CHE Officer Guide/Criers

CHE Officer Guide/Criers is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.

House Event Criers

The HOUSE EVENT tool allows an Officer to create a unique crier, which can be sent throughout the world to announce an event. This is an especially useful tool for letting players know something is going on, even if they have not checked the calendar.

Crier Guidelines

HOUSE EVENT submissions are due at least two weeks prior to the event. You are encouraged to submit them when you send your Event Support Request.

Criers should always be in-character and must have perfect grammar and punctuation. Our goal with a crier is to announce an event, not to jar players out of their gaming experience or to annoy them. As such, criers do have some specific guidelines which they must meet before the CHE Controller can approve them for release.

1. All criers must be in genre.
2. All dates must be in Elanthian time (determined by CALENDAR CONVERT).
3. All times must be fully spelled out (and in eastern time, 'elven' in game). Example: 10:00 P.M.
4. There must be two spaces between each and every sentence.
5. Follow standard English grammar. Common mistakes are subject-verb agreement, varying tenses, and either excessively long run-on sentences or sentences that are just phrases. Have a local grammar geek check your message or find a grammar checker online.
6. Criers should be in the format of an actual crier. This means that you should write game appropriate messaging to announce the event, such as a herald arriving or a ghostly apparition drifting in. You may also use a disembodied voice, a whisper, or a shout.
7. When choosing an area for the messaging, this is the town/realm that the message will be seen in. Worldwide messaging will not be approved unless you have rented a cross-realm room within Ebonstone Manor for the event. The messaging for worldwide criers must be very simple. Please refrain from submitting long dialogues. Worldwide messaging is available for outdoor settings only.
8. When choosing a setting for the messaging (inside, outside or all rooms), please refrain from using physical embodiments that enter and leave an area for "all" or "inside" rooms. A voice, a shout, a whisper, a ghost, etc. are all fine. Feel free to be creative here without using a crowd of people to walk through someone’s private locker area, table or swimming pool to discuss your event.
9. Avoid criers that tell people what they remember or what they saw at one time. A crier stating that I remembered seeing a note tacked up in Wehnimer's Landing means little to me if I've never been to Wehnimer's Landing.
10. Criers that enter an area should also leave the area in their messaging and not just suddenly "be seen." Example: A uniformed Officer enters the area and states, "Blargh!" He then marches off.
11. With criers that involve an ongoing dialog between two or more people, ensure that who is speaking is apparent. Having a bunch of ambiguous statements is confusing.
    • GOOD Example: A pair of miscreants enter the area. The first states, "You're horrible." The second responds, "No, you're horrible." As they depart, the first one replies back, "Whatever. Go eat an egg."
    • BAD Example: A pair of miscreants enter the area having a conversation. "You're horrible." "No, you're horrible." "Whatever. Go eat an egg."

Usage

Type HOUSE EVENT by itself to get usage information.

Usage:
    HOUSE EVENT CREATE <title>             - Create a new message
    HOUSE EVENT MESSAGE <title> <message>  - No <message> entry will return the
                                            current message
    HOUSE EVENT AREA <title> <town>        - Set the towns to receive the message
    HOUSE EVENT SETTING <title> <setting>  - Controls whether message is sent to
                                            inside, outside or all rooms
    HOUSE EVENT REVIEW <title>             - Display message, settings, and review
                                            notes for <title>
    HOUSE EVENT MEMBER <title>             - Toggles the message displaying to members
                                           of your organization only.
    HOUSE EVENT STATUS <title>             - GM QC approval for message
    HOUSE EVENT LIST                       - List messages for your organization
    HOUSE EVENT SUBMIT <title>             - Submit message for QC
    HOUSE EVENT UNSUBMIT <title> CONFIRM   - Clear the message in order to change it
                                            It must be re-submitted afterwards
    HOUSE EVENT EXECUTE <title>            - Let the message fly
    HOUSE EVENT DELETE <title>             - Delete an existing message
    HOUSE EVENT EXAMPLES                   - Provides examples of proper message setup

Example

Below is a sample entry with feedback messaging to see how it's done:

>house event create Party

Event message entitled "party" has been created.

>house event message Party We're having a party tonight!

The text "We're having a party tonight!" has been saved for message "Party".

>house event area Party Solhaven

Message "Party" is set to message Solhaven.

>house event setting Party All

Event message party is now set to message all rooms.

>house event submit Party

You must use CONFIRM to submit the message for review.

>house event submit Party confirm

Event message Party has been submitted for review.

>house event status Party

The message has been submitted for approval, please check the status again at a later time.