Description Expansion

[weltall]

The last two weeks I've been working on adding some additional tabs in the description window associated to the characters in game. Two new tabs were added an OOC description tab, and a char creation (CC)  tab.
The OOC Description tab is going to be visible only if the player wanted it (so he actually put some text in there) while the CC tab is going to be visible only to the player and who used nature intuition. This would mean that the default description which was always put in the main description is going to be moved in the CC tab and it won't be possible to modify it (so be will be careful  when you make a new char with the custom procedure   )

Another interesting change about descriptions is that the button to edit them was moved in the char description windows making the description changes easier (in place of figuring out the button is in the skill window you will just have to right click on your char and look at his description. At this point you will be allowed to edit it).
Not only that but either the normal char description and the OOC description tabs are going to provide to the player a simple explanation of what is supposed to be added in there (notice that these help text will be shown only to the player when looking at his own description).

There are also other two additional planned feature which i hope to be able to implement and show soon.

The first is allowing to add informations to the char creation data. This would be useful to add new events which could have happened and the fact they show only to who does nature intuition might be used as a nice RP tool 

The second is an extension of factions I'm going to add the ability to define various degrees of faction points which will show different messages in the char creation description tab.
Let me make a simple example let's say you have faction 10 in Tefusang: This will automatically show between the original char creation data and the additional data, of which I've just talked about, an additional entry saying, for example, Tefusang like staying with you. Now let's put you get to 30 faction points you could get "Tefusang love you" in the same place. The same would go for negative values. The values which would trigger these descriptions and the descriptions themselves can be defined independently from the engine this will allow a great variety.

For now in the pics under you can see most of the new features. When the remaining ones will be implemented i will add also more informations about them.

[Caarrie]

just so all know this if they dont get the idea reading the above post, the character creation info section of the desc is NOT able to be edited by anyone so if you take quick creation or custom that info goes there and can NEVER be changed. if you have comments on this make your voice heard before this gets ingame. Also all old chars dont get any info placed in this tab it will always be blank.

[weltall]

just so all know this if they dont get the idea reading the above post, the character creation info section of the desc is NOT able to be edited by anyone so if you take quick creation or custom that info goes there and can NEVER be changed. if you have comments on this make your voice heard before this gets ingame. Also all old chars dont get any info placed in this tab it will always be blank.

as I've said above it was decided this structure:

<char creation data> => This won't be editable and will be generated by char creation. Old players can't get it.
<faction based descriptions> => This is dynamically generated so obviously it can't be edited. All players will get it.
<custom char life data> => This will be editable

[Parallo]

I like it. Nice idea. I'm glad that CC won't be there for old characters because I can't remember mine

[khoridor]

I'll make my voice heard then  : for me, CC description is rubbish(y) and is the first thing to go, 2 seconds after the first login (sorry for saying that, but it's the truth). The character story is based on it, but more or less modified because CC is way too limited.

Besides, so much for the secrecy of Black Flame followers, or baddies in general. There can't be any secret group if anybody can see through you with just one spell. In that case, I don't know if the problem lies on the description tab or on the spell itself. I think that particular subject could be a source of future complains.

[weltall]

I'll make my voice heard then  : for me, CC description is rubbish(y) and is the first thing to go, 2 seconds after the first login (sorry for saying that, but it's the truth). The character story is based on it, but more or less modified because CC is way too limited.

Besides, so much for the secrecy of Black Flame followers, or baddies in general. There can't be any secret group if anybody can see through you with just one spell. In that case, I don't know if the problem lies on the description tab or on the spell itself. I think that particular subject could be a source of future complains.

actually they can already your faction for black flame being quite high so i can't see many differences.

[Hrothbert]

The only problem I am goin to mention about the default description is the amount of information there that the other players wouldn't know upon meeting you, as well the spell mights tell you what faction they are more sympathetic towards but it shouldn't really tell them that they were born during a raid, had an incident with the wrong twin, just the results from those experiences that are selected could be possible.

The descriptions tab gets modified because when a person reads it it is a snapshot of what the person looks like now. Not goin to argue about the use for backstory and what not. Just that the Nature intuition should give the same sort of current snapshot, albiet more in depth to the person psychology and some of their preferred past times, factions and gods, not an entire print out of a persons past, I would see that as a new skill that would be developed as a seer [probably a spell to with it] but not the current spell of Nature intuition as I understand it.

Thanks for listening.

[Siteri Kidachi]

Yeah, I think being unable to change the CC description is bad- up until now we've always been able to ignore it and write our own backstories, but if that info is now unchangeable and available for other people to read, it makes it seem like we'll have to go with it.

[Parallo]

Most will likely ignore that one is suppose. The CC stuff I really am indifferent on. Either it'll be expanded by those that control the CC or it will be ignored by players.

[Prolix]

* bilbous hurries to wipe all traces of original descriptions from 7 accounts....

I would suggest that the CC choices might use an overhaul to better fit the current state of the settings.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

We are eager to tear into the cc information as usual we have more pressing matters and players will live in hope of fixes.

[Lokter Tarvitz]

I noticed these a while back on Weltalls server... they worked well.. but when i saw them it gave you ALL the info regarding the character.

[weltall]

As I've promised I've just finished the implementation of this.
Help texts were added also to the OOC description tab additionally the CC tab (the name is not certain to be definitive) will include as said above three main areas:
[Character creation informations] => this isn't editable. It can be get only through a custom char creation done after the feature is in place
[dynamically generated life events/informations] => these aren't editable too obviously and will be dinamically generated depending on your faction points it goes all trough a simple script done this way:
## event text
## event text

for example
20 they like you
10 they like  you a bit
-20 they hate you completely
-10 they hate you
so if your faction points will be more than the defined (in absolute value) you will get that faction based life event in your CC tab
[Additional life events] => here you can write whatever you want involving your life events.

Notice that these aren't *entirely private* but either gm/dev and players using nature intuition can have a look at it.

And now some screenshots of the last tab 

i started with this: a fresh character and added a custom life event "you coded this thing"


at this point i really annoyed orcs and got -30 with them but at the same time i helped merchants greatly and got +30 with them and the description changed like this:


but shamefully i did a bad trade with someone and the merchants got a bit hungry to me so i lost 20 faction points with them and the description changed like this:

[Prolix]

From my experience, +-20 is fairly trivial to achieve so perhaps your example designations need tweaking. I do not suppose they were meant to be definitive though, rather, were exemplary. I did notice that your screenshot used actual numbers instead of more generic name values. Are they going to remain completely numerical in that way?

[weltall]

From my experience, +-20 is fairly trivial to achieve so perhaps your example designations need tweaking. I do not suppose they were meant to be definitive though, rather, were exemplary. I did notice that your screenshot used actual numbers instead of more generic name values. Are they going to remain completely numerical in that way?

those values are svn test data as i've said there is a little piece of text which instruct the server on the values and the corresponding text so it's up to the setting team deciding the text being put there and the values which would trigger it.
The faction tab is already present now on laanx (just get nature intuition and use it) that was there just to show the connection of the faction values to the additional description so that screen isn't a "new" thing but an extremely old one