Any idea how this would affect performance for those who don't have top of the line systems?

according to the author the fisheye "effect" does have some impact,  but I am not sure about the curved space,  I am also not sure if the overall impact would even be something noticeable to all except the owners of really old systems. It would be something that probably only coder with understanding of the area could answer with cenrtainty

http://www.freeinfosociety.com/pdfs/computers/socialsideofgaming.pdf
it is an study on the social behavior of player of mmorpg, and how the game itself influences it.

yeah, I agree the guy(?) exagerated a little, something like a stand up comedy skit about the game industry, but behind all the flare he says many truths, many common complaints from gamers
and on the matther of contraditions I would have to look one by one, but lets get the ammo one for example, he says he likes having enough ammo to be fun, but he also asks for more creative ways for level design and \"power up\" placemet.

oh, and btw, I agree 100% with him in the matter of the invisible walls...

I get something similar if I set the color depth to 16 bits...

hello, I am currently not in my computer, 4% downloading ps in this one, so I could be wrong about what I will say

why isn\'t the holiday rain file included in the update files so people could just hit the update button and get it?

after the holidays just replace it with the regular file.

btw, just curious, are the rubys really there or is it just a replacement to the raindrop texture or something?

I think what shadow falcon meant was not actually display ingthe number, but use it as part of a process of representing the fuctioning of the characters mind, their social skill. buit pehaps not really iconifying as some people find that kind of distracting from the game\'s reality, but perhaps like I said using it to more subtly make easier to recognize someone that you interacted before,as in this game the purpose is to focus mostly on the character\'s skills and not the player\'s, some of us irl are better remembering names, or pushing the \"attack\" key at the right time, but if that doesn\'t seems to fit the characters description the character should not be able to enjoy those \"external\" helps

well  if the coding part and/or making it look not too much diplaced from the game reality part are to dificult/ to too much work for the result, perhaps just loose the hashbaged part, the sizing based on distance and familiriarity could still be incorporated
and regarding targeting some one without the knowing their name, perhaps a bigger tolerance of the mouse targeting system,  click the overall area the target is, without being necessary to actually hit the pixels their wher etheir model has being rendered, perhaps define a radius(in percents of screen resolution unit so every gets the same) where the object with the closest pixel to the click point would be selected, or if not visible, or hard to identify, some text commands(variables perhaps?)  could be added, something like \"@attacker\" \"@trader\"in place of the unknown name or perhaps \"/whoattackedme\" and similar commands to discover the name of a person you recently interacted but don\'t know or remember the name

*edit*

and regarding the display of the hash, perhaps the indivdual unique hash could instead f being graohicly displayed, be used to generate the value for a slight tint on the character\'s skin and/or hair, so even if you line up several characters with he same basic models and textures no one would look exactly the same, the line wouldn\'t look like an clone army, just several regular people of the same race, but no twins

one cat with a litle dark fur, another one with a slightly more yellowish fur, another one simply more grayish, but al the variations would be generatedin real time , no need of thousands of each texture

I am just not sure of the amount of processing time and power this would cost with the avaiable tools and resources the engine may provide or the coders might create/agregate for it.

additionally the basic of the tinting idea could aslo be used to generate random variations on the monsters, for the same \"clone army effect\" reasons

perhaps a simpler alternative to tinting each texture at rendertime would be hack a little the lighting so each player is lighted with its onw tinting applied to the light, it seems to me the light code could be reused for this if there are no (eficient) texture procesing code avaiable... but I don\'t know the details of the cs/ps code so this could end up making no sense 8o)

Please refrain from double-posting. Simply edit your last post to add new information, if no one has replied yet :) --Karyuu

the goal of the ideas I\'lltry to describe below is to make a sort of more organic dry to wet interface regarding the subject of one character reecognizing another one

first there would be the hash badge, in its simplest incarnation it could be just a small square bit map, the pattern woudl be generated  by combining many character unchanging data, like name,species , parents, all or just some of the background of the character, character sex and other unique character data, those info would be fed thru  the hash (md5, sha-256, anything simple quick and with little probability of generating hash colisions). Perhaps guild data would be added to the same input, use to generate a second  hash, the guild hash could just be used simply coupled with the character\'s hash, or used as a modifier of some sort, perhaps adding fixed color pattern over the black and white characters badge, or any other creative way that would make every one from the same guild identifiable by it without getting in the way of the character\'s personal hash badge

that low res unique hash badge would replace the name labels of anyone who you hasn\'t been introduced to

after your character know the name of someone the hash badge would be displayed next to the characters name and also guild


and now to the matter of familiarity, even if you don\'t know the name of another character if you hang around him enough his badge will be more easilly recognisable, by getting bigger (to a limit), and getting in front of others (z-buffer) with time, the same happens with chars you know the name.
and  of course, logicly if someone if very far he won\'t be easylly recognizalbe (smaller hashbadge/ name), as in rl you recgonazes someone easier if hes closer to you.

but if you start to distance your self from that character he will start to no look so familiar to you (less easilly recognizeable.

the purpose of the system is to simulate faces (since everyone look more or less the same even with all the new skins to come) a face you often see will be more easily recognizable in a crowd or in the distance than one you haven\'t met before.


I havent memorized the lists of skills avaiable for the characters, but if my memory don\'t fail me there is at least  one, but I think more than one skills that would interfeer with the character hability to memorize a face, recognize it more easylly, remembering names for longer and stuff like that

the overall puropse of this ( the why if you may 8o) is to simulate social skills, as well ease up on the label visual polution while still making it possible to recognize someone



ps: of course this is highly dependant on the hability of rendering labels with the right pixel size, or right percentage of screen resolution