Role Play, Our Need for Progammable Macro Sentences

I suppose it's who uses the tool to determine how creative they can be, I just use chainsaws to cut trees down, other's use them to make sculptures, and scary guys in movies use them to carve people up. Taking a tool away doesn't promote responsibility, it just takes away the ability for us to learn how to use it in a responsible manner (I'm attempting to be witty or something here).

 

"I Applaud Your Dexterity Skill of the Keyboard, Yet Slip on Your Banana Peal of Logic to Fight It's Usefulness So Much"
This seems a statement in contradiction to itself, as the last of it wipes the rest of objections all away and I use to use "Hi and See you later" all the time, "so there is one person in the world that does use the same greeting and goodbye all the time". But as my own disclaimer, I now use "Swasdee Krup" all the time, so I am flexible to change, yet still tied to the repetitive normal, which I have also heard as quite common in 56 years of my normal life.... though as a disclaimer to that, I don't think I was talking in any habit of normality when I was still a baby, so I do have a few years less than 56 years of listening to people.

I'm not one of those people who speak by using a keyboard too often, so I do suspect there are those that come from the computing and typing world of communication and programing that speak by key board more easily than I do...
But that doesn't mean that I need to be kept at a disadvantage for that, just as other languages need special interface with our game because they don't type very easily the English language either.

So, congratulations on your dexterity Bowen Bloodgood, but as that which you stated, even your repetitive process in a game was found to need an outside program to help ease your play style as well.

~Time Lord~

 

For one.. you can't take away what isn't there. Secondly, potential for abuse aside. As a tool there's not much there to begin with. There isn't much a simple macro can do that I can't do with a simple cut & paste.

Let me switch gears here. If you guys want a macro tool.. then how about coming up with some interesting ways to make it suitable specifically for SoTA.. such that you couldn't just cut & paste your really long speech that you'll probably only give once (or once in a blue moon).

What could your tool do that cut & paste can't.. what can it do that I can't just type out myself? Or use standard in-game commands to do? More than just make executing commands faster.. and keep in mind possible exploits while you're at it.

Make it more than just convenience. Make it a near necessity for certain tasks if you can. Make me want to use it. I triple dog dare you guys to come up with something. And yes I'm being serious. I want to see something. I'm honestly hoping you guys can surprise me.

 

It would be nice if emotes were connected to the command lines with /

such as

/eat
/drink
/sit
/yell

etc.

 

Nice try but you missed the point. Yeah.. I used it. This is why my commenting on its usefulness is not speculation on my part. I'm plenty familiar with how it works which is why I confidently say.. what can it do that you HAVE to have it. It is a minor convenience only that isn't needed. Before I used it I cut & paste and it worked well enough. Outside of UO I RPed for years without the benefit of macros and with others who also never used macros. Never once did not having them hinder me or those I played with in any noticeable way.

You see I have the benefit of both using them.. and not using them. Meaning I have experience to compare with. My knighting ceremonies did not NEED a macro tool. (In fact I also did them without it). Though I did perform them on a fairly regular basis.

 

I will be honest, it seems like you are intentionally being difficult.

Time Lord overstated the use of speech macro tools in quality RP. Nonetheless, that does not exclude speech macro tools (or hardware) from great RP. Creative players can use speech macro tools in a variety of manners to improve RP. How many examples from how many players will satisfy you that there is indeed a use for a speech macro tool?

One of the major strengths of a speech macro tool is the diversity of speech patterns that it enables as opposed to the "same EXACT thing over and over" when you are competing for macro space with the general macro functionality (be it in game or 3rd party software/hardware). Again, creativity of the player is the only limit beyond the functionality limits. If speech macros are competing for space on the macro landscape, then players are MORE likely to create the "Bank Buy Sell Guards" macro that you seem to be attempting to avoid.

Insofar as hitting the wrong hot key... that happens whether you have a speech macro tool or not. The absence of a speech macro tool does not prevent macros. As a matter of fact, a well-designed speech macro tool with visual queues (e.g. UO Curse) means that players are LESS likely to use the wrong macro in many cases. We can never truely verify but I would be willing to bet that most of the mistaken farewells were due to key binding macros rather than a well-designed macro tool.

Maybe I want a speedier cookie cutter response. There are situations where a set of cookie cutter responses used in a timely manner (either in sequence or random depending upon the situation) can achieve far better role play in situations where the same timing could not be achieved with typing. Synchronized speech (i.e. singing) and emotes is another area where the timing of "cookie cutter" patterns is essential. The timing that can be achieved with speech macro tools far exceeds what can be done with typing which says nothing of the flow that can be achieved with a speech macro tool.

Not to mention, there are repetitive speech patterns or emotes that are enjoyable to witness but a pain to role play if you have to individually type them out. If the tool allows role play to be less burdensome to role play then the community is better served for having the tool available. One of my best examples of this was my "ferret" character. The character was loved by RPers and non-RPers alike but I can guarantee that I would have RPed the character a lot less if a macro speech tool had not been available. You can call it "lazy" all you want. I rehearsed those emotes to an extent that exceeds what most reasonable individuals would characterize as lazy. The best example that I have witnessed that comes to mind is the blind character. Guess what... blind individuals tap their cane a lot. Typing that out is a hassle over an extended period of time or a long distance.

 

Ah! The burden of proof is upon you Time Lord!

Is the cut and paste command available in SotA? I never attempted to use it (I didn't think it would work), I just typed it out, though I only ever talked to someone once. I also think this thread is about programmable macros in context of sentences, not for performing other commands besides speech.

Perhaps it could be used in guild wars, to make formations and control the movement of a unit (sort of like plays in basketball and football).

Or if I'm roleplaying a suave poet, I can have my stable of pick up lines for the ladies on queue. This probably be useful for the in game bard who can't just keep typing the lines of his songs out the entire time (it would seem necessary in that instance).

If someone wanted to make an in game religion or something, and they needed to lead their followers in prayer everyday then they would need sentences on a macro.

This might not be to your liking but Time Lord may have some better stuff! I don't really have a horse in this race anyway, just here for moral support!

 

The community is bigger than you and your ego. If you don't find it useful, you will not be forced to use it.

 

At what point did I ever say there wasn't a USE. What I've been saying is it's not NEEDED. Big difference.

Disagreeing and offering a challenge to make an idea better has nothing to do with ego. You want a in-game speech macro functionality. So let's hear the ideas to make it something useful in SoTA.. what can this do that I can't do without it? Just synchronizing is a matter of the player's timing. That can still be done with cut & paste. It's just a matter of how much and how fast and a macro tool won't guarantee you're good at it.

 

You're right... that had nothing to do with your ego to dare that we make a game functionality personally relevant to your gameplay.

 

What the "make me want to use it"? It was just a figure of speech. It doesn't have to be personally relevant to MY gameplay. The whole point is see if you can make it something more. Something that allows you to do something it'd be very difficult at least to do any other way.

You see part of the problem with your examples.. such as synching up with music.. is there is no guarantee that the music playing on your machine is even synched up with the music playing on anyone else's. But then that's also a matter of the player's timing. I could cut & paste for more or less the same effect. Or paste and hit an in-game hotkey for an emote or what have you.

Can you guys take the functionality beyond that in SotA? What would you use it for really? Perhaps one way to look at it is customizing the feature you want specifically for SotA. How might your incorporate emotes or other commends.. is there a timer delay function? How many "slots" for macros? What could those macros do? Could you save and load sets and how would you configure them? Could you target actions for specific items? What exactly is this going to do? If I'm doing a play for example..

 

"The Need of All and Everything Though Everyone"
"I always enjoy Sir Bowen Bloodgood's input into all subjects", fore he is a grinding stone that has helped to spawn better idea though the finest stands the rhetoric.

I don't however get the cut and paste idea yet. "From where do I cut and paste it from?" Is this a needed separated screen that I would have to include in the entirety of my computer's monitor? Is "UO Curse" something that is supported or compatible within our SotA? I ask because I have a need to speak out while on the move in a more broadcast way so as to coordinate without the use of TeamSpeak or other RL voice interaction.

~Time Lord~

 

UO could be played in window mode.. so you didn't need a separate screen. but you could paste text into the chat bar.. So all you needed to do is have your text typed out in notepad let's say.. then you'd copy from notepad and paste in UO.

UO Curse basically simulated that process but was designed specifically for UO. If memory serves there was another macro program that let you target a point on the screen and also had a time delay command. So what you could do is have it send a keyboard command to UO.. then "click" an area of the screen.. and in this way you could macro a whole sequence of commends that it would continue on a loop or X number of times or whatever.

Again useful but not truly needed and some people felt it was cheating since people would do this and walk away from the keyboard.

 

"So Our SotA is Just Out of Luck to Have this Included?"
That's OK, but this isn't UO and we/I have a need to speak while moving/hunting. "So here in our SotA, we are out of luck to have something such as this style of sending information".... thus the need for it...

UO is a very old program that I had my kid playing when he was 10-11 and did have macro text ability built and accommodated into the game's mechanics, thus I just naturally assumed that this would be a very easy thing to have, being such an old option within such an old game. It's certainly an older option than any UO Curse and I would say is not that much younger than "cut and paste".

So, here in New Britannia, what are we to replace this very old option with? Or more to the point, "How will you be speaking while moving your character's Avatar Sir Bowen?"
~Time Lord~

 

First of all.. these "options" didn't come with UO. People figured out how to hack the data stream and how to simulate keystrokes and mouse clicks. So you wouldn't really be replacing existing features. They were all 3rd party options UO was never intended to have.

And I.. will be typing. Granted I probably won't be moving at the time.. I don't see how a macro will be useful for normal communication while in motion.. not unless you're in a well trained party and are giving a predetermined set of commands to shout out.

 

"Back to Square One With the Need" with no hope still in sight
I well remember these options of UO's public release to have the ability to place a "say" key... so I think you're confused there, or I'm confused because we are talking about an over 20-30 year old program.
I'm also confused by the "never intended to have comment". You could be correct if you are speaking from a stand point of 30 years ago, but even 20 years ago this option of setting a "say" key, has been in UO for "Decades"<---<<< that's a very odd loss to such a assumed function given the function's age of common player usage.

Decades are a very long history of time span to most people and I'm not sure just how adept you are with your telepathy or group precision action memorization, but where I come from, communication on the go are a must unless you are in pre-bronze age and maybe even further devolved back to the pre-tribal ages of warfare.

I think people have been walking while talking for much longer than I've been alive anyway. UO could do it and with ease through macro and I've seen robots do it... so why can SotA walk and talk at the same time with the ease of the macro?
~Time Lord~

 

Macro functions only have a limited number of actual macros. How are you going to carry on an intelligent conversation with only 10 or 20 some odd macros?

I'm beginning to think perhaps the description of what you're asking for isn't quite what you're asking for. Maybe I should go back and reread the OP.

First off, the macros have to be preconfigured.. meaning all your responses are written in advance. And you've only got so many. This is making absolutely no sense to me how anyone expects to hold a conversation using macros. Even if you could do it you'd eventually have to stop and reconfigure them all to say something else.

Or do you really mean a sequence of commands to control your character while you type what you want to say? In which case you'd have only limited control and may have to stop typing in order to do something anyway.

UO had basic chat functionality including whisper. say is normal and I'm pretty sure there was a shout also. but UO did not have built in support for macros. That was always 3rd party software. At least this was the case for the first 4 years or so.

 

Captain Jack thinks it would be ideal to be working with direct APIs for SotA, that would be the best result. But there are any number of things you can take into your own hands through a few basic tools which can pixel map and run keys.

 

well, to be honest you have to be close enough to read anything and as far as we know there is no world chat, so the air waves would not be "spammed". I believe this is a great role play technique and can be used in role play pvp scenarios where you are trying to type during battles. Not all people use teamspeak or other talk devices. It would be nice to have a set of programmed responses to react when you are winning or dying, fleeing or chasing and not have to say, hey man wait a sec, i got to type this emote out to tell you to *stop fleeing you coward!*

 

well said sir! *bows*