[Divunal-devel] Color

[James Knight]

At 4:47 PM -0400 8/15/99, Michael Dartt wrote:

>Hm.  I'd want to hear what you consider a "tasteful way" to use
colored

>text in the game.  I think that, in many cases, it would become the

>equivalent of the "hot spot" that you get in, e.g. Myst, Grim
Fandango,

>or Baldur's Gate, which isn't really useful in a game where you can

>interact with nearly everything, and would shift the focus from
figuring

>out what you can do with what stuff to the stuff that is highlighted.

>

>Used anywhere else (e.g. coloring the text of something blue instead
of

>saying that it's blue), I see it detracting from the game's

>story-/novel-like format.  The "color" should come from the way
things

>are written, to my mind.  (After all, do novels use colored text?)


Tasteful color IMO would be in the action panel, not the description
panel. While the description could maybe use some spicing up from use
of bold and italics, it probably would not be helped much (or at all)
by color. On the other hand, I think the action could. E.g. 

<color><param>0000,0000,FFFF</param>> say "Hello.

</color>You say: "<color><param>FFFF,0000,0000</param>Hello.</color>"

Tenth says: "<color><param>FFFF,0000,0000</param>Hello James.</color>"

<color><param>0000,0000,FFFF</param>> go south

</color>You go south.


or something like that.


This is generally how it is used in 'inferior' M*s and I have to say
that it really does help to keep players from having their eyes glaze
over at a screenfull of text.


But anyhow, I'm gonna implement it, (along with basic styles) in the
server and java client, so hopefully someone will find an approved use
for it. :)

-James

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