Author Topic: A Guide to Using Event Herald  (Read 5110 times)

Draggynn

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A Guide to Using Event Herald
« on: May 18, 2021, 08:29:09 pm »
For folks that are unfamiliar, Event Herald (Harold) is our local town crier who pipes messages between the Discord channels #in-game-rebirth, #in-game-help, and #in-game-lfg to the in game channels Rebirth, Help, and Looking for Group respectively.

If you don't see those channels in the discord, add the rebirth role in #pick-your-roles by clicking the rebirth button, seen here in the lower right:

Any time you see Event Herald say something prefaced by [Discord: @name] that isn't actually Event Herald saying it, rather he is just parroting what @name has said in the corresponding discord channel.

However, Event Herald does so much more than this.  He can also be used to schedule events which he will advertise publicly 2 hours and again 30 minutes prior to the event, as well as responding to queries from players about events.  If you would like Herald to announce the time to an upcoming event you can issue the command
!e next
in Looking for Group and Herald will announce the next event in chat for everyone to see and the time until it starts.

You can even include a hashtag after next to get him to announce the next event of a certain type:!e next #itrials
In fact, Herald will even respond to a !e command by someone from discord.
A list of supported hashtags is provided at the end of this guide.


(You can find out information about all of the commands I'm about to detail by sending Event Herald the message "help")
If you would rather not let everyone in a global channel know that you are checking event times, you can also just send Event Herald a direct tell "next #msr".  This has the advantage that in addition to time until the next event, it will also give you the time in your local time zone, provided you have configured that with Event Herald.

In addition to taking a #tag, the next command can also take an optional date argument, provided before the tag.  The data can be provided in a number of formats including a date string "/t Event Herald, next 5/20" or with a weekday "/t Event Herald, next Friday." Also supported are today and tomorrow.

While next provides a single event, list will provide the next three events and can similarly take date and tag argument:

(list can also be called in "Looking For Group" with "!e list", but will have the same effect as "!e next")

To set your local timezone, simply tell the Event Herald "tz [time zone code]"
You can find your local time zone code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
I'm on the west coast, so I would send "/t Event Herald, tz America/Los_Angeles"

For most standard American Time Zones:
Eastern: America/New_York
Central: America/Chicago
Mountain: America/Denver
Pacific: America/Los_Angeles

You will notice that all of the events have an ID#.  If you would like to find out more about a particular event, say the European Version Incarnate Trials listed earlier (ID#14), you can "/t Event Herald, info 14"


Now that you know how to find out about events, let's say you want to schedule an event.  This ability is open to everyone and does not require any special privileges.  The full command to add an event is: "add [-w -b -m] date time desc [#tags]" where the arguments in brackets are optional.
  • The -w, -b, -m arguments are for an event that you want to repeat weekly, biweekly (that's every other week) or monthly
  • For the date as discussed earlier, you can give MM/DD, today, tomorrow, or day of the week.  (For the monthly option you specify a date, 11/29 for example, which is then interpreted moving forward as the nth weekday (4th Sunday in this case).)
  • For time, you can provide 10p, 10:00p, or military time 22:00 (Remember to have configured your time zone, mentioned above).  (If you only provide a number (say 10) it will be interpreted as that number of hours from the current time.)
  • Enter a short description of your event
  • Finally, any hashtags that you want people to be able to filter on
So, let's suppose I wanted to add a recurring event every week running a Speed run Imperious Task Force after Incarnate Trials at 8 pm pacific on Monday.  I've already configured my time zone earlier, so I can just say:
"/t Event Herald, add -w Monday 8p Draggynn's Race Through Rome! #itf #speedrun"
NOTE: here /t is the in game command to send a direct tell, it is not an Event Herald specific directive.  This command must be issues from in game and not through discord.

If I realize I'll be unable to run my event, I can cancel it using its ID#.  Let's suppose my speed run had ID number 25.  I can cancel my event using
"/t Event Herald, cancel 25 Spilled Enriche on keyboard"
Event Herald will now let people know that the event has been cancelled when he would normally advertise it.  If it's a recurring event, this will only cancel the next instance of the event, and the Event Herald will continue to advertise next week once my replacement keyboard has arrived.

If my keyboard arrives early I can uncancel the event using:
"/t Event Herald, uncancel 25"

If I realize I'll no longer be able to run the event, I can delete it entirely:
"/t Event Herald, delete 25"
and the event will no longer show up, and will remove all knowledge Event Herald had of the event.

You can also use the ID number to change the description:
"/t Event Herald, desc 25 Draggynn's Speedy Toga Party!"

Since only the event owner can modify an event, you may wish to transfer ownership at some point to another player.  You can do this by using "transfer ID# playername":
"/t Event Herald, transfer 25 Avalo"
will transfer ownership of Draggynn's speed runs to Avalo.  Note that in order to transfer an event, the recipient player must have used event herald at least once before.
 
You can also more generally modify an event by using the update command.  It has the same format as the add command except you can use -0 to remove the recurring nature and #0 to remove any applied hashtags.  For any field you don't want to change, use a -.
So Avalo might want to run an hour later and only biweekly. So he could do this with:
"/t Event Herald, update 25 -b - 9p Avalo's Toga Race!"
where the second "-" signals that he doesn't want to change the date

But wait, there's more!  Event Herald can roll dice for you using roll "ndx" for which he will roll n x-sided dice and tell you their sum:

He can also make a selection for you, given a a list of choices separated by commas "Choose A, B, C, ....".

You can even get Herald to respond in "Looking For Group" to these commands by using !e, just like the "!e next" option we started with (This only works for next, roll, and choose).  The choose option is how the PvP IO winner is selected on Sunday nights.

If at any point you get confused simply send Event Herald the help command, and all of this information is available from him.  It should also be mentioned that Event Herald is developed and maintained by the incomparable D'Spite.

The currently supported tags are:
#posi1: Positron Task Force, Part 1
#posi2: Positorn Task Force, Part 2
#synapse: Synapse Task Force
#yin: Penelope Yin Task Force
#sutter: Admiral Sutter Task Force
#moonfire: Moonfire Task Force
#citadel: Citadel Task Force
#hess: Ernesto Hess Task Force
#katie: Katie Hannon Task Force
#manticore: Manticore Task Force
#numina: Numina Task Force
#drq: Dr. Quaterfield Task Force
#moore: Sara Moore Task Force
#justin: Justin Augustine
#faathim: Faathim the Kind Task Force
#mltf: Miss Liberty Task Force
#kahn: Dr. Kahn Task Force
#tarikoss: Virgil Tarikoss Strike Force
#silvermantis: Silver Mantis Strike Force
#mortimer: Mortimer Kal Strike Force
#renault: Strike Force Operative Renault Strike Force
#icemistral: Ice Mistral Strike Force
#lrsf: Lord Recluse Strike Force
#barracuda: Barracuda Strike Force
#itf: Imperious Task Force
#lgtf: Lady Grey Task Force
#apex: Apex Task Force
#tinmage: Tin Mage Mark II Task Force
#wst: Weekly Strike Target (task forces, strike forces, and trials selected weekly to award double merits, extra xp, and a notice of the well for 50s.  Highlighted in purple in the lfg tab)
#dfb: Death from Below Trial
#cot: Cavern of Transcendence Trial
#dib: Drowning in Blood
#respec: Terra Volta Respecification Trial
#treespec: Thorn Tree Respecification Trial
#sewer: Abandoned Sewer Network Trial
#eden: Eden Trial
#pain: Cathedral of Pain trial
#itrial: Incarnate Trial
#baf: Behavioral Adjustment Facility Incarnate Trial
#lambda: Lambda Sector Incarnate Trial
#keyes: Keyes Island Reactor Incarnate Trial
#ug: The Underground Incarnate Trial
#tpn: TPN Campus Incarnate Trial
#mom: Minds of Mayhem Incarnate Trial
#dd: Dilemma Diabolique Incarnate Trial
#magi: The Magesterium Incarnate Trial
#contest: Any kind of contest
#farm: Any kind of mission farm, not to be confused with developer FarmTank
#gm: Giant Monster Hunt (also not to be confused with GM FarmTank)
#holiday: Holiday content like the winter trial, valentines day missions, or summer blockbuster
#mayhem: Mayhem missions
#msr: Rikti Mothership Raid
#pvp: Player versus player events, in zones or arenas
#restart: Server restart
#rp: Roleplaying event or group for folks that want to play in character
#safeguard: Safeguard missions
#speedrun: Speedrun, either to try to set a server record, or just to be fast
#tips: Hero, Villain, Rogue, or Vigilante tip missions
#xp: Just a good old fashioned group for gaining experience
#hami: A hamidon raid in the hive or abyss
« Last Edit: November 20, 2023, 01:06:52 am by Draggynn »
@Draggynn: Storm Summoning Psychic Defender and Badge Hunter, formerly a resident of Virtue
See my collection of commissioned art: https://www.deviantart.com/drag-gynn

DSpite

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Re: A Guide to Using Event Herald
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2021, 08:39:07 pm »
That's a pretty neat write-up.

Thanks Draggynn.

Donkyhotay

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Re: A Guide to Using Event Herald
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2021, 08:55:07 pm »
Yes great guide, a few points to mention. You can also friend, or global friend, the Event Herald in game and he will always accept. This allows you to more easily send him tells. Also, when selecting your role on rebirth to enable it you must click on the rebirth button *below* the list. What appears to be a button to the left of the words "City of Heroes: Rebirth" is actually just a picture of what the button looks like.

If possible Draggynn I would suggest possibly putting a red circle or something around the button in your picture so it's more obvious. I've seen a lot of newsupes joining rebirth and get confused about exactly where the button is.
Do not be afraid to joust a giant just because some people insist on believing in windmills.

Draggynn

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Re: A Guide to Using Event Herald
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2021, 09:02:17 pm »
I did say lower right to try to clarify that, but I'll see about messing with an editing tool later
(and red circle added for clarity)
« Last Edit: May 19, 2021, 02:10:45 am by Draggynn »
@Draggynn: Storm Summoning Psychic Defender and Badge Hunter, formerly a resident of Virtue
See my collection of commissioned art: https://www.deviantart.com/drag-gynn