cannabination's page

I've seen a few discussions about the "blank nameplate" idea, wherein anyone you run into to whom you've not been introduced or with whom you've not interacted before would come up as a blank nameplate. The idea of this being to increase immersion and reality while also opening possibilities for more sneak oriented play styles. I've read arguments for and against, many revolving around the feasibility of such a system. I'm not interested in started that discussion again, but I'd like to put forth a thought on the matter.

The following is predicated on the idea that the devs are interested in the aforementioned concept and that it is feasible. Both may be false assumptions, I know.

In a system where nameplates don't give you info that is impossible to know by looking at someone(i.e. name, class, possibly guild, etc.), it seems reasonable that they would populate with info that you *could* discern by sight. This would be an opportunity to allow some aspects of PnP to migrate to the MMO in a way that totally enriches game play and could be otherwise challenging to translate in terms of player to player interaction, such as charisma, intimidate/diplomacy(abilities, not skills), certain vibe-y auras, and I'm sure several more difficult to quantify effects. Someone with one or more of these traits could toggle them on to appear on their nameplate to randoms to reflect their character's attitude or demeanor, lending more rp, more immersion, and more realism. Say in the circle where in most games you'd see class, instead you see a slideshow of traits chosen by the character from among those afforded by his abilities, e.g. an angry face for intimidating, a calm face for diplomatic, a happy face for charismatic, and so on.

In a more intensive system certain abilities could provide a range of possible demeanors your character could switch on and off almost like a persistent emote. Bluff could allow you to simulate these and any of those mentioned above, and they could be applicable by attributing sets of them as preferences for npcs(Johnny the page responds best to intimidate and dplomatic, for example) and if desired there could be opposed rolls from sense motive or just wisdom. Yes, I know that bluff and sense motives are skills in PnP... for the purposes of this discussion let's call them abilities.

In a much more intensive system, each character could have a "detailed nameplate" that each player could click on and fill out like a survey, checking boxes based on their interaction with a character(i.e. generous, helpful, heroic, rude, ruthless, etc) which would be compiled server side. If a character has been attributed such a trait a given number of times in an area he could gain that trait on his nameplate. Positive traits could be toggled on and off just like the previously mentioned demeanors, but could provide buffs("helpful" could give a 10% bonus to resistances for group members > 3 levels below you, for example) and only be effective in said area. The bad ones could follow you to new areas for a certain period denoting the stigma associated with being a bandit, murderer, or what have you and scale up to the point where you start developing social penalties(more expensive items, services, possible barring from town depending on local laws). Seems like a possible way to introduce notoriety as a game mechanic rather than a function of the game forums or titles while encouraging people to be friendly... or at least discouraging them from being hateful.

The major flaw in this system is that griefers could report everyone they see as hateful or rude and cause problems, but if there are any kind of moderators for the game it would be pretty obvious if the same 30 people are constantly tagging someone as hateful and never tag anyone with anything positive. Possibly by making tagging only possible by physically clicking someone rather than through a menu pane or /command you could keep that to a minimum. Towns would still be a problem, I suppose... maybe the character to be tagged has to show up in some type of interaction log(or your combat log) and one could only access the interface from there.

There are probably more aspects of this that I haven't considered that would make it impossible or game breaking or w/e, but I guess that's why this is a forum post instead of an email. Do these ideas seem interesting to anyone?

So I want to get into this early and have been thinking about the guild I'd like to be a part of. While considering I realized that I had no idea if what I want to do will be possible, so I thought I would pose a question straight to the devs. Will this idea be viable in PFO, or do I need to go back to the drawing board for a more conventional concept?

(This is a cut section of a post from another thread, so disregard the vague sales-pitch vibe.)

We have no desire to have our own city, perhaps a stronghold, but would rather exist in the cities of other guilds. Our main goal is to facilitate the economy of every city we inhabit to the benefit of all(us a little more, but the basic theme is that we're benevolent... not trying to unbalance and exploit). Our secondary goals include all the tenets of Desna, so we uphold exploration, free will, and the assistance of distressed travelers. Our intention would be to be invited by guilds to bring our economic stimulus and stability to their areas by offering superior raw materials as well as crafted goods acquired through the skills of our members.

We will have places for virtually any skill set, as we will need crafters and gatherers of all types, people to explore and find new resources and contacts, people to transport and sell goods, and people to protect these shipments as well as the roads and people on them. The idea would be to hand out recurring quests(assuming that is possible) to escort caravans, hunt, gather, or some similar thing in many areas around the world in areas which we are welcome, and explore in uncontrolled/contested areas. The intention being that you fulfill these quests in your travels, rather than forcing you to go back and forth all day. While there, members would be expected to make reasonable effort to aid travellers on their journey(protection, directions, spells, possibly escort if reasonably convenient), explore interesting/suspicious things along the way, and contest persecution anywhere they may. These goals will be obvious to all.

My main questions are:

Will it be possible for a guild to exist primarily outside its "stronghold"? In the cities of other guilds(if invited, in guild halls or the like)?

Will it be possible to negotiate different permissions, prices, and availability on a guild by guild basis?

Is it reasonable to plan for some type of player created quests for GL's and officers to hand out to their members?

Do you see any other glaring problems to this plan?

I don't imagine you want to give out or even know all of that info at this time, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Thanks much for being interested enough to read this, and for your response.