In current CF we can do emotes in fashion:

name does something(command: emote does something). I'd like to have an additional emote command that would give output like name's something when you would type emote2 something.

Example output:

John's mouth wets as he sees a tasty elf pass by.

or

John's forehead touches the dirt when he grovels before the chieftain.

So, I think the name's type emote command(this would be an independent command to ease the mechanical RP restrictions in CF) would be an addition to the current name type emote command. There have been several situations when I would have liked to use an emote in this fashion, but as it was not possible, left the emote totally untyped, as I did not see how I could have done it, so I'd appreciate the improvement, as I see the use of possessive form as useful RP tool.

(As an aside, this wouldn't need a new command. Any emote with a leading "'s" could just have the default space trimmed away.)

The crux of the issue is whether or not this permits too many "simulated action" emotes like:

DurNominator's slash mauls you.

You can get around this with color, but them emotes look different from socials and a lot of miscellaneous text that should look like an emote, plus some players don't play with color.

You can police it, which is how we handle "simulated action" emotes at present. This ups the load on existing staff, but might be worth it. My own leaning is that you can already pull a ton of BS with the base emote command, and this wouldn't be much worse, but I'm in the minority on staff on that point.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I forgot the combat situation echoes entirely. You can RP badly with current emote with the ton of BS, but it cannot emulate combat, which the new command(or however you would code it. I will call it new command for clarity) would allow.

The example you have given is rather problematic, but it would be up to the pbase to RP correctly(who'd want to come and RP badly on purpose), but I can think of some people abusing that "DurNominator's slash mauls you."-property of the new command, as there are always people who wish to use the system to give their character in the game, such as using the lame overpowered class to PK in the lamest possible way. A valid reason to seek balance between classes in all levels.

The current emote BS can be recognized as an emote due to the rigid start. This will put pressure for Immortals to develop the social technology(more socials), so that it could give us these more advanced, but preset(therefore not allowing cheating), emotes to use. I especially urge you to increase the amount of distinctive racial socials, so that people would RP their race better as the racial socials would give some emotes characteristic to the race(especially this race only-type of quality socials(not any poor addition that no-one would like to use with their character)).

This brings me to the other matter, which was increasing the amount of shifter socials and make them form-specific. This would make RP:ing the shapeshifter class much more fun, if they would have a decent amount of form-specific socials at their disposal. I do not see a reason why horse couldn't neigh or cat purr. When I got mustang with Agantas, I was disappointed that I was unable to neigh with it. That was also the moment when I tried to do emote(I understand why emote is barred from forms, so there is no need to go deeper into this) it also failed. Therefore, I wish that some Immortals could put work into giving shifters some RP-loving, which would make the class less boring to those who dislike it.

"If we allow it, they cheat." is always a good assumption when designing game balance, which is also one that those of pbase should not take into themselves, as it is only made to assure that the game works in the best possible way. Sometimes good RP tools, such as the possessive first person emote command, are denied because of the minority, hopefully not majority, that would abuse it. Thank you for your answer, Valguarnera.

This brings me to the other matter, which was increasing the amount of shifter socials and make them form-specific. This would make RP:ing the shapeshifter class much more fun, if they would have a decent amount of form-specific socials at their disposal. I do not see a reason why horse couldn't neigh or cat purr. When I got mustang with Agantas, I was disappointed that I was unable to neigh with it. That was also the moment when I tried to do emote(I understand why emote is barred from forms, so there is no need to go deeper into this) it also failed. Therefore, I wish that some Immortals could put work into giving shifters some RP-loving, which would make the class less boring to those who dislike it.

This has been on the table for a while, and I recently heard someone was working on it. The style perspective is obvious, but we'd also like for a clever shifter to communicate effectively in a "charades" sort of way without needing to revert.

Emote was barred from shifters for the same reason certain silencing effects block emote- people were using stuff like:

emote says 'Have you seen an iron key? We'll need it for this door.'

valguarnera@carrionfields.com