Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Adam J <fro@***.AB.CA>
Subject: Matrix Persona's
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 23:19:37 -0600
How 'changeable' is your matrix persona? If my matrix persona was that of
Bob (A yellow ball with black eyes and a big smile), could he stretch to
fit through a skinny area? Could a beautiful maiden's skirt change to more
appropriate sweat pants when engaged in combat? I would assume minor
changes might require some small test, as long as they stay with the theme
of the persona. At least thats how I imagine it would work.. feedback?

-Adam
"Told you one was on the way!"

--
Http://shadowrun.home.ml.org
'Do you know how many times I have said something that ends up in
someone's .sig?" -Dvixen, way too late at night, way too expensive a call.
Message no. 2
From: MC23 <mc23@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Matrix Persona's
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 09:43:34 -0400
Adam J once dared to write,

>How 'changeable' is your matrix persona?
As changeable as you programed it.
>If my matrix persona was that of Bob (A yellow ball with black eyes and a
>big smile), could he stretch to fit through a skinny area?
Space is all virtual. As long as the skinny area doesn't represent a
small bandwidth sure. The size of programs are all roughly repesented by
their actual size (Mp's) so there is some correlation that way.
>Could a beautiful maiden's skirt change to more appropriate sweat pants
>when engaged in combat?
Write the code and it happens although clothing doesn't effect
combat in the matrix. I guess you asking about it just for looks.
>I would assume minor changes might require some small test, as long as they
>stay with the theme of the persona. At least thats how I imagine it would
>work.. feedback?
If it was set up ahead of time I'd allow it with no problems. I'm
not sure about on the fly though.




<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Ancient cultures believed that names held great power, personal names
more so and they were guarded very closely. To protect themselves, they
answered to another name, because if another discovered their real name,
it could be used against them.
History repeats itself.
Welcome to the Digital Age.
I am MC23
Message no. 3
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@****.ORG>
Subject: Re: Matrix Persona's
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 08:42:23 -0600
Adam J wrote:
|
| How 'changeable' is your matrix persona? If my matrix persona was that of
| Bob (A yellow ball with black eyes and a big smile), could he stretch to
| fit through a skinny area? Could a beautiful maiden's skirt change to more
| appropriate sweat pants when engaged in combat? I would assume minor
| changes might require some small test, as long as they stay with the theme
| of the persona. At least thats how I imagine it would work.. feedback?

For the skinny area, it depends on the program that represents the
skinny area. If it's created as a roadblock then the deckers
attempts to "squeeze" through might be represented by "stretching"
the persona.

For the sweat pants, the decker could say that his armor program
appears as sweat pants.

In the way of special effects, like stretching, sound effects,
costume changes, etc, I would let characters create personas with
those options, as long as they have no actual affect other than
roleplaying.

-David
--
/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\ dbuehrer@****.org /^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\
"His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking
alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free."
~~~http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm~~~~
Message no. 4
From: Sascha Pabst <Sascha.Pabst@**********.UNI-OLDENBURG.DE>
Subject: Re: Matrix Persona's
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 19:28:06 +0000
On 15 Apr 97 at 23:19, Adam J wrote:
> How 'changeable' is your matrix persona? If my matrix persona was that of
> Bob (A yellow ball with black eyes and a big smile), could he stretch to
> fit through a skinny area? Could a beautiful maiden's skirt change to more
> appropriate sweat pants when engaged in combat? I would assume minor
> changes might require some small test, as long as they stay with the theme
> of the persona. At least thats how I imagine it would work.. feedback?
Remember, your persona is just the representation of the programs you
use. Think like this: Can a player named "Giant" fit into TINY-Mud? The
only problem are, err, were nodes with low load (back in VR1 days) or
Bandwidth (VR2, p.81). But these do not affect your persona, as well as
a skirt dosn't hinder the collection of persona programs from running a
combat utility.


Sascha
--
+---___---------+----------------------------------------+--------------------+
| / / _______ | Jhary-a-Conel aka Sascha Pabst |'The rich control |
| / /_/ ____/ |Sascha.Pabst@**********.Uni-Oldenburg.de| The Government, |
| \___ __/ | | The Media, |
|==== \_/ ======| *Wearing hats is just a way of life* | And the Law!' |
|LOGOUT FASCISM!| - Me | - Queensryche |
+------------- http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~jhary -----------------+
Message no. 5
From: Bull <chaos@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Matrix Persona's
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 16:58:52 -0500
At 11:19 PM 4/15/97 -0600, Adam J wrote these timeless words:
>How 'changeable' is your matrix persona? If my matrix persona was that of
>Bob (A yellow ball with black eyes and a big smile), could he stretch to
>fit through a skinny area? Could a beautiful maiden's skirt change to more
>appropriate sweat pants when engaged in combat? I would assume minor
>changes might require some small test, as long as they stay with the theme
>of the persona. At least thats how I imagine it would work.. feedback?
>
I think that it would require a small test, if you were doing something
else (like fighting or trying to stealth around) at the same time.

Basically, it's the same as loading up Paint Shop and changing the color of
a picture, or drawing in a few new lines...

It should be no problem outside the matrix, of course...

And it should also be possible to program something like this into your
pwersona for a few extra Mega-Pulses. You could set up a "trigger"
(stealing a MUSH/MUD/IRC term here) that would autonmatically change your
outfit from a Dress to Sweat Pants when combat is initiated...

This is very minor, and would have no effect on the game, really, but it
definately adds color to your deckers persona (No pun intended there:)).

On a related matter, have any of you deckers out there ever sat down and
figured out what your programs look like when activated? Similar to the
pre-designed Hacker House programs from the VR books...

Bull-the-Ork-Decker
--
Now the Offical Shadowrn mailing List Welcome Ork!
Fearless Leader of the Star Wars Mailing List
NEW HOME PAGE!: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3604/home.html
As well as a sort of new .sig! ;]

Bull, aka Steven Ratkovich (chaos@*****.com)

"BTW - It's time for a new quote at the end of your .sig,
I'm tired of the Mighty One."
-Steven Tinner
Message no. 6
From: Matb <mbreton@**.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Matrix Persona's
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 13:34:10 -0700
> Adam J wrote:
>
> How 'changeable' is your matrix persona? If my matrix persona was that of Bob (A
yellow ball with black eyes and a big smile), could he stretch to fit through a skinny
area? Could a beautiful maiden's skirt change to more appropriate sweat pants when
engaged in combat? I would assume minor changes might require some small test, as long as
they stay with the theme of the persona. At least thats how I imagine it would work..
feedback?

I think more importantly, how *recognizable* is my persona? If I get my
Avatar program to make me look like (I dunno) the EDF-thing from
Robocop, does everyone and his sister "know" it's me? If I appear to
someone as EDF and then slip into my "casual" cyberdeck, does my image
change? Could the change be noticed/traced?

I suppose this affects shadowtk, too; one character could (should?) be
able to post under two different names, or forge his name as someone
else.. maybe?

On a completely parallel line of thought... If I were a sly decker, I
wouldn't hack my time/date stamp to read (ex)
<This:Space:For/Rent-Rent-Rent!>.. nooo, I'd hack it to read some
*other* time or date.... give someone who wants a trace a false lead,
at least for a moment.

I'm using too many ellipses.

-Matt
Message no. 7
From: Czar Eggbert <czregbrt@*********.EDU>
Subject: Re: Matrix Persona's
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 17:52:55 -0500
On Wed, 16 Apr 1997, Bull wrote:

<Big Snip>

>
> On a related matter, have any of you deckers out there ever sat down and
> figured out what your programs look like when activated? Similar to the
> pre-designed Hacker House programs from the VR books...
>
> Bull-the-Ork-Decker
> --
Accually I find that is one of the most fun things about designing a
decker :)... My current decker, Smoken Wakii Tobacii, has 10 diffrent
programs each with over a paragraph describing how they look while active,
and while decking with them.
Hell how can you be a decker without Style!

Czar Eggbert
AKA Smoken Wakii Tobacii DDS

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Czar-"What-ABOUT-boB?"- Eggbert
Ruler, Dark Side of the Moon.
homepage: http:\\www.creighton.edu\~czregbrt
mailto:czregbrt@*********.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Reality!? Is that some new game?"
-MDF
"It's not the heat, it's the humidity.It's not the voltage, it's the current.
It's not the meat, it's the motion. And it's not the pipe - it's the will."
- Jeff Vogel
Scorched Earth Party
http://cspo.queensu.ca/~fletcher/Scorch/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 8
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Matrix Persona's
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 12:44:41 +0100
Bull said on 16:58/16 Apr 97...

> And it should also be possible to program something like this into your
> pwersona for a few extra Mega-Pulses. You could set up a "trigger"
> (stealing a MUSH/MUD/IRC term here) that would autonmatically change your
> outfit from a Dress to Sweat Pants when combat is initiated...
>
> This is very minor, and would have no effect on the game, really, but it
> definately adds color to your deckers persona (No pun intended there:)).

I don't really see a reason why anyone would bother with changing their
icon to more practical clothes for combat -- it's not like a Matrix
persona suffers from any kind of encumbrance, unlike someone trying to do
real battle in, for example, a long dress would. Your persona will do what
you want it to, no matter what it looks like.

You could even use this to your advantage: someone in cumbersome clothes
will not usually be a great fighter IRL, so other deckers may think the
same of an icon that looks that way.

> On a related matter, have any of you deckers out there ever sat down and
> figured out what your programs look like when activated? Similar to the
> pre-designed Hacker House programs from the VR books...

Last time anyone made a decker character here, I asked him to write up
short descriptions of what each program looked like when he used it, and a
description of his persona.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Do you remember, when you were someone else?
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version 3.1:
GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+ PE
Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Message no. 9
From: Skye Comstock <bilbo@****.NWLINK.COM>
Subject: Re: Matrix Persona's
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 08:18:41 -0800
>On a related matter, have any of you deckers out there ever sat down and
>figured out what your programs look like when activated? Similar to the
>pre-designed Hacker House programs from the VR books...

Yeah, I'm on the Shadowrun MUX/MUSH/whatever it is and you have to do that!
I have to set what the program looks like when it's loaded into my
active memory, and figure out what my emits are like when I actually
use my program. I was going to use a 'Gumby' theme but nobody thought it
was cool (lame were the words), so I did the regular old chrome and neon
balls... dumb stuff like that. For example, this is my Deception 6 prog:

Two shining chrome balls that reflect the image around them like ruthenium
polymers.

I named it chrome_balls, that was a bad idea after thinking about it. ;)

-Skye-the-worthless-decker-"Is that an rtg? An ltg? A host? How do I move
this thing? What do you mean I have to read over 25 pages of help files?"

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Matrix Persona's, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!