Goblin Squad Member
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The solution we are discussing solves both the problem of players wanting others not to metagame and the requirement of having any sort of naming policy (and trying to actually enforce it).
I still think having players "create" the name tags for others, and those who they have not met have no nametags (or those who they do not care to make nametags for), is the best approach...unique and original an approach as it might be. But, as a compromise, how about by default we have names, with the ability to turn ours off if we want. Likewise, we should also have the ability to rename others (as it shows on our own GUI, nothing universal or affecting others).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Likewise, we should also have the ability to rename others (as it shows on our own GUI, nothing universal or affecting others).
This is the one bit that I think might be feasible. The ability to create shortcuts/nicknames for certain individuals is both appealing to the "versimilitude" crowd and to the general population for the sake of convenience - the equivalent of in-game chat speed dial. I haven't given this a lot of thought; anyone disagree?
Though i think the higher level you are your name should be more readily known even by strangers since your more of a legend at that point.
Though i think the higher level you are your name should be more readily known even by strangers since your more of a legend at that point.I am approve.
Sweet how do you feel about some form of reputation stat that would not only affect how reconizable you are on site (possibly based off some skills) but also would actually allow for legend lore and such to have a mechanic to work off of.
As long as i dont have to run around like in fable showing off trophies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds like a good idea, and ties into the fame stuff people have been discussing. The more notable your deeds (be they good or bad) that people (NPC's included) witness, the more renowned you become.
If it could be done right, I'd love to see something like this in the game.
Walking through town, you're alone in a sea of faces. Once you start interacting with people by talking to them, partying with them, being attacked by them, their nameplates can appear. Then you walk in to town and can instantly recognize the few people you've met before and don't feel quite so alone anymore.
As for infamy, the devs have already stated they intend on having a mechanic for setting bounties - anyone with a bounty on their head could automatically have their nameplate visible (maybe with a different color so they stand out more).
Fame might be more difficult to implement, mechanically speaking, but perhaps if you've founded a town or castle or something than your title would be your nameplate.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Knowing a character name is important for all kinds of great PvP interaction. "Did you hear that Drag0nSlay3rXxx is in town? Let's find him!" Removing it would also create a lot of griefing problems. I like the RP intentions of making people talk about names, but I'm not sure that's worth the loss in interaction.
It would be good to show no player names at all unless they agree to share it with you.
Attacking someone would be one way of ensuring your name is shared, but also by way of introduction and explicit permission entailing conversation between the two players in which they agree to share names.
Providing the name of the person being attacked to the griefing player is a wonderful way to ensure it happens again to the same victim. The victim in other games has often no clue who it was who attacked and killed them. It would be best if the aggrieved had a record to assist with the reporting of their murderer.
There should be reasons for introducing yourself, and consequences for failing to do so. Characters should be memorable, but more importantly information overload often leads to more ignorance than less.
Filter the information so we are not being bombarded with the names of people we don't havve reason to know and allow the names of those significnat to us to stand out. Help us protect our identities from those who would single us out for nefarious purposes.
There are more uses of information than naming targets and less need of irrelevant names than ever.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Allow floating names to be turned on and off clientside. Just like every other MMO out there.
This isn't a problem searching for a solution.
Your solution does not protect the privacy of the innocent.
If I turn off names for me it does not shield my name from you and I cannot selectively filter to block your name but show me the one name I seek.
By protect the privacy of the innocent: if you are on recon scoping out potential targets for your bandit buddies on TS, and you see me spending alot of time at a high dollar merchant, you can finger me easily.
If you don't have my name over my head it is more difficult, so I fiogure you will describe me. Realizing this, in town I wear a big hat. You dudtifully tell your buddies "Hit the guy in the big hat". But when I leave I can change hats. Cannot really change my name. I'd rather entrust my name to few rather than give it to every criminal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nope, still don't see that happening. It would make metagame functions like /who, /whisper, guild administration, ToU and CoC violations, and a whole host of other things either impossible or very difficult to adjudicate, all for the sake of something you can just handwave-RP if you really, really want to.Or allow players to make notes about people. Right click on them and choose "Notes" and a small GUI opens up with room for notes, including a special spot for a label that shows up over players' heads.
This means once you meet a player you can populate this with their name. If they give you a false name, well that is what you know. If they give everyone a false name...well that is their character.
So I only want to emote with people I want emote with. I don't want some clown I don't know from Adam /emoting me about my mother.
For instance, guy approaches you with his character, gives you a fake name - now that's all the info you have to identify him. Imagine that he then goes on to scam you out of your account info, or to sexually harass you. You have no fool-proof way of reporting him to the ticket system.
How is he going to scam me if I don't give him my name, and there is no fool-proof way to report him for doing what you describe even if I had that ephemeral character's name.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Point-and-click is an utterly unacceptable method of handling reporting.
Untrue. Your assertion is unsupported by fact.
This is also an utterly unacceptable attitude for any game company to take towards the safety of its customers' personal information. I mean, can you imagine?
Protecting the identifiable information of the innocent is, according to you, indefensible?
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"What's that? Your account's compromised because some guy scammed you for your info? And you can't tell us who it was so that we can prevent it from occurring in the future because we decided to make it so that you can't actually know anyone's actual character name unless they tell you? OH WELL."
How do you propose that the guy is going to scam you out of your account info if he doesn't even have your character name? Why do you want their character names so badly? What is linked to their character names that you think will be useful to you?
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I'm sorry, but that's inevitably what you will get. The logistics for doing what you want are simply a non-starter.
Untrue. Your assertion is unsupported by fact.
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Pretty much no one knows what they actually want in this discussion.
No Scott, you just know what you want in this discussion and don't appear to give a damn about what anyone else wants.
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People are all excited because they think they have the opportunity to influence the development of this innovative MMO. They're firing off all sorts of crazy ideas, and there's not a whole lot of critical thought going into them at the moment.
How unthoughtful of you, Scott, to assert no one has critical thinking skills here but you.
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I'm afraid you're going to have to deal with the disappointment, then.
Because, of course, Scott has his unsupported assertions and knows he is right and everyone else is irrelevant.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wrong, this "card" of info that you have on each person is necessarily linked to them (even if you cannot see it explicitly). CSRs/Devs should be able to see whose account it is linked to. As kyrt suggested, there could be a click and report or there might be a way to report someone directly on their note "card".I'm sorry, but this is an idea with far more cons than pros.
For your intentions, could be. For everyone else's? Unknown as yet, but it seems more secure than giving Scott Bett my character name.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Look, you can feel free to hate me. I'm telling it to you like it is. You cannot obscure basic identifying information from players.
Actually, I rather hope that we can. I believe we really really should. I believe it will increase security if we hold our character names private from strangers for the same reason I shred my credit cards when done with them. You do not need the names of the innovcent Scott: the Devs will already have them. You don't need them.
I'm going to tell you one more time: this is not an acceptable way for a company to handle the safety of its clients' personal information.
False. Instead it is more acceptible to shield account identifiable information than it is to share account identifiable information save in cases such as being attacked. If you are being attacked the name information of the attacker should be made known to you. But just walking down the street you should not broadscast everyone's account identifiable information such as character name.
Even if that one guy "got what was coming to him" (and man, that's a pretty pathetic attitude to begin with), Goblinworks will want to do everything in its power to ensure that the scammer is prevented from repeating the scam. Without a straightforward reporting system, they can't do that.
Of course they can, Scott. What is your issue? How can the attacker be flagged or the victim be provided opportunity to flag unless the server knows who is who?
I don't know what else to tell you. If you can come up with a way for your idea to work without making it so complicated as to be either a) not worth the development effort, or b) not a hindrance to a user-friendly play experience, then hat's off to you. But you will get nowhere if your defense of your idea is anything like what you've presented here.
Glad I was here to help.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Most MMOs have options that exist so you can't see name tags, while others are free to see them.
I cannot filter out everyones nametag but those I want to see. I cannot hide my character's name from you even if I'm not attacking you.
You could potentially use my character name to filter packets on the network.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could also use your Paizo ID to backtrack your IP to find out where you live and come get you.
The likelyhood, however, is nill. Should Paizo spend time and effort to hide your forum name to mitigate this one-off circumstance?
The most frequent way people get hacked, is by surrendering information to 3rd pary sites that sell gold. The other, is server hacks to get account info.
The infamous 'they' need your in game character name for neither.
GW is making a game. I'd rather they invest their time and effort in making the mechanics for gameplay solid, than chasing a red herring like invisible name profiles for the sake of account security.
It really is absurd.
But that's just me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could also use your Paizo ID to backtrack your IP to find out where you live and come get you.
You really don't want to do that.
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It really is absurd.But that's just me.
No more absurd than distributing your social security number, address, and mother's maiden name to everyone in Times Square.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Yeah I think it is good to reference an old post but it is generally better to discuss the topic in the recent post rather then trying to have a discussion in a year dead post :)
Mainly as KitNyx mentioned many of the people in the earlier discussion are no longer around.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You are correct, I really don't.
But, for missing (or ignoring) the point entirely, I give you 20 IDGAF points.The Times Square thing, does that happen becasue people can see your in game name tag...or am I missing something? Like the relevance?
Think about that dynamic IP thing. The game has to contact your client somehow. It will probably link your character name to a UserID only Paizo knows and use that to send your informatin to your client. If a 'bad guy' polls all names in an area and figures out how to sniff packets for user_ids for that area they can over time and deductive reasoning infer which names go to which IDs. It isn't much further to be able to block specific IDs, such as when in combat. How else it could be used I relaly have no idea we will never be able to keep up. But if it will enhance security just a little bit it is a good idea to try.
The mechanic of hiding names except when permittid or surrounding an infraction is just good sense. Having someone argue strenuosly against a measure that could improve security is suspect, especially when their assertions are unsupported.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It will probably link your character name to a UserID only Paizo knows and use that to send your informatin to your client.
So you don't know how or what is going on, you're assuming this is how this takes place. Ok.
The mechanic of hiding names except when permittid or surrounding an infraction is just good sense.
In the spirit of the statement above, no, it's not.
Having someone argue strenuosly against a measure that could improve security is suspect, especially when their assertions are unsupported.
Pot, meet kettle.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Once the client has authenticated through the login server, pulled the character information for that account, and connected to that character, there is little to no reason for the server to continuously need to transmit account-level information. That's why you can usually continue to play these games in the event of login-server failure provided you don't log out.
Not to mention that Champions Online and Star Trek Online both display your account handle as part of your character name (in the format <charactername>@<accountname>) as a means to allow non-unique character names. I don't recall any reports of the kinds of things you fear will happen if hackers packet sniff for your account handle. You're at a much greater risk from phishing attacks or gold farming sites.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Of course, Dario. However, if I my character can see your character my client has to receive your character's identification number. Everything that the server sends your client is going to bear that character identification number. So if I can link your character name with your identification number, and I can interfere with data packets containing that your identification number, then I can affect your character in-game or degrade your character's ability to exchange information with the server leading to degraded performance for your client.
So if my character sees you, and I can track both your character name visually and your character_ID digitally, then I can build a list of which characters go with which character _IDs and if I get in a fight with you I can use your info to give you a serious handicap.
And that is just what I can think of. If I have built an ap that sniffs out the info in your packets, and supplement your authentic packets with false ones so your client argues with the server about where it is in the game world then I can potentially make your character rubber band around as the server and client agree and then disagree repeatedly about where you are.
Meanwhile I'm stabbity-stabbing you. Hypothetically.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Unless you have somehow inserted yourself between me and the server, all of that is going to be very difficult, and totally unrelated to whether or not my character name is displayed. If you're getting that kind of UID information, then you can match it up to my character's location, which is actually transmitted to your computer already, and instantly match it up anyway.
What you're describing is a man-in-the-middle attack, and an issue of network security, not game design.
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Goblin Squad Member
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However, if I my character can see your character my client has to receive your character's identification number. Everything that the server sends your client is going to bear that character identification number.
I don't believe this is necessarily true. The ID that is passed back and forth between Adam's Client and the Server can be entirely separate from any ID that is passed to Bob's Client to denote Adam.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Unless you have somehow inserted yourself between me and the server, all of that is going to be very difficult, and totally unrelated to whether or not my character name is displayed. If you're getting that kind of UID information, then you can match it up to my character's location, which is actually transmitted to your computer already, and instantly match it up anyway.
What you're describing is a man-in-the-middle attack, and an issue of network security, not game design.
The internet flows everywhere. Are you in an encrypted VPN connection with GW server? Yes? Then fine: good job.
If not then your packets are flowing via hong kong and katmandu. I don't have to have my sniffer in a line between your router and theirs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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However, if I my character can see your character my client has to receive your character's identification number. Everything that the server sends your client is going to bear that character identification number.I don't believe this is necessarily true. The ID that is passed back and forth between Adam's Client and the Server can be entirely separate from any ID that is passed to Bob's Client to denote Adam.
Your point is true. However I only described one of the simplest of ways to use your character name. I think it is surely the simplest because I thought of it when Scott Bett was driving in on his need for our character names that I asked myself why would he want that so badly?
The point is that we should encourage GW to minimize the security surface area, and I think that probably limiting the way our personal account character names are displayed may serve for part of that, just because otherwise our character names and other account specific information is given to every player whose character sees ours in-game.
Just because I haven't thought of something does not make it unthinkable. We will never keep up with crowdsourced hactivism. Ever.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So you don't know how or what is going on, you're assuming this is how this takes place. Ok.
...So you think the client communicates with the server by magic, and needs no identifying information. OK.
Pot meet kettle.
Dunno how in your mind you turned your non-understanding of how things work into mine, but that's impressive, seeing as how I've had a telecom job going on 15 years...
Let me break down my comment for you since you couldn't possibly be being obtuse. Yes, the client passes info back and forth. It has to. No, it's not magic. No, you don't know for sure how GW or Unity frames that, or what naming convention is used to pass invites. Therefore any speculation on how your idea may help with security is just that. Speculation. Capice?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that everyone should be able to have an anonymous character -except- for Scott.
SOLUTION:
"Random Stranger: Hey, thanks, now I have your log-in details and you can't stop me! HAH HAH SUCKER! I EAT STUPID GIRLS LIKE YOU FOR BREAKFAST AND YOUR MOTHER IS ALSO FAT!"
I mouse over: 'random stranger' in my interface and get 'Client #10110110101001010111'. I click his name and report him for being a scammer and a D-bag. The Staff is then able to trace this account. Unless people copy down the 20 digit randomly assigned number and check them against every person they play with, (or have a freakishly good memory for long strings of numbers... or someone gets the Fibanachi Sequence as their player ID#) people still can't instantly identify you.
Wanna get even more creative? Reassign 20 digit numbers at the start of each game day. If you're scammed/harassed by binary-man as above, AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, they can always look back to the previous day's assignments. 10,000,000 players can each log in THOUSANDS of times with this data-tracker. The server should easily be able to handle a number-tracker sheet in tandem with everything else that allows storage of those numbers for as long as Staff feels is appropriate.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...Dunno how in your mind you turned your non-understanding of how things work into mine, but that's impressive, seeing as how I've had a telecom job going on 15 years...
I confess there is a thing I do not know, and that is how you have managed to survive as a telecom professional for 15 years. You haven't the first clue what I do or do not know, Kryzbyn.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, my take on it is this... if you can't see player names then how can you avenge your death?
Think about this for a second...
Well, the idea is that when someone attacks you their name is shared with you thereafter, though yours is still withheld from them unless you has been introduced to one another. Your attackers name might even show up in another color than the names of people you have interacted with in a constructive way.
If the only names that show are people you know, plus the name of the guy who attacked you in a different color font, then you will also be able to acquire the attacker as a target before he can usually identify you. This would at least allow you to prepare yourself if he is somehow able to identify you and close in.
Second, if your attacker's name shows up in your combat log like purplefixer suggested you can simply click on their name to get a list of available options, allowing you to accurately and easily place a bounty, or report for harassment, or gold spamming, or whatever reportable activity they might be engaged in.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So you don't know how or what is going on, you're assuming this is how this takes place. Ok.
...So you think the client communicates with the server by magic, and needs no identifying information. OK.
Pot meet kettle.
Dunno how in your mind you turned your non-understanding of how things work into mine, but that's impressive, seeing as how I've had a telecom job going on 15 years...
Let me break down my comment for you since you couldn't possibly be being obtuse. Yes, the client passes info back and forth. It has to. No, it's not magic. No, you don't know for sure how GW or Unity frames that, or what naming convention is used to pass invites. Therefore any speculation on how your idea may help with security is just that. Speculation. Capice?
Since everyone with 15 years in telecom is a network security expert, perhaps you will share with the other boys and girls what specifically it was that gave you insight into my state of ignorance? Lets be constructive, shall we? What was it in my description that informed you that I'm ignorant? Was it your insight into domain name servers? Or was it more elementary insight into the arcana of the internet protocol and packet architecture? Was it the nature of switches that do not just route the data packets to the address in the header but also change the very nature of electrical signals so that they do not travel anywhere but their intended destination, because if it is that latter then you have solved a third of the headaches real security experts labor with.
Rather than maligning my state of knowledge with unsupported assertions, please provide some detail based on your fifteen years of work in telecom (which as we know has no file clerks or laborers but is comprised only of security experts).
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Goblin Squad Member
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My point didn't depend on the way telecommunications work anyway: I was responding to an objection that the bad guys would have to position their intercept between the server and the client.
They do not have to. Everyone will have a copy of the client and the client is a Unity-based app. All the bad guys have to do is decompile a copy of the client and recompile that client code that interprets the data being received into their own app to run in parallel with their game client. If their app can link player character names with userID values used in data communications then they can either interdict or insert their own datapackets bearing their target's addressing and consequently character position information so that the client and server disagree, resulting in position correction information from the server overriding the targetted player character position information and thus causing what players commonly refer to as lag.
If my concept model displays ignorance I would like to know how. I await enlightenment. I do not claim expert knowledge in network security, but neither am I ignorant.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, my take on it is this... if you can't see player names then how can you avenge your death?
Think about this for a second...
Well, the idea is that when someone attacks you their name is shared with you thereafter, though yours is still withheld from them unless you has been introduced to one another. Your attackers name might even show up in another color than the names of people you have interacted with in a constructive way.
If the only names that show are people you know, plus the name of the guy who attacked you in a different color font, then you will also be able to acquire the attacker as a target before he can usually identify you. This would at least allow you to prepare yourself if he is somehow able to identify you and close in.
Second, if your attacker's name shows up in your combat log like purplefixer suggested you can simply click on their name to get a list of available options, allowing you to accurately and easily place a bounty, or report for harassment, or gold spamming, or whatever reportable activity they might be engaged in.
Well, that could work but I'm not against seeing other peoples names over their heads assuming that Goblinworks Inc. frowns upon immersion breaking names.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, my take on it is this... if you can't see player names then how can you avenge your death?
Think about this for a second...
There's no need for you to ever know their name. Your combat log can easily show something like this:
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Unknown Attacker #1 casts Magic Missile on you for 179 points of damage.
Unknown Attacker #2 stabs you for 217 points of damage.
Unknown Attacker #3 cleaves you for 195 points of damage.
You succumb to your wounds and die.
Unknown Attacker #1 contributed to your death.
Unknown Attacker #2 contributed to your death.
Unknown Attacker #3 contributed to your death.
Unknown Attacker #4 contributed to your death.
Each of those "<so-and-so> contributed to your death" messages is a link you can click to bring up the UI that allows you to place Bounties, Death Curses, etc.
Eventually, I'd love to see a Perception Check to see if you recognize any of the attackers, so that when you bring up that UI, it can show you how many times that particular Unknown Attacker has attacked and/or killed you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Each of those "<so-and-so> contributed to your death" messages is a link you can click to bring up the UI that allows you to place Bounties, Death Curses, etc.
Or even right-click, edit profile. That opens the your "rolodex" which allows you to edit the information displayed to you for other characters (and what you share about yourself, when you choose to). Then you can add something like "Ganker 1/4 (date)" as the player's name and check the hostile box insuring they will be flagged red (minimap/name/etc) for quick visibility. Then a text field for any notes you might want to make such as type of damage hey did, bounty you placed, etc.
Then next time you run into "Unknown Attacker #1", they will have a red floating name of "Ganker 1/4 (date)".
Since aggressors/gankers will rarely take the time to remember their victims, this system would insure their victims are always on the more informed side; warning allowing for preparation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, my take on it is this... if you can't see player names then how can you avenge your death?
Think about this for a second...
Here's what I posted in an other thread:
Idealy there should be a feature that would allow you to share your name while in conversation with someone, ans from then the system would allow you to toggle on/off to see if you know that person or not. So if you deal with that merchant, while dealing you could send a request to share names, if the other player accept then both of you will have a way to reach each other afterward, if he refuse, there might be a good reason why you got such a deal...
As for distinguishing John Doe from the guy your chasing in a dark forest, guess what it's just fine, you shouldn't fire AOE spells if your not sure theres no bystander, unless you don't care for them to get caught in the blast. Unless you have an ability that allow to mark a target, it shouldn't be easy to find it when they hide.
Also I agree with other posters about having high renown (good or bad) makes you famous/infamous enough so other are able to reconize you on sight. So if you want to stay anonymous, better keep a low profile and/or do your stuff so nobody know you've done it.
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A similar request could be done automatically, with no agreement required, if you got killed for no reason by someone else, the name of the character shouldn't be provided, but an id for report could be used. And this ID could be use into the bounty system. So even if you don't know the name of your agressor, you stil can provide a description and the people that are allowed to hunt the target could see a mark hoovering on top of the target, or recieve a "perception" message telling them that the bounty is in the area... Or someone looking at "wanted" and that know the target, will see a glow around that specific bounty poster. Now if is a friend he can just tell is buddy to stay low profile for a while, or if he is a bounty hunter will have an easier time finding a target he already knows.
I don't know if such implementation is possible, but this, I think, would allow a better immersion.
This is not a perfect solution, but I believe if many agree and we do refine it, it could be something interesting to get the dev to look at
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Goblin Squad Member
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/introduce could also have a function attatched. Without argument, you introduce yourself.
/introduce = "Hello. My name is Bram Brightmore."
/introduce Caleb Cowlingsworth the III = "Hello. My name is Caleb Cowlingsworth the III."
"Bram. Stop that."
"Sorry." /introduce THE AMAZING Bram
"Hello. My name is THE AMAZING Bram."
"-.-"
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lord of the Rings Online allows you to turn of nameplates by hitting the "N" key. Very easy.
WoW, FFXI, and FFXIV (that I recall anyway) have a feature like this as well, where you can turn off names above people's heads. Rather than the on/off switch being bound to one of the keys on your keyboard, though, it was in the options menu. That method might be a bit better, especially if keyboard real estate is gonna be in high demand.
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Con's
Bots, cheaters scammers etc... How does one report a nameless individual.
This i think is rather simple i would say, like in many MMOs where you can click on an item holding another button down, for the name and a link to the full description to be entered in your chat- or mail message, you could go about it the same way with characters only that only mods and admins see more than a number or something. If its a character you cannot see personally, maybe you could go about it in your chatlog or some other interaction history.