Game Mechanics for Roleplay

[Jayenbee]

I'm always apprehensive about posting a thread like this, but here goes...

Preface
Over the last couple of years, we've witnessed a massive turn around with regards to the development of Discovery Freelancer, with a multitude of 'new' mechanics and various adjustments.
Now, whatever you may feel about those changes, positive or negative, they have proven that this mod is in fact capable of change thanks to the amazing efforts of the people that freely staff the Dev Team in their spare time.
We've seen a lot of mechanical additions that could be argued to have both aided and become detrimental towards Roleplay, but only really one specifically for Roleplay!
If the title didn't give it away, this thread is about 'mechanics' FOR Roleplay.

The Idea
With the // OOC chat integration in mind, I'd like to suggest the addition of something like /emote, /e or /em (however works) that would function not unlike many MMOs that I'm certain a decent chunk of this playerbase has had the pleasure of using.
What this command does in other games (typically) is remove the colon following the shipname, display the text without a separator and make the emote text stand out in someway with symbols and/or a different text colour. Example below:

Current Method: RPA|PRS-Aberdyfi: *The vessel gradually comes to a halt, the engines sputtering briefly as it's drive plume dies down to all but a glimmer.*
Proposed Idea: *RPA|PRS-Aberdyfi gradually comes to a halt, the engines sputtering briefly as it's drive plume dies down to all but a glimmer.*

I was going to find a proper example of how it appears elsewhere, however I don't really play said MMOs anymore myself, nor could I find any good chat snips and I wrote this at work while I had nothing to do. If anyone can find a good example, please share.

The Goal
Visual aid! More tools for RP!
Bring up the fact that we're constantly beating the drum over 'Discovery is a Roleplay Server!', yet we've seen very little over this Mod's lifetime to enhance the way in which we actually carry out Roleplay. Maybe the text is fine the way it is for some people, maybe you've never given it much thought, an idea is an idea and I had to share it.

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When contending with a monster, you'd be wise to give the devil his due.

[Sombs]

As long as the local chat doesn't turn into a Minecraft server chat color explosion, that's neat.

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[Haste]

I'd do a very gentle colour shift and maybe have it written in cursive or something. Just checking if a sentence begins (and starts?) with an asterisk should suffice, /em seems clunkier by comparison, and we've already got something similar in the form of // anyways. Do people start sentences with a * for reasons other than writing emotes? Dunno.

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[Perfect Gentleman]

Do people start sentences with a * for reasons other than writing emotes? Dunno.

Nomad RP

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Discovery is a server of dreams.
And I'm a big dreamer.

[Kauket]

Do people start sentences with a * for reasons other than writing emotes? Dunno.

aside from describing ship actions or state of a ship too

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[Haste]

aside from describing ship actions or state of a ship too

Well, those kind of fall into the 'emotes' category when you're roleplaying from the "pilot's chair" or "bridge" of a ship almost all of the time, so it's fine.

Do people start sentences with a * for reasons other than writing emotes? Dunno.

Nomad RP

Hot take: having that always be in cursive and a slightly different colour kind of fits the vibe funny telepathic RP is going for anyways, so probably good.

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[Sand-Viper]

I was going to find a proper example of how it appears elsewhere, however I don't really play said MMOs anymore myself

I went ahead and logged into Elderscrolls Online to snag a good example!



I like the idea! Not sure what color to make it - System chat is a lighter blue, with local being darker, green is whispers, and pink is group...
Maybe like a grey-ish color..?

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[TheSauron]

Hot take: having that always be in cursive and a slightly different colour kind of fits the vibe funny telepathic RP is going for anyways, so probably good.

I feel like if we want Nomad mindspeak to be special, it should get its own shade of blue and cursive or whatever to make it stand out from normal speech and actions.

As for the color, I think actions being either white like player names or some sort of grey would work best.

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One MD Admiral

[Haste]

I feel like if we want Nomad mindspeak to be special, it should get its own shade of blue and cursive or whatever to make it stand out from normal speech and actions.

Probably true. And we could simply hook things up to use the ship ID (K'Hara/Nomad/Vagrant/Indie Vagrant, I think are all of them?) and automatically apply it so people can all stop typing 50 asterisks. I know I'd like that change myself. Spending a dozen of the already limited characters of a message on inserting the entire ASCII encoding standard into my text feels pretty wasteful.

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[Leo]

I generally use brackets such as [] for mine personally but that's just personal choice.

I.E.: [He spills his tea, cursing to various deities about his poor luck.]

This is a good idea, I just hope that it isn't used improperly too much.

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You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark.
Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.