Meeting Hall Organization/Official MHO Guide/Section 4d

Meeting Hall Organization/Official MHO Guide/Section 4d is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.

Section 4d: In-Game Criers

MHO Officers can run their own in-game event criers! HALL EVENT will display the available commands. All crier messages should take the form of some kind of person (or persons) entering the room, speaking the announcement, and leaving (also acceptable and often preferable would be a voice calling out). Remember that this will be seen in town buildings and hunting areas alike!

Once you've written your event announcement and submitted it, a GM will need to read it over, and if there are any problems, it will be sent back to you for revision. For this reason, you should always have a good proofreader look over your submissions first, and you'll want to send them in well in advance. If several rounds of changes are needed, the process could take a few weeks.

After the announcement has been approved, group officers can send it out whenever they wish (though a charge of 10,000 silvers to your endowment will be made with each use). Up to four messages can be stored at any one time.

Creating the Crier

1. Type HALL EVENT CREATE <title>
   • <title> will be the name which you wish to assign to the crier and must be unique. For example, “hall event create dance_inside”.
   • Make it something that is easily discernable as you will be using the title of the crier for each step.
   • Often times each event has two different criers, one for inside locations, one for outside locations. Creating multiple criers for one event is entirely at the officer’s discretion. An example of this would be “hall event create dance_inside” and “hall event create dance_outside”
2. Type HALL EVENT MESSAGE <title> <message>
   • This will be the message that goes out to the specified location, alerting everyone of the upcoming event. For example, “hall event message dance_inside You hear a soft voice carried by the wind that declares, “Avalon Manor's Dance Off will begin shortly outside the North gates. Come one, come all!”
   • Make sure to double space between each sentence.
3. Type HALL EVENT AREA <title> <town>
   • This will decide which city and surroundings you wish your message to be heard in. Only one city per crier. For example, “hall event area dance_inside Wehnimer’s Landing”
4. Type HALL EVENT SETTING <title> <setting>
   • This controls whether the message is sent to Inside, Outside, or all Rooms within the specified city. For example, “hall event setting dance_inside Inside”
5. Type HALL EVENT REVIEW <title>
   • This is so you can review your message, it’s settings, etc before you submit it for GM approval. Double check that your crier is assigned to the right city, the right area and has correct grammar and spelling.
6. Type HALL EVENT SUBMIT <title> CONFIRM
   • Once submitted, the crier item goes into a queue for the GM to review. If changes are needed, the GM will advise of changes and wait for you to fix it.

Checking and Editing Criers

1. If you’ve submitted a Crier and want to check if the GM has added edit notes, or if it’s been approved, type HALL EVENT REVIEW <title>
   • The review will show you your message and your settings. It will also show you if the GM has left any notes to fix on the crier, and it will also let you know if it has been approved or not.
2. If after Reviewing your crier, and the GM has left you notes on what to edit, you merely have to redo the step that requires the fix. For example, if you forgot to double space between each sentence in your Message, just retype “hall event message <title> <new fixed message> and it will replace the old message with the new, edited version.
   • Once you edit a crier, you do NOT have to re-submit it. If you re-submit the crier, it will erase the GM’s edit notes. The GMs can view in their crier queue whenever a Crier is edited.
3. To view a list of current Criers saved for an MHO, type HALL EVENT LIST. It will list all of the “titles” for each crier saved. The maximum amount of saved Criers per MHO is 5.
   • After an event, if the Crier is no longer going to be used in the near future, please delete it. Remember to always save your Crier message on your computer incase you wish to use it in the future.
4. To delete a crier, type HALL EVENT DELETE <title> CONFIRM.

An example of a finished Crier is below:

>hall event review dtm_outside

The message titled "dance_outside" submitted by Avalon Manor:

You hear a soft voice carried by the wind that declares, “Avalon Manor's Dance Off will begin shortly outside the North gates.  Come one, come all!”
This entry is set to message the outside rooms only in the area of Wehnimer's Landing.
There are no review notes for this message.
The message has been approved for execution.

TIPS & TRICKS

AKA How to submit a great CRIER item and minimize the need for corrections!

• Two spaces after every period (and colon).
• Lists of items require a comma before the final "and." (Example: Birds, bees, and halflings -- also known as the Oxford comma)
• Punctuation goes within quotations.
• Separate two independent clauses joined by a conjunction with a comma before the conjunction (The door was red, but the silo was blue). Independent clause = standalone sentence. "The door was red and was funny-looking" does not have a comma before the conjunction (and, or, for, but, yet, nor, so)
• Triple check your spelling and grammar before submitting!
• "It's" is short for "it is" and "its" is the possessive. Read the sentence out loud and substitute "it is." If it scans right, then use it's and if it doesn't, use its. Ditto on they're, their, there. They're is the contraction (they are), their is the possessive (their books), and there is the locational adverb.
• Stay consistent. Use the U.S. eastern time zone for times (elven for an in-game reference).
• Stay IC and IG -- criers are inherently in-character and all messaging must reflect that.
• Try to keep it short and sweet -- the bolded scroll of a several lines long message can often irritate players, which is counterproductive to your purposes!