Please allow *star emotes* again

[Aspirinsmurf2]

TL;DR: Due to an injury, I can’t use all my fingers for fine motor tasks, so I can pretty much only * emote like this * in the old-school style while typing quickly and not hurting myself. Not being able to do this prevents me from playing right now.

Long post:
I just returned after a very long absence, and I was very excited to see that player numbers were looking healthy and that the server had been improved in a lot of great ways. Then I noticed that having an asterisk (*) at the start of a chat message prevents the entire message from showing (!). It just goes blank, no feedback or error message. I tried disabling the emote toggles, but it still just goes blank.

I am gutted. I have built up muscle memory to do * emotes like this * quickly from nearly twenty years on and off playing NWN online, a lot of that time spent on CoA. This was the common convention back when I started playing, and I've found a technique to do it without pain. (I can only use my right index finger without pain if I manage not to bend the joint at all, so finding any comfortable speed typing habits without strain or pain is a bit of a struggle.)

Out of the alternatives, I like the look of [emotes], but square brackets are just too painful for me to access on my keyboard. I already use hyphens for -emphasis- in speech, and round brackets are also painful for me to access. I looked into changing keyboard layout, but they all present some other ergonomical issue for me instead. I guess more dextrous people might only miss the asterisk for correcting their typos or something, but this severely impacts my ability to enjoy playing at all. Or maybe I'm not alone?

Hopefully this can be fixed! Ideally, there would be a way I could access the animation and dice rolling systems with an alternative syntax too, since I'd very much like to be able to use those as well. They could just be dot commands or a different prefix ":like this" (old MUD standard), or even just ** animate **. But I’d be happy if I can just type emotes in the way I’m used to and that isn't painful, even if I have to disable those systems.

Thanks in advance!

Aspirinsmurf

[O-louth]

@aspirinsmurf2 +1 for this.

[Dire Rabbit]

I'd welcome this change, too. I don't have any issue making the brackets, but a literal lifetime of seeing asterisks as the way you express an action is just so ingrained in me that this bracket stuff nags at me hard.

I don't understand why the change was made but I was and am not a fan at all. It feels completely unnecessary because I'm set in my ways. Like 'oh you have to do things this special way on this one server, nevermind several decades of RP. This is the new way.'

Not a fan.

[toportime]

@aspirinsmurf2 https://nodebb.cityofarabel.com/topic/50307/dot-commands?_=1641560330776

Specifically:
.setemote# - This new dot command helps you bypass the pesky character limit of macros in Quickbars and let you set much MUCHHH longer emotes for yourself. Additionally you do not need to set them in your quickbar at all. Currently you will be able to set for yourself up to 10 emotes.
.em# - This new dot command helps you reach out and speak the saved emote of choice. Currently you are able to use up to 10 saved emote

[toportime]

@aspirinsmurf2 Also you could try pre typing a list of [emotes] that you can type at your own speed in a notepad or something similar, then just copy paste it. Just a couple suggestions that may help you, use as you see fit.

[toportime]

@aspirinsmurf2 Also if your talking about using emotes as a freeform text box rather than having your PC try to physically do the emotes or skill checks you can use:
.toggle emotes - To turn on and off the use of emotes

[Aspirinsmurf2]

@toportime said in Please allow *star emotes* again:

@aspirinsmurf2 Also if your talking about using emotes as a freeform text box rather than having your PC try to physically do the emotes or skill checks you can use:
.toggle emotes - To turn on and off the use of emotes

No, you can't. I tried.

[gDarDog]

+1
Would hate to lose an old player coming back for this issue.
Any way we can create a workable solution?

[Puffy]

@aspirinsmurf2 said in Please allow *star emotes* again:

@toportime said in Please allow *star emotes* again:

@aspirinsmurf2 Also if your talking about using emotes as a freeform text box rather than having your PC try to physically do the emotes or skill checks you can use:
.toggle emotes - To turn on and off the use of emotes

No, you can't. I tried.

Please bug report this :)

[Aspirinsmurf2]

Bug reported. And I guess I'll be playing somewhere else in the meantime. I don't want to make a habit out of doing ;;emotes like this;; or anything like that. That's probably the best available option for me physically, but it's just an eyesore for everyone.

[O-louth]

@aspirinsmurf2 i Got use to using ‘bla bla bla’ it works somewhat.

[Echo]

@DoctorDeth Please take a look when you get time.

[Zool]

I would guess this has something to do with the dot command re-factoring and is an unfortunate oversight, and not a designed change.

(Essentially, a bug)

[Aspirinsmurf2]

I could take a stab at fixing this if you post the relevant scripts. I'm no programmer, but I've made scripts in NWN before. Something like this will work in onPlayerChat just for my account name. The generalized solution for the toggle would be similar:

void main()
{
    object oPC = GetPCChatSpeaker();
    string sChat = GetPCChatMessage();

    // Hack for Aspirinsmurf's emotes
    if (GetPCPlayerName(oPC) == "Aspirinsmurf"
	&& GetStringLeft(sChat, 1) == "*")
    {
        return;
    }

    // Rest of the logic goes here
}

[Echo]

@zool said in Please allow *star emotes* again:

this has something to do with the dot command re-factoring and is an unfortunate oversight

This.
When Deth has time to fix it, he will.

[Puffy]

Star emotes are possible, but you need to turn off emotes for it to work.