Thal 11/23/96
Portions of this have been taken from compendium_T.


How to make and enjoy emotes.

Emote making is pretty simple, except for the fact that there used to be
absolutely no help file for it. Well now there is. Here is how you make
an emote.

First you type "addemote emote_name"

Try and not make a real stupid emote, we do/will have split souls so it doesn't matter if the emote doesn't really belong in player life, tho, you probably don't want to be brandishing machine guns.

You will be asked for the Rule:

There are roughly four choices here, listed as follows:

(none): If you don't enter a rule then this is the emote plain, no 
        object.

LIV   : This is the emote followed by a living object. Like "lick 
        thalior".

OBJ   : This is the emote followed by a non-living object. "Lick Torch"
       
STR   : Standing for "string" this means the emote followed by any text,
        As in "lick thalior's body from head to toe".

You can also mix and match these rules. Eg., a rule OBJ STR could
easily allow for "You lick the torch and whack Thalior with it."

An emote can have any or all of the above rules, and after you enter therule you are typing the message for, the message you type is what is 
displayed when that emote is envoked under that rule.

Now, if you type "semote emote_name" you can see your emote under the various rules.

Let's type "semote point" it looks like this:

point:
     You'll see: You point at yourself, "Me?"
Others will see: Thalior points at himself, "Me?"

[this is with no rule]

point somebody:
     You'll see: You point at Somebody.
Target will see: Thalior points at you.
Others will see: Thalior points at Somebody.

[this is with rule LIV]

point slowly:
     You'll see: You point at slowly.
Others will see: Thalior points at slowly.

[this is with rule STR]

Etc...

Now then, how do we do all the neat stuff like make it change from point
to points and the like? Well the list of all the stuff is in help
m_messages, but here's the concise list:

Before you read these keep in mind the following. The ONLY difference 
between a capital $? and a lowercase $? is that the uppercase one is 
FORCED uppercase. This means, don't capitalize it unless it starts a 
sentence, because it'll automatically capitalize proper names.

     $N = Subjective. To the doer this is "You" to everyone else, this
          "Thalior", or whoever. Simply, this is the subjective form of
          the pronoun. The first time $N is used, it's the doer's name.
          The second time it's used it's the pronoun (he/she/it), unless
          arguments are used (see below).
      
     $T = Objective, target. This defaults to the target. That means
          most of your actions will be set up like '$N verbs $t.'. You
          almost never need to capitalize t, remember the first time you
          use it, it uses the proper name. EXTRA NOTE: $T accepts two #
          args. The first is the subejct of the sentence, the second is
          the object. (discussed below)

     $P = Possessive. This is the possessive pronoun, his/her/its. Like 
          $R below, $P can also be used to make an apostrophe 
          construction (like Thalior's). Of course, this only happens 
          when it's in the proper name construction, either the first 
          reference to that player/mob or forced proper name. (More on 
          how to do that below).

     $R = Reflexive. This is the reflexive pronoun. Himself, herself, 
          itself. If Thalior's (an apostrophe construction) is needed, 
          then this will do, as well, as long as you specify the 'p' 
          argument (mentioned below) if it's not the first pronoun.
          Remember: The first instance of the pronoun referring to 
          'some_person' always uses the proper name. 
  
     $O = The object. Keep in mind that you should never prefix this 
          with an 'a' or 'an' seeing as the object is variable. (Unless, 
          for some reason, the object is set). It's personal taste, but 
          I like to use either $p, or 'the'. Beware of using $p because 
          it will read his/her even if the object is just sitting in the 
          room.

     $V = Verb, singular/plural. This changes the verb's prospective, 
          depending on the argued subject (see below, default is 
          this_body). Eg., If you have- $N $vget the $o. I see: 'You get 
          the thing.' Everyone else sees- 'Thaliors gets the thing'.

# Arguments: You can put a # after any $? To change which person it 
refers to, the doer being 0, the next person (usually the target) 1, 
etc... For example, if Thalior is doing something to Kadiya, then 
Thalior is 0, and Kadiya is 1. So, if Thalior wanted a sentence that 
would refer to Kadiya as "She" he could use $N1... or $N (subjective 
pronoun) 1 (referring to person 1). This also works with verbs, making 
the verb change for a different person ($v#verbname).

     Example:  Thalior begins to lean on Kadiya. She quickly moves and 
               he falls on his face.

   This would be-> $N $vbegin to lean on $t. $N1 quickly $v1move and $n
                   $vfall on $p face.

Wherever you see the # 1 it's Kadiya or Kadiya doing the action. 
Although it wouldn't DO anything, we could add a 0 wherever there's no 
number, it's the equivalent.

     Note: $T is odd, as it defaults to the target. This means, without
           a #, $T is considered $T1. If you wanted to make $T refer to 
           the doer, then you'd have to change it to $t10.. this means 
           the subject of the sentence is '1' and the object is '0', or 
           what $T refers to. If the subject and the object of the 
           sentence were the same, you would have to use $t11.

Letter Arguments: $?'s can also take letter arguments, to do different 
things. Some of these arguments include the letters: p, s, and o. 'p' 
forces the proper name. The proper name is automatically used the first 
time the person has a pronoun referring to them, after that it defaults 
to the plain pronoun. If you want to force the proper name, use this 
argument. 's' forces it subjective (he/she/it). 'o' forces it objective 
(him/her/it).

     Example:  Thalior can't remember his name. "Ahh, it's Thalior", he  
               says, after a moment's thought.

This would be-> $N can't remember $p name. "Ahh, it's $np", $ns $vsay,
                after a moment's thought.

When you are writing for the rule STR you need to use a $O to indicate
where the string is inserted.

You can use "showemote" to show an emote's basic code... try various
emotes to see how they work and then start crafting your own.

One extra thing of note:

See also: m_messages (choice 3)