3.6 EMOTING AND THE EMOTE COMMAND
Lusternia encompasses many forms of communication, from channels to tells to says and shouts, as well as the physical actions of a character. Emoting is a vital form of communication that is used in expressing oneself visually, instead of just with words. It is often used to express feelings, gestures, and images those around you see, and can be a fantastic tool for immersing both yourself and those around you in the environment.
BASIC EMOTING
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Emoting is a way of making your character act out whatever it is you wish, from the possible to the ridiculous. Using the command is simple. Simply type: EMOTE <whatever you wish to do>.
When you emote something, your name is prepended to your actions, so if Mysti did:
EMOTE giggles brightly.
Then everyone in the room would see:
Mysti giggles brightly.
Many players choose to create permanent and elaborate emotions for themselves that they put on macros (or aliases), so as to easily use them. We recommend doing this, in order to better personalise your character.
Using says in emotes is as simple as enclosing the appropriate text within quotation marks. It will change the colour for those in the room to whichever colour they see says in.
For example, if Mysti did:
EMOTE giggles brightly, saying, "Hello!"
Then everyone in the room would see:
Mysti giggles brightly, saying, "Hello!"
And the emote would be in two colours: says colour for the speech enclosed, and emote colour for the rest. CONFIG COLOUR for more about these.
POSSESSIVE EMOTING
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Add an 's after "emote" will make the name possessive. For example:
EMOTE 's head turns toward the statue.
Becomes:
Estarra's head turns toward the statue.
TARGETTED EMOTING
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Emoting uses a simple language, which can be used to refer other characters and objects around you.
To make it a bit easier to understand, we have provided a table.
Symbol Reference Target sees
^john John you
^john_him him/her/them you
^john_her him/her/them you
^john_them him/her/them you
^john_he he/she/they you
^john_she he/she/they you
^john_they he/she/they you
^john_his his/her/their your
^john_their his/her/their your
^john_hers his/hers/theirs yours
^john_theirs his/hers/theirs yours
^john's John's your
Player Targetted Example:
EMOTE turns to ^estarra, reaching out and shaking ^estarra_his hand,
smiling widely.
What is seen by Estarra:
Roark turns to you, reaching out and shaking your hand, smiling widely.
What is seen by everyone else:
Roark turns to Estarra, reaching out and shaking her hand, smiling widely.
Emoting with objects works on objects in the room and in your inventory.
Object Targetted Example:
doll80639 : a plush doll of Shalmae, the Steel Magnolia
EMOTE turns to ^doll80639, and eyes it warily for impending snark.
What is seen by everyone else:
Roark turns to a plush doll of Shalmae, the Steel Magnolia, and eyes it warily for impending snark.
Don't be afraid to experiment with targetted emoting! Usually, as long as you have the ^ in place, the emote will tell you if something has gone wrong, instead of resulting in dreaded typos.
PREFATORY PHRASES
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You may also prepend your emotes for greater complexity. This can also be done with the SAY and GIVE commands. Here are examples of all three:
Emote Example
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EMOTE (With a warm smile,) turns to greet everyone.
What is seen by others:
With a warm smile, Roark turns to greet everyone.
Give Example
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GIVE BROADSWORD TO ROARK (nodding pensively and turning the blade,
offering it hilt first)
What is seen by others:
Nodding pensively and turning the blade, offering it hilt first,
Sior gives an exquistely crafted draconic broadsword to Roark.
Say Example
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say (speaking in a harsh tone) You will pay for this, Fain.
What is seen by others:
Speaking in a harsh tone, Sior says, "You will pay for this, Fain."
You may also direct your says to a person and prepend, but it only works in one order: SAY TO <person> (how to say it).
say to Fain (speaking in a harsh tone) You will pay for this.
What is seen by others:
Speaking in a harsh tone, Sior says to Fain, "You will pay for this."
Remember that emoting is meant to help enrich the environment for you and those around you, and under no circumstances should it be used to gain an edge in combat situations.
EMOVERRIDE
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Sometimes you may find that, no matter how lovely an emote may be, it just does not feel right for your character! Rather than having to type out your particularly boisterous and manly laugh every time you decide to laugh with a custom emote, however, the EMOVERRIDE (emote override) system allows you to change any basic emote to serve your purpose. While the syntax alone will provide all the commands you need, below is a small example of how to use it.
Now then, let us take a look at John Everyman's smile. What is seen by others would be:
John's mouth turns up as his face breaks into a smile.
Let us say that John is a bit swarthy, though, and would like to add a hint of roguish appeal to his smile? He would then begin by typing
EMOVERRIDE NEW SMILE
This would generate a number associated with his personal smile emote. Let us say, for example's sake, he has emote number one. He would then begin filling it out. By checking
EMOVERRIDE 1
he would see that it is not enabled, and the 1, 3, 1t, 2t, and 3t fields are not filled out. These fields mean:
1 - The text that you (the first party) will see when untargetted.
3 - The text that everyone else (the third party) will see when untargetted.
1t - The text that you will see when targetting the emote.
2t - The text that your target will see when you use the emote on them.
3t - The text that everyone else will see when you target the emote.
To start, John only wishes to have a smile that he will not target at anyone else. To do so, he needs to make use of some creative writing and some variables. Each variable is listed below, as well as its use. It is worth noting that gender variables will not need to be replaced, and will automatically sort themselves with the word shown in the example.
$(name$) - Your name!
$(him$) - him/her/them
$(he$) - he/she/they
$(his$) - his/her/their
He would begin by using the following examples.
EMOVERRIDE 1 SET 1 You smile roguishly at everyone around you.
EMOVERRIDE 1 SET 3 With roguish appeal, $(name$) flashes a swarthy smile.
By doing this, every time he types SMILE, he'd have his own special smile to show off to the world. But what if he decides he wants to target another with this smile? Well, he would make use of the variables shown below as well! These will intelligently pull the gender of your target into the emote, just as the previous would pull your own!
$(lname$) - Your target's name!
$(lhim$) - him/her/them
$(lhe$) - he/she/they
$(lhis$) - his/her/their
*Note - this is 'l' as in the letter l, not the number 1.
And then he could simply:
EMOVERRIDE 1 SET 1T You smile roguishly towards $(lname$).
EMOVERRIDE 1 SET 2T $+(name$) flashes you a swarthy smile full of roguish appeal.
- Variables at the beginning of a sentence MUST have this + sign between the $ and the (
EMOVERRIDE 1 SET 3T With roguish appeal, $(name$) flashes $(lname$) a swarthy smile.
Now, John Everyman has his very own swarthy smile. All that is left to do is ENABLE his emote by using the appropriate syntax. By following his example, you are free to customise your emoting experience even further, and set yourself apart from the masses!
System Notes:
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- Like all systems, emoverride may have bugs in it. Should you find that you generated an untrapped error, please be sure to file a BUG report as soon as possible.
- Take care to be responsible with your emotes. Do not assume any action on the part of your target or your viewer! Not everyone will react the same way to your wink as you think they might, so you should leave the power of choice up to the recipient!
- There are some emotes that cannot be overridden, as they are coded - such as LAUGH and AGREE.
Also see HELP EMOTICONS, HELP EMOTIONS, HELP EMOTIONLIST.
