Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Wedolko]

Much like we can set our combat, dodging and swimming preferences, we need an option to adjust what we want to listen to.

In my opinion, the most annoying part by far about trying to get through a densely populated area like a market or a goblin fortress is having to spam spacebar every tile I move to get through pages and pages of dialogue that I couldn't give less of a damn about. I don't want to know how all 300 goblins in the fortress feel about the current situation, nor listen to every conversation going on in the marketplace.

What I'm suggesting is a hotkey that will allow you to cycle through several options of what you want to listen for. These options should be as follows: (in my opinion)

A. Listen to all dialogue (the default)
B. Quest and player-related only (so-and-so should be slain, he has killed X people)
C. Player Related only (anything talking either to or about your character or it's accomplishments)
D. Earplug Mode (ignore all these annoying twats)

ALTERNATIVELY:
Noise Distortion. In real life when your in a large crowd it is absolutely impossible to make out anything any one person is saying unless they are purposely shouting over the crowd (shout out to everyone) or fairly close to you. (let's say 3-5 spaces away depending on stats) Perhaps the same should be applied to adventure mode. Instead of being flooded with pages of unwanted speech you could simply have a single message saying "you hear many people talking at once" or something along those lines. Perhaps you could even add some flavor depending on context, such as "you hear the angry voices of many goblins." Also, no more hearing conversations through multiple Z-levels. Instead you could have a simple message saying "you hear muffled voices through the walls/from above/from below"

I fully believe implementing one or even both of these options could help very much to stop the player from being spammed with useless and unwanted information.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I'd also like an option that allows me to listen passively to crowds (without spam) until a specified item of interest crops up (rumours of artifacts, etc).
Strider hung out in the Prancing Pony for years listening for 'news of hobbits'. He hadn't turned off the noise entirely.

[GoblinCookie]

I don't think it should be options based.  I think it should be sound based, folks tend to hear stuff that concerns them or is of interest to them while everything else is 'general noise'.  It also works rather like your options menu, you hear everything close up, then we hear things that are generally of interest to us, then we hear only stuff mentioning names that interest us and then we hear nothing at all.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I don't think it should be options based.  I think it should be sound based, folks tend to hear stuff that concerns them or is of interest to them while everything else is 'general noise'.  It also works rather like your options menu, you hear everything close up, then we hear things that are generally of interest to us, then we hear only stuff mentioning names that interest us and then we hear nothing at all.

Then you need options. DF doesn't know what interests us.

[IndigoFenix]

I don't think it should be options based.  I think it should be sound based, folks tend to hear stuff that concerns them or is of interest to them while everything else is 'general noise'.  It also works rather like your options menu, you hear everything close up, then we hear things that are generally of interest to us, then we hear only stuff mentioning names that interest us and then we hear nothing at all.

Then you need options. DF doesn't know what interests us.

It could be based on the player character's personality and interests.  Though this brings up the player/character argument again.

[Shonai_Dweller]

The needs system is good enough as it is, encouraging you to follow your needs without forcing you to rp in a certain way.

Not allowing you to hear talk about beasts just because your character has no interest in martial skills (for example) would be silly. Perhaps I want to write a song about it, argue with it, make romance with it. Default to something close to needs perhaps, but always allow customization options.

[GoblinCookie]

I don't think it should be options based.  I think it should be sound based, folks tend to hear stuff that concerns them or is of interest to them while everything else is 'general noise'.  It also works rather like your options menu, you hear everything close up, then we hear things that are generally of interest to us, then we hear only stuff mentioning names that interest us and then we hear nothing at all.

Then you need options. DF doesn't know what interests us.

Why should we get to choose what we hear?

[Shonai_Dweller]

I don't think it should be options based.  I think it should be sound based, folks tend to hear stuff that concerns them or is of interest to them while everything else is 'general noise'.  It also works rather like your options menu, you hear everything close up, then we hear things that are generally of interest to us, then we hear only stuff mentioning names that interest us and then we hear nothing at all.

Then you need options. DF doesn't know what interests us.

Why should we get to choose what we hear?

Because if I'm sitting in a darkened corner of an inn listening for news of hobbits I want to hear news of hobbits (if my eavesdropping skills are high enough) while filtering out news of wild beasts who I don't care about.

Yes it's realistic that I'm spammed by news of beasts, in real life I can't block out that noise, but in a game, using text and [More] requests it's just crap.

[GoblinCookie]

Because if I'm sitting in a darkened corner of an inn listening for news of hobbits I want to hear news of hobbits (if my eavesdropping skills are high enough) while filtering out news of wild beasts who I don't care about.

Yes it's realistic that I'm spammed by news of beasts, in real life I can't block out that noise, but in a game, using text and [More] requests it's just crap.

So you basically want to make your job easier, it makes sense for the folks talking about random megabeasts to not only have to be listened too if close enough but also drown out your news of hobbits if that is far away when you would be able to hear that in an empty room.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Because if I'm sitting in a darkened corner of an inn listening for news of hobbits I want to hear news of hobbits (if my eavesdropping skills are high enough) while filtering out news of wild beasts who I don't care about.

Yes it's realistic that I'm spammed by news of beasts, in real life I can't block out that noise, but in a game, using text and [More] requests it's just crap.

So you basically want to make your job easier, it makes sense for the folks talking about random megabeasts to not only have to be listened too if close enough but also drown out your news of hobbits if that is far away when you would be able to hear that in an empty room.

I know you're desperate for DF to be some kind of 'total real life simulator' but, sorry, it's a game, a fantasy rpg. I can talk to people on the other side of the room without my voice being drowned out, because to drown out my voice would just make the game annoying.

This thread is about ideas to reduce the amount of text (not noise, there isn't any noise in DF) that the interface is throwing at us.

[Scoops Novel]

Shonai Dweller, cool your beans. Anyway, what you're suggesting is different volume levels. If you're talking in a normal voice in a club no one will hear you, but if you yell then you can be clear.

In your average tavern, i think you should be able to hear all the conversations going on, and if you can't it's just a matter of positioning. It's not a artillery piece, people are just chatting. I agree that you should be able to filter it, because you can't realistically follow 15 conversations like you currently can in dwarf fortress. If you listen to everything you should just be hearing snippets of one exchange then another.

[GoblinCookie]

I know you're desperate for DF to be some kind of 'total real life simulator' but, sorry, it's a game, a fantasy rpg. I can talk to people on the other side of the room without my voice being drowned out, because to drown out my voice would just make the game annoying.

This thread is about ideas to reduce the amount of text (not noise, there isn't any noise in DF) that the interface is throwing at us.

There actually is noise in DF, that is what those little yellow and blue ! are in adventure mode, the former are footsteps while the latter are voices.

I cannot see any particular reason why a highly complex placeholder system for conversations should be implemented when a more advanced model for noises would handle it.  Basically what we need is to have a proper system by which nearer sounds drown out further away sounds unless those sounds are louder from your POV.  This means that while we talk at a normal decibel by default (normal can be determined by the size of the creature perhaps?) we can choose to reduce our voice if we do not want people to overhear while we can shout loudly if we want everybody to hear what we are saying.  However if an AI speaker does not get a response from it's target it then says the same thing louder, meaning that if we keep on bellowing then everybody else ends up bellowing as well. 

How good you are at hearing would be a value with a minimum of 0.  Sound starts with a certain loudness value and loses value as it passes through space, especially if it goes through walls and things.  We can only ever hear the loudest sound at any given time, plus all sounds that are quieter than it to a certain degree, which is the value of our sound range, which would be separate from our actual hearing ability.  We can also modify conversations apparent loudness solely from the POV of the hearer if they contain personal content of interest, things like their name and the names of folks they are close too, to represent the unconscious sound bias. 

[Bumber]

Yes it's realistic that I'm spammed by news of beasts, in real life I can't block out that noise, but in a game, using text and [More] requests it's just crap.

The brain can usually tune stuff out. Hearing a key phrase (usually one's own name) can snap you back to alertness.