ASTERISK

If you see a yellow * (asterisk) on a line by itself, it means someone is
talking. You have CHANNEL HEADERS turned on in SETCOMM, so you see a
yellow * before every say line. The reason youre seeing the * and not
the text is one of two things:

a) youre asleep or possibly dead
b) its a mob talking, and you have MOBILE CHATTER turned off in SETCOMM

If it bothers you to see this yellow *, either turn mob chatter back on,
or turn channel headers off. Yes, technically this is a bug, but its
minor.

See also:  SETCOMM SAY "CHANNEL HEADERS" "MOBILE CHATTER"