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Feature that would make naming policy obselete
Slowpacedplayer
Member CommonPosts: 20
I have an idea for a naming feature that could work both in sandbox and themepark. Though sandbox players would perhaps be more welcoming to it.
The problems with name choosing is not which names get chosen, but that they are shown to other players. I 'd suggest that all player-characters would get an automatic character ID at creation, that would consist of numbers and letters. So not really a name just an ID, for security reasons and logging and so on.
You could even do this to NPC characters and creatures, it would fit very wel in sandbox games and games focusing on exploring and discovering the gameworld.
Character ID, wether player or NPC, would be something like:
af26477i
3rr8ttn
39nneu
And so on, these are of course useless as actual names, because they're not really names and it's difficult to remember them. Which might be important if you're going to report a player i.e., or see who attacked you in PvP, or generally remember who you talked to. The good thing about them is that they aren't offensive, there is no sexual, homophobic, racial, religious, impersonating, offensive names a.s.o. as many naming policies forbid.
Instead of using these as names, the player could have the option of marking these ID with a name or description of their own choosing, which only they would see:
af26477i is marked as "James"
3rr8ttn is marked as "nice person"
39nneu is marked as "Lisa"
These are marks that only the player that tagged those ID's will see, and other players will have to mark them their own way. You could of course mark the ID with anything, because other players wouldn't see it anyway. It makes for very realistic roleplay setting, where you don't really know the name of the other player character and they actually have to introduce themselves if you want to know what name that player wants their character to be known as.
You could also do this with NPC's, and they could be called whatever you identify them as, perhaps if they have important goods that they are selling, or selling specific things, or giving certain quests and so on. You could at all times see all the character ID's, but as long as you've marked them as something specific, you'd see that first.
NPC creatures that would respawn that had the exact same properties would have the same character, or creature, ID. So even if one died and respawned you'd still see the name/description you chose for it.
Edit: I forgot to say that you could also have an option of this, both for player-character ID's and NPC ID's:
just like in a chat with language filter, you can have the option of turning on or off playermade names for their characters. So if you chose to see playermade names, you would see the names that other characters put on their own character. if you didn't want to see it, you could just turn it off, and you'd only see the character ID, and could mark it any way you want.
You could also chose wether you wanted your own chosen name for youre own character to be publicly visible. If you chose not to make it public, other players would only see the character ID of your character, and they'd have to name it themselves for themselves if they wanted to.
You could have the same option for NPC's: to see names that the game developers chose or just a character ID, that you can name/mark as anything of your own choosing.
Comments
so you have to "choose" (or mark) a name for everyone you meet? Wouldn't that be a bit cumbersome?
I understand the core idea is that the name space your work on is your own .. so that collision (duplicating name) is not possible That is not a bad idea, except you need some mechanism to do some of it automatically.
The default would be the character ID, that would be set by the server. that would be a letter/name combination like: e3jjntq
that's the default, that's what everyone gets. but you could mark that ID with a name of your own choosing. so when you meet another player character you could name him/her whatever you want.
As an alternative, everyone could chose a name for their own character, basically like we do today, but the caracter ID would still be the basic default. Then you could choose to show the basic default of others, which you could then mark with a name/description which only you would see, or you could switch to show the name that the other player actually chose for their own character.
its kinda the function of like a language filter in a chat, the filter stops all offensive words, but you can turn it on and off.
the core idea is not to have to deal with naming policy, that's one less things for GM's and companies to deal with, and it gives more of a roleplay feel, because when you meet people in real life you might not really know their name until they present themselves and tell you their name.
There could be duplication of names actually because the character ID would be what mattered as far as logging of actions is concerned, so different player characters could have the same name, but the char ID would allways be different for each different character.
The automatic part comes from the server giving the basic "name" which is just for logging events sort of.
i agreee that it would be more work for players to write names themselves, but usually you don't have to write the names of all characters you meet, an you culd also turn on the function to see what the player called their own character. But since you can turn it on and off it's your own choice and there doesn't need to be a naming policy.
I don't know if this explained it better? just ask if you got any questions, this is just a suggestion though. Thanks for the reply btw
Edit : basically with this you have 3 options:
Option 1: show only character ID, this show only the computer made random letter/number combination the server chose. this follows the character and can only be deleted if the character is deleted.
Option 2: mark and show your own decided names for the characters, this is where you can write your own name or description for that character - it shows you your chosen name for other players characters.
Option 3: show the name that the actual owner of that character chose for their own character - This is the system we have today, other players choose their name on their own character, and you see it wether you like their name or not.
option 3 would be like turning the language filter in a chat to off -position
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To expand on that, since most would hate that. My idea is computer generated names, but allow players to create a nickname. But the option to see the nickname would have to chosen in settings and both parties have "friend" each other. So strangers when viewed would have a computer generated name.
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Agreed. A naming system like that might work in a game that has gold farmers as their target audience, but... yeah. I'm not seeing this have any appeal to players. Well, if anything, it would be the first MMO server since UO to NOT have a DeeZ NuTZ, Raistlin, or Legolas on it.
Correct: DAoC's Guinevere saw nary a Deez Nutz, although one did sneak by on Perc despite the naming restrictions.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
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But that's not the only option though, the nonimmersive tag would be just for practical security/log reasons,
the actual name shown would be either chosen by you or by choosing to show the name the player chose for the character (like we see the names today, except wihtout the naming policy)
Actually you can do that in Anarchy Online, when you make a character you choose a nickname for it, then inside the game there is a name generator. Or it used to be anyway, I haven't played it in awhile.
There you can get your characters real name, which is computer generated, and the nickname which you made is placed between the firstname and the surname. I think the name generator is located in the old backyard in the old starting areas of the three classic factions.
In a game using that system, how would we tell our friend that a third person is a trustworthy crafter and can probably make the item he's looking for.
We couldn't obviously use the nickname we've attached to that third person, because it would mean nothing to the other player who's never met him and couldn't use the nickname we've assigned him to contact him.
Wouldn't we just be reduced to telling our friend how af26477i is good crafter?
Yes there is that, but you could also turn on the option to see what that good crafters name chosen by the player that owns it is. So character af26477i has a character name chosen by the player who plays it as.... well whatever he/she chose to call it. So you could either say the char ID or the player name.
But you could also have the character ID itself a name, i.e. James2134
That is still a combination of numbers and letters, but it's computergenerated. I didn't mention it partly because i didn't want to make more confusion ^^
But that is another option one could have: have the server make a computer generated name that is male/female based on their character gender, or on what the player wanted. I.e. if it's a girl she could choose to have a female character ID, like Lisa235. To the computer it doesn't matter ofc, it's still a combo of numbers and letters which is enough for logging. The point of it is that the players doesn't have to see any names breaking the rules.
Oh .. I just came up with a simpler solution!
Just use the current naming policy and have admins moderate the names chosen. AKA, have rules for the names a person can choose. If they choose something against the rules, they can be reported by a player.
To me that is much easier and makes a whole lot more sense. There is no reason to get so complicated over names.
With that said, and ID system would be great if you want people to be able to choose the same names. You could have two friends named Jack as an example. This would prevent people from having to use numbers. If you need to contact a specific Jack in game, you would be able to click on that persons character and get their character ID in the information window.
I know Minecraft is working on a similar system, but they will not allow people to choose same names still.