character names [rant]

[Karyuu]

Originally posted by Hatchnet
The /tell system could be reworked to use last name instead of first thats no big deal [...]

Um. Hello? What about family members or related characters? If you type a /tell to a last name, which character is it going to go to?

[Hatchnet]

How about in such a case the server would simply request more information. Does that not solve your problem?

[Karyuu]

Every time? Would make having a conversation in /tells ridiculously tedious.

It\'s silly. Just choose another name if yours is taken. Gods, people! There are only several -thousand- of name generators in existence. I could make an enormous collection of links to them all.

Stop crying out for realism. You want realism? Go play at life :P

[Hatchnet]

\'Sighs and reaches for the bottle of Rhonsonal\'

Originally posted by Karyuu
Every time? Would make having a conversation in /tells ridiculously tedious.

Someone has never heard of either short cuts or the friends list.

It\'s silly. Just choose another name if yours is taken. Gods, people! There are only several -thousand- of name generators in existence. I could make an enormous collection of links to them all.

Some people would like to have a specific name even if it is already taken. (the amount of names with numers on the end in games like RS should be proof enough of this)

[QOUTE]
Stop crying out for realism. You want realism? Go play at life
[/QUOTE

Who said a damd thing about realism? And who the hell is crying over it?

[Under the moon]

I still don\'t see what\'s wrong with auto-complete names.  Sure, you may have to type everyone\'s name once, but after that, start a name and it finishes for you.  That cuts down on typing in the long run.  As for bandwith, your client on your computer would remember the names that you preveously typed, not the server.  Typing both names of pepple you don\'t know shouldn\'t be so hard.  They\'re printed above their heads.

However, if you think you have a truly unique name, and you don\'t want to share, then you should be able to restrict the use of that name.  Also I would limit the number of duplicate names.  We don\'t want a hundred Moogies running around.  

Karyuu you said it best with \"My identity is important, no matter what identity it is.\"  Although I\'m going to take that out of context.  People like Goodmaster Thazer have their identity, and it is important to them.  There is a certain amount of pride in it.  But when going ingame they find their first name taken.  That identity is gone to them.

[Grindalyx]

Originally posted by Moogie

Originally posted by Grindalyx
But say the user had to reformat their drive for one reason or another, and didn\'t have the time when it was initially done to redownload PS, and then when they did have time, it slipped their mind.

I just have one thing to say about that. If it slips their mind every day for an entire 6 months in a row, they deserve nothing less. They obviously arn\'t too passionate about the game, are they? Why would anyone be pissed off at their account being removed when the game obviously means little to them in the first place (otherwise they would have been playing already!)? They should feel sorry that they had been wasting space in the database, not angry just because \"I want what I want right now and not a moment sooner!\"

I see your point, moogie.

However, just because they have a bad memory, or there is something going on around them (a scenario that i never considered until just now) that pushes games and such to the back of their mind - such as money problems, health issues, etc - does it mean that they don\'t deserve to be given a chance to save their account?

[Kixie]

Look you shouldn\'t have to add a name to your buddy list if you just want to chat with them alright? Auto complete and fine and dandy, but what if you don\'t want to talk to someone you know? What if you want to talk to the kid who\'s next to your spawns killstealing? Or maybe he has an item you would like to aquire? Heck he could be a random stranger you have a feeling you want to talk to.

So people, just keep unique firstnames. Last names are a great way to recognize clans and families so we should keep those customizable to the user, but limit just who uses the name for Roleplaying. While unique firstnames are a bit harder to think of, you shouldnt be picking names like \"Bahumut\" Or \"Diablo\' Or anything anyone else would use.

The last days of MB were not impossible to make a name on. It wasn\'t hard at all and I have no idea where you got the idea that it was hard because I saw 3 or more roleplaying names being made everyday.

Now the same first name would be cool. You could pick anyname you wanted and that\'d be just cool. But people, unless you are going to come up with a real, productive, and intuitive way to talk to people quickly and efficiently and prevent any mixups between player\'s identity, this conversation is OVER. You can NOT have people being able to take identities. You CANNOT have mix ups like that in a game where every person needs to be moderated and looked after for the safety of the game. I\'d love to have unique first names too. If the safety of the user with the original nameuser could be kept, I\'d be all for it. But the threat is much too great, and it would not be worth it.

Like karyuu said, this isn\'t real life. I think you take into context that everything isn\'t going to be hyperrealistic, and you can\'t do everything in game that you can do in real life. But at the same time you can do alot of things in game that you can\'t do in real life. I think thats why the majority of us enjoy this genre, because we can be the hero and do something we never could before. But somethings are never going to be here. Somethings cannot be for the safety of the fellow user, and one of those is unique firstnames unfotuanately. Just accept it, try to make a unique name and contact a game moderator or administrator if the situation gets out of hand.

[John_Thazer]

Originally posted by Kixie
Look you shouldn\'t have to add a name to your buddy list if you just want to chat with them alright? Auto complete and fine and dandy, but what if you don\'t want to talk to someone you know? What if you want to talk to the kid who\'s next to your spawns killstealing? Or maybe he has an item you would like to aquire? Heck he could be a random stranger you have a feeling you want to talk to.

If I would want to talk to someone I would just start a specific conversation with him...Another thing if you press UP Arrow on keyboard it returns previous messege typed...wouldn\'t it be great if you just could press something like Shift+UP Arrow and it would only recall last person you talked to...

[Under the moon]

How about this Kixie, you see someone you want to talk to, say that killstealing kid, click on their characrter and /tell *killstealing kid* appears.  Of course, this will only work with people you can see, but how often are you going to try to talk to someone that you have never met before and you can\'t see.

As for identity theft, I don\'t see this as a big problem, as first/last name combos would be unique.  Also, I said first names would have a limited number of duplicates, and truly unique names could be blocked.  So it wouldn\'t be hard to control misbehavers.

No danger?  No threats?  No reputation bashing (RPing IC)?  Evil characters have little enough to do as it is.  In fact, I can\'t think of a single RP thing they can do right now, besides trying to discredit good characters.  It\'s going to happen, same names or not, otherwise PS would be just another bad hack-n-slash RPG.  They need a greater goal too.

[Seytra]

@ Grindalyx: That\'s why the expiration is set so slow. Actually, in the inheritance system, there\'d be two counters tat can be used:
- the expiration counter and
- an \"predicted absence\" counter

The \"predicted absence\" counter would be set by the user in the client, with an upper limit of 6 months. If this runs to zero or isn\'t set at all, the expiration (inactivity) cunter kicks in, running for another 6 months.

The predicted absence counter can be re-set after each login, and can also be set to an even longer timeout by a GM.

The notification email is something I\'m not sure of. If you send it, ppl. will reset the counter \"jiust in case\", whereas they\'d not have bothered otherwise. OTOH, I agree that ppl. may forget about PS after something took their attention long enough, and in this case the mail may come in handy.

However, since PS is free, it is in fact more sensible to be deleting accounts for inactivity. If it were P2P, then who cares if you ever play, as long as you keep paying? PS, OTOH, is donation based and therefore users should only be using resources if they\'re serious about it.

As for the names: as I have already said, and others, too, even in the final days of MB there wasn\'t any problem getting a decent RP name. As maths tells us, the addition of one single letter increases the possible combinations by a factor of 26! This means that a name length of as few as 10 characters has a (theoretical) number of combinations of 141167095653376! This can very well accommodate all the RL names, junk words and otherwise unusable names (like Aragorn), while still leaving room for plenty of names. If not, simply add another letter to multiply the number of possible combinations by another 26, there will be a name you like that is\'t taken yet!

Edit: @ Under the moon: are you seriously suggesting that taking names of someone is an RP thing?
IMNSHO, it\'s not. It\'s purely OOC. And for the locking of unique names: how many people would not lock their name? Almost noone.
Furthermore, the amoutn of \"names with numbers at the end\" IMO only shows the amount of people who are either absolutely inflexible, uncreative as hell or just lame. The names that have the numbers always are either names taken straight from movies (Aragorn, etc.) or names that can be easily obtained, like \"Dragonslayer\", which is just as lame. If someone actually cares about RP, or the char, or the name, then they will avoid the stupid numbering at all costs, even if it means they\'ll need to get another name. IMNSHO, numbering names is almost as stupid as 1337 and PK-style names. :rolleyes:

[Under the moon]

@ Seytra--> \'how many people would not lock their name?\' I would not, for one.  I have gone by the name of Darien Vahl in other games and would not hesitate to let others use Darien as a first name.  To me, it just isn\'t that big a problem.

And yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting.  If I angered the Cabal and they wished to destroy me, I would expect, no demand doppelgangers to appear and do \'evil\' in my name. That is what good RPing is to me.  Not killing rats, not powering up, not even the quests.  Role-playing is about the people, and the world they live in, and thier stories.  

But this is just my dark twisted opinion.  And I cannot force it on others.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Under the moon
And yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting.  If I angered the Cabal and they wished to destroy me, I would expect, no demand doppelgangers to appear and do \'evil\' in my name. That is what good RPing is to me.  Not killing rats, not powering up, not even the quests.  Role-playing is about the people, and the world they live in, and thier stories.  

I must disagree. The RP aspect would be to tell the other players that you\'re impersonating the one you\'re impersonating RP wise. Obviously, they need to be good RPers themselves to not simply ignore your actions.
This is because the player name is the char\'s real name. It\'s like you impersonating me IRL: you can say you are me, but your passport wouldn\'t change by that.
However, if you steal, yes, steal, the identity of someones char, then this is just OOC, not IC, because you can do quite a lot of OOC damage. You can even get them banned if you\'re clever enough.

Character name uniqueness is an OOC safety measure, impersonating has to be done on an RP-only basis.

Edit: I have come to the conclusion that I need to accept \"Thazer\" as IC name, because, after getting used to it, the RL feel is starting to vanish, proving me wrong. Please accept my apologies.

[Under the moon]

The OOC is a bit of a problem, I see that now.  But there needs to be some way to assume other\'s identities without giving away your own, with permission of course.  Maybe your assumed name could be a different color or such.  Then it would be much easier to RP a situation.  Otherwise people may forget who you are impersonating.

It could be a levelable skill, like fighting and magic.  The higher your skill, the longer your false name will last.

However, I still think duplicate names should be possible, with limitations.  If you want to use \'Darien\' as a first name, then your last name should not be remotely the same as \'Vahl\'.  Example: no \'Vhal\', \'Vahhl\', and definitly no \'\\/ah1\'

[Hurleybird]

I was able to get the first name Ares, I like the idea of having that name unique to me, and hey, its a cool name

[bbum]

uhh, is there any mmorpg in existance where more than one person can have the same name? its obviously not a problem finding a name this way.