How about an update to the indicator that shows if someone is looking at you?
A dot that shows someone has tagged you as interesting to them so you can see who’s thirsting after your thick glittery tail.
Mostly because some people are really terrible at picking up when you’re flirting or trying to see if they too are interested in you.
In addendum to this, this would fit in so well with people who have a tough time displaying interest coughs
Yeah – I think it’d be helpful to people who are shy or aren’t confident.
I like the idea!
Should it reset after sleeping the character? It should, right?
My main concern is the GUI, actually. With it, we would start to get a lot of “states” that we might want to show:
I kind of don’t know how to show this all in a nice way.
Suggestions?
Maybe that “yellow line” should rather be used for focused characters with their focus color, and we have small icons indicating “interest”, “looked at” , “muted”?
Anyone dare to come with a graphical suggestion?
you could have icons after the name: an eye for looking at you, a note for notes, a muted fox for muted, etc. on desktop you can elaborate what they mean with hints.
then you’ll have a hamburger menu for actions (or the whole tappable surface on the phone).
I like the idea of having the current looking line be changed to a focus line, would then match the UI in the chat log. Could also put mute as a bar too, maybe of a color or style not usable by focus (which I guess would just be a style, not a color) or maybe a mute icon to the side of their name.
The interested in you could be of a similar style to the looking for RP dot, but a different color, stacking below or to the left of it when both are present. Maybe also as a little star or heart or something.
I would personally like to not see muted characters at all. Just hide them to the user entirely. And not show the little dot you can hover over to see what they said, too. Or at least that second part.
Second not having to not see a muted a muted character at all.
third. I’d like to be able to curate my experience on wolfery as much as possible.
I am a new player and from my perspective this is a truly excellent idea.
A button at the top where, when looking at someone else where the sleep button is for your character could be a nice spot for the feature. It’ll help the shy ones and the one’s who let flirting fly over their heads. Maybe change the color of the bar to red or blue if someone says you’re interesting or I wouldn’t mind chatting with you.
What if it were a mutual thing? That is, that only if both people have tagged each other does it then show for both? This might help prevent it from being a popularity contest, as such, and make simply tagging everyone this way a largely fruitless effort?
I actually like this idea myself. Though am curious how this would work, and how one would tell the system you were interested in someone.
Ah, but put yourself in the shoes of the other person. Suppose the system tells me that X, Y, and Z are interested in me, what am I supposed to do with that information? What if I don’t like them back? Is the social pressure now upon me to approach them and explain I’m not interested?
Mutual tagging (matches) sounds more robust, though that resembles real dating apps too much and I’m not sure what to think of that.
It does, and I was aware of that, but unsure if it would be an issue. I can see how many could feel that way. I think that, given that the pressure is generally much lighter than RL dating, and that there are so many other avenues into RP, that it would likely not be such an anxiety-maker as Tinder or something.
I would add, after thoughtful consideration, that any such feature definitely has the potential to either become a driving force in how RP is initiated in the game, or a feature mostly ignored by regular players… and that such fundamental changes may or not be welcome.
I think being able to have a clearer idea of who is looking would be nice. I can understand the reasons for not, but given that we have focus and so on, it would be nice to know who looked, or looked more then once so maybe if desired, their could be a private approach.
Most people don’t want public notice from everyone in a room if they were ‘interested’ in someone anyway. It can put the other party on the spot in unwelcome ways.
I third or fifth if someone is muted to not know they are there at all. Period. Everything is logged anyway, so if a person starts getting angsty towards someone who has them muted, it would be harassment and that would be mod and admin turf anyway. Not even online.
Given that your not even supposed to be able to tell if someone has someone muted anyway, why not?
I think, having learned a bit more, I’d say two things at this moment;
However, doing the second thing essentially requires one to get over their own internal fear of rejection IRL in order to have that first scene… or at a minimum suppress it. This is a huge great filter, and might be for the better, or worse. In some way, large or small, it gatekeeps what the community ends up being. If that is positive or negative well, everyone’s opinion will differ.
As much as that, for others, it could lead to negative initial experiences if that initial meeting happens too fast, before they understand what they are getting in to, another ambiguous filter.
As much as MUSH is a shared hallucination that ever-evolves, it can also be very sensitive to changes. The magic is in what it IS… and due to the first point, that would in some way change.
I really don’t mean to be overly flowery about this topic, but I think the above apply here.
As a software engineer, I know this could be argued up and down all day as to what form it takes, but there IS a structure that would work for everyone. The real question is does the community want this to exist.
If I felt confident enough to click a “hey, I am interested in you” button, then I’m just as confident enough to type w <name>=:waves. Which I’m not. I like the idea, but I don’t think it solves the issue we think it will, which is someone being brave enough to reach out.
You are 100% correct in my opinion.
In my short time here, I’ve made massive leaps in my personal confidence as it relates to others, unto where if I am uncertain but very interested, I would just send an OOC to them asking the right questions. Busy? NP. Not interested? NP. Incompatible? NP. It’s a net cast with great care, but I am a deep-end individual and for me making that leap was possible. Often it toes the line between one thing or another or RL, but if ready to go I would just ask. What I really want to see, most of the time, when I’m looking? A character sheet that says “I can write!”, along with compatible tags, though I will play with almost anyone.
Everyone I have met is so kind, so giving and caring and gentle. That is a thing I did not anticipate. I’m sure that isn’t true of literally everyone, but it has been true for me. I genuinely have such kind feelings for everyone I have met so far.
In my own wanderings, there aren’t enough bad people that taking the risks of putting oneself out there is anything like RL… and every single one of us knows what those first moments, or even all of them, are like… the anticipation, fear, and hope- to whatever degree is a PART of what the experience currently is, and analogous in an emotional way to reality. Again, any change like matchmaking would be a paradigm shift, and as mentioned it is a gate: and not to keep people out, but to protect those too timid.
I want to mention that the highly HIGHLY accessible nature of the game and community, there being no gate upon basic entry, was a key factor in my landing here and I’d have that no other way, taking the good with the bad- but that also means anyone jumping in head first could have a bad time. Filters, filters, evermore.
Once desperate, now in ever so slightly greater fortitude and wisdom, I reject the idea of matchmaking as the game currently exists. I know for a fact that I am a person who would handle any approach with kindness no matter how awkward or obtuse and I think most others are the same.
Maybe, just maybe, we could enhance the ‘looking at you’ indicator or make it more obvious: but that is another rabbit hole of similar depth.
I hope this can help anyone that got this far into wanting such a feature to understand and I am very open to further discussion.
