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Option to Auto-Add 'Dear John'

Started by Ardent, September 18, 2020, 10:47:39 AM

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Ardent

Title:
Option to Auto-Add 'Dear John'

Summary:
I would love a messaging option that would automatically fill in the 'Dear John' line or lines based on the recipient or recipients' name and titles as presented when selecting which nobles to deliver the message too.

Details:
So if I selected 'James Dublin, King of Perdia, Royal of Perdia, Duke of East Marshes, Margrave of Delfana' as the recipient of the message the message would include this as the 'Dear John' like this:


James Dublin, King of Perdia, Royal of Perdia, Duke of East Marshes, Margrave of Delfana,

Alister Krongent
Knight of Spandelen


If I selected 'Martha Schwitzperk, Baroness of Marxburg' and 'Emet Smith, Knight of Melri' as recipients the message would start like this:


Martha Schwitzperk, Baroness of Marxburg,
Emet Smith, Knight of Melri,

Alister Krongent
Knight of Spandelen


I could then prepend 'Majesty' or 'Lord/Lady' or 'Sir/Dame' quickly and add my content. Maybe limit the auto 'Dear John' to 3 nobles after which it might be too cumbersome and inefficient making a manually typed 'Lords and Ladies' (or something similar) more fitting.

If there is already a place to define 'addresses' based on position (Kings and Queens of Perdia are addressed as 'Majesty', Dukes and Duchesses of Perdia are addressed as 'Grace', Margraves/Counts/Barons of Perdia are addressed as 'Lord or Lady', Estate holders of Perdia are addressed as 'Sir or Dame', and so on) then it could be possible to have fully automatic 'Dear Johns' selecting the highest level of 'address' to prepend that person's 'Dear John' with. But I don't know if this kind of thing is collected somewhere.

Benefits:
I see this as an especially useful option on mobile where copying and pasting titles and names can be a bit annoying. Even on a PC really. Not a game breaker but maybe a time saver for some.

Possible Downsides/Exploits:
It could lead to bland 'Dear Johns'. If no limit on the number of auto 'Dear John' lines is enforced you could end up with a message where you have 30 'Dear John' lines which would look horrid.

Abstract

This reminds me of another feature idea which was a customizable conclusion to letters that would be automatically placed at the end. For example: "For the Kingdom," in place of a "sincerely,". Though I don't remember if it was ever officially requested/rejected, I do remember one of the arguments against it was the less personalized feel. Essentially it creates/incentivizes a boiler plate which feels lifeless.

I suspect this idea would share a similar concern. I'm assuming this is what you had in mind when you added the "downside" of blandness.

Anaris

Including full titles in the salutation of a letterâ€"especially for many nobles at once!â€"would be inappropriately grandiose in all but the very most formal of circumstances. The vast majority of the time, you will be writing to someone in only one of their capacitiesâ€"usually the "highest", though not alwaysâ€"and it would be much more appropriate to only address them as "King Kepler" or "Warder of the Church Kepler". Furthermore, most such titles have a mode of address that would be considered to be more correct when addressing them directly ("Your Majesty," "Your Holiness", "Warder", etc), which our current title system does not capture in any way.

It would certainly be nice to have those modes of address alongside the titles in the system; however, that's significantly more work.

All in all, I could see possibly adding an option on a per-message basis to automatically add in a single title in the salutation.

In general, though, if you're playing a game like BattleMaster on your phone, while I am more than willing to try to improve the experience in many ways, this game is centered very heavily around written messages, and until your phone has a telepathic interface, there's no way for the game to know what the "right" mode of address is for any given letter.
Timothy Collett

"The only thing you can't trade for your heart's desire...is your heart." "You are what you do.  Choose again, and change." "One of these days, someone's gonna plug you, and you're going to die saying, 'What did I say? What did I say?'"  ~ Miles Naismith Vorkosigan