idea for name displays in-game

[Kiern]

Originally posted by BaretteDeBeurre
yeah but do PS designers read them? Do the ideas launched in these forums serve to anything, or are they only words of hope launched by waiting PS future players?.

YES they read them, who do you think all those people with the blue stars are?

lets see theres vengeance, kendaro, parasite, acraig, boonet, etc. etc. who read the boards...the devs really want your input

[Vengeance]

Yes we do want your input.

Yes we do read your posts.

As for me personally, I just don\'t feel like a large percentage of the posts require my answering them.  I like to see what the fans come up with as solutions to their own problems.  It is also fun to see how some of the posters are getting better at anticipating how ideas would cause imbalance or other \"bad\" things unless they were tweaked and modified.

That being said, I really don\'t think this system of introductions is even technically possible.  Right now, on our dinky little Atomic Blue server, we have more than 10,000 registered accounts.  (And THAT is after acraig accidentally wiped out the database about 2 months ago. :-)

Now to do the schemes you guys want to do, we would have to track which of 10,000 knew which of the other 10,000.  This is 100,000,000 possible facts for the system to track, JUST for this dinky feature.  Is that worth it?

- Venge

[BaretteDeBeurre]

8o sorry didn\'t know you were reading our posts(where\'s the blue star, didn\'t see it) and thanks, then. I didn\'t know how to help for the creation of this game, as i can do nothing else than play. Now i feel like i\'m helping a little, and that\'s better than feeling helpless.

[Link]

Venge gets red stars because he is a Admin.

[bbum]

how about you click on them and it shows you just click on them and it shows you there name?

if you havent done the introductory thing it could say somthing like A male xacha.

[Fiere]

Sounds good bbum but according to what Venge is saying its too complicated to manage in any method at least for now.

[Aduin]

Wow, definately didn\'t think about that one Vengeance. I considered game balance as being an issue but I totally forgot about the raw programming and such behind it.

[Aruneko]

Ok, never mind I guess.  But it was a good idea, lets keep it in mind.

[Aduin]

I don\'t know much of programing Vengeance, but would it be possible to locally store who knows who? So that as someone is introduced to you, it logs it on your own computer, so the system doesn\'t have to track each of those 100,000,000 combinations?

[Princess Aelya]

your right venge. but remember that all the ideas on the wish list are not neccesarily expected anytime soon. if this idea is ever implemented i would expect it in the far far future.

its just that i think that no matter how difficult something is to program, it should be considered if it is a good idea. and everyone understands a system like this would not come for a long long tme.

[Fiere]

Yes, we certainly don\'t expect all our ideas to be implemented and certainly not all the ones that are right away. It would be a nice once to keep in mind.

Maybe the file containing all the names one has been introduced to could be kept on client side? I don\'t even know if that would help reduce the complexity but it could be simply a function that made a players existing name appear after introduction and then the name would be stored in the player-character file. Again I know nothing about programming.

[Abemore]

It\'s not that it\'s difficult to program.  It seems quite simple actually.  The only problem here is the potentially massive size of the database.  

I still feel this feature must be in the game.

Each player, when they register, is given (or chooses) a unique screen name, and if I remember correctly they are also assigned (in the database) a unique user number.  So, it is conceivable for each character to have a section in the database called \"Recognized players\" or something where unique names or unique numbers of players are stored.  During the lifetime of a player, is it possible that he/she will meet 1,000 players?  more?  I don\'t know how many a typical player would meet, but the question is: is the database space worth it?

If not, Fiere suggested a perfectly reasonable solution.  Storing the list of names client side.  How many people play a MMORPG from different PC\'s at different times anyway?  Everyone always plays from the same machine.  And people are used to single player games storing their saved games and such on their harddrive, so why can\'t we simply tell them that their characters \"memory\" is stored on their harddrive.  This might also give people the ability to edit who they want to recognize and who they don\'t.  If you must move to a different PC, don\'t forget to take your characters memory with you.  We should use client side storage to it\'s fullest.  Buddy lists should be stored there as well.  Why store anything unnecessary in the servers database?

So now, when another player character is close enough where you should see their name, the client will either (1) check the \"Recognized Players\" database on the server, or (2) check it\'s internal recognized players list/database, and if the player is listed there, then the name shows.  No name in the list -> no name in the game.

Option (2) seems like the clear winner to me.

[Yann]

This is a GREAT thread ! I don\'t know how i could have missed it...

I hope that people won\'t be able to see every name like that. The permission thing should do fine.
And you should even be able to give a false name. ( Rogue guild, remember ?   )

[jonmack]

Indeed a great thread, and a great subject.  I would love to see a system like this where you know only people you have properly met.

\"Storing the list of names client side.\"

You said it yourself later, it could be easily edited. What\'s to stop me from editing the file with a list of numbers (which correspond to each player in the database, like you said) from 1 - 1,000,000 or whatever? Then I can know the names of everyone whether they like it or not.  It is an essential part of multiplayer games to not let the client tell the server data like this.  Would you store the amount of gold or skill levels client side too?! No way! There (unfortunately) will always be people who will misuse things like that. Unless... just thought of something... they had you on their file too. it would only go wrong if everyone did the hack, and I hope that most people wouldn\'t.

I personally hate things like names floating above heads, and speech bubbles and the like.  But there should be some sort of display for those of us who are rubbish at remembering names (Not to mention they\'re extraordinary fantasy names) Like, if you\'ve met the person and they\'ve told you their name, mouse-over their player would reveal there name to make sure.

Although I would dearly love to see this naming system work, how about a simpler one.  Not quite as good, but very simple to have, and a little extra freedom for espionage and such...  an option whether to display your name or not.  So if you want to walk down the street undercover, you turn your name off, and if you\'re not, you display it.  Not perfect, or anywhere near as robust, I know, but it\'s just a simple on-off variable.

As for false names.  Sounds really good, but poeple going round impersonating other people or having aliases would get a bit too complicated!!

Definately a discussion to keep alive.

[Kiva]

Ahem! *Clears her throat* .. Old thread, but I\'ll reply anyways...

As Venge said, it takes up space in the DB. As the players said, we can just store the names locally... The problem still is, 1) Anything stored locally can be modified (haxxed) and 2) If ~100.000 players have to ask the server if they know any of the other ~100.000 players each time they see someone, it would cause massive amounts of traffic, which is bad. VERY bad. I don\'t know how much space a couple of packets take, but I definitely know that if ~100.000 people regularly ask and send the server packets as they encounter new players, it\'s one big amount of useless packets.