Chat Character Limits

[Razmane]

I wanted to make a suggestion, raising chat character limits. This is more because rp'ers love their walls of text, descriptive posts, and the like. I feel that this simple thing would add so much to the game. 1000 or even 500 characters would open up so much for the rp'ers among us.

 

That's it, nothing too special 🙂

[wjrasmussen]

I would love that. I would be able to blast large spam advertising all over the place.

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Razmane said:

This is more because rp'ers love their walls of text, descriptive posts, and the like.

It does make it easy to spot the people you want to put on ignore because their spew in the chat windows hides information you want to see...

[Greycat]

Bio space? Sure.

 

Chat space? As an RPer... I can always start another line if I have something lengthy to say to someone. Besides, there's only so long you can see someone's AFK bubble as they t  y   p   e      e    x    c     e      e     d    i    n     g    l    y        s               l             o               o             w             ... *oops* backspace...... backspace......      w                  l                      y. I prefer finishing conversations before my grandkids die of old age.

[Ghost]

Good idea - if RPers had their own chat channel that only implemented this.

 

Id hate to see what LFG or HELP would look like if people could post walls and walls of text

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

Bio space? Sure.

 

Chat space? As an RPer... I can always start another line if I have something lengthy to say to someone. Besides, there's only so long you can see someone's AFK bubble as they t  y   p   e      e    x    c     e      e     d    i    n     g    l    y        s               l             o               o             w             ... *oops* backspace...... backspace......      w                  l                      y. I prefer finishing conversations before my grandkids die of old age.

That's a good point! 😆

 

And something I'm guilty of doing from time to time. I would rather not see that become used overly much.

 

One thing I've learned from my own RP, if a statement takes up too much space but needs all that space, the other RP'ers are more than happy to wait for the rest or they add the rest to the previous to do their own RP in response. Otherwise, shortening your RP into smaller, more manageable sections tends to be appreciated. (I never enjoyed having to wade through 3 paragraphs of someone's RP before I could finally make my own RP response.) RP is supposed to be interactive, and wall of text is not really interactive.

[Razmane]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

That's a good point! 😆

 

And something I'm guilty of doing from time to time. I would rather not see that become used overly much.

 

One thing I've learned from my own RP, if a statement takes up too much space but needs all that space, the other RP'ers are more than happy to wait for the rest or they add the rest to the previous to do their own RP in response. Otherwise, shortening your RP into smaller, more manageable sections tends to be appreciated. (I never enjoyed having to wade through 3 paragraphs of someone's RP before I could finally make my own RP response.) RP is supposed to be interactive, and wall of text is not really interactive.

The walls of text and the rant style rp is not something I've ever enjoyed. I also don't like rapid fire, quick quips with no context or body language. That's the stuff I prefer in my rp but it can't happen here with the chat restrictions.

 

In general chat I can see this causing an issue immediately as people are rarely mature enough. But SG bases or the sg chat, it would be wonderful.

[biostem]

If such a changer were implemented, I'd rather it be confined to local, or team chat, and possibly tells, but please not in broadcast, lfg, general, or any such wide-reaching/global chat channels.

[Razmane]

42 minutes ago, biostem said:

If such a changer were implemented, I'd rather it be confined to local, or team chat, and possibly tells, but please not in broadcast, lfg, general, or any such wide-reaching/global chat channels.

This is completely valid, I am sure we would see a wall of A's in general. But keeping it to places where people rp, SG bases, and the chats you mentioned would lend to more robust rp posts with broader concepts, body language and the like. 

[Rudra]

7 minutes ago, Razmane said:

This is completely valid, I am sure we would see a wall of A's in general. But keeping it to places where people rp, SG bases, and the chats you mentioned would lend to more robust rp posts with broader concepts, body language and the like. 

Why don't you use emotes for your body language? Even if the emote you use doesn't have an animation for it, the game still posts it. All it cares about is that the emote command is properly used, not what the emote typed into it is. And it conveys body language better in my opinion than flatly stating it in a chat message.

[Razmane]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

Why don't you use emotes for your body language? Even if the emote you use doesn't have an animation for it, the game still posts it. All it cares about is that the emote command is properly used, not what the emote typed into it is. And it conveys body language better in my opinion than flatly stating it in a chat message.

To be honest, thats rather perfect, just extend the emote chat limit. I tend to use emotes over chat anyway as you can be more descriptive and should I want to include anything as speech I quote it. 

Example: He walks in the room, looking around trying to find the person he was meant to meet here. After spotting his contact in the far corner of the room, the large man makes his way over, sits down in the booth and says, "I came all this way, I hope you brought what I asked for." The mans tone was low, but firm, as he leaned forward onto the table waiting for the man to reply.

That is a rather short emote by my groups standards, having to chop that up into three different posts makes it rough as it breaks the rp up. It reads better when it all fits together.

The main reason I brought this post up is because a lot of people are looking for a good RP platform but many of these awesome games have such a low chat limit that it makes it hard to come from a place that allows larger posts. For me, that game is conan exiles. The community, gameplay, and lore is garbage but, it offers so much freedom to create what you want to create that it makes for an amazing rp platform. I have tried to bite the bullet and move the rp to CoX a few times now, Empyrion as well. But the games just choke the posts so much. They are both however far superior as games.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Razmane

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, Razmane said:

To be honest, thats rather perfect, just extend the emote chat limit. I tend to use emotes over chat anyway as you can be more descriptive and should I want to include anything as speech I quote it. 

Example: He walks in the room, looking around trying to find the person he was meant to meet here. After spotting his contact in the far corner of the room, the large man makes his way over, sits down in the booth and says, "I came all this way, I hope you brought what I asked for." The mans tone was low, but firm, as he leaned forward onto the table waiting for the man to reply.

That is a rather short emote by my groups standards, having to chop that up into three different posts makes it rough as it breaks the rp up. It reads better when it all fits together.

The main reason I brought this post up is because a lot of people are looking for a good RP platform but many of these awesome games have such a low chat limit that it makes it hard to come from a place that allows larger posts. For me, that game is conan exiles. The community, gameplay, and lore is garbage but, it offers so much freedom to create what you want to create that it makes for an amazing rp platform. I have tried to bite the bullet and move the rp to CoX a few times now, Empyrion as well. But the games just choke the posts so much. They are both however far superior as games.

That's not an emote... that's a scene setting....

 

You could just have had the character walk in, slowly turn the character around until you see the other character you were going to RP with.

/e nods at <insert other character name>.

Then walk over to the other character.

/e <appropriate sit emote to fit on chair>

/e glowers at <insert other character name>.

Local chat or Tell: I came all this way, I hope you brought what I asked for.

 

Setting up the appropriate emotes on macros you could just tap to expedite and keep the initial flow going helps.

[Razmane]

In the above you have three different posts that come off at three different times. Having those link together or be understood and rp as it is on CoX would be impossible. Furthermore its the difference between reading a book and a screenplay. Since there is not going to be an emote available for all of the emotes you may want to do, and trying to predict the chaos that is RP to macro emotes being utterly impossible, having more space to type would be amazing. Plus, it engages the imagination. 

Not all posts have to be long, but it would be better than having to end most posts with a <c> or a + to let them know there is more.  

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Razmane said:

The main reason I brought this post up is because a lot of people are looking for a good RP platform but many of these awesome games have such a low chat limit that it makes it hard to come from a place that allows larger posts.

 

Maybe Discord is the option?

[Rudra]

40 minutes ago, Razmane said:

In the above you have three different posts that come off at three different times. Having those link together or be understood and rp as it is on CoX would be impossible. Furthermore its the difference between reading a book and a screenplay. Since there is not going to be an emote available for all of the emotes you may want to do, and trying to predict the chaos that is RP to macro emotes being utterly impossible, having more space to type would be amazing. Plus, it engages the imagination. 

Not all posts have to be long, but it would be better than having to end most posts with a <c> or a + to let them know there is more.  

RP however you want. It was just a suggestion. One thing I do take exception to though? Is the declaration that using that form of RP in CoX is impossible. I use it. It works. It may not work for you, but that does not make it impossible.

 

Also, as for the emote command?

/e <whatever you want to do>

The game posts it even if it isn't anything the game recognizes.

 

Example:

/e grabs a grenade from his/her/their/its pocket and shoves it down Galactor's mouth.

Shows up as:

Vengeful Psycho grabs a grenade from his pocket and shoves it down Galactor's mouth.

Assuming your character name was Vengeful Psycho and you had typed "his" for the "his/her/their/its" part.

You can very much emote anything you want.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Rudra
Altered presentation.

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Razmane said:

The main reason I brought this post up is because a lot of people are looking for a good RP platform but many of these awesome games have such a low chat limit that it makes it hard to come from a place that allows larger posts. For me, that game is conan exiles. The community, gameplay, and lore is garbage but, it offers so much freedom to create what you want to create that it makes for an amazing rp platform. I have tried to bite the bullet and move the rp to CoX a few times now, Empyrion as well. But the games just choke the posts so much. They are both however far superior as games.

I'm confused - why can't you do the actions with your character, instead of narrating it?  You then go to the other party and begin your dialogue.  Sure, the emotes we have may be a bit more exaggerated, but that is kind of necessary since other players may not be zoomed in to the specifics of your character carrying out more subtle actions.

[Razmane]

58 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Maybe Discord is the option?

We tried that with other games, it doesn't work out to well, sadly.

[Rudra]

32 minutes ago, biostem said:

I'm confused - why can't you do the actions with your character, instead of narrating it?  You then go to the other party and begin your dialogue.  Sure, the emotes we have may be a bit more exaggerated, but that is kind of necessary since other players may not be zoomed in to the specifics of your character carrying out more subtle actions.

Because they do narrative storytelling. It lets them ensure they can set up what they want without needing to worry about others interrupting and forcing a change from what they intended. Using emotes the way my friends and I do, which lets us reduce our actual chat to our characters' actual comments while letting our character actions fill in our body language, is more dynamic and prone to interruption. I've seen multiple individuals move to narrative storytelling for their RP because of that.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Razmane said:

We tried that with other games, it doesn't work out to well, sadly.

 

Huh.

Seems odd to me.

Why doesn't it work out well?

Maybe there is way to improve that system.

[Razmane]

18 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Huh.

Seems odd to me.

Why doesn't it work out well?

Maybe there is way to improve that system.

Various reasons, chat overlay crashing, sometimes causing the game we are on to freeze. Sometimes it doesnt work with the game at all. Others simply do not like having to pull themselves out of the rp. Moreover, RP is about other people interacting. Sometimes the random events can cause even more RP.

[Razmane]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

RP however you want. It was just a suggestion. One thing I do take exception to though? Is the declaration that using that form of RP in CoX is impossible. I use it. It works. It may not work for you, but that does not make it impossible.

 

Also, as for the emote command?

/e <whatever you want to do>

The game posts it even if it isn't anything the game recognizes.

 

Example:

/e grabs a grenade from his/her/their/its pocket and shoves it down Galactor's mouth.

Shows up as:

Vengeful Psycho grabs a grenade from his pocket and shoves it down Galactor's mouth.

Assuming your character name was Vengeful Psycho and you had typed "his" for the "his/her/their/its" part.

You can very much emote anything you want.

No no, please do not think I mean that it is impossible in CoX, that is not the problem at all. This game has a plethora of emotes to choose from, however, not all games do. That is part of the reason I prefer this method.

The Vengeful Psycho example is another reason I would like an increased chat limit. I cant think of what the chat limit is in CoX but, it feels somewhere around 150 characters. That is a sentence and a half at best, so if your emote is longer than that you are having to start off the next emote like Vengeful Psycho // then looks over to his partner Trance and yell, "Shoot it!" when you need to continue something you were cut off on. Also, there are some themes that the games emotes do not convey, torture, violence, and things of the like.

More importantly, I love this game and would love if it fit my style of RP instead of having to go back to Conan anytime my group and I are looking for that style of RP. Short and sweet can serve a purpose, even with my style, every once in a while. Though having the option to go further into the narrative is something I prefer. 

You really nailed my point in your later post as well. It really does come down to the interruptions for me. That and single statements become very hard for me to track. Personally, I would like to see a lot of games adopt things that lend themselves to RP more. Like being able to tag someone is a post so that, in large group RP, they can easily find posts directed at them. Having a higher chat limit, the game I mentioned earlier, Empyrion. That game has so much potential when it comes to rp, exploration, base building, ship building, space travel, all kinds of things. Sadly the chat caps at what feels like 100 characters and the emotes are lacking as well.  

[Razmane]

2 hours ago, biostem said:

I'm confused - why can't you do the actions with your character, instead of narrating it?  You then go to the other party and begin your dialogue.  Sure, the emotes we have may be a bit more exaggerated, but that is kind of necessary since other players may not be zoomed in to the specifics of your character carrying out more subtle actions.

There are two reasons, one is about me and the other is about those around me.

First, about my preference. There are many things that are not covered with emotes. While I could /e and write a quick one out and then use local to type what I say, that would end up looking off in my mind. When me and my group write things, we like them to look like they came out of a book, and there are things that people do while they are talking that needs to be put in the middle of what they say.

Example: Rax takes a drag from his cigarette as he turns his attention to the Trance, "Listen slim, we could go around and around like this all day." his words come out slightly muffled by the smoke as it lingers in his mouth, puffing out wisps with every word. Finally, he exhales and continues. "But I just don't have the energy." he finishes his statement and the cigarette with one final drag before flicking it to his right.

For me, those small little details add a lot to the RP. Queuing in the body language, the sound of the characters for, or how it touches, or moves. This can be used to imply things, and while it does make the RP much longer, its more engrossing for me. 

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, Razmane said:

Various reasons, chat overlay crashing, sometimes causing the game we are on to freeze.

 

Should not be issues with Discord.

 

5 hours ago, Razmane said:

Sometimes it doesnt work with the game at all

 

Discord works independent of the game. There are City of Heroes Discord channels. I understand that they would be complaining on the Discord channels if they were rather than here.

I use Discord at some points while playing City of Heroes, and it has not caused and issues for me or the other players that I game with that use Discord.

[UltraAlt]

whoops updated my reply before I was done with it...

 

5 hours ago, Razmane said:

Others simply do not like having to pull themselves out of the rp

 

You have me lost at this point.

I was playing RPGs before there were text-based RP games on computers.

If there is an issue with people going OOC in chat, just give them another channel to ooc in or they can OOC chat in game.

Push-to-talk goes a long way.

 

5 hours ago, Razmane said:

Moreover, RP is about other people interacting.

 

Sure. It can be RP if you are simply gaming your own character, but it does work best when other people are involved.

Yes. It is about interacting with people. What do you think using Discord is?

 

If you have a standard RPG group, you can make your own Discord channel for free.

Sub Channels could be made for zones (Pocket D, ext) or specific names areas (The Tiki Lounge, etc.)

People in the area in-game could be invited to the Discord channel.

 

5 hours ago, Razmane said:

Sometimes the random events can cause even more RP.

 

I'm confused about how having the ability to communicate more freely and quickly verbally is not able include these "random events".

 

I'm very much against the ability of players to spam so much text that it fills and/or exceeds my entire chat window.

My in-game ignore function is far too small to deal with the people I may potentially need to put on ignore.

 

I seriously doubt there will be any amount of DEV discussion about this and highly doubt it will be implemented in-game.

You should look for alternative methods if you want this additional functionality.

[Razmane]

15 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

whoops updated my reply before I was done with it...

 

 

You have me lost at this point.

I was playing RPGs before there were text-based RP games on computers.

If there is an issue with people going OOC in chat, just give them another channel to ooc in or they can OOC chat in game.

Push-to-talk goes a long way.

 

 

Sure. It can be RP if you are simply gaming your own character, but it does work best when other people are involved.

Yes. It is about interacting with people. What do you think using Discord is?

 

If you have a standard RPG group, you can make your own Discord channel for free.

Sub Channels could be made for zones (Pocket D, ext) or specific names areas (The Tiki Lounge, etc.)

People in the area in-game could be invited to the Discord channel.

 

 

I'm confused about how having the ability to communicate more freely and quickly verbally is not able include these "random events".

 

I'm very much against the ability of players to spam so much text that it fills and/or exceeds my entire chat window.

My in-game ignore function is far too small to deal with the people I may potentially need to put on ignore.

 

I seriously doubt there will be any amount of DEV discussion about this and highly doubt it will be implemented in-game.

You should look for alternative methods if you want this additional functionality.

So for the first two comments in the other post let me say that this was not in CoX but in other games all together. It would be an option if it werent for the latter part which I don't understand either, I too started online RP in forums. Having a graphical representation in some way is nice for some.

You wont see spam from someone who RP's like that. You may see a post every 5-10 minutes that are well thought out posts and furthermore, having the ability to @ a player would be amazing for literally everyone since the chat scroll in large rp events moves so quickly. Also, just because people are too childish to handle something is not a reason to punish those that would use it and use it well. And, a polite thing to do is match the rp given. So dropping a wall of text on someone who is not doing the same is often considered a bit rude.

The only issue I see is the fact that this game is also enjoyable to play thus I do also want to spend time playing it. Where Conan Exiles as a game is pretty awful, but the tools that it offers to RP'ers is pretty amazing. Any game that offers those kinds of tools tend to last a long time, take Neverwinter nights, there are player made servers in that game that have been running for close to 20 years because of how well the game caters to RP. I would just like to see the same from this game.