Feyshtey said:
...but there was a suggestion about having to talk to someone to learn their name.
I made a passing comment in the UI thread about Player names being revealed only after interaction with that player. I wanted to make a seperate post about this idea so as not to take the UI thread off message.
When a player first enters Terminus, they have a severe lack of knowledge of their surroundings. The idea is that player names are also a part of that lack of knowledge. When you first venture into the world, no names will be floating overhead. The simple way to learn a players name is to exchange "Hails". Target the player and "Stranger" shows in your target window. When hails are exchanged while both players are targeting each other, then the names are revealed (and a lifelong friendship ensues). Then theres the Group Reveal. When you join a group with "strangers", then all names will be revealed. And the same goes for Guilds. When you join a guild, everyone that carries that guildtag will be revealed (This will cover a lot of alts). If a couple guilds decide to form an alliance, then all names of both guilds will be revealed to each other.
Now, a player can't possibly "Hail" or group with every player out there. And many people may refuse Hails. So how do you learn names of the never encountered, the recluse, or those "too good" to exchange a simple Hail?
The Registry:
Every player will need to join a registry to gain access to certain benefits of a city. The first is The Class Guild Registry. Cleric, Warrior, Shaman, Druid, etc etc. In order to train or buy spells, you must register with your class guild. This registry is only city based. If a dwarf warrior wants to train in Thronefest, then he must register with the Thronefest Warrior guild. (The rogue class could be unique in this manor. Rogues, being the secretive, deceptive, lowlife scum that they are, would not have a formal registry which would possibly reveal the names of the Thieve's Guild to the city authoritiy). The second registry would be The City Register. If you want to use the bank or postal services of a city, you must first sign the City Registry. Every city would have their own registry.
Both these registries would be available to anyone (faction permitting) to view. So, if you're visiting Halflingtown, you can swing by the druid guild and access the registry. Then the names of everyone that has registered with that guild will now appear to you if you encounter them in the world. If someone registers after you viewed the registry, there name will not appear to you. (Registry viewing, could be an additional way of keeping starting cities alive and active.)
Status, Fame and Infamy:
Name reveals can also happen thru acts of heroism, villiany, or high accomplishments.
Villians: Suppose Billy Thekid goes about killing city guards? His name goes on a Most Wanted poster in the city. The Most Wanted's name will be revealed to everyone that is registered with that city.
Heros: Perhaps a quest line could grant you Hero status. Say Samwise throws that ring into a lavapit. He becomes the most heralded halfling across the land, so his name is revealed to everyone across the land.
Status: If you reach grandmaster status in a trade, you're name becomes reknowned. Jared finally mastered the jewelcrafting business and his wears are known throughout Terminus. "Dude, whered you get those earrings?", "I went to Jared."
What will /who reveal?
If you /who and there are people you dont know they will apear like this:
Stranger- Human Cleric 24
I justify the reveal of the class and race because that can generally be learned by seeing the player. Level cant be determined by site, but....well.... I'd show it for grouping reasons
Can you share your name knowledge with others?
If you and your buddy are out adventuring, and you come across a player that is a "stranger" to you, but known to your buddy, and the "stranger" refuses your hail, then your buddy can target the "stranger" and Hail. If you Hail a person you already know, the hail will read out "Hail ". Anyone within "earshot" will now know the name of the "stranger".
Feyshtey said:
With no nameplates, how do you handle the inevitable jerks? How do you know who just trained you? How do you talk about that person, and how does that person's bad reputation create issues for him? How do you report people you suspect of botting or exploiting?
I don't have a great answer for this. But with the registries, you can learn the name of just about every player out there. It might take some effort but it can be done. And with that ability, the inevitable jerk has to be concerned that any single player around them knows there name. And if you see a "Stranger" lurking about, and he doesnt respond to Hails, then you can throw out a zonewide query. "Anyone know this dude standing at the zoneline? He's a stranger to me and won't respond to hails." If someone knows him, he can Hail and Reveal.
And maybe, if the jerk is caught just one time, and is reported to the GMs, and said GM verifies the offense, then the player earns Villian Status, and her name is revealed serverwide.
Why have this feature in the first place?
I think it could encourage socializing at the lower levels. I think it could help keep cities active as players return again and again to update there registries. I think it could help develop a few different playstyles. The Social Butterfly will try and befriend and learn everyones name. The recluse can try and minimize his contact with the outside world, maybe registering at only one city and one class guild. It would make for a unique challenge, being able to bank and train in only one city. I think it would display how large the world can be. When you hit 50 and you still see "strangers" in the top tier dungeons, will you be driven to meet them?
Anyway, its just a idea. I thought it could make for interesting situations and interactions.
My initial reaction was negative, but the more I think about this the more I like the concept. I like the idea of wanted posters revealing a name to everybody who sees them, and I like the idea of illusions or disguises having a chance to conceal your identity with success based on perception.
I do like the idea of 'discovering' the identity of other players as well as mobs after interaction or some other way of gaining that knowledge.
I do however wonder how it would work with general chat. I'm assuming there will be some form of region chat ingame, it would look strange and be rather awkard seeing a chat channel like this:
Stranger: Hey, anyone want to group up?
Stranger: Yea sure, I'm keen
Stranger: Me too!
Stranger: Awesome, now who are you all?
I'm fine with this being on its own server. I do NOT want to play that way. I cannot imagine anyone who ever played EQ originally wanting to play this way.
The problems with this as I see it are:
1. You will be able to train people in Pantheon. People training other players will be able to remain anonymous under your system, without having committed "villiany" because they've done nothing to NPCs and nothing game-flagging to other players. If you DO get trained, the only thing you can tell the GM is, "Stranger trained us repeatedly." Your idea will create a genuine protection for griefers.
2. People as a general rule are uncomfortable with people they don't know. By already knowing their name, a big part of the "I don't know you" is removed. You think that it would create more interaction, but that's because you think that everyone is like you and is curious or will be driven to uncover all names. Psychology shows us that most people do NOT want to approach strangers, however.
3. How are you going to enforce "you can't hunt around these parts until you register"? There will be many people out hunting who aren't registered, because griefing is a popular thing with a certain gamer mindset. Once it becomes known that you can go on Pantheon and grief people and nobody will ever know your name unless you tell it or you get caught, it will become a passtime. I vote 'no thanks'.
4. Registries sound annoying to me. Having to go 'register' every time I want to bank feels like 1984. I already have to "get my papers" and "carry my papers [driver's license]" in real life. I don't like it here, either.
5. Being able to see a person's name immediately actually facilitates communication. When I know a person's name, I can, a. refer to him in chat; b. send her a tell; c. gain a few insights immediately (I'm unlikely to group with someone named Ikill Yoonow). There are far more benefits to communication from already having this vital information. I can't frankly see any benefits to not having it, personally.
6. Reputation is going to matter in this game. You can't GET a reputation from "nobody knows your name". The most important reputation is going to be the negative reputation, and it's the griefers that your system will best protect, which are also the people the player base will most want to KNOW ABOUT in order to avoid.
In summary, this system is onerous on the positive players and protective of the griefers. I think it's a great idea, as far as creativity and cleverness goes. You have every reason to be pleased with your creativity and I believe all ideas are useful for some reason--even if only to bring more into focus why you DO do some things.
I simply cannot get behind this one for myself. If such a server were made, I would not want to be involved in it. I want to KNOW who just trained me so I can make sure all of my friends also know and give him or her the appropriate wide berth and never group that person. That's the bottom line for me--without griefer's names, we can't avoid them; and I DO want to avoid them.
Amris said:I'm fine with this being on its own server. I do NOT want to play that way. I cannot imagine anyone who ever played EQ originally wanting to play this way.
The problems with this as I see it are:
1. You will be able to train people in Pantheon. People training other players will be able to remain anonymous under your system, without having committed "villiany" because they've done nothing to NPCs and nothing game-flagging to other players. If you DO get trained, the only thing you can tell the GM is, "Stranger trained us repeatedly." Your idea will create a genuine protection for griefers.
2. People as a general rule are uncomfortable with people they don't know. By already knowing their name, a big part of the "I don't know you" is removed. You think that it would create more interaction, but that's because you think that everyone is like you and is curious or will be driven to uncover all names. Psychology shows us that most people do NOT want to approach strangers, however.
3. How are you going to enforce "you can't hunt around these parts until you register"? There will be many people out hunting who aren't registered, because griefing is a popular thing with a certain gamer mindset. Once it becomes known that you can go on Pantheon and grief people and nobody will ever know your name unless you tell it or you get caught, it will become a passtime. I vote 'no thanks'.
4. Registries sound annoying to me. Having to go 'register' every time I want to bank feels like 1984. I already have to "get my papers" and "carry my papers [driver's license]" in real life. I don't like it here, either.
5. Being able to see a person's name immediately actually facilitates communication. When I know a person's name, I can, a. refer to him in chat; b. send her a tell; c. gain a few insights immediately (I'm unlikely to group with someone named Ikill Yoonow). There are far more benefits to communication from already having this vital information. I can't frankly see any benefits to not having it, personally.
6. Reputation is going to matter in this game. You can't GET a reputation from "nobody knows your name". The most important reputation is going to be the negative reputation, and it's the griefers that your system will best protect, which are also the people the player base will most want to KNOW ABOUT in order to avoid.
In summary, this system is onerous on the positive players and protective of the griefers. I think it's a great idea, as far as creativity and cleverness goes. You have every reason to be pleased with your creativity and I believe all ideas are useful for some reason--even if only to bring more into focus why you DO do some things.
I simply cannot get behind this one for myself. If such a server were made, I would not want to be involved in it. I want to KNOW who just trained me so I can make sure all of my friends also know and give him or her the appropriate wide berth and never group that person. That's the bottom line for me--without griefer's names, we can't avoid them; and I DO want to avoid them.
I played EQ from way back in the day...and by that I mean before the new century.
I actually like this idea, there is no reason that I should know the name of someone AND what ever title they may have AND what ever guild they are associated with just because they ran past me. Hopefully there is no general or worldwide chat (apart for guild and group). If youre in a zone and you do a LFG it should look something like /Stranger 21 Cleric LFG pst. Then if someone wants to send you a tell they can just click your name which will open the /tell channel...once you join the group your name is revealed to all your group mates and from there on out you can see that persons name instead of 'Stranger"
90% of the times I got trained I had no clue who it was, usually it was just a nameless toon running by that you didnt even pay attention to, then the mobs hit but the toon is already gone. I do agree there would need to be protect people from unknowns griefing. But thats for the more smarter people to figure out :)
I don't know why EQ players would automatically hate it. It's basically a more advanced/complicated version of /anon. I'm not sure about the registries and all that stuff, but I like the idea of not automatically knowing everything about a character. You'd just have to figure out a way to prevent this from being used by griefers to avoid bad reputation. Unfortunately, I imagine that will be quite difficult.
I don't mind a more advanced anon. I do mind not knowing even so much as a person's name. Maybe you didn't get griefed as often as I did, lol. When I, as a cleric, waited and waited patiently for a spawn and them some necro came in and KSed me in a single spell after I'd spent 20 minutes trying to beat the mob down with my exceptional cleric DPS, then two days later applied to my guild... I took great satisfaction in saying, "Him or me."
Being a great group cleric meant that I didn't often have to camp things alone, but when I did, I could not hold my own against KSers in any way. My only retribution for the rampant disrespect of me as a weaker character in solo was to use their name to remember them and deny them rezes or deny them entry into guild.
If reputation really matters, then you need to know their name to enforce it.
This is brought up on every new/developing MMO forums. Every one that I've ever seen has something similar, and very little comes of it due to practical implementation issues.
In EQ1 today, you can '/shownames off' and you don't see names until someone speaks, or you target them. It's a client side option.
You need to know who someone is to invite them, unless groups are 'soft' , like Warhammer Online public quests. If you were near each other, and all contributed to the event, you all got rewards and XP. You didn't need to be in a group with fixed limits. You didn't need to know those character names. So, it can work in the casual social sense, but I'm not convinced that's part of the current design goals for Pantheon. They seem to want reputation to matter a great deal.
Personally, I would much rather see access to chat channels like ooc, auction and shout require both levels and quests be completed, outside the free trial server/area. Even just " go see each of these NPC guild representatives in this particular kingdom to unlock these channels ", that would be of value. You could even make it so it would be trivial to read/listen but require an additional step/quest (meet the guild leader instead of the guild public representative) to write/speak. This type of thing could be tied into the faction system, and add a real sense of "belonging" once achieved. For some races, getting to the point where you could hail each of these NPC guild representatives may require completing many other quests and tasks, or even slaughtering dozens, hundreds, or thousands of enemies of that kingdom, before they trust you enough.
Or they could just level restrict them or make them globally accessible, but that's neither innovative nor challenging. :)
vjek said:Personally, I would much rather see access to chat channels like ooc, auction and shout require both levels and quests be completed, outside the free trial server/area. Even just " go see each of these NPC guild representatives in this particular kingdom to unlock these channels ", that would be of value. You could even make it so it would be trivial to read/listen but require an additional step/quest (meet the guild leader instead of the guild public representative) to write/speak. This type of thing could be tied into the faction system, and add a real sense of "belonging" once achieved. For some races, getting to the point where you could hail each of these NPC guild representatives may require completing many other quests and tasks, or even slaughtering dozens, hundreds, or thousands of enemies of that kingdom, before they trust you enough.
Or they could just level restrict them or make them globally accessible, but that's neither innovative nor challenging. :)
Please no. I play MMOs to be social. I want to jump in with both feet from the beginning, not be ostracized and alone until I meet some arbitrary criteria.
While this might cut down significantly on spammers, it would not make people feel welcome to the game, but rather like they are being shut out of something and cut off from "the cool kids".
Amris said:... Please no. I play MMOs to be social. I want to jump in with both feet from the beginning, not be ostracized and alone until I meet some arbitrary criteria.While this might cut down significantly on spammers, it would not make people feel welcome to the game, but rather like they are being shut out of something and cut off from "the cool kids".
It would make people perfectly welcome if they didn't have to do anything in their starting zones. It would be no different, at all, compared to every other similar MMO (except those with kingdom PvP / RvR ) until you wanted to become trusted in another kingdom.
But fair enough, Amris, I'll put you down for the non-challenging, non-innovative column, on this particular theorycrafting exercise. ;)
I praise the outside of the box thinking here but I don't think this really belongs in a game designed to be highly social. Also as others have pointed out it has the downside of being highly abusive. I could make a monk strictly for the purpose of harassing people and no one would know who I was.
vjek said:It would make people perfectly welcome if they didn't have to do anything in their starting zones. It would be no different, at all, compared to every other similar MMO (except those with kingdom PvP / RvR ) until you wanted to become trusted in another kingdom.But fair enough, Amris, I'll put you down for the non-challenging, non-innovative column, on this particular theorycrafting exercise. ;)
Won't be my first list.
Put me on the:
--I don't want language lock-outs over faction lines, either list.
--I don't want instances list.
--I don't want phasing list.
--I don't want to be locked out of groups because I missed a raid list.
--I don't want solo to be more effective than grouping list.
--I don't want multiple guilds list.
The list of lists is so long that I fear I might have lost the list (and nothing is worse than losing the list!).
I think you could deal with the abusers. You could use the perception system. If an anonymous stranger was behaving badly then a player could use their perception to create a "sketch" of the abusive player. Higher perception would result in a more accurate sketch. Disguises, illusions, etc. could make the process harder by requiring more perception to get an accurate sketch. Spells could make it easier. You could "show" the sketch to other players and, if they knew who the character was, learn the name. You could pay NPCs to reveal the identity of a sketch if you had enough reputation with them. You could even go post that sketch - maybe in your class' guild hall - and then anybody who saw it and knew that player's identity could tag it with that player’s name.
These systems and tools would allow for interesting emergent gameplay. For example, information brokers could be a thing. New players could be hired by richer players to take a sketch and run around a city looking for clues. Corrupt guild NPCs could be paid-off to reveal the identity of a sketch.
There's even a good chance this whole thing would be more social, because people would have to talk to eachother to figure out who these abusive players are.
Complex? Certainly. Fun? Maybe. Intriguing? Definitely.
Put me in the "no thanks" column.
I personally am less likely to start conversation with someone in game when I don't know them, even less if I have to start a conversation with "Who are you?"
As someone else said, it might be workable on an RP server, but it seems like just another database check to see who you know and who you don't.
Shai said:I think you could deal with the abusers. You could use the perception system. If an anonymous stranger was behaving badly then a player could use their perception to create a "sketch" of the abusive player. Higher perception would result in a more accurate sketch. Disguises, illusions, etc. could make the process harder by requiring more perception to get an accurate sketch. Spells could make it easier. You could "show" the sketch to other players and, if they knew who the character was, learn the name. You could pay NPCs to reveal the identity of a sketch if you had enough reputation with them. You could even go post that sketch - maybe in your class' guild hall - and then anybody who saw it and knew that player's identity could tag it with that player’s name.
These systems and tools would allow for interesting emergent gameplay. For example, information brokers could be a thing. New players could be hired by richer players to take a sketch and run around a city looking for clues. Corrupt guild NPCs could be paid-off to reveal the identity of a sketch.
There's even a good chance this whole thing would be more social, because people would have to talk to eachother to figure out who these abusive players are.
Complex? Certainly. Fun? Maybe. Intriguing? Definitely.
Again, while on the surface it sounds fun, I don't think that, in practical application, it's a good choice. To be able to reliably tell who just harmed you deliberately, you must have high perception skills. Who is most likely to have this? High level characters. Who are the people who will most easily be picked on? New players' characters.
It should not be that you must be high level before you can effectively be relatively free of bullying and harassment.
Shai said:There's even a good chance this whole thing would be more social, because people would have to talk to eachother to figure out who these abusive players are.
Because every character has a very distinct face and body feature right? Let's face it, thousands playing with maybe 20 (at most) faces per race. It would be impossible to name someone accurately even from a screenshot of the character.
This would be more complicated than people think for us to implement and it kind of goes against our view, there will be toggles to turn overhead names off, we already have a slider in-game that adjusts the distance at which you can see name bars, or remove them completely, plus we have the F9 hide UI command, so if that is how you like to play, you will be able to RP that on any server but the names will be on by default for everyone else. :)