all seen MUDs that look like a box of Crayolas ate some bad fish and took a #### all over them. I don't want that.

That said, I'm looking for opinions on what we should consider coloring that currently isn't.

An example of what I consider a good additional color change would be the change I did to the various forms of dispel a while ago, making it easier to pick out which affects you had successfully dispelled (or were successfully dispelled from you). This is something that most of the power players had a trigger/highlight for anyway, and for good reason. There was no real reason not to highlight that for everyone, vets and newbies alike, and close the client have-havenot gap a bit.

I'm not promising any changes, but I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.

nt

The things that should be colored are what I refer to as "fight changers". Now what belongs in this subset, and what does not, is a matter of debate, but some examples that I consider fight changing is weapon dropping do to strength loss, being disarmed, being blinded, things like slow/kansetuwaza crunch, and stuff like that. Basically, any time you lose a weapon, be it from str loss, strip, entrap, disarm, etc.... this should be highlighted. Lagging abilities tend to stand out pretty well, and you generally know when they wear off, with the exception of nuero, which I have made a highlight for. Entwine might also be useful.... all those things that are REALLY important to know, but get lost in large raids and whatnot fall into my category, though I'm usually too lazy to get around to highlighting them, so I can't list them all.

One final note.... progs that don't do damage (I'd hope you'd notice a prayer beads prog) might be useful to highlight, although usually if it's important enough you don't want to miss it, it'll fall into the above category, or be healing (in which case you'll notice anyway).

Just my suggestions.

In general for any race/class combo...

When a dirt kick is successfull and they wipe it back out.
*is blinded by the dirt in*
*wipes the dirt from*

The flags...
(Pink Aura)-magenta bold(bright in my client)
(Purple Aura)-magenta
(Grey Aura)-cyan
(PK)-red bold (A personal favorite)
(Invis)-cyan bold
(Hide)-cyan
(Camo)-green bold

A successful faerie fire and when it fades away...
*is surrounded by a pink aura* (I think that's it)
*pink aura fades away*

Basic things like that that often affect you no matter what.

For my prompt I highlight *tipsy* and *drunk* for my bards.

***I put a colon in my text just now and clicked preview message and it cut everything after that in my post off***

Anyhow, I normally highlight successful maledictions and when they fade. It's especially useful for high lever fights when rounds tend to fly up the screen.

Last I highlight my who listing. Not sure why, maybe I just like to see my name in lights. I know it sounds like of color, but 90% of the times successful highlights and fades are yellow and unsuccessful are cyan, both dark, not bright.

Alot of that was probably useless info, but if I could have one things highlighted it would be the Flags, or at least the (PK) one.

Hope it helps.

"Then hunger proved more powerful than grief." - Count Ugolino and the Tower of Hunger

I think most of that is what Nep would be trying to avoid (ie box of crayola's vomiting on bad fish - or whatever he compared it to), *especially* the flags. We do *not* want a colour for every different flag.

Me personally, I highlight:

- TRIBUNAL (cyan)
- being disarmed (red)
- when a mummy plagues (green)
- when a ghoul stiffens (yellow)

But I only play necromancers, so that is fairly biased.

I think Nep is after the "less is more" kinda thing. Don't take this a criticism, just a comment.

>I think Nep is after the "less is more" kinda thing. Don't
>take this a criticism, just a comment.

Oh not at all man.

But yeah I know. Like I said I think most of what I wrote was useless info. I was just giving an example of what the kinds of things I look for to stand out when I'm mudding. So much text scrolls by in one setion, it can get difficult to discent the "important" stuff from the normal repetive(sp) ones.

In actuality though, all the stuff I do color does seem like a lot, but it really isn't. My screen only "lights up" with color if I'm playing a transmuter. I've got almost all of their effect highlighted when they hit/miss/fade. It thinks it's more important for them since their one of the few classes (I think) that can discern when their spells fade off other people, and more often than not, they are important ones. Which on a side note, it's be nice to know when Sanctuary fades.

Anyhow! A highlight for every flag I'm sure is too much, I can agree, but I still think a highlight for (PK) is just groovy.
Appreciate your opinion though. Thanks!

"Then hunger proved more powerful than grief." - Count Ugolino and the Tower of Hunger

Whatever you decide to do in the color direction, depending on how much you altar, it might be a good idea to add some new toggles for the colors.

Maybe a toggle for maledictions, flags, or whatever other catagories you can think of. This way people can get what they want highlighted when they need it and turn it off when they don't... and maybe everyone will he happy!

Hope it helps.

"Then hunger proved more powerful than grief." - Count Ugolino and the Tower of Hunger

I would like screams and attacks the same color as a yell. Color for PK too. For just a small crayola poop, color for spells/maledictions or failed maledictions/spells.

I saw someone else post about this but,

Coloring Room Titles on the Where command of other PC's, similiar to how in first person view green is wilderness, blue is water, etc.

Well, I've always thought I had some cool color highlights in Zmud, so check this out:

Whisper/whisperto : red

Various detections and beneficial spells falling : light blue
(note: this includes things like flying, giant strength, sanctuary, etc. Not to mention hunger/thirst)

"Best outcomes" of spells and abilities : magenta
(clarification: this applies to things like the "So and so screams in pain as you hyperextend his elbow!" Both for the victim of the ability and the one doing the deed.)

Nepenthe is DEAD!! : red

Your cleave chops Zulghinlour in HALF!! : "HALF!!" is red...blinking red is even better.

Astein has made you WANTED!! : white

Deathblow, critical strikes : bright green (this is how I have it set and it looks cool...it's not ugly at all, I swear.)

Tattoo invocations that aren't already colored : colored depending on the religion...Shokai's long emote for invoking his tat would look cool if it were white, or had a smattering of white at key points.

(PK) : the PK, not the parenthesis, should be red. Looks great.

Calling cabal powers : Color for coolness's sake. Red for bloodthirst, anyone?

So and so screams and attacks! : I highlight "screams and attacks!" with magenta, just so it really stands out.

So and so flickers and blurs into the shape of a lion. : white

A falcon flies up to you with blinding speed (or whatever the hell that echo is), and same for swimto : white

Here's a big one...Zulghinlour has summoned you! : WHITE WHITE WHITE

This may be a stretch, but I like to assign colors to racial names so that when I do a "who" I can easily pick people out. The only problem is that since this is client-side, it highlights every instance of those racial names within the game. A bit annoying at times, but it's worth it, for me.

What I think would be cool is to color the titles of "junction" rooms (rooms that join one area to another), so that there is a modest bit of color coding when someone is walking here and there...it would break up the monotony, I think, and in such a game as this where everyone who plays just HAS to have a freeking imagination, even such a simple thing as a smattering of color on the room title could set the "feel" for an area.

I could go on for a while, but let me know if any of these grab ya.

I would narrow that down to:

A falcon flies up to you with blinding speed (or whatever the hell that echo is), and same for swimto : white

Here's a big one...Zulghinlour has summoned you! : WHITE WHITE WHITE
Summon needs a highlight especially for newbies, because its available at low ranks and a lot of them might not even realize they were summoned.

(PK) : the PK, RED is a must I think.

Highlight "MOB X screams and attacks you." Only highlight when it attacks you not others.

Others.

Being disarmed echo to be highlighted or bold. Only when YOU get disarmed, not anyone else.

Maybe people whiping dirt from their eyes..maybe.


I think that the general idea you are trying to avoid is to color very common events or phrases. Coloring races and auras and what not will end up making the mud a crayon box.

I would like to start with saying that the gap between client have-havenot is something almost entirely mythical.

At least, the gap between the people with good and bad link is bigger, as is the gap between English-speaking people and foreigners.

Namely, if you have bad link, you have less time to react to something that happens during the battle. If you are a foreigner, you generally need a little bit more time to read and understand what happens during the battle.

So what I normally do in my client is highlighting all successful battle moves of my character with one color, and all the failed battle moves with the other. By those, I mean disarm, strip, bash, trip, additional echoes on pummel and crushing blow, stuff like that. I don't really want to read all that stuff other than in a log. I just want to see if it failed or succeeded.

How about that?

Speaking of the gap I didn't mean that client doesn't help.
I meant that the number of people without a client is now negligibly small.
And many of those who play without a client do so by choice, not because of the circumstances they cannot change.

... but coloring stuff like

"is blinded by the wind" or whatever the echo is for successful blinding on wingsweep
"You see more than feel your combustive spark take hold"
whatever the echo is when animate corpse is successful.
A zombie crumbles into dust
You learn from your mistakes and your X skill improves
You have become better at X!
You conjure a cloud of purple smoke (might be too frequent)

and other neat one-time messages. Not on things that happen as frequently as riposte or dodge.

Thanks.

Nivek

Spell/skill improvements are coloured white, while song improvements aren't. I'd like to see song improvements coloured as well. And yellow if the song is perfected(like skills/spells are).

Other small thing that could be highlighted would be shifters getting a form.

From the little things to the things I consider important enough to have highlighted with triggers. I've used the following trigger phrases:

PK
You can no longer find the strength* (for weapon dropping because of str maledict)
You step out of shadows. (assassin/thief/shifter getting out of hide)
You step out from your cover. (ranger/shifter getting out of camo)
You feel you may want to be wary. (shifter danger sense)
* seems to become more alert as * movements return to normal speed.
* seems to relax and * movements return to normal speed. (metabolic quikening/slowing affects ending on others, which was important to highlight as a transmuter)

Stepping out of invis would go to this category too, as would your weapon getting disarmed(though I don't actually have highlight triggers for these). And in the case of transmuter, metabolic affects ending on self. Or basically the echoes of affects ending on self could be highlighted(as optional).

I'm always wary of server-end color because it can really slow things down... or so I've always been told. I agree with these sugggestions for really important happenings in combat. Making a bonehead move because quick scrolling combat obscured your weapon dropping, etc. is infuriating.

Just had to play devil's advocate about song improvements, though. Now they always have at least two lines, if I'm not mistaken, the shortest being something like:

You listen to the chording again, and realize blah blah.
Your skill at singing Happy Birthday has improved.

I'm a bit unsure about the song improvements too, with songs being coloured themselves. The suggestion was meant for the latter line of the song improvements.

That is a myth held over from the old days.

Any kind of modernmachine and connection is not even going to blink from doing server-end color. You'd need a gajillion people on at once for it to matter.

"New payment options w/ Iron Realms"

nt