Should Names Be Publicly Displayed?

Hello Everyone
Would you rather people see your full name before asking you or have your name displayed as "Stranger" until you tell them your name?
Please respond below with your argument for or against names being known prior to communication.
(As a compromise, a "Display Name To All" option could be considered)

 

Instead of stranger - I believe "Outlander" would be more fitting.

 

The only reason I decided against "Outlander" was because it's unlikely to determine someone isn't a local without first communicating with them.

 

why not unknown?

 

I almost feel a shameless plug coming on. The only reasons to do it one way over another is technical. You don't have to track anything if name displays are a simple toggle.

Personally, I'm all for tracking knowledge for individual characters. The problem with that though is that you have to track knowledge for individual characters. For each name you know, that's another piece of information to track.

Now I suppose you could simply it by only tracking knowledge for whom you know. Store that character's name/ID into an array and if searching that knowledge finds a match than you know their name. I guess it wouldn't be too difficult but it's more time consuming than just putting in a simple toggle.

One idea I've had to get around that is to catch spoken dialogue.. If you use a phrase with the word 'name' in it and then someone within the same map said their name then you would 'know' them from then on. The problem with this is what do you do if someone lies about their name? It would be painfully obvious to the one asking that the other playing has lied. While that wouldn't break the technical aspect of the system it would kinda ruin the immersion factor a bit.

So then you have to ask.. what if the asking player sees the 'lie' as the persons name? Ok I thought that could be a real problem but I just thought of a solution. lol

The lying character could be allowed to configure X number of aliases that they could give when asked.. and that alias would show for the asking player rather than their given name.

However, once a player character knows their REAL name.. that will will be permenant. Even if the person gives an alias their real name will still show cause the asking character will know better.

Such a thing could make things potentially interesting.

 

Carpetbagger > outlander > stranger.

 

My personal feelings, with nearly two decades of this type of game under my belt, is that names should be displayed at all times. If a name becomes problematic for a player perhaps an option to purchase a name change could be an option, but as for in game it should always be visible. I do see the value in your suggestion, people are indeed strangers until you meet them, but let me explain why it's a good idea to always display your name on your avatar to everyone(like the name tag it is)

one word: community

Having played games in which the community is extremely strong, into roleplaying and caring of "the experience" in general I find that everyone adds flavor to the game. They become part of the lore and I personally feel that seeing a lot of people named "stranger" could get quite depressing indeed. In a strong community people get to know each other and it's hard to tell people apart if they are all named "stranger". See where I'm coming from? In real life if you interest me I'll make it a point to learn your name, perhaps even before I introduce myself. In life our faces differentiate us but in game our characters look alike which is why we have a nameplate.

 

Actually, I think it would be quite interesting if all players started off as "Outlanders" to eachother. Not only would it encourage you to engage other players in conversation, it will also lead to actual organized Meet and Greets just to exchange names with many people. Probably would help with Selective Multiplayer sorting. Also, would be fun for rogue/spy/mercenary type players.

 

Problem with "Outlander" it assumes all outlanders can instantly tell you apart from the natives.

 

why do we always start arguments from the fact our avatars should be stupid like ?

*Tall short bearded knight*

*fair dameoiselle with blonde curls and 36DD *mouse over* (met before in this and that place, seems loyal good, seems intelligent and *with eval int* seems to favor this and that, was seen using death magic by him and her)

Famous lords and ladies are usually known, if your avatar is a peasant and knows nothing of the world then ok he can see "unknown man with large feet"... but this wont be the case with most people in the community.

Feel like we're going to dive again and start justifying we can't have open pvp because we're all stupid noob peasants who don't know how to face adversity and collaborate to defend ourselves.

Lets be rational please, if I can at least see one subject that makes sense I'd rest better at night...

 

We have Key "N" for enable/disable names.
*shrug*

 

Immersive play is awesome and I know why people are so passionate. YET its a game still we have to have game features. I want the game to be fun for me also not as hard to enjoy as say oh my JOB and what I do daily. I come to SotA and games to relax and unwind if every step I take is a full on immersive, mystery it looses the point of that. To much immersion to me can be as bad as not enough plain and simple.


Quoted I liked this post.

 

Just to point out that such an endaevour requires not only the coding part, but a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge database and extreme amounts of network resources from the servers' end as well as from the clients. Why? Because each time you are loaded into an area it will load up the data of who-knows-who for each player who is already in the area as well as those coming in, which could end up in lots of unsatisfied players due to lag.

 

I would suggest some animation to be possible with the toggle. I would love to have a hooded cloak that when you pull the hood over your head(toggle) your name disappears and you can *hide* your your identity.

 

In reality I can easily recognize people from afar due to variances in humans and their clothes and demeanor.
That is not possible in a game.
Also when this game launches I will know a lot of you by forum names and would love to walk over and say hi.

It would also be tiring if complete strangers ran up to you all over the place asking for your name.
Then it would hinder noobs and aid old timers, so that feeling of not belonging would escalate.

So a feature like this would be really cool for RP but it has to be optional since the majority isn't into RP in that depth.

 

How about us chossing default name (preferably from a list) everyone can see unless we give them the real one?

So we could be Outlander, Traveller, Avatar, Mage, Alchemist, Warrior, Hero, Bandit, Villager, Citizen..., maybe there could be option to let everyone know your name by default... I however would prefer if others did not know my name unless I tell them. And if I can help it, I would like to pretend that I am NPC (part of the world) from time to time.

We have, but some of us would like if we could hide our names from others rather than hiding names of others from us.

 

Ok

Incognito-Potion/Spell
or
Incognito-Mask/Wig/Hat/Glasses

 

Since database problems have been issued with everybody having their names hidden by default, i think it's better to assume our names will be displayed. Given that, we can come up with a disguise mechanic. Applying disguise while wearing certain clothes will hide the player's name while the disguise is on.

Of course, the disguise will fade off; since the people you can interact with is limited, it could be worthy to program a system which allows people to know you while you're in disguise. That way is not matter of an endless table with all the possible conections; just people you allow to display your name. That shouldn't be complicated, imho.

 

They'll be tracking a friend and blocklist, so one more shouldn't be too much of an issue... The list only needs to be updated at the start and when you find out someone else's name, *just* like when you talk to NPCs, so I don't think it would be an extremely big issue... Until then just give them a semi random title... (Based on appendance) *Just* like NPCs...

It should be optional though, so non-RPers can turn it off and always see the names...

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

 

Yea I too was afraid we were going to go there... "theres going to be too much lag"

If you think lag is caused by sending a text string over network... heh... nevermind.

Of course I'm happy and passionate when people bring over subjects I have been discussing for 15 years.

Everytime theres a bunch of people who seem to know what's best and the devs (sorry if it isn't the case) seem happy about those players scurrying the forums and telling those "excuses" because noone ever tells them how it really is.

To me not having this mechanism is killing roleplay and is a very bad developpement decision.

Convenience is the killer. Comfort is the killer... regardless if you roleplay or not, cause in fact you always roleplay. If you roleplay a powergamer thats what you are. Players exist in real life too there is no distinction that *matters* emphasis.

We also have arguments obviously about the fact noone can recognize a player from afar, then thats another developpement flaw, besides we'll have coat of arms and stuff so the devs already hinted in that direction, why are you all so obcessed with justifying the dev shortcomings ?

Really this is becoming tiresome, can we just have a discussion "as if" things were possible then let the devs decide if its a good idea.

This ROLEPLAY bothers me to the highest point, I might just go and start producing my own game even if I'm alone in the world.

"be a dev+ and participate helping shape this game"

Right... I never put so much money into a game and I've never been ignored so much, I feel like a total nobody, over a thousand now and many thousand if you calculate the people I invited through other forums and freeshards (since its not taboo anymore to talk about em, AGRH!!!) And you guessed it, we're all frustrated with the state of this "spiritual sucessor" in its core mechanics.

We feel cheated not in the classic sense, more like a deep insult to who we are because we were shaped through the old ultimas, DnD, dragonlance, tolkien... influences also claimed by the devs. Yet we feel totally cheated out of it, and I'll repeat it a third time : completely and utterly cheated. It's as if the devs tought "oh noone's going to remember how we wanted UO to be, or what we couldn't do because we had to remain convenient" and since its so long ago it feels all the more insulting because back then technology lacked so we understand they didn't have time to care for roleplay. You don't even really need to know coding anymore... not to care for roleplayers first and foremost (often the most solid members of a community) is a downright insult to the players you helped shape.

Sorry Seon for being so harsh but I'm completely angry when I try to roleplay and someone comes up and tells me my full name. It makes no sense, never did and its only in for convenience to compensate for the lack of character customisation and clothing systems, and the lazyness of powergamers and people who do not care one bit for roleplay.

Theres no way I shouldn't recognize Duke Violation when I see him in game first glance. Does he have a freakin crown anyways ?

I DONT WANT TO IDENTIFY TO HIS UGLY NAME (no offense intended, my nerves are just FIRE)