Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits

[Thenomain]

@faraday said in Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits:

@thenomain If there's scene code that folks are already using to start a scene/log, then I wouldn't care, since I use that code automatically when I RP. But if it's an extra non-native step, then I agree with @Three-Eyed-Crow that I'd rather have a one-time "turn this stuff off" toggle.

Until someone else starts reacting to it, then it becomes annoying again. It's why the "just gag someone" answer to an annoying person often doesn't work in a group discussion like, e.g., a web forum.

More practically, though, I don't hang out on the grid unless I'm already RPing. And if I'm already RPing in a scene, then the emits would be disabled by the system you described. So there'd really be no difference between that and just turning them off completely.

My interest is in what's best for as many people as possible, tho. Because of the previous, I would far rather an "all or nothing" approach toward environmental emits.

[faraday]

@thenomain said in Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits:

Until someone else starts reacting to it, then it becomes annoying again. It's why the "just gag someone" answer to an annoying person often doesn't work in a group discussion like, e.g., a web forum.

Yes. How many times have we all seen something like this?

Bob and Mary are RPing a scene.
Joe joins, looks at the weather/time in the room and poses in: "Joe comes in, shaking out his umbrella. 'What are you guys doing here so late?'"
Bob says OOC: Uh, actually we're RPing that it's a sunny afternoon.

Like... I'm not at all opposed to an opt-in "plot suggestion" system that will toss you random hooks/emits that you can choose to incorporate into your pose if it makes sense to the scene and is something you'd like to incorporate into the story.

But just tossing out randomized emits that may not make sense in context of the scene, may not be seen consistently by everyone, and may not be acknowledged by everyone just seems... doomed.

[Roz]

I do think to a certain extent you kind of just need to make a decision either way and lean into it and let folks opt out of the game if it's not for them. It's just a different playstyle: some people are really into the immersion of environment, some people aren't. Some people want more control of those aspects, some people like having the game prompt it. @faraday's certainly not wrong that the fuzzy middle ground will likely just end up with more confusion.

[Lithium]

Or just make it easy to opt in and opt out of. It shouldn't be that difficult.

[ThatGuyThere]

I generally favor emits like that, even if they might contradict the scene at hand, I like the introduction of things that I and the other players don't control that is precisely why I like dice and will you game mechanics even in minor scenes to resolve things.
In a plot of they run counter i would disregard them but in a non-plot scene, incorporate them, so you are RPing a picnic on a sunny day, then the weather emit mentions rain, guess what that means it started raining, happens to picnics all the freaking time. Be creative adapt to the situation that is the whole point of RP anyway.

[Lotherio]

I'm in the opt in/out group.

As for Joe jumping into a public room with Bob and Mary, then posing without knowing what's going on is more on Joe than the code though. I mean, that its not raining or not could be the less vital part, if Bob is bleeding out after a gang fight in the middle of the street and Mary is an EMT trying to resuscitate him. Its half as much on Joe to say, what's going on as it is for Bob or Mary to say I'll include a scene set in my pose for you Joe. Before other comments arise, I am in the group that public room = open to any who show up, especially if there are locations to go if Bob and Mary want to play the near death experience scene without interruption.

Just that the coming to a room and posing in without some pretext is more the issue than ambiance/weather/day/night code with the example.

[Roz]

@lithium said in Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits:

Or just make it easy to opt in and opt out of. It shouldn't be that difficult.

It can still cause a fair amount of friction when people have really different expectations about something like that and are basically seeing different things. I mean, that's the scenario Faraday just described: one person is opted in and sees the weather says rain, starts posing about rain, the other people are opted-out and insist there's no rain. Both parties are basically pulled from their fun in different ways.

It's not codedly difficult, I'm sure. It's about cultural friction.

I totally agree with @Lotherio that people should wait for a couple poses to see what the scene they're ICly walking into actually looks like, and I've totally written that exactly peeve on the peeves thread. But I do think there's going to be issues of people constantly being like "are we listening to the emits in this scene or aren't we."

It's like @ThatGuyThere said: this is a matter of playstyle, how much people enjoy giving the game environment agency versus controlling it, and the two styles aren't hugely compatible when it comes to a system like this.

[faraday]

@lotherio said in Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits:

Just that the coming to a room and posing in without some pretext is more the issue than ambiance/weather/day/night code with the example.

Yes, I agree - I was just using it to illustrate what I see as the inherent confusion of having it in the room desc. If somebody wants a suggestion as to the weather for the scene when starting one, there are any number of ways to get that. But having it there as "here's what the game says the weather is" causes coordination issues.

@lithium said in Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits:

It shouldn't be that difficult.

Codewise it isn't, but what do you think about the confusion issue of Bob (who saw the emit) reacting to it while Jane (who opted out) has a completely different expectation?

[Lithium]

@faraday It's the same issue as people who play to @time/+time/time code. There's always going to be those who play to different aspects of the game in different ways because an RP'd 10 minute conversation can sometimes take several hours RL.

Time is a fluid thing, so is ambiance. What one person considers polite and the norm (Like waiting a few poses) is not what everyone does.

So my response to that question is the same as almost everything:

Communicate.

Communication is key to a shared space.

[faraday]

@lithium said in Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits:

Communication is key to a shared space.

We will have to just agree to disagree then. Communication is important, sure, but I'd prefer people to get all their context from the scene itself than have some people getting conflicting information from built-in coded systems. :helpless shrug:

[bored]

@cobaltasaurus Voted for 3.

I think they're not bad, but most games that have used them have heavily over-used them, and often for the wrong purpose. They've also coded them in simplistic, and at this point outdated ways, that you could (and should) avoid if you want to bring this mechanic into the modern era.

First, you need meaningful content. Emits are pointless if they're generic and unchanging. At that point they should be part of the desc. For instance, having some kind of generic NPC merchant bark that plays at frequent intervals in a market ("Fresh khlav kalash!") is pretty pointless. However, if the NPC is relating something about a seasonal good (based on time code), a rare offering (rng'ed out of a larger list), or similar... then that emit has some RP value.

Second, codewise, we can do better than simple timers, and be more context-aware. Because once you've seen an emit, additional plays in a single RP session add nothing but spam. It would probably be better to structure emits so they play (perhaps after a randomized delay, to differentiate them from simply being part of a room desc) the first time they would occur with unique content in a given scene. So you get a rain emit the 1-5 minutes after the weather object updates, and then not another one until the weather changes or you're in a different scene (or possibly after more people have joined the scene, depending on how spammy you want to be).

Also, for log purposes, you probably want to put a tag at the front so they're easy to client filter.

[Lithium]

@faraday I don't disagree with you. I also don't like ambiance emits either, I think they take away from the scene in progress which should be what people are responding to.

My comment was if you're going to have them, which is not my decision to make as I don't have anything to do with the creation of this game, have at least a LOT of them so that they don't repeat.

I don't need every other emit telling me about bike messenger joel riding by the window or whatever

I would prefer not to have Ambiance emits at all, but if they do exist, have a lot of them and have them easily opted out of.

[Taika]

Oh, Oh, Oh! @Cobaltasaurus ! shifteyes

Can, can you make... bites lip a rumor code? Not like '+rumors', but a simple, easily updated code for an npc type object that sits in town square and hollers about rumors at random? Not more than once an hour, to avoid the spam aspect. Maybe even just a pemit to a player when they first arrive so there's some rp fodder, but also hooks and ways to stay up to date on the happenings.

I would kill to be able to do something like: +rumor/add (east/west/specific object in specific place for regional rumors)="Breaking news, poor old widow Wilson's home was bombed tonight in a seemingly random attack. No one even saw where the bomb makers came from or when they set it. She just exploded from what seems to be a crude pipe bomb."

Because Reasons >.>

[WildBaboons]

Another issue with environmental emits is the timing. You might start a scene where +time and weather says it's dawn and sunny, but four hours later at 4x time it's sunset and pouring.. meanwhile only about 30 minutes has actually passed in the scene.

[ixokai]

I voted no but I changed my mind for this one specific game because it is Original Theme and these ...things are part of the feeling of the setting which I am not naturally prone to consider.

But opt out please.

[Cobalt]

@ixokai Yeah, I think I'll have some ambiance emits for Sacred Seed, but they'll be opt-in, I think. Default is you don't get them, but you can opt-in to them if you want them.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@wildbaboons said in Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits:

Another issue with environmental emits is the timing. You might start a scene where +time and weather says it's dawn and sunny, but four hours later at 4x time it's sunset and pouring.. meanwhile only about 30 minutes has actually passed in the scene.

Yeah, a lot of my antipathy for environmental emits comes from ones that run every 30 minutes (or less), or even once an hour. At that point it's spamming even a relatively normal-paced scene quite a lot, and can be jarring in ways that actively break immersion if there are changes to what you're playing (like, even if you were playing by the first emit you got, now it's something else). I'd probably not really mind them if they were less frequent.

[Templari]

Yes, especially if connected to the +weather. Always hated people RPing running about on the beach... during winter. Sometimes having a little weather suggested just helps in a scene set and RP. It's flavor!

Disclaimer: I was all extra curious excited when I read the topic as "Ambulance Emits". I was all "OOOH DO I HAVE STORIES" (and bad memories). So instead, I leave you all with the quintessential ambulance scene: Bringing Out The Dead

[Ominous]

@faraday For me it depends on the culture of the game. If there are no emits then people can set however they like, changing the time and the weather. If there are emits, the time and weather is what the server says it is. Don't make sets that disagree with it.

[faraday]

@ominous said in Code Discussion: Ambiance Emits:

@faraday For me it depends on the culture of the game. If there are no emits then people can set however they like, changing the time and the weather. If there are emits, the time and weather is what the server says it is. Don't make sets that disagree with it.

That's a fine theory. The reality is that people just don't do that. Time, weather and ambiance emits are at best treated as an inconsistently-applied guideline because it's annoying when your RL schedule only allows you to be on during the IC middle of the night (or middle of the workday), or you can't get people together for a RP scene because the weather isn't cooperating, or it takes 3 RL hours to do a scene that only lasts 30 minutes IC but +time says otherwise, or ... the list goes on and on.