What be thy name?

[Kiva]

This is just a suggestion. It\'s been brought up before, but it wasn\'t really discussed very well (I believe that it wasn\'t, that is), so here it is again.

Imagine that you run into someone, while travelling to some city which doesn\'t exist yet. You both stand on this road, which doesn\'t exist either, and of course you don\'t know who this is. What do you do? You run your mouse over his character, and you see who he is, right? -WRONG- That is just so not-roleplay like. If you meet someone on the streets, you don\'t know who they are, just because you wan\'t to know it, and then people can stay secret, only sharing their names with true friends. They can lie about who they are, to hide that they are actually a witch-hunter and stuff. It would be so kewl, but as far as what I know, it won\'t be a reality in game... Oh well.

[KwartzTheKran]

in later versions this would be good, atm everyone looks the same, u cant tell ur mates from jim bob the sailor \'coz everyone looks the same, but in later versions id like this ya =)

just been hit by common sense once uve met someone before then the char name should pop up like it does now because u know them, ya well though gronomist

[Kiva]

Well, there could be some feature like \"Allow this person to know your name in the future: Yes/No\". Kinda spoils the \"Hello, I\'m Blabla (that\'s not true \'cause I\'m Bleah, so I\'m lying to you)\" though, but it would be nice yes... I might even put this idea in the official idea-box thing.

[Grakrim]

Now this is a great idea.  I\'ve seen the feature a few times in the past, and how well it works is amazing.

Although, the best system I\'ve seen (but it wouldn\'t work here) is in an old sci-fi MUD, where every player recieves an ID badge.  So while you\'re wearing the badge, you\'ve opted out of the introduction system.

I think the best implementation would be a button or command used by the one who is telling their name; because if you gave the recipant the power to request, some people (griefers) would be running around requesting everyone a million times.

I\'d also like to see a command so you can tell someone else a person\'s (who is within line of sight) name.

Finally, this system would be good for NPCs, too.  Most NPCs would be more than willing to tell you their name once you speak to them; but the shadier types might not be so willing.  Imagine a quest where you must hunt down a criminal.  You narrow it down to three NPCs who refuse to give you their name.  By asking various NPCs around town, you\'ll recieve clues as to which one is the actual criminal.  Kill the criminal, and you\'ll be rewarded; kill the innocent, and, natrually, you\'ll be punished...

The only problem I see with the system is the amount of data that would have to be kept.  One bit for each player for each PC (and, if the system is implemented, each NPC).  A world in which there are 100 players would require 4.2611772808389447737789715939727e+189 GB of introduction bits (that sounds a bit much, maybe my calculation is off...)  There\'s probably a better implementation than the apparent one, probably something along the lines of RLE compression.

[Niber]

I do agree that it is not very realistic to see names of all characters you haven\'t met. But I\'m not sure I like the lieing-part. IMO this would have to be a game mechanics thing like when you say your name to someone he can then see your name over your head and some thing that make sure you don\'t lie.

[Nikech]

I like the idea. Some RPG I tried had this feature, can\'t remember the name though. When you saw a player for the first time they had an ID like 22213432, if you wanted to let someone know your name you had to type /hi Name of the other one. I also think that it could be nice if you could recognize players even though they haven\'t told you their names. The ID number could turn red or some other color when your char knows that he\'s seen the player before.

[hook]

yup, in the FUTURE, when we\'ll have different outfits and everything, this would be a GREAT feature ...i love it ...but untill we don\'t have enough things we differ in, i wouldn\'t like it
...but as i said, when we get more different in game, i\'d LOVE this feature

oh, and i wouldn\'t use the numbers, i\'d use something like \"stranger\" or even descriptions. ...user numbers spoil the fun, and should be used IMO only at the point when we\'d get a player that won\'t introduce himself to anyone and would cause havoc, so we could eliminate him from the game by the number ...but that\'s a scenario i hope will never come true

[paxx]

Ya, we can have everyone have a different stance, and everyone?s gait. Not to mention millions of different font?s or voice variations.


The only way to allow that your name not be unique and not so obvious is to have other unique traits. I am not saying that they all have to be unique, but there has to be billions of trait combinations.

And that I am afraid we will not have in this game.

[shangralah]

I agree there wont be enough traits for a long time to rp like this but in another way i would like people not knowing my name unless they asked me.    IM SO CONFUSED :evil:

[Altharion]

i think thats a great idea

so take away the mouse so you can see theyre name and that it would be more realistic so you have to ask someone.

[Xandria]

Originally posted by Grakrim
One bit for each player for each PC (and, if the system is implemented, each NPC).  A world in which there are 100 players would require 4.2611772808389447737789715939727e+189 GB of introduction bits (that sounds a bit much, maybe my calculation is off...)

Lol, my answer is quite smaller than yours:

100 players: each player can be represented (internally) by a number between 0-255 (1 byte)

Then if every character in the game knew every other character in the game, then each character would be storing 99 bytes of information.

99 * 100 = 9,900 bytes = 9.9 kB

A more realistic example:

10,000 players: each player can be uniquely identified by a number between 0-65536 (4 bytes)

Then say, every character in the game knows 1,000 other characters, then that would be 4,000 bytes of information.

10,000 * 4,000 = 40,000,000 bytes = 40 MB

Which is not a whole heck of a lot of space.


The only way I can see how you came up with that number is if you did something like 100!, which is what I initially tried.

[derwoodly]

Blah, I don\'t like it.

You need names either above the heads or when you wave the mouse over them.  Having a bunch of numbers over your head is not \"realistic\" either.
The are a number of things that are not realistic in a MMORPG.  Being telepathically connected to all of your guildmates is not realistic, but it is essential in a MMORPG.  

The other alternative, making everyone anynomus untill you greet them, invites abuses beyond toleration.  Even with no PvP and names above everyones heads there will still be griefers.

What do you think you will see on the screen?

player 001234 say\'s: Do you want to hunt skellys?
player 004567 say\'s: I don\'t even know you why would I hunt with you?
player 001234 say\'s: My name is Dathmall, what is yours?
player 004567 say\'s: My name is Derwood, glad to meet you Dathmall

This will get very old very fast!

[Kiva]

Then you can just stick with the friends that you know, instead of having to hunt skellies with random people. Random people might just turn out to be drop-stealers who don\'t care about if it was he or you who killed the skellie, which dropped the Auto-Smack-Whack-Maul-Of-Destruction +11... Friends wouldn\'t do that.

[derwoodly]

Originally posted by Xandria

Lol, my answer is quite smaller than yours:

100 players: each player can be represented (internally) by a number between 0-255 (1 byte)

Then if every character in the game knew every other character in the game, then each character would be storing 99 bytes of information.

99 * 100 = 9,900 bytes = 9.9 kB

A more realistic example:

10,000 players: each player can be uniquely identified by a number between 0-65536 (4 bytes)

Then say, every character in the game knows 1,000 other characters, then that would be 4,000 bytes of information.

10,000 * 4,000 = 40,000,000 bytes = 40 MB

Which is not a whole heck of a lot of space.


The only way I can see how you came up with that number is if you did something like 100!, which is what I initially tried.

I don\'t think that is quite right.
If you have 65,000 players on a server then you could have one byte of data for each player and it would take 65,000 bytes (64K in computer speak).  However one byte is not enough.  What you want to store is the name of the player and wheather or not you know them.
If I allow for a name to be 31 characters long and one byte for a flag, then I will need 2048K, or 2MB.

I don\'t think it would change the game engine to display numbers instead of names.  The whole table might already exist anyways.

[derwoodly]

Please don\'t think that last post means that I like the idea.  The game graphics are good, but they are not good enough so I can tell two people apart, and I do not want to see a number every time someone I do not know says something.

007890 shouts: WTS-- ASWMoD only 1,000,000 triads!

I much rather see

Gronomist shouts: WTS-- ASWMoD only 1,000,000 t!