Room Name and Colors

[Mudder]

Room names used to be color coded. This color represented significant things, things that affected gameplay.

 

Grey - Inside

White - City

Brownish/Yellow - Road

Green - Forest

Red - Lava

Yellow - Desert

 

You get the idea. Now, it's all wild. I've seen a red room (lava) inside of a castle, which instead apparently had significant only because a red carpet was in the room.

 

Drkshtyre wood which is apparently almost entirely outside, has the color of an indoor room.

 

Why the departure from the room color standard that held real significance to gameplay mechanics? (And thus let me know what type of room I am in, for RP purposes.) Checking the weather to try and determine what my surroundings are is well, weird.

[Erelei]

RP unfortunately > room colors, sometimes. The whole south of Val Miran was corrupted (and I think still is?) from a demon being buried.

[Erelei]

And upon a closer look, it seems they're swamps. Which is that dark grey color.

[Mudder]

RP != room color.

 

As far as the swamps go, I didn't know that. Probably any other time there was a swamp in that color it was also indoors. For some reason I thought swamp rooms were a greenish color.

 

This is more of an interface issue for me. The color of the room name does not depict to me the objects in a room, it depicts the type of area I am in. To highlight certain objects with color, well you put that object either physically in the room or put it in the room desc and make that a color if you need to.

 

Clearly this comes down to personal preference and I was just bringing attention to it.

[Vaerick]

Well, as for the Drkshtyre Woods- they are somewhat unique in that they are supposed to be outdoors but it is a now corrupted area because of a previous plot. Also why it's so painful to move around in that area. It's not a swamp in the traditional sense, but a field of demon muck from a leaky corpse.

[Erelei]

RP > anything.

 

If I want a color to contradict the actual sector color, I'll change it to reflect the RP of that room. The description determines the color of the room, in my opinion (and fortunately, I don't build as often as I used to) so if you come across a blue room that you can camouflage in, it's done because of the RP of that room and/or whatever occurred there.

 

If we wanted a red-tinge forest, we could do it, and the sector could still be forest. I'm sorry if that doesn't click well with you, but unfortunately I like immersed fantasy more than I do reality in a game I spend as much time in as I do.

[f0xx]

We need a dislike button

[Mudder]

 

If we wanted a red-tinge forest, we could do it, and the sector could still be forest. I'm sorry if that doesn't click well with you, but unfortunately I like immersed fantasy more than I do reality in a game I spend as much time in as I do.

 

 

This seems a bit more combative than I meant it to be. I know sometimes text translates differently to people but all my suggestions (which have been a lot lately) are me voicing my opinion on how things are and how I would prefer to see them. When I put them in the pubic eye, it's because I think it's something the pbase should essentially vote on.

 

Otherwise I post it in prayer, which means I think it is either a bug, unintentional, or entirely up to the staff.

 

I am not demanding change or trying to offend anyone. I truly only want the best for a game that I began playing when I was 14. With that said...

 

Morlhach, on 26 May 2015 - 1:45 PM, said:

 

RP > anything.

 

...I like immersed fantasy more than I do reality in a game I spend as much time in as I do. 

 

We seem to fundamentally disagree on RP. When you say reality in a game, that refers to RP in the game world. FL has a reality. That reality must be consistent with the game world and it's lore.

 

However, colors in the game world are not RP. It is the interface through which the game expresses details to us. I make extensive use of highlighting triggers, is that personal RP? No. It is me fine tuning the interface so important information stands out from the rest.

 

This is very, very similar to the RP object restring mismatch (thanks for fixing that so fast, btw). The interface has, historically, always conveyed information to us, the player, about our surroundings through colors in the title. This information is known to the characters inherently by being inside of that room or area so we, the player, need a quick way to access this information through the interface. Without having to read an entire room description, every, single, time.

 

If I am in a blue room -- I am in water. If there is some random RP plot about magic and an Imm decides to arbitrarily change the room color to blue: I will immediately assume I am in water. I may RP about swimming around the water, holding my breath and diving.

 

If I am however, not in water that means knowledge my character should inherently know is not something I know... Which is bad interface and therefore completely immersion (and therefore RP) breaking.

 

It is true, you can technically override anything and do as you please. It does not mean you should. There is also a good chance that I am alone in this, and the majority of the player base thinks I am dead wrong.

 

That's fine, I just wanted to voice my feelings and open the discussion.

 

 

We need a dislike button

 

So ambiguous. 

[mya]

a swamp in that color it was also indoors.

 

 

I don't think indoors have a colour. It's just that most indoors rooms are either city or road.

[Aulian]

You do realise mudder that we all play with different colors right?

 

I can guarantee that my room colours are different to yours because I play with a Dark blue with light blue back ground and text combo. I always have. It means for me cabal colors are very different. 

 

Similarly I know friends who play with white on black and black on scarlet. We all have different coloured room flags (not always but in some instances they vary).

 

Why should your preference take precedence over mine? Why cant you code it to suit my realism please Morl? 

 

BECAUSE THAT'S UNREALISTIC. 

[Mudder]

Geeze, Aulian. Chill out man. This is not a personal attack on any one or any thing. I'm sorry if I've offended you. You are someone I have a lot of respect for.

 

That said. You're wrong.

 

It's true, we all can use different default colors. I use dark green on black background because that's the zMUD default and I started with that. (Also it feels better on my eyes.)

 

However, when the mud outputs ASCII color characters all of our mud clients interpret that and show a certain color. You _can_ change that default color, however it will then output that certain color every time. In other words, the MUD can and does dictate that you view a particular color (you only get to pick which) in a particular instance.

 

In other words if the MUD outputs white text for the city. You will see white text. If you alter that client side to show red, it will always show red. That color has significance that is relatively out side of your control (perhaps unless you use a strong automapper and some complicated scripting).

 

Last example: The MUD outputs the ASCII character code of blue for Savant. You can tell your client that any time the mud gives you a blue color, make it purple. However, every instance that the mud gives you a blue color it will then become purple unless you are able to give the client different parameters to filter on.

 

Am I making sense here? Anyhow, it's beside the point. All I was saying is that in the past colors held a lot of significance for room descriptions and people have changed the default color for various reasons in various instances and it has the effect of removing information that we previously had. All I'm saying is, "How does everyone feel about this?"

[Mali]

And all this time I have been quaffing herbal brews south of val ...

[Volgathras]

Many of those changes are my doing. While building we do keep to a general guideline of color = sector, but not always. Sometimes while building I try to expand the feeling of the game to be more than just text. Color achieves that quite well, which is why we get color items, color echoes, color abilities etc.

 

These rooms where color differs from sector are very few in the large scale of things, and reading the description will usually if not always reveal the information needed in game mechanic context. As you mentioned, there is also the weather commands and so forth to help make those determinations. The statement that you would 'always need' to check weather to figure out what room you're in is a large exaggeration.

 

Building is about marrying the game world with functionality, so that the story persists through the hack-n-slash. Sometimes things need to be 'shaken up' and boundaries tested so it can evolve and remain pertinent as a story-telling medium. The instances of color in rooms will continue to be rare, but they will continue. I highly suggest everyone return to reading room descriptions in a room I build, otherwise you're likely to lose a lot of important information for quests/feel/dangers/ etc. Without trying to come of snarky, this is after all a text-based game.

[Vaerick]

Personally I always thought the color of a room should be dictated by the "feel" of that individual room, rather than specific to-the-room matching of the area type it is. Like some forests might be darker, some roads lighter etc. In the general sense the area type very much dictates the room color but I wouldn't consider it a "rule" that it has to.

[Dale]

Use your imagination.

[Fool_Hardy]

in keeping with the feel of the room. There is on green room that I feel should be red. A blood bath took place in the south end of the Egal. Not trying to sidetrack anyone's irritation. Just saying if your looking to change a particular forest to red... <wink>

[f0xx]

My deepest respect to both Morle and Volg, but I'll disagree.

 

Over the years, the coders have created a system where you know intuitively the type of terrain you are on. This is important because there are many skills and abilities that work different on different type of terrain. This goes beyond RP, realism and the "sense" of the room.

 

Room color is more than feel. It's tied to PK mechanics and it should be always clear and easily distinguishable the type of terrain you are on.

 

Can you hide? Can you camoflage? Can you call lightning? Can you sear? Can you use a plethora of cabal skills? Can you terrashield? Can you dirt? Will the effectiveness of your skills be increased (storm giants) or decreased (dwarves)? How hard your movement drains? Do you need to fly in order to move? Do you need a boat?

 

Making a room red just because there is a red carpet in it, or a blood bath, makes no sense and destroys the intuitiveness of the terrain. It destroys the already existing, unwritten rule that room color = terrain type. It destroys the consistency and integrity that is already in place.

 

Just my opinion.

[Volgathras]

The unspoken assumption is that these rooms are everywhere and the color chosen at random, which simply isn't true. The only people capable of changing a room's colors are Morl, Anume and I, and the only rooms I can think of that have 'misleading' coloration are the Tempest rooms in blissfull falls and my imm room. You aren't doing any PK in my imm room, and if you think walking under a monastery, through a hall, and assume you're suddenly in a desert room based solely on the color then there's an interesting leap of logic somewhere I can't understand.

 

The PK aspect of a room is understood, hence the rarity. I don't want this misrepresented as some chronic, endemic issue when there simply isn't one.

[f0xx]

Indeed.

 

My post's goal is more in hope to prevent, than report of existing issue.

 

 

PS. Where is this blissful falls? Is it the area under willow palm?

[Mali]

Blissfall Falls is otherwise known as Anume's Torture Chamber.

[Volgathras]

Blissful Falls doesn't exist.

 

 

 

 

Yet.

[f0xx]

Ah goodie, would be nice to have the guildmasters not send us there then

[Erelei]

To mirror what Volg was saying, the only room I've colored differently is my IMM room too.

 

That said, I'm still not opposed to making a red forest or bleeding falls, or something.

[Evangelion]

Aren't there 2-3 lava rooms in the Forward Keep?

[Erelei]

Yes, but their sector is actually lava.