Goblin Squad Member
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There needs to be a human-readable unique ID for interaction, so that humans can name who they want to interact with, and share those names with other humans. "Give 10 coin to Dorto" needs to mean something specific, not something that changes meaning when a fourth party introduces themselves as Dorto.
Why are the needs of the in-game community any different than those of RL communities?
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There needs to be a human-readable unique ID for interaction, so that humans can name who they want to interact with, and share those names with other humans. "Give 10 coin to Dorto" needs to mean something specific, not something that changes meaning when a fourth party introduces themselves as Dorto.Why are the needs of the in-game community any different than those of RL communities?
They aren't. I can write a check to someone specific. The unique ID transmitted to the client need not neccesarilly be visible to the player, technically, but the ability for a player to tell the difference between two people talking to each other and one person talking to themself is easiest to enable by sharing a name.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The society I live in does not issue public and unique IDs to everyone. Often, the names I associate with people...I also associate with other people...I know many Daves and Mikes, and usually never know their last names. Yet, society continues to roll on...even money can be exchanged without electronic verification, credit guarantees and banks processing checks...just hand money to whomever you want to have it.
But, this then returns to my unreasonable preference for spatial only channels of communication (with the exception of magically justified means), physical interaction fits in this category.
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Goblin Squad Member
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2 other major reasons for a player recognizable unique identifyer for individual characters.
Not taking into account disguises which may or may not exist in the game (that is a whole other can of worms)
1. Abuses and reporting. Say you spot a guy clearly botting in the middle of the woods far from town, you take a screenshot, you record a video on fraps, whatever... If your client does not have any way to distinguish this person from anyone else, that information is 100% useless to the GMs, unless either A. They have a 24/7 team of responders who can jump to the scene at a moments notice and confirm, or B. The games level of logging and recording is to the point that they can know who was where at any given time. Either one of those options are at a level of expense that quite frankly is out of the cost level of the wealthiest of development teams, let alone a new startup.
2. Just general knowledge. One way or another you recognize a face. You may not know the persons name, but you would more or less know that it is the same guy who you briefly talked to in a bar who didn't give you a name. Or even a guy you never heard a word from but some reason looked at when your team passed another team on the way to a dungeon. Even if it gives you IDK521G, that is still a step above ????? in terms of recognition, in that you can see that person more than once, without having to take the time to throw a general tag over every person you ever pass by. Unless PFO has the most insanely diverse facial creation program ever made, to the point where in a group of 100 faces, odds of 2 of them not being indistinguishable are low (which is pretty hefty of a goal, even when there are enough possibilities, there are always 2-3 faces/hairs etc... that are vastly more popular than the others, and quite often certain hairs and faces tend to go together best, leading to hair X almost always has face Y etc...)
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Goblin Squad Member
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2 other major reasons for a player recognizable unique identifyer for individual characters.
Not taking into account disguises which may or may not exist in the game (that is a whole other can of worms)
1. Abuses and reporting. Say you spot a guy clearly botting in the middle of the woods far from town, you take a screenshot, you record a video on fraps, whatever... If your client does not have any way to distinguish this person from anyone else, that information is 100% useless to the GMs, unless either A. They have a 24/7 team of responders who can jump to the scene at a moments notice and confirm, or B. The games level of logging and recording is to the point that they can know who was where at any given time. Either one of those options are at a level of expense that quite frankly is out of the cost level of the wealthiest of development teams, let alone a new startup.
From LFG! (Looking for Group!):
You'll be able to track those you've been in a party with and see what happened during those adventures...
It sounds to me like they're going to have fairly extensive logging. But even more to the point, if the moderators require some out-of-game means of reporting the bad actor's behavior, then that's the real problem. I would hope I'd be able to target someone and /report them and have the game automatically identify them (even if I don't know who they really are) and provide information about what they are doing and maybe even what they've been doing recently.
2. Just general knowledge. One way or another you recognize a face. You may not know the persons name, but you would more or less know that it is the same guy who you briefly talked to in a bar who didn't give you a name. Or even a guy you never heard a word from but some reason looked at when your team passed another team on the way to a dungeon. Even if it gives you IDK521G, that is still a step above ????? in terms of recognition, in that you can see that person more than once, without having to take the time to throw a general tag over every person you ever pass by. Unless PFO has the most insanely diverse facial creation program ever made, to the point where in a group of 100 faces, odds of 2 of them not being indistinguishable are low (which is pretty hefty of a goal, even when there are enough possibilities, there are always 2-3 faces/hairs etc... that are vastly more popular than the others, and quite often certain hairs and faces tend to go together best, leading to hair X almost always has face Y etc...)
There absolutely needs to be a way to identify other characters. But "hooded stranger from the Inn last week" can be just as effective as any other.
Granted, I may be reading far too much into the above quote from the blog, but until I hear something official that disabuses me of my notions, I'm going to hold out hope.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Forced anonymity would be such an amazing barrier to interactions. sure it doesn't seem like much when viewed on some small scale of "oh this guy is nice, he shall be known as NICE GUY WITH BOW". But in actual play, by week 6, you'll be puking angry every time you have to add a new person to you pretend rolodex. How do you identify an enemy or bandit, if you have to right-click and "aalkjlfjalkjfjla" to place a label on them.
Also consider if you're able to define another's name in your UI, that person (and you) have suddenly lost any semblance of True Identity, and have instead been labeled. You're no longer "Forencith" the Blacksmith. You're now "whatever someone has labeled me, with or without accuracy" and any 3rd party looking for some decent Ironmongery now has to actually meet you in person, at the recommendation of some arbitrarily named person, naming some one arbitrarily.
This is a solution in search of a problem, imparting a mass of complications, with the intent of somehow replicating "real" interactions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Agreed those are considerations Gruffling. I am not arguing for forced anonymity because I think they should implement it...quite the contrary I am certain they will not. I also agree with you that were they to do so, it would present a bunch of novel concerns that would need to be solved.
But, I do not agree with your conclusion that it is a solution in search of a problem. It was initially proposed as a solution to what some saw as a problem...and has since been used to discuss possible solutions for other problems (such as a player oriented solution to non-RP names).
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with such a small playerbase, and with that small playerbase being grown in small increments...
would it be too much to ask to have naming conventions for characters (and guilds)?
such as
1) Capital first letter followed by lowercase letters for both first and last name
2) No special characters (only ' and -)
3) No immersion breaking names
4) No vulgur (or implied vulgur) names
5) No names with a play on words
etc
etcthese could be moderated (whether by human or by AI) naming with accepted/declined upon character creation with a fantasy name generator for a guide
and guild names moderated also
I for one would love to log on and not see:
"PLAYERS ONLINE: Yo_Momma, ManBeast, Da$#!+, Ben Dover, U-my-%&*%# , etc
And I would also not want to have to hire the OneDayKillaz for an assassination contract.
So much for my favorite name...Buster Hiney :(
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, I cannot hazard a guess how much resources it will take to police the population for names...it can definitely be reduced by only responding to complaints and not allowing those who feel they are RPing or justified in using a given name a chance to defend themselves. Likewise, a list of "archetypical" fantasy names/characters could be initially collated and simply refused during character creation (although this seems a bit heavy handed)...but, in my opinion...and granted I understand it is only my opinion, any resources dedicated to dealing with names while the game is live is wasted resources.
I would rather they pay out of work actors to log on as deities, whispering causes and missions to their most devout followers than pay in-game CSRs to police this stuff...even if only for a few hours a week, the tiny amount of time that might have been dedicated to policing names...especially when they can just give us the ability to remove/hide the source of our offence.
If this MMO is at all large / successful they are almost surely going to have a moderator/GM team that sits there 24/7 making sure nobody is screaming racial slurs, gold spamming chat, hacking/bug-abusing, afk-macroing or any other form of behavior that will really hurt this community if not dealt with. These moderators likely will not spend 100% of their time dealing with these issues, because hopefully these kind of actions are a rarity.
They could easily set up a "Report name" or just your "Force Anonymous" option. When the moderator gets a few moments they can look through the top names on that list and either remove them from the list, or force a name change.
This should not take long and at least to some of us it will drastically enhance the game. I don't want half of the game's population running around without names nor do I want to force 20 people anonymous ever time I run through a major town.
Your solution is a band-aid solution IMO. The small effort it would take the moderators to deal with it in their spare time would reduce the problem to a scale that it won't majorly effect gameplay.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If this MMO is at all large / successful they are almost surely going to have a moderator/GM team that sits there 24/7 making sure nobody is screaming racial slurs, gold spamming chat, hacking/bug-abusing, afk-macroing or any other form of behavior that will really hurt this community if not dealt with. These moderators likely will not spend 100% of their time dealing with these issues, because hopefully these kind of actions are a rarity.
They could easily set up a "Report name" or just your "Force Anonymous" option. When the moderator gets a few moments they can look through the top names on that list and either remove them from the list, or force a name change.
This should not take long and at least to some of us it will drastically enhance the game. I don't want half of the game's population running around without names nor do I want to force 20 people anonymous ever time I run through a major town.
Your solution is a band-aid solution IMO. The small effort it would take the moderators to deal with it...
IMO policing the names and responding to reports, is very easy, probably well within the spare time of most GMs that police anything. The harder part is actually defining what the rules are.
IE familiar names from pop culture, isn't something that can be determined as what level of obscurity is needed? Only the most extreme examples can be truely enforced. Say names after well known real world leaders that commited mass genocide, that one can be covered by a basic racial/religion sensitivity policy. Names of prophets, dieties etc... of real world religions, possibly the same. But then as you expand out the line gets blurryer, If say we ban obnoxious naruto names, but what defines something more obscure, on scales, pop culture and historical figures go back hundreds of years, I'm pretty sure almost any name is covered if you go deep enough. Then also pop culture icons that appear afterwards. My fiance for example has used the name Nunu, for about 15ish years, it came from an inside joke and stuck with her. Then league of legends came out, and now she gets asked all the time if that is where her name came from (a question to which her response is about as annoyed as Micheal Bolton in office space)
Long story short, policing racially or religiously offensive names, is probably a good idea, in real world I have oposite views, I support quite a few of the twitter and facebook events designed to upset religions and bring into question if things should be censored. But a fantasy world is an escape from real world drama, not a place to bring real world drama into.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMO policing the names and responding to reports, is very easy, probably well within the spare time of most GMs that police anything. The harder part is actually defining what the rules are.
IE familiar names from pop culture, isn't something that can be determined as what level of obscurity is needed? Only the most extreme examples can be truely enforced. Say names after well known real world leaders that commited mass genocide, that one can be covered by a basic racial/religion sensitivity policy. Names of prophets, dieties etc... of real world religions, possibly the same. But then as you expand out the line gets blurryer, If say we ban obnoxious naruto names, but what defines something more obscure, on scales, pop culture and historical figures go back hundreds of years, I'm pretty sure almost any name is covered if you go deep enough. Then also pop culture icons that appear afterwards. My fiance for example has used the name Nunu, for about 15ish years, it came from an inside joke and stuck with her. Then league of legends came out, and now she gets asked all the time if that is where her name came from (a question to which her response is about as annoyed as Micheal Bolton in office space)
Long story short, policing racially or religiously offensive names, is probably a good idea, in real world I have oposite views, I support quite a few of the twitter and facebook events designed to upset religions and bring into question if things should be censored. But a fantasy world is an escape from real world drama, not a place to bring real world drama into.
Personally I think it should be up the the GM's discretion. I think they should crack down on any names they view as a blatant rip-off.
For instance if I was a GM I would force a namechange on:
Gandalf Thegrey
Gondolf Thagray
Gandalf (Anything)
Sephiroth (Anything)
(Anything) Skywalker
(Anything) Baggins
Rand Al'Thor
Rond El'Thor
Thom Merrilin (Sure it's obscure but I recognize the character they are referring to so I would deal with it.)
I would not deal with:
Gondelf Thorgrim
Rand Eldarin
Thom Markarn
These names may remind me a bit of those certain characters but they are obviously not intended to rip them off, or if they are, it's too subtle to break immersion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally I think it should be up the the GM's discretion. I think they should crack down on any names they view as a blatant rip-off.
For instance if I was a GM I would force a namechange on:
Gandalf Thegrey
Gondolf Thagray
Gandalf (Anything)
Sephiroth (Anything)
(Anything) Skywalker
(Anything) Baggins
Rand Al'Thor
Rond El'Thor
Thom Merrilin (Sure it's obscure but I recognize the character they are referring to...
Personally I disagree with the entire idea of GM's judging much anything on, personal feelings, or what they personally are familiar with. Namely because it is a policy that is not fairly or universally applied, and worse cannot be universally struck down. Lets say hypothetically 2 GMs exist, Thom Merrilin gets GM 1, Tom Merrilin gets GM 2. GM 2 has read wheel of time, GM 1 hasn't. Tom Merrilin is forced a name change, Thom Merrilin isn't. After being forced a name change, he walks down the street and sees Thom Merrilin, he reports it GM 1 is the one to view the case, GM 1 again is still unfamiliar with the name, and again dismisses the report. Imagine how furious the player who was forced a name change would be. He could jump to the conclusion that the GMs are friends with the other Thom, and that's why they are letting him slide, or he may think the GM he got had a personal beef with him. Both are reasonable conclusions when a rule isn't equally enforced, yet a rule that is dependent on the knowledge of a GM to things outside of the game, cannot be universally applied.
Throwing more grey areas this one is less likely but still an issue. June 2014 A character is made, just pulling a random name off the top of my head, Simon Moreson (If this name happens to be used by anything currently that wasn't intentional). July 2015 a new movie, book, game, band whatever emerges and has a lead singer or main character named Simon Morstan. Does this player have to rename, causing confusion for everyone he met in the year? Or do we leave this character unchanged as the GMs continue to have to ignore or respond to the thousands of floods of people complaining about how they had to change for matching something clearly less popular.
There is a reason that laws and rules are best when they are clearly defined. If you make the rules as "You can't use that name if the GM examining the report happens to be familiar with where it came from", that is a horrible il-defined rule, You can randomly bash your head and hit 5 random letters on the keyboard, and odds are it has some significance in some story that some person somewhere is familiar with. Using broad terms like "popular", "commonly used" etc... only muddles the definitions further. How many sales does a book have to have before it fits the definition of "popular". Do those sales have to be in a particular country?
I have nothing against rules and actually applaud the spirit of the idea of the rule, but rules that have different definitions depending on who is judging them, are bad ideas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There really isn't much in the way of time for a GM to ponder and judge off-color names, and as much as it can be an annoyance, I think its overly restrictive to say you have to have a name "in-theme" with the game. The task load of any customer service role (GM) is almost universally underestimated, and any small scale company will do everything they can to maintain a tight control on the cost of Cust. Serv. This essentially means there will be a lot for GMs to do, and not that many GMs to do it. Nominal process is to blacklist a huge pile of obvious IP infringements, curses, and historically/culturally insensitive name. This black list is automated, and then added onto as time goes on. That being said there should always be a mechanism to report "T'ouche MeHiney" as an obviously "offensive" name. I use quotes on that because I try to emulate a mindset that I personally don't hold to, the "What about the Children!!!!" wailing, clueless parents worried that games cause violence, etc.
I have 2 reasons why I think there isn't really a problem. Firstly, who's to say a name is or isn't "in-character" or "in-theme"? Its such a non-objective judgement call. What if I want the name Eclipse? or a fat half-orc fighter named "Mack" who owns a caravan company? Obvious pun, but is that offensive or should it be struck down? Secondly, other less onerous controls can be put into place to attend to the issue of "utterly out of spec" names. A reporting mechanism, or as I think Nihimon suggested, non-unique names. From my time in the early days of WoW, most names were "in-theme" at least until it started to become nearly impossible to secure the name of choice. When the populace becomes so large as to prevent a new character from having his first, second, third... eighth option... and when all of those options are out of a random name generator, that's when you'll start to see abuses of naming conventions as an emergent behavior.
If non-unique names, there are other issues of identity and spoofing that need be addressed, but those seem much more surmountable than trying to force an arbitrary judgement call on players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've run into problems before where a name like Andius, Kaemik, or Tharak (Some of my common character names) might be taken, but rarely have I ever encountered those problems in a Firstname Lastname system such as Guild Wars.
I don't want to see 50 people named after every player who achieves infamy or greatness in this game.
2nd off I think part of the moderators job can be filled by unpaid moderators from the community. I don't want to see those people having discretion to decide whether or not that guy from the clan they are at war with is breaking the rules or not, but for black/white issues it should be fine as long is there is a system setup that will catch them/bring it to a paid GM's attention if they start going mad with power.
Black/White issues would be things such as obvious gold spammers or afk macroers. I trust anyone with a brain to screen out 95% of them and send the 5% that are questionable on to a paid GM. When they are are saying "Buy your gold at RipOffTrojanSource.com just 5000$/per 1 copper!!!" you know to ban them. When they are carrying out their tasks, ignoring everything going on around them even if you start standing in their path or stealing nodes/mobs from them, and they are ignoring PMs or responding to everything you say with obviously scripted messages, and it's a brand new character with no effort put into their gear/appearance and some random name... you know it's an afk-macroer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm going to have to respectfully disagree that GM duties could be reasonably crowdsourced or community based. So many ways this could be abused. If something is going on, players should escalate it to the GMs with a reporting mechanism. Report via a potential gated system (botting, griefing, spammer, other) for ease of use, and let the people who are paid and intimate with the design goals and use policies as set by the people running the game. That part can't be underestimated, as the moment you crowdsource something as such, you open everyone up to the debate of what is what is what, and the policy immediately start to flex under the weight of all the differing opinions. Tight structured control on the business side is required for successful customer service.
I will say that social pressures can have some influence, but the moment you set up a social stigma for one type of behavior, you have to expect counter culture impulses (or just the desire to fill an empty niche) will start to promote the other.
oh... and....
"Buy your gold at RipOffTrojanSource.com just 5000$/per 1 copper!!!"
rofl :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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2nd off I think part of the moderators job can be filled by unpaid moderators from the community. I don't want to see those people having discretion to decide whether or not that guy from the clan they are at war with is breaking the rules or not, but for black/white issues it should be fine as long is there is a system setup that will catch them/bring it to a paid GM's attention if they start going mad with power.
Bringing things to a paid GM's attention is perfectly rational, a report/flag option makes perfect sense. Now it obviously 100% has to go through an actual GM, as any automated system will be rife with abuse. But allowing a GM to investigate 500 flagged accounts, instead of 50,000 random accounts that happen to be in the area they are in, saves a significant amount of time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally I disagree with the entire idea of GM's judging much anything on, personal feelings, or what they personally are familiar with. Namely because it is a policy that is not fairly or universally applied, and worse cannot be universally struck down.
Here's how you do it so its fair.
You begin with a simple set of rules that must be obeyed, which include prohibitions against using the names from popular copyrighted works. Other obvious restrictions are on names intentionally designed to be harassing or insensitive.
But the meta rule is "you can't use any name we don't like, and we can't tell you in advance if we like a name or not."
People with "name review credentials" (whomever those people may be) are empowered to flag any name they think is problematic. This function could be something that is awarded to particularly helpful volunteers. Flagging the name has no effect - the player of the character should be told they've been flagged, but not by whom, and there's no action to be taken until the process has concluded. Asking for an advance decision or trying to go around the system will be prejudicial to the case.
People with "name enforcement credentials" (whomever those people may be, very unlikely to include anyone not on the payroll) periodically review all the names currently flagged. They decide (using whatever criteria are established, some of which may include subjective opinion, and with the ability to bandy the debate around in an internal discussion for marginal cases that deserve it) if the name should be changed or not. If it is deemed necessary to change the name, the name is switched to something meaningless but obviously not a "real name". Such as "Name_Must_Be_Changed_217". A character with such a name will be required to change it before the character can log in again.
If the player involved thinks the change was unwarranted, they can make a single appeal, in writing, which will be reviewed by the supervisory authority of whomever did the name change in the first place, and the decision of that review is final.
A player who consistently generates names that are reviewed and found to be a problem will simply be banned - it will be cheaper to fire the customer than to try and fix the customer.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh - one other point. We'll cull unused names regularly. If an account has not been accessed for a certain amount of time (variable based on how much money that account has generated for Goblinworks), the names of the characters on that account will be recycled.
Accounts that are established just to "hold" a name are easy to spot and the names will be recycled quickly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the player involved thinks the change was unwarranted, they can make a single appeal, in writing, which will be reviewed by the supervisory authority of whomever did the name change
The part I bolded means a lot to me. Making an appeal in writing, as opposed to electronically, show that you're serious about the issue. Having a system in place to accept and give due consideration, explicitly for written letters? That's amazing. You hear so many customer service horror stories where the serious people get disregarded along with the chaff, simply because there is no system in place which allows them to clearly distinguish themselves from, say, a whiny cheater making a pity-post on Reddit, or sending an angry email through the form-fill CS front end.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the player involved thinks the change was unwarranted, they can make a single appeal, in writing, which will be reviewed by the supervisory authority of whomever did the name changeThe part I bolded means a lot to me. Making an appeal in writing, as opposed to electronically, show that you're serious about the issue. Having a system in place to accept and give due consideration, explicitly for written letters? That's amazing. You hear so many customer service horror stories where the serious people get disregarded along with the chaff, simply because there is no system in place which allows them to clearly distinguish themselves from, say, a whiny cheater making a pity-post on Reddit, or sending an angry email through the form-fill CS front end.
I think you might be parsing that out too specifically. I find it highly unlikely that electronic communications won't be acceptable way to use this system. Its a modern world, with modern tools, might as well take advantage of it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope not. Like I said, I think the two extra minutes of effort required to print and mail a letter will deter a lot of useless appeals by people who know they deserve to get turned down. It would help prevent a situation where a reviewer is jaded from reading so many false claims of "innocence" by BSers.
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Why are folks up in arms over naming conventions anyway? If the name is obviously obscene, then sure, force a name change. For everyone else? If you don't like a character's name, don't deal with him/her, put on ignore and move along. At some point, people aren't going to be able to come up with "approved" unique names due to every good name being taken by another player. So what if someone wants to be Drizzt or Gandalf? I personally don't like being censored because someone read a book and doesn't like what I like, or likes it so much they get offended if someone wants to take on the name or a variant thereof. That said, I would prefer folks to be more original or perhaps take the name of a more obscure character from a book. It's like an easter egg when it dawns on you, oh yeah! I remember that character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan, Any thoughts on First/Last name capability or non-unique names?
I am of two minds.
One mind says that having all names be unique is the path of least resistance and it will help people by not sewing confusion. Having a first and a last name is probably going to happen - and I already know all about the people who name-crash people's attempt to create in-game family trees. Yay.
Another mind says that the real world has lots of people with duplicate names and we somehow manage to deal with it. Having no restriction on duplicate names would make it easy for everyone to get the name they want. On the other hand, I guarantee you the Goons will have a Player Nation with a thousand characters with the same name. And it will be as close to offensive as they can get without getting the name flagged for a change. So that would for many people suck.
There are pros and cons to both approaches and neither seems demonstrably better than the other to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also, something against the forced anomimity crowd, have you ever been invited to a gathering you had no involvement with previous? Like going to meet your spouse's extended family?
There you often have the moment of sitting off in the corner slowly being informed who everyone is. Have I been formally introduced to these people? Nope. Have I even directly interacted with them? Nope. I simply had access to a cheat sheet of information on who they are.
My principal in high school had a literal "facebook" that had all of the student pictures with their names underneath that he would sit down and study occasionally. When he walked up to a student in the hallway and greeted them by name, it often freaked the kid out, because they had never spoken to the principal before and were nervous why the principal knew their name.
There are ways around forced anomimity even in real life.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But the meta rule is "you can't use any name we don't like, and we can't tell you in advance if we like a name or not."People with "name review credentials" (whomever those people may be) are empowered to flag any name they think is problematic. This function could be something that is awarded to particularly helpful volunteers. Flagging the name has no effect - the player of the character should be told they've been flagged, but not by whom, and there's no action to be taken until the process has concluded. Asking for an advance decision or trying to go around the system will be prejudicial to the case.
People with "name enforcement credentials" (whomever those people may be, very unlikely to include anyone not on the payroll) periodically review all the names currently flagged. They decide (using whatever criteria are established, some of which may include subjective opinion, and with the ability to bandy the debate around in an internal discussion for marginal cases that deserve it) if the name should be changed or not. If it is deemed necessary to change the name, the name is switched to something meaningless but obviously not a "real name". Such as "Name_Must_Be_Changed_217". A character with such a name will be required to change it before the character can log in again.
If the player involved thinks the change was unwarranted, they can make a single appeal, in writing, which will be reviewed by the supervisory authority of whomever did...
Sounds good to me. I prefer that GW have strong and definite rules about the game environment. Without strong rules and justifiable enforcement the game environment turns into a wishy-washy substandard mix of crap.
GW, please be a GM. A good GM, that is.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan, any possibility we'll be able to reserve the names we use on these forums? I'm a little concerned that there might be some people out there who try to steal a name just out of spite.
Good point. It would be great to see a mechanism for doing this. Perhaps some sort of website form, or something to guarantee a name, or some such. Especially since GW wants to encourage and foster groups prior to launch.
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with such a small playerbase, and with that small playerbase being grown in small increments...
would it be too much to ask to have naming conventions for characters (and guilds)?
such as
1) Capital first letter followed by lowercase letters for both first and last name
I'm against that. I will not have you dictate that I cannot name my bard e. e. cummings or have the last name d'Ambervile.
2) No special characters (only ' and -)
No. I will not have somebody tell me that I cannot name my cavalier León Jesús Castañeda de Campaña.
3) No immersion breaking names
Whose immersion? Who decides that? My idea of immersion might be names like "Goraxx the Warrior" while somebody else's would "Arnold Stover."
4) No vulgur (or implied vulgur) names
Perhaps we should also implement a proper spelling requirement? Seriously, I don't want people running around with profanity in their names, but I also wouldn't want somebody precluding my halfling from having a name like "Droppa Mapantz" (a character from Roger Zelazny's Amber novels).
5) No names with a play on words
I will fight you on this every step of the way. Some of the best literary characters have pun names, from Shakespeare to Charles Dickens to present day. I will name my wizard Gonaturn Utophrogg and refuse to change.
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Goblin Squad Member
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nicely played there.my wizard Gonaturn Utophrogg
Which is why I suggested the option of allowing us to "nickname" people. The Primary problem that was discussed concerning this was the question of how to handle it if someone names themselves what you have another nicknamed as? This is no longer an issue if as Ryan said, there is discussion of dynamics allowing duplicate names. I assume it would just default to the one you know, with perhaps a specific colour (or font) notice to show you such.
To illustrate, you name you nickname your buddy, Buddy...another guys names himself Buddy. As you enter then name, it shows up beige instead of the normal white to show it is calling a nickname, if you wanted the guy actually named Buddy you would use an asterisk before the name or something...
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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fire the customerAs someone who has worked a retail job in the past, that may be one of the single most awesome phrases I have ever heard.
Anyway thanks for the reply. It's good to know you intend to do something about blatantly immersion breaking names.
I worked at Sprint-Nextel customer service shortly before they fired a very large number of their customers. I knew several of them by name, and they made a statistically significant percentage of the calls I handled.
I think one of them were actively malicious, because they knew enough about our account management system to trick me into crashing it until I realized what they were doing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I worked at Sprint-Nextel customer service shortly before they fired a very large number of their customers. I knew several of them by name, and they made a statistically significant percentage of the calls I handled.I think one of them were actively malicious, because they knew enough about our account management system to trick me into crashing it until I realized what they were doing.
Curse you Bobby Tables
@Ryan, Any thoughts on First/Last name capability or non-unique names?I am of two minds.
One mind says that having all names be unique is the path of least resistance and it will help people by not sewing confusion. Having a first and a last name is probably going to happen - and I already know all about the people who name-crash people's attempt to create in-game family trees. Yay.
Another mind says that the real world has lots of people with duplicate names and we somehow manage to deal with it. Having no restriction on duplicate names would make it easy for everyone to get the name they want. On the other hand, I guarantee you the Goons will have a Player Nation with a thousand characters with the same name. And it will be as close to offensive as they can get without getting the name flagged for a change. So that would for many people suck.
There are pros and cons to both approaches and neither seems demonstrably better than the other to me.
I'm very much in favor of unique names. To me, part of "maximizing meaningful interaction" is having a distinguishable name.
Suggestion on surnames--the first person to assume a unique surname has the privelege of "inviting" other players to use that surname. Otherwise, unique surnames would be required.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why are folks up in arms over naming conventions anyway? If the name is obviously obscene, then sure, force a name change. For everyone else? If you don't like a character's name, don't deal with him/her, put on ignore and move along. At some point, people aren't going to be able to come up with "approved" unique names due to every good name being taken by another player. So what if someone wants to be Drizzt or Gandalf? I personally don't like being censored because someone read a book and doesn't like what I like, or likes it so much they get offended if someone wants to take on the name or a variant thereof. That said, I would prefer folks to be more original or perhaps take the name of a more obscure character from a book. It's like an easter egg when it dawns on you, oh yeah! I remember that character.
I think I disagree with just about every point in this post.
If you don't like a character's name, don't deal with him/her, put on ignore and move along.
I find just seeing people named "RAINBOW SPARKLES" when I am walking through a city or reading chat highly irritating if I am in a RP environment. If I'm not in an RP environment it's fine but I personally think this game needs to cater to RPers. Also I as a rule never ignore anyone. I don't want to see a one sided conversation in chat because I have one person ignored.
At some point, people aren't going to be able to come up with "approved" unique names due to every good name being taken by another player.
This is utterly false. Even in Runescape I can create a unique RP-style name. Lets try right now:
Thorglem
Sarkaem
Elendiil
Souragan
Loutorn
I came up with those in about 30 seconds, I guarantee you at least one of them is not taken. Test it if you want. Hell, try Aspasia and Malagant while you are at it.
Runescape is a MASSIVE game that is designed to have short names. If this game adopts a FIRSTNAME LASTNAME policy there is a nearly infinite amount of unique names out there, and it won't have nearly as many players as Runescape for a long time to come.
The only names that are going to get snatched up references to other games/books/movies if those names are allowed.
So what if someone wants to be Drizzt or Gandalf? I personally don't like being censored because someone read a book and doesn't like what I like, or likes it so much they get offended if someone wants to take on the name or a variant thereof.
You are entirely missing the point. I love Gandalf and I haven't even read anything containing Drizzt. I'm not offended because I hate Drizzts, or because I think that person is unworthy of being named Gandalf. In-fact I am not offended at all. But this kind of nonsense is immersion breaking and leads to crap RP.
I don't want to see a ton of people claiming to be from alternate planes called Azeroth, and Middle Earth, etc. I want to see this game catered to serious RPers. There are TONS of games out there that cater entirely to the non-RP crowd and bow down and kiss their feet over and over and over. I don't want to see anything as radical as disallowing OOC chat but I think names are a small thing to ask.
What I want quite simply want to see is people required to take names based on their own original RP rather than ripping off someone who is actually creative. Forcing people to do so:
1. Makes the game more immersive and enjoyable for people who really want to get in to their character.
2. Weeds out a lot of people who I quite frankly feel have nothing positive to offer a mature role-play oriented community. Really, if you can't come up with your own original name to the point it seriously impacts your gameplay and causes you to leave... I think PFO is better off without you.
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I think I disagree with just about every point in this post.
That's your right to disagree. :)
I find just seeing people named "RAINBOW SPARKLES" when I am walking through a city or reading chat highly irritating if I am in a RP environment. If I'm not in an RP environment it's fine but I personally think this game needs to cater to RPers. Also I as a rule never ignore anyone. I don't want to see a one sided conversation in chat because I have one person ignored.
Why would you not want to grow the scope and reach of this game we all love? You are just going to have to deal with the spiteful and unoriginal. People are going to come up with names they find funny or memorable TO THEM. If you don't like it, put on ignore and move on...
This is utterly false. Even in Runescape I can create a unique RP-style name. Lets try right now:
Thorglem
Sarkaem
Elendiil
Souragan
LoutornI came up with those in about 30 seconds, I guarantee you at least one of them is not taken. Test it if you want. Hell, try Aspasia and Malagant while you are at it.
Runescape is a MASSIVE game that is designed to have short names. If this game adopts a FIRSTNAME LASTNAME policy there is a nearly infinite amount of unique names out there, and it won't have nearly as many players as Runescape for a long time to come.
The only names that are going to get snatched up references to other games/books/movies if those names are allowed.
You are seriously underestimating the laziness of the people on the internet... You came up with those names...good for you! People will go for the names they want and when they don't get them they will get angry and go with what they can then get away with for spite...I've seen it many times... Besides I look at your "rp styled names" and cringe. I find them bland and without substance. What's good for you will not necessarily be good for another...
You are entirely missing the point. I love Gandalf and I haven't even read anything containing Drizzt. I'm not offended because I hate Drizzts, or because I think that person is unworthy of being named Gandalf. In-fact I am not offended at all. But this kind of nonsense is immersion breaking and leads to crap RP.
Such elitism...Is it for you to say what is immersion breaking? How do you know the player with such a name is a terrible RPer? You may end up missing out on a good friend simply because your superiority complex discarded him/her simply on the basis of a name... How silly is that?
I don't want to see a ton of people claiming to be from alternate planes called Azeroth, and Middle Earth, etc. I want to see this game catered to serious RPers. There are TONS of games out there that cater entirely to the non-RP crowd and bow down and kiss their feet over and over and over. I don't want to see anything as radical as disallowing OOC chat but I think names are a small thing to ask.
Who are you to say what is good RP and what is not? With an attitude like this you will end up playing the game with very few other players as everyone else will leave due to all the crotchety grumkins... GW, I'm sure, will want to cater to as many folks as possible. If you want some RP only servers and enforce your elitism, fine, but the rest of us will have a blast on normal servers without you. :)
What I want quite simply want to see is people required to take names based on their own original RP rather than ripping off someone who is actually creative. Forcing people to do so:
1. Makes the game more immersive and enjoyable for people who really want to get in to their character.
2. Weeds out a lot of people who I quite frankly feel have nothing positive to offer a mature role-play oriented community. Really, if you can't come up with your own original name to the point it seriously impacts your gameplay and causes you to leave... I think PFO is better off without you.
I really get angry when folks try to force me to do anything... I hate censorship and dictatorship. It sounds to me that the only way to maintain a harmonious community is to have RP only servers where control freaks can be separated from the rest of the folks that just want to play a great game. The elitism you display with your disdain for folks who approach RP in a lighthearted way if at all, is a cancer upon the community and really screams exclusionary...
With that said, I do prefer folks to come up with their own names, but there will always be those who do not conform. In America, at least, I see this as a good thing...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why would you not want to grow the scope and reach of this game we all love?
Because growing the scope is not always a good thing. Sometimes you NEED to turn away certain players to make the game more enjoyable for the rest of the community. A great example is Darkfall. They decided not to take serious actions against hackers or people who level via AFK macroers. In the end, it's poisoned the community so AFK macroing is something 80%-90% of the population does to keep up, and many people have simply left when people who are proven hackers get 24 hour slap-on-the-wrist temporary bans.
Now this is a pretty extreme example but I think it gets my point across. Some elements of the community are bad for the rest. Rather than trying to have the broadest appeal possible GoblinWorks needs to identify their niche and make a game that is as appealing as possible to them.
I believe their niche is.
1. Sandbox enthusiasts.
2. Table-top Gamers.
3. People who want an immersive experience.
4. People who appreciate and understand the benefits of Open World PVP.
Several very OOC sandbox style titles already exist for 1. 2, and 3 tend to be people who are going to appreciate a higher degree of RP. They should NOT cater to.
1. Macroers
2. Hackers
3. Bug-abusers
4. Griefers and people who view Open-World PVP as a giant Halo match.
5. People unwilling to try Open-World PVP or who want it overly-tame.
6. People who cannot appreciate or even actively disdain the RP community.
I think most people that can't accept having to create their own original name and will become spiteful and quit because they can't be named Gandalf Sparklepants will most often fall into category 6. This game should not cater to them. For every fool who leaves because they can't be Solidsnake Narutofan I think you'll attract three who appreciate the fact that this game is perfectly catered to it's target audience.
I'm sorry if you think that believing RPers who create original names bring more to a RP community than people named Drittz Baggins is an elitist attitude. I suppose it is. Just like believing people who don't play super loud music their neighbors can here at 3:00am on a weekday are worse than people who listen to their music at a respectful noise level, at a respectable hour, in a respectable setting is probably an elitist attitude. Just like believing gun owners who know how to properly handle a gun are better than people who aim loaded ones at people without thinking about it on a regular basis. Just like believing that people that play games without bugs, macros, and hacks are not worthy to play with those who play the game the way it's intended to be played.
Call me an elitist if you will. Just because I'm an "elitist" doesn't mean I'm not right.
You are seriously underestimating the laziness of the people on the internet...
I'm not underestimating anything. Random name generators exist for people who can't come up with original RP names on their own. If they are angry that the random name generator doesn't contain a reference to their favorite book, movie, or anime... then like I said... we are better off without them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem of associating RP with Sandboxers is one of personal bias i think. I see RP in the view of the issue of anonymity. May people feel uncomfortable going whole hog with RP with the individuals they know well and in a comfortable living room. On the MMO scale, everyone will have an inherent barrier based on the fact of online anonymity. This is going to make it difficult to RP for people unfamiliar with it (ergo the wider MMO market), and a certain percentage of the people that are made uncomfortable by it will either actively avoid it, or openly mock it. This trend will make it even more uncomfortable, and so the spiral goes.
Designing a basic system like naming conventions to aim at a very narrow niche of players is not a particularly good recipe for long term success. Andius may want the niche to be the 4 items he describes, but out of them 1 and 4 are essentially the same, 2 is a very narrow market, and 3 is a narrower cross section of 2. Calling for system mechanics to exclude those that don't fall into that narrow niche seems a mistake to me. Hell, I don't fall into that narrow niche, and I'm deeply interested and invested in seeing this game come to fruition. I'm not particularly interested in maintaining pristine immersion and perfect RP, because that's a laborious experience in the best circumstances.
I'll also re-state the opinion that one person's immersion crash is simply another person's interesting name. Who's to judge? I have a player in my table top game that has a Seer named Delphi. Does this obvious reference to greek history make immersion impossible? Its a judgement call. This is where the idea of elitism enters into the discussion.
At the end of the day, anachronisms will make it into this game, as its going to have just as much of an immersion crash as you let it. If you decide on a narrow range of acceptability, the sooner you're immersion will be impacted. Relying on the Game and the everyone in it to fit into your perspective isn't really a great expectation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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AFK playing can be eliminated by making the game more complex than any player can reduce to a script. Nothing else is sufficient.
It's a pipe dream to pretend that anything that a normal human being would consider fun could be "more complex than any player can reduce to a script". There's a reason they're called "Universal" Turing Machines.
IMO, the real solution to "AFK playing" as you called it is to allow players to accomplish tedious tasks offline. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Don't use repetitive, time-consuming tedium as a balancing factor.
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Goblin Squad Member
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AFK playing can be eliminated by making the game more complex than any player can reduce to a script. Nothing else is sufficient.It's a pipe dream to pretend that anything that a normal human being would consider fun could be "more complex than any player can reduce to a script". There's a reason they're called "Universal" Turing Machines.
IMO, the real solution to "AFK playing" as you called it is to allow players to accomplish tedious tasks offline. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Don't use repetitive, time-consuming tedium as a balancing factor.
Well you are both right and wrong. You are absolutely right that tedium shouldn't be the balancing factor by any means. I disagree that anything can be botted. (well at least by people without taking many many years of AI development, which puts it firmly outside of the hands of standard bot coders).
In WoW if people could have botted end game raids, they would have. Heck the price of fully end game geared accounts etc... that would have made the most profitable gold selling equivelant in WoW history. but it wasn't possible, bots can do quite a bit well, in general team tactics is not one of them. 90% of solo tasks, are not too difficult to bot is one thing I do agree with.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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AFK playing can be eliminated by making the game more complex than any player can reduce to a script. Nothing else is sufficient.It's a pipe dream to pretend that anything that a normal human being would consider fun could be "more complex than any player can reduce to a script". There's a reason they're called "Universal" Turing Machines.
IMO, the real solution to "AFK playing" as you called it is to allow players to accomplish tedious tasks offline. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Don't use repetitive, time-consuming tedium as a balancing factor.
Ok, fine. Make the game NP-Hard to reduce to a script.
Or you can work around the problem that computers are Turing-complete by allowing thing that aren't computers to interact with players. Like other people.
For example, WoW gold farming took a significant hit when the rule was added "If a GM sends you a whisper, respond in a believable manner."
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Goblin Squad Member
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AFK playing can be eliminated by making the game more complex than any player can reduce to a script. Nothing else is sufficient.It's a pipe dream to pretend that anything that a normal human being would consider fun could be "more complex than any player can reduce to a script". There's a reason they're called "Universal" Turing Machines.
IMO, the real solution to "AFK playing" as you called it is to allow players to accomplish tedious tasks offline. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Don't use repetitive, time-consuming tedium as a balancing factor.
Ok, fine. Make the game NP-Hard to reduce to a script.
Or you can work around the problem that computers are Turing-complete by allowing thing that aren't computers to interact with players. Like other people.
For example, WoW gold farming took a significant hit when the rule was added "If a GM sends you a whisper, respond in a believable manner."
In this same area WoW has an unbelievable amount of statistical information at their disposal. If a GM shot someone a whisper, its likely they did so because the same character hit the exact same routine of movement and attack skills in the same area with inhuman lack of variation. Sure other players report that guy, but its not all that likely that would be the main curb.
Now not saying every game will have the same capacity for statistical analysis, but it is a real world example.
Sure other players report that guy, but its not all that likely that would be the main curb.
This could be the main curb. Account hackers are much easier to catch if their chat spam is reported. And I have followed bot farmers in WoW and reported them and seen the results of them no longer being in game.
The bots I've seen are far from "superhuman." They are obvious to the observant player. Bots have to account for getting stuck on objects, mobs not being in range, and other things. In operation, they actually behave like idiots. Tag a mob you know they are going for (ie: the closest one) and they will assist you even though a human would know there was no benefit. That sort of thing.
I think bots become obvious to GMs much, much slower than to someone who happens to see them. They are almost immediately apparent to an observer, but a GM might have to wait hours or days for something to show up as unusual--like 72 hours straight activity, or a far higher haul of rare drops than normal.
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Because growing the scope is not always a good thing. Sometimes you NEED to turn away certain players to make the game more enjoyable for the rest of the community. A great example is Darkfall. They decided not to take serious actions against hackers or people who level via AFK macroers. In the end, it's poisoned the community so AFK macroing is something 80%-90% of the population does to keep up, and many people have simply left when people who are proven hackers get 24 hour slap-on-the-wrist temporary bans.
Now this is a pretty extreme example but I think it gets my point across. Some elements of the community are bad for the rest. Rather than trying to have the broadest appeal possible GoblinWorks needs to identify their niche and make a game that is as appealing as possible to them.
I believe their niche is.
1. Sandbox enthusiasts.
2. Table-top Gamers.
3. People who want an immersive experience.
4. People who appreciate and understand the benefits of Open World PVP.Several very OOC sandbox style titles already exist for 1. 2, and 3 tend to be people who are going to appreciate a higher degree of RP. They should NOT cater to.
1. Macroers
2. Hackers
3. Bug-abusers
4. Griefers and people who view Open-World PVP as a giant Halo match.
5. People unwilling to try Open-World PVP or who want it overly-tame.
6. People who cannot appreciate or even actively disdain the RP community.I think most people that can't accept having to create their own original name and will become spiteful and quit because they can't be named Gandalf Sparklepants will most often fall into category 6. This game should not cater to them. For every fool who leaves because they can't be Solidsnake Narutofan I think you'll attract three who appreciate the fact that this game is perfectly catered to it's target audience.
(snip...)
Good points all, but what does that have to do with censoring/overtly dictating name generation? While it's true that Macroers (1), hackers (2), exploiters (3), and griefers (4) are a blight on any gaming community, you list folks unwilling to try world pvp (5) and those who disdain RP (6) in the same list as if they were on the same level? Well, barring active steps are taken to mitigate such 1-4(5-6?) behaviors, you are just going to have to accept the fact that 1-4(5-6?) will be there regardless of your wishes, because regardless of their name there will be those that exhibit those behaviors. Do I like it? No, but all you can really do is report 'em and ignore 'em, then move on and enjoy the game.
Yes, I will call you elitist. Your approach to your utopia (game wise) is exclusionary. While none of us want those doing behaviors 1-4(5-6?), your solution is to dictate to everyone YOUR version of acceptability and anyone who doesn't comply isn't worth a toss... Seriously, you need to get over yourself...
I've been keeping fairly quiet on this one, but I want to throw in my two cents: So, aside from immersion breaking - which has been thoroughly covered - a memory I have was that I was once in a party that consisted of (and I don't remember the exact names, its been a couple years) Arthur Strongbow, Drizzt something-or-other, bob jones, and imabarbarian. It was immediately obvious in under 5 minutes exactly who was playing the game seriously, and who was not.
A player who is too lazy to take 30 seconds and come up with a serious name, or at least capitalize it properly, isn't terribly likely to play it seriously for the rest of the time either. In almost every game I have played, the people who put effort into everything - including the character - are the ones who I enjoyed playing with.
imabarbarian was playing the world mostly for a "openworld halo match" and spammed the chatbox with "lol"
In short, throw me in with the elitists wholeheartedly, but if we need to exclude some people because they can't bother to come up with a serious name, we probably didn't want them in the game in the first place.