One of the biggest drawbacks to shifters is there limited ability to communicate while in form. While I understand this is an intended inhibitant, I believe the few limited socials that shifters have be appropriate to what they have shifted into.

Does anyone else think it inappropriate when peacocks are roaring and turtles to snarling? I understand it would be an enormous project to undertake, but I am sure this could be done similar to the bard revamp recently. Ask for submissions for form/species(I.E. Birds, Cats, etc..) socials. If this were to happen, from the Imm side, I would like to hear at least a few dedicated players voice that they will assist to make this happen.

Things required to submit would be: The name of the social, what the shifted form sees with and without a target, what others would see if you do it to a target and no target, what the target would see.

An Example would be:
Turkey Only
Social: Gobble
Shifter sees Untargeted: You run around gobbling in aggitation.

Others see Untargetted: A wild turkey run about gobbling in aggitation.

Shifter sees Targeted: You charge "Target" letting loose a wild gobble of aggitation.

Others see Targeted: A wild turkey charges "Target" letting loose a gobble of aggitation.

Target sees: A wild turkey charges you gobbling, letting you know his aggitation.

It would be cool if we had that, but man, I'd rather stick my #### in a pickle slicer than work on that.

That said, we have lots of different interests and talents on staff, and some people like working on socials. I'm glad for that, even if it's not the least bit interesting of a coding project to me personally.

>It would be cool if we had that, but man, I'd rather stick my
>#### in a pickle slicer than work on that.
>
>That said, we have lots of different interests and talents on
>staff, and some people like working on socials. I'm glad for
>that, even if it's not the least bit interesting of a coding
>project to me personally.

Sadly, I actually do have an interest in this. What I'd like to
do is develop several 'classes' of socials (cat, bird, snake, water,
generic, whatever) and then assign the class of socials to the
critter. Animal by animal makes me reach for the pickle slicer,
but I could live with groups of socials.

That'd work. I always just planned to give shifters a bunch more socials and trust the players not to be retarded with gobbling lions.

.

Ideas for socials, for individual forms. Would save the imms some work, and maybe introduce ones they hadn't thought of. As for the "retarded gobbling lions" thing, if they are doing inappropriate socials, nuke their form heh. Either that or do very specific socials for each form. Oh and several small mammal forms wouldn't have to be changed at all for that matter.

I was thinking about social classes too, after posting that post of mine. I think it would work well if you'd assign multiple classes to one critter. This way, you wouldn't have to put same emotes into many classes. You've probably thought it like that too, as I see generic in your list.

Examples:

A lion(as well as cat, panther, jaguar, tiger, lynx and bobcat(the latter two didn't have very long tail IIRC, so tail might need to be removed from the list when they are concerned)) could get classes:

Generic(basic socials for all forms)
Mammal(socials common to all mammals)
Tail(socials that include having tail)
Cat(feline socials)

A spider monkey could get classes:

Generic
Mammal
Tail
Primate(socials including hands, apish gestures not containing facial gestures)
face(socials containing facial gestures)

If we drop tail from the list, we get socials for orangutan, dropping face from list gives socials for sifaka lemur.

That kind of stuff. I was just playing with the thought some ;P

Does anyone else think it inappropriate when peacocks are roaring and turtles to snarling?

Hell yea! We need form-specific socials and command socials form to specify what socials are not for every form.

I'd put that gobble example in two socials.

My version of your example:

Wild turkey only social(or other gobbling bird forms):

social: Gobble

Untargeted:
You see: You gobble.
Others see: A wild turkey gobbles.
Targeted:
You see: You gobble to Target.
Others see: A wild turkey gobbles to Target.
Target sees: A wild turkey gobbles to you.

Social: Gobblecharge

Acts more or less like you described, spelled with more correct english(I think it's charge at target, charge target sounds like invoker spell charge weapon ). This is also applicable to my gobble social, if I have chosen a wrong preposition.

Also, for felines:

Social: Purr

You purr.
A cat purrs.
A proud lion purrs.

Social meow.

You meow.
A cat meows.

For horses:

Social: Neigh

You neigh.
You neigh to target.
A wild mustang neighs.
A wild mustang neighs to target.
A wild mustang neighs to you.

Social neighnervous

You neigh nervously.
A wild mustang neighs nervously.

The point here is that there is a need for a simple basic social and then there can be variations as other socials. Your gobble was a variation. Basic gobble, and then the social to run aroung gobbling. Shifters have no emotes, which is why there is need for a number of form-specific socials. I've often yearned for simple basic socials without the flavour the actual social with same name has.

The contest idea was very good, IMHO.

It would make the animals feel more like animals and less a mage in a shifter suit (which admittedly is what they are, but for purposes of rp and immersiveness, my vote goes for animal specific socials if you ever have time).