Last names

[Karyuu]

I\'ve no idea if any MMOs out there allow same first names, but many of them have an incredibly large player base, and I don\'t think anyone has run out of names yet. Nothing to worry about.

[VMann]

Hmm, the most MMO\"RPG\" games also allow names like noodle1234, but still i think you are right that there should be enough possible good names left.

[lanser]

There have been several siblings with the same second names and of course when getting married some choose to take one of the partners surnames. So I am sure that a GM would change one for a valid reason

[Nyramael]

This would probably be a near impossible thing to pull off for awhile but essentially if your character has opted to have siblings then why can\'t other players be in-game siblings and or parents? You know what they say \'you can choose your friends, but you can\'t choose your family.\' perhaps similar things could be applied to married couples? Worse come to worse, GMs should have the power to change things, but this would certainly lead to some interesting ingame politics and broaden the RP scope. What do you think?

[Karyuu]

But other players can already be family. GMs are available at any time to change last names, provide wedding services, etc. ;)

[Araye]

Yes, Kary is right!

But Nyramael makes an interesting point in that, what if there were forced siblings/cousins and the like?

Nice thought!

************************

Hey I didn\'t say that I thought it should be implemented and I don\'t think it really could be.  I just said \"Nice thought\".

I can see it now.  

Araye is an only child and has rp\'d that way.  

PS: now you have a brother.
Araye: What?  How?
PS: your parents just had a baby named Timothy Newguy.
Araye: But my parents are dead!

Maybe Araye\'s new brother was lost at birth and raised in the wild by Ulbers?

lol

[Karyuu]

Why would we want to have automatic random family? I hate imposing on someone\'s roleplay by throwing automatics at them that normally should be chosen by the individual.

If someone wants to RP being forced into marriage, that\'s fine. However, forcing someone into one through game controls just doesn\'t fly.

[Kixie]

I think there has been a thread on this before. Basically, what it comes down to is that it\'s very hard to synchronize last names without having some sort of confusion to whether 2 people are related or not.

For now, if two players wish to become siblings or family, it can all be done with the help of a GM.  :]

[Waylander]

Somethings have to be automatic, otherwise it\'s not asmuch Roleplaying as it is Storymaking.

It would be nice to have the option to do this, such as in character creation you can have a checkoff list
[] Parents Still Alive and \"kicking\"
[] Possibility of a long lost sibling
[] Fertile

And I am sure a few others.

Would help bring newbies into the game and such.

You could have a baby and then, the next time a new players comes and checks off that they want in a family the baby will become a child....

Kixie is correct (as always ) it has been discussed before, but never really decided on.

[Karyuu]

Who will adapt to whose story? A random player comes in-game and realizes that he has parents somewhere off in another city. Meets, talks, and the parents have been around longer and already have an established story, but the \"child\" character wants his own. Conflicts follow, a big mess ensues, and at the end everyone realizes that this idea isn\'t worth it at all.

[Kixie]

Originally posted by Karyuu
Who will adapt to whose story? A random player comes in-game and realizes that he has parents somewhere off in another city. Meets, talks, and the parents have been around longer and already have an established story, but the \"child\" character wants his own. Conflicts follow, a big mess ensues, and at the end everyone realizes that this idea isn\'t worth it at all.

Actually, that part of it wouldn\'t be too hard to coordinate. I think the idea needs to be taken head on by the player, and not the devs. People should start some roleplaying communities similar to livejournal commnunities and then coordinate all this data. Then, once they have their stories, characters and plots all coinciding they should bring it to the devs.

Too much reliance taken to the developing aspect, when you guys should just be doing it yourselves.

[Waylander]

Originally posted by Karyuu
Who will adapt to whose story? A random player comes in-game and realizes that he has parents somewhere off in another city. Meets, talks, and the parents have been around longer and already have an established story, but the \"child\" character wants his own. Conflicts follow, a big mess ensues, and at the end everyone realizes that this idea isn\'t worth it at all.

Hence the ability to decide whether you want family or not.

And although this idea may not be all that good, the fact that some things should be automatic is completely valid.

[Karyuu]

I don\'t see the need to spend time and effort coding something that players should be doing themselves.

[Nyramael]

I don\'t see the need to spend time and effort coding something that players should be doing themselves.

Well true! The feature i\'m talking about is a non-essential which would be interesting perhaps after the 1.0 release.

Hence the ability to decide whether you want family or not.

and

It would be nice to have the option to do this, such as in character creation you can have a checkoff list
[] Parents Still Alive and \"kicking\"  
[] Possibility of a long lost sibling
[] Fertile

could simply replaced with [] do you want to be part of a predetermined family.

Araye is an only child and has rp\'d that way.

PS: now you have a brother.
Araye: What? How?
PS: your parents just had a baby named Timothy Newguy.
Araye: But my parents are dead!

Maybe Araye\'s new brother was lost at birth and raised in the wild by Ulbers?

Araye simply wouldn\'t say yes to the above question and if such conflict arose, a GM could easilu undo it.

The whole idea of letting the server shove people into a family is that quite rarely family\'s exist in PS! I\'ve only met one character with an in-game sibling! Really it\'s up to the dev\'s as to whether something is implementable or not. I brought the topic up to see how feasible it was in the hypothetical situation that it was implemented.

I don\'t think it would be enforcing anything on a player. It is merely there as an offer to the player if they want to take part in it. As a matter of fact, the players don\'t even need to interact, the siblings or parents could just be on the other side of the world and they\'ve lost contact since they moved apart. It would be pretty hard to stay in contact in the medieval world! Plus you could end up in a guild war and surprise surprise there\'s your brother on the other side

[Waylander]

Originally posted by Karyuu
I don\'t see the need to spend time and effort coding something that players should be doing themselves.

You can also Roleplay fighting, crafting, items, magic.  Come to think of it...we could just have a big IRC channel

I don\'t think any of us are talking about implementing it any time soon, just that for future releases we should have somethings that aren\'t controled by players.