[Feature] Knock

[Twiglet]

I’d Like to propose a feature called Knock

The premise of such a command would be to allow you to send a spoof message between two rooms, similar to knocking upon a door.

Command: Knock, K

Command Chain: Knock [exit code or Room id]=Message

This would allow users to send info about a room and a description of what is going on between rooms. Weather that be the sound of a knock, or the sound of a fight or disturbance in the room you are adjacent too.

Example: Character 1: Knocks on an adjacent room named bathroom as simply says [There is a knock at the door]

character 2, not knowing who it is given it is entered as Spoof text may reply with spoofed [A voice emanated from the other side “Who is it?”]

While this example is tame, it could be used to gain access to private room, or to query what is going on.

This feature would likely not see much use in public room or areas but would be a nice feature for private ones where story related content may be taking place.

Given the down sides and the potential abuse of the feature, I propose that room, much like being able to turn of home and teleports, may have the feature disable.

Over all this is a stretch feature that is more akin to quality of life than a pressing or needed feature but I would still like to propose it none the less as something that may be developed or brainstormed in the future.

[Vanilla_the_Cat]

Well, more realistically, I think it’d be cool if ‘knock’ worked to show you whoever was in the exit in question.

[Twiglet]

Privacy though would be a bit disrupted in my mind and it would encourage people to spam Knock rather than visit rooms. I think who ever is on the other side would have a bit of say in whether or not they even answer the knock.

I can see instances in a story RP where some one may knock on a door but not truelly knock but perhaps send a message to one room. Such as; ⌈Some one pressed their ear to the door as quietly as possible⌋

And the people on the other side may choose to give them some info such as: ⌈A soft conversation between a male and female can be heard⌋ or ⌈"… Well They didn’t ask us did they?" "I dunno I Just know they wanted me to- Shh, did you hear that?⌋

The flexibility of the knock function would be in the ability to allow people to choose how much info they want to give out rather than have a breach of privacy where someone they can not interact with gathers info by “pining” a room.

That sort of power ought to be reserved to mods and other wise if you want to check who is in a room, you make your way in side, make a pose post that says Poke din real quick to see who is hear then leaves and call it good. if you are not allowed in a room but may knock, it would be a breach of the privacy the put in place to just knock and see who is in a bathroom, or bedroom. and so on.

it is a nice idea and I would like to be able to keep some track of friends but I think the knock function is more a niche way to engage and bridge the gap between segmented rooms and a floor plan that has some interplay.

[Accipiter]

Actually, this is an idea I haven’t thought of before. And I like it!

My previous thoughts of making “doorbells” or similar would have been solved with support for room scripts: You make a script in one room where you can issue a command such as:

use doorbell

And the script triggers an event that makes another script in the target room make a describe:

⌈The doorbell rings.⌋

But your suggestion is different. It is like sending messages, but to rooms through exits.
I would imagine this following behavior:

• Exits can be set as ‘knockable’: true or false

• If an exit is knockable, you can use the knock command with it:

  knock bathroom = A knock is heard on the door. "Anyone in there?"
  

• The knock message will be shown in the target room similar to a describe, but marked with “Knock”:

  ⌈^knockA knock is heard on the door. “Anyone in there?”⌋

• Mouse over the message will show WHO made the knock, and maybe from WHERE.

• A knock can only be seen by the 1) the character doing the knock, and 2) the characters in the target room. Other characters in the source room will NOT see it.

Then there will also be some more details on how to deal with permissions to making a knockable exit if the exit goes to a room now owned by you. But that is just details.

Is that sort of how you imagine it to work too, @Twiglet?

[Twiglet]

More or less indeed! I would mention I foresaw it having it be OOC editable so IE

Knock bathroom= or knock bathroom=> in the even you for example need to ask when a group of characters may enter a room for a situation or some other reason.

Other wise yes! The proposed idea is 100% how I envisioned it panning out minus the who sent the message.

I can see the need of the who for discipline purposes and it would be a small work around for situations in which you simply must hand wave in an interaction and play ignorant of who did the knock .

I am glad over all you like the idea!

[Accipiter]

The WHO part is still needed to avoid abuse.
But since it is not relevant for RP, we can hide it behind mouse-over, just like we do with describe messages. Mouse over info is for players, not characters, after all.

But I’ll add the idea to my backlog.
It might not be one I implement in the coming releases, but it is one that I think will improve the game. So eventually.

[Twiglet]

100% understandable on all points.

One issue I will raise now that I think on it will be dead end exits that conceal a hidden exit.

While it may not be something you have to develop a work around. it is worth noting when builders or people look at the usage of knock exits because if some one wants to knock on an exit that leads no where intentionally, the Message will not be delivered to the Room the exit was created to conceal.

Just might be something to consider or address if or when the feature is implemented.

Either way. No rush, no expectations of it to come at all. I am glad the idea seems doable and interesting. Thanks.

[Accipiter]

@Twiglet

While it may not be something you have to develop a work around. it is worth noting when builders or people look at the usage of knock exits because if some one wants to knock on an exit that leads no where intentionally, the Message will not be delivered to the Room the exit was created to conceal.

Hidden exists should still allow this. Since you might want to knock on secret doors too. And many exits into people’s homes are hidden. So we want that to be possible.

But I can see what you mean with how loopback exits (exits leading to the same room) is used currently. I think that is no biggie though, and will later get solved when we can have locks (through scripts) for exits.

[Twiglet]

Makes sense to me and good to know! Thanks again.

[Jagrabbit]

Yeah, this sort of feature is needed ‘on approach/as part of’ lock functionality.

I feel like we need functionality for locks, temp-lock/privacy permissions by room owners, and commands to allow people to skim the occupancy of an area if the area owner allows it (based on how they’ve configured it.)

Otherwise, the only accuracy a knock command provides is on status info or instances where there’s a named bedroom, right? This should be included, but I feel like it might want some tie ins and considerations to any developed lock/temp-lock/area privacy configurations.

[Twiglet]

So you are saying that there would be other types of knock-like commands that you could put in place to gather information on locked or privacy set rooms?

If so, i think I can understand the utility of it, In fact, it sounds quite similar to the idea vanilla posted above but, as of yet, without seeing the lock function in place, I can’t say I have an idea of what would and wouldn’t work or be nice to have until the privacy settings are put into place.

Still would be something nice to consider and plan for as Acci work towards putting those privacy measures in place.