Role Play, Our Need for Progammable Macro Sentences

http://uo.stratics.com/uowedding/

 

Yes, that is the ultimate problem. It is something that has great power, power that can, and usually is, abused.

And I simply meant half-assed in terms of resources spent away from actual systems already designed, rather than something they tack into the game and then have to design on the fly. They could very well start planning for it and get it into the game over time, giving it more consideration; however, my assumption is it would end up being an "afterthought" design, not something they planned, and thus, "half-ass" in the end.

Then a whole bunch of back and forth, for an issue, that, is already solved externally. :|

They even just mentioned macroing on the hangout:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XkXin-DYNr0#t=3282

 

I don't really consider "take that you fiend" an essential part of RPing a fight.

 

Well.. shall we attempt to switch gears again? I think Winfield's example is going in a better direction for most practical purposes.

 

Sounds like an excellent opportunity to permit me to kill someone more quickly than would be otherwise possible.

 

Macro sentences can be a great tool for role players.

We might consider that it would also particularly be helpful to our friends who may have physical challenges that make gaming a little harder than it is for some of us.

That said, I agree it could be a spam generator in the wrong hands. If the system could be created in a way that some how avoids that outcome, that would be something. Perhaps a robust /ignore feature addresses that.

 

The disability argument is one of the better I've seen for this feature.

 

It might help them give a lengthy pre-planned speech.. but not carry on an live conversation.. you still have to think on the fly and type for that.

 

Well, perhaps the people they play with would have to adjust for the macro'd sentences; or maybe it would help with people who played with folks that have a different native language (just have the stock: hi, okay, let's do it!, heal me!, goodbye).

 

To which.. I would say.. a limited number of common phrases do not a conversation make. Again with use vs need here.

 

A conversation is just an exchange of words in an informal manner. Do we have macro'd body language for when I role play an avatar that can't speak? Or sign language??? Crackers, though I guess I can just go - *signs* Where are we going? *signs*

 

Well said Lord Beaumaris, Captain Jack thinks that about says it all for this topic. It is a wonderful RP feature, and as long as we can stop the youngins from spamming 20 lines of text in 0.2 seconds, we should be good!

 

This is a great idea! UO had macro text that you could have for each skill or spell, or even keystroke. Again love the Idea.

 

Weighing in here:

The recent play put on by the New Britannia Theater Troupe in Paxlair relied on copy/paste text insertion. We were listening to the audio stream from Avatars radio, and timing our actions to the pre-recorded script. The technique substantially worked - the script was pre-written, and we just had to move, emote and "speak" at the right times.
Sure there were technical issues (internet based - the stream died....) but we learned a lot and plan a re-run of They who Dwell in Darkness this Saturday, at 10 AM CST, in Paxlair. (Always assuming the game is still live...)
Importantly - relevant to this discussion - it REALLY helps if you can run Shroud in windowed mode, reduce the size of the game window and have your Word/notepad file fairly small over to one side of the screen. That eliminates the alt/tab requirement for switching windows, and the whole copy/paste process is much smoother.
Then it's a matter of introducing pauses (1-2 seconds) into the script to give yourself time to do the pasting...
So for RP events, plays, weddings etc I can see pre-planning coupled with copy/paste as the way to go. Not to mention that with the addition of Avatars Radio the event can be truly "live".

 

Copy and paste does work well with what you describe. For me it would be nice to be able to program short text lines and bind them so when in combat you can yell out phrases. "Help me I am Dying!" "good hit for a novice!" Its not easy to type sentences in combat and really hard to cut and paste.

 

I agree macros would be very helpful if their was a limt on number of characters allowed and perhaps a cool down between use. I dont ever remeber running into any issues with it in UO and it was very useful. However kids today seem to be more..... obnoxious then most of us were. Some of the abuse can be curbed simply by folks policing their guild mates if reported macro abuse. But i can also see where macros would be a low priority at this point.