Reset Password
Existing players used to logging in with their character name and moo password must signup for a website account.
- zxq 40m
- Napoleon 44m
a Mench 4h Doing a bit of everything.
And 20 more hiding and/or disguised
Connect to Sindome @ moo.sindome.org:5555 or just Play Now

More crowd attention control
watching, eavesdropping, address/unaddressing enhancements

A brainstorm list coming out of XOOC today, for making RP in crowded places richer, with more options for noticing/showing, or missing/concealing stuff that's happening in a crowded room.

Get removed from other peoples' "watching" lists - maybe roll that into "unaddress", possibly with a Stealth roll.

Eavesdrop - if the default were notifying people when someone else "watch"es them, then eavesdroppers could pass a Stealth check to watch someone without alerting them.

There are more, people add to this!

Linking Vera's "remove watch and address entirely" thread for cross-reference. Some of the ideas in THIS topic may or may not be related to watch and address.

https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/remove-watch-and-address-1913/

I hate every single thing about watch/address and will campaign for its removal until I die. Since that's not going to happen and I'm still alive, please make the canned socials (nod, smile, etc) address the person you use them on so that you don't have to type a superfluous command after taking an action specifically meant to address someone.

The to command already does this, and so do poses.

[+][OOC-Chat] bitMuse: Anyways, all I'm asking for is at least tell me I'm missing something instead of just giving me a silent room in a supposedly loud, obnoxious bar. I'll raise perception eventually anyways, but at least with prompts on what I'm missing, it'll feel natural to ask people to address me or say I can't hear them and ask to move to a different room.
I am TOTALLY spitballing this one here.

To the point that bitMuse (and many others before them have brought up), it is frustrating to be in a room 'full' of people, yet be met with what appears to be complete silence.

I am not sure if this is a viable idea, but if it were possible to create a Dark object that counts poses and then after every # pose, sends something generic like, "The din of conversation in (place name) ebbs and flows between the patrons." There could be a long list of crowd sourced @emits to keep it fresh.

One of the challenges would be figuring out what a valid # for # is. If it's too low (like every 3rd pose), you're going to be seeing it every few seconds in a really busy room. If it's too high (like every 30th pose) it might not trigger often enough to be useful.

I'm not sure if MOO code even supports something like this. Can an object be set to listen and regex match strings, then increment a counter?

@Vera

I think socials already do this.

I think if instead of just missing things you got “So-and-so says something you can’t hear in the noise” or what have you would not just create less confusing RP but /also/ emphasize how busy and crowded things are.

We could have a dozen or so similar messages so it’s not just a line of:

John says something you can’t hear over the noise of the crowd.

Jane says something you can’t hear over the noise of the crowd.

Tom says something you can’t hear over the noise of the crowd.

Instead, it could be:

John says something you can’t hear over the noise of the crowd.

Jane’s mouth is moving, but in the crowded confines you can’t hear her.

Tom talks but you just can’t make out what he is saying over the noise.

I might be one the few that's okay with the watch/address system as it is. I've just never really had a problem because all it takes to overcome is appropriate stat investment and remembering to type the 'watch all' command. I don't think that every average joe should be able to keep track of half a dozen people.

More to the point for this specific idea, I just don't like it. Seems like it would complicate things too much.

The worst part about this system is it disproportionately effects brand-new players, who instead of getting a cacophony of interesting conversations and RP in some spaces, get incoherence or nothing.

There is a system for overhearing people but not the specifics already exists with whispered phone conversations and mumbling. I agreed as much in the last thread already that something, to indicate an action or say occurred without necessarily catching the specifics of it if perception was too low, would be an improvement over feedback silence.

so many times have I had to act stupid just because I forgot to watch all when I enter a room. so many relationships ruined, so much conflict. I can see why some people would like that because "muh conflict creates rp" but it also creates extreme annoyances and boothed characters over something that doesnt make much sense. why wouldn't my highly perceptive character not notice someone speaking to them at a bar?

get rid of watch, its unnecessary. just make it so you get bonuses to rolls on eavesdropping on whispers or phone calls and nothing else. less is more in this case.

@talonczar

nod ****

You casually nod at ****.

speaking

potential others can probably hear you speaking fluent english in a [REDACTED] @voice.

When I started playing Sindome, one of the things that really drove home the crowd aspect was getting in to reading room texts and realizing that I was missing out on conversations that may have been about me, or at least related to me bumbling around. It made me pretty anxious, actually, but I think that really helped develop how a character new to the Dome might feel in somewhere so foreign. Even if they're from a crowded city, it drives home the idea that it's all very *jarring.*

I can completely understand how that aspect of the game could be killer to a lot of new players just by nature of them not ever realizing that they NEED to be watching/addressing in such an active way, and I can even understand how the system is basically just another chore to deal with to someone who's been playing for a certain amount of time. At the same time, I'm a proponent of the idea that it adds RP to sit someone down and basically say, "Baka, I know there's a lot going on, but stop paying attention to everything else and WATCH ME." It being a chore to an oldbie isn't much different, in my eyes, to the multitude of things that we all pick up and learn and have to overcome as time progresses.

I don't think that the watch/address system needs to be overhauled or removed, but I do think that messages similar to drug effects might be nice to proc when someone says something in a room that your character might not necessarily pick up on. bean_dip's OOC-Chat snippit from bitMuse is a good example of how players can really miss out on the vibe of an area because, let's face it, it can feel strange to see one line in flavor text stating how "busy" everything is, yet actively see how quiet the room is. Equally, I think Pavane's example adds real flavor and a reminder to those that simply forget, so that maybe they can say something along the lines of, "sorry, I didn't hear that."

I think the current system leads to 2 real problems:

1) Unintentional, normalized smallworlding- by watching and/or nodding at everyone that comes through a door, a character is simply noticing the "important" people. That's not terribly uncommon in my experience playing Sindome. You can enter a street and often immediately have someone notice that, for example, you're holding a gun, regardless of where their character might actually be in the crowd. Less of a problem with watching, more with looking, but maybe part of the overall issue of people having normalized the feeling that the game doesn't make places *feel* active.

At the same time, should people be actively sought out and penalized for always noticing something or trying to say something to a friend that just so happens to walk through their cell? I would rather not be noticed in a "crowded" place, but I understand that people, especially those with limited game time, NEED to notice others in order to get the most out of their time. I would say that they should be encouraged to phone the friend and RP meeting up, which I'm sure people often do, but I don't necessarily think it occurs more than simply -noticing- people in the bustling street or bar crowd.

2) Plain frustration by those who are either too familiar with watching all or those that don't know the intricacies of watching. One thing that I hadn't really thought about and had tried not to think about too much was something that Vera mentioned in the Remove Watch and Address thread linked here: things like taking a grenade out and pulling the pin might be a thing that the whole room sees, or maybe it's not. I don't know how many small actions a room can fully see, but it seems to me like fixing those exceptions would be better than modifying the entire rule.

That being said, I really love the idea of adding ambient "chatterbuzz" (as mentioned by ymk in the other thread+suggested here by Pavane/Hek) that has a chance to proc based on room pop and character perception. If that's too difficult, ambient pop affecting a message proc that reminds you that there's a -lot- going on, no different than how taking a drug reminds you that, yes, you are stoned, would go a very, very long way in adding a conscious reminder to people that things ARE happening. The bar is NOT completely dead just because there's nobody there but you and an NPC tender, even if a lot of us are either used to 1) RPing that the room is chock full of bodies, or 2) pretty much ignoring that there's all but 4 "important" characters" taking up space.

The almighty Johnny, hallowed be his name, has heard your cries. The adjustments made have been enshrined here: https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/new-game-features/-feb-2020--improvements-feedback-386/
@Necronex666

"watch all" doesn't work for immies because their PCP isn't high enough to watch more than some small number. They really have to manage their watchlist.

Ultimately the strongest argument against this system is it adds nothing. At best it simply allows to happen what you would assume would happen from the outset, and worse still it arbitrarily silences player roleplay, the thing that is supposed to be the basis of the entire game.
Been trying to find a good thread to necro so I can submit this idea again. I know I have it somewhere, but I couldn't find it in a search.

Can the 'ignore' command be changed so it allows you to ignore people addressing you? Currently it just removes your watching and addressing a person. I want to be able to ignore somebody specifically addressing me. The reason being a lot of the time in crowded rooms people immediately address /all, and so I hear their conversation that has nothing to do with me from across a crowded bar where, according to the echoes, I'm supposed to have a hard time hearing: this is unrealistic, annoying, and spammy.