Characters unique identification, recognition(labels with a twist or 2

[TiagoTiago]

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

[Seytra]

Interesting idea. However, I see five issues:

What happens to text that is spoken and that needs to appear in the chat box? The text needs to be clearly and unmistakingly identified with the character that is talking.

The cryptic / bitmap representation is a lot harder to process than is a cleartext name tag. At this time, the name tags vary in size due to a misfeature, resulting in most being almost unreadable, but that will hopefully get removed soon. It will be a lot harder to become familiar with a random set of alphanumeric code or a random bitmap than a name.

Immersion is hurt a lot more by having everyone walk around with a badge that is so clearly modern-day computer data representation than the mild lack of realism that is having a name float abve one\'s head. A RPer will simply RP to not know the name until introduced.

Communication: With this system, there would be absolutely no way of communicating to someone unknown. /auction and /shout would be more or less unusable, even if the help channel would display cleartext names. It would also be impossible to directly adress someone without having been introduced. This happens a lot, like \"/me looks at \". Even without being introduced, there are valid uses for the names. This system would introduce a lot of unnecessary overhead for introducing for the system\'s sake each time someone new appears.

Spotting bad names would be much harder. While this might at first seem like an advantage, because due to this bad names can\'t hurt immersion so easily, it in reality is a drawback, because without players spotting and reporting bad names, the entire burden would fall to the GMs, which is wrong both for their low number and the generation of the feeling that the community isn\'t supposed to police itself as good as possible, while the exact opposite should be the case.

So I don\'t think that this system adresses the issue, sadly.

[TiagoTiago]

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

[Shadowfalcon]

The problem I see with the graphical icons is that only about 65536 unique badges could be generated (depending on the color depth of the badges, I used 8-bit to calculate, and of course badge size, 16x16.) Larger icons could of course increase this number, but every badge would still be a random asortment of pixels, almost imposible to distinguish. I feel the same problem exhists in your tinting idea. Only a few distinguishable variations could be created with a computers moniter, and wouldnt be of much use. Not to mention its really not useful for us color impaired people. I did however like your idea of using an md5 sum. A possible sollution that I see is to create a unique number for every user, like you said, then store that number in a list of users you\'ve interacted with, talked to, traded with, or fought. Then next time you ever come in contact with that person, talk to or mouse over, you see icon above their head. Your z-buffer idea would also add a lot to that. Hope you like my ideas!

[Seytra]

Originally posted by TiagoTiago
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 (...) 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

Seriously, you are proposing to replace the easily usable system of names with a highly cumbersome, counterintuitive and generally hard to use system that offers absolutely no benefit at all.
I really don\'t see having to use a bunch of text commands breaking immersion less than OOC-ly knowing a name that I IC-ly don\'t know.
Not to mention that it would make identifying a person that you are being told about absolutely impossible. ATM, you use \"/me describes \", especially if doesn\'t have a char description. With your system, there would be no possibility to do that.
Also, how would your text commands keep track of who you truly wish to address? Do you have to remember the sequence in which people attacked you?
Also, the text commands severely slow down interaction, which is a really bad thing.
What about reporting offensive behaviour, like spamming, trolling, etc.?
Also, there still is no workaround for the issue of interacting with unknown people (/me looks at still is impossible, for example), or for relating logged conversations to them.

Originally posted by TiagoTiago
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

How are you going to distinguish the individuals when there is no direct comparison available, but the difference in tint is only minor?
Also, this now depends on the screen, so if I change that, suddenly people will be unrecognisable.
Furthermore, this tinting would likely be even less in line with the actual char\'s description / look than the uniform skins are.

Originally posted by Shadowfalcon
A possible sollution that I see is to create a unique number for every user, like you said, then store that number in a list of users you\'ve interacted with, talked to, traded with, or fought. Then next time you ever come in contact with that person, talk to or mouse over, you see icon above their head

Seriously, this is just trying to exchange the name with a hash of whatever sort. It would certainly not add to realism at all, it would make things more cumbersome and less easy usable, force the user to do even more unnatural processing (text / numbers / bitmaps), and emphasize the artificial nature of PS instead of hiding it. Overall it would mean a grave decrease in usability of the interface, add a lot of overhead and in general reduce ability and willingness to interact with unknown people, not to mention putting newbies in an even less familiar territory, especially when they are not computer-inclined (the latter isn\'t an issue ATM, but will be when PS surpasses tech demo state).

[TiagoTiago]

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