People have asked for comments and feedback, so here it is.
Three disclaimers apply:
My opinions are, as always, worth exactly what you paid for them.
I am a VERY new player, and reserve the right to have missed the point entirely.
It is NOT my game. It is yours. I do not want to tell you how to run your own game, nor am I intending to do so.
As I understand it, what you seem to be aiming for here is subtly different to most computer RPGs. The idea isn't to kill monsters, become the most ninja at your chosen skill or otherwise develop your character - although you can. The aim is to have an RPG where people actually role play. My understanding is that everything else exists to factilitate and further that aim.
The fact that everyone is by default 'someone' does not, in my humble opinion, help the game. I don't know who I am interacting with. This makes suspension of disbelief and immersion into the game world harder. It also makes it very easy to loose track of large conversations, because I don't know who is saying what. I find it confusing and disorientating. If I don't know who someone is, it is much harder to interact with them. I don't even know if the 'someone' I am taking to now is the same 'someone' I was talking to in the bar earlier.
Even having to pause the conversation to click 'introduce' breaks, just for a moment, that in character interaction.
I don't believe in complaining without also offering some form of resolution to the problem, so my ideas are:
1) Just bin it. Use names by default. Then I will know who everyone is. I don't know how complex commenting out the entire introduction code would be, but in my experience removing stuff is often easier than replacing it.
2) Implement a 'short description'. Just two or three words as part of the character profile/properties. Ie instead of talking to 'someone' I am taking to 'A fat elf' or 'A dusty traveller' or 'A gray-haired man'. I still don't know their names, but I do now have some idea of who/what they are.
3) Character pallet. Let people change the colour of their hair & clothes so that people will actually look different from each other. The game in it's current sate would look great - if different people actually looked different. As is, we have lots of lovely buildings and furniture populated by photocopies. The icons don't have to be re-drawn as such, just re-coloured. This idea has almost certainly been discussed to death already, I just thought I would mention it as it would also help to fix this issue.
Loosing 'someone's.
Moderator: Gamemasters
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abcfantasy
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I strongly do not want to see everyone's names. My character wouldn't know the people and their names, and I would be getting confused which characters does mine know (especially when playing multiple characters). But to your problems, there are some resolutions that could help you out (I believe they were already mentioned somewhere else).
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Firstly, you could easily name other characters (without them making a #i) with 2 methods:
1. Type the following: "!name <character id> <name>" Ex. !name 1112222 Mysterious_Man
2. Type a name and instead of pressing enter, right click on a character and choose "Give Name". This is usually the fastest and easiest way if the character is in the screen. You can change these names whenever you wish.
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Secondly, as someone else had said somewhere else, you can show that your character examines the features/appearance of another character. Ex. #me examines the lady on the stool. Usually, that other player will reply with a description of the character. You can save your own description by typing the #me describing your character and save it as a shortcut, using Ctrl+F2. Then, when you want to show your character's description, press F2 and press enter.
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Thirdly, I think there is an automatic examine feature in work. Where you right click on another char and you will see the description of that character (without having to #me examining and waiting for a reply).
I hope that helps. If you get used to the !name feature, you will find it muchh easier and better.
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Firstly, you could easily name other characters (without them making a #i) with 2 methods:
1. Type the following: "!name <character id> <name>" Ex. !name 1112222 Mysterious_Man
2. Type a name and instead of pressing enter, right click on a character and choose "Give Name". This is usually the fastest and easiest way if the character is in the screen. You can change these names whenever you wish.
----
Secondly, as someone else had said somewhere else, you can show that your character examines the features/appearance of another character. Ex. #me examines the lady on the stool. Usually, that other player will reply with a description of the character. You can save your own description by typing the #me describing your character and save it as a shortcut, using Ctrl+F2. Then, when you want to show your character's description, press F2 and press enter.
----
Thirdly, I think there is an automatic examine feature in work. Where you right click on another char and you will see the description of that character (without having to #me examining and waiting for a reply).
I hope that helps. If you get used to the !name feature, you will find it muchh easier and better.
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Pellandria
- Posts: 2604
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Re: Loosing 'someone's.
This is exactly the problem, you walk around on the street and get mugged and suddendtly you know the name of the person who mugged you, even if you never saw him before, you know how hard a role of thief or bandit will be, as people allready post almost the whole number of the char anyway.Morden wrote:
1) Just bin it. Use names by default. Then I will know who everyone is. I don't know how complex commenting out the entire introduction code would be, but in my experience removing stuff is often easier than replacing it.
If you get to know someone jjust start like someone really would "Greetings fine Lady, might I know your name, I'm xyz" and then you get the name of the person, thats not too hard or? Any false or wrong names then would be useless aswell.
As I allready told you in the newbie section, the devs work on a command, where you can see the description automiticly untill then just say something like"#me exames the person" and the other player normally gives you a descritptionMorden wrote: 2) Implement a 'short description'. Just two or three words as part of the character profile/properties. Ie instead of talking to 'someone' I am taking to 'A fat elf' or 'A dusty traveller' or 'A gray-haired man'. I still don't know their names, but I do now have some idea of who/what they are.
As far as i understand the graphics its not that easy to just switch the appeareance ig, recolouring takes time as we have no paperdolling but static images, means for every hair and cloth colour we need to get 64 pictures or something.Devs allready working on some kind of paperdolling system, untill now use your imagination.Morden wrote: 3) Character pallet. Let people change the colour of their hair & clothes so that people will actually look different from each other. The game in it's current sate would look great - if different people actually looked different. As is, we have lots of lovely buildings and furniture populated by photocopies. The icons don't have to be re-drawn as such, just re-coloured. This idea has almost certainly been discussed to death already, I just thought I would mention it as it would also help to fix this issue.
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Juliana D'cheyne
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Estralis Seborian
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I think some miss Morden's point. Or maybe I am missing it too and mixing it with my own opinion. A chat log that looks like this:
Someone(2134589342389024213414) says: "Hiho"
Someone(4239482379420739048273498023749082374) nods and smiles at the dwarf
Someone(2223821983219381298213) watches the scene and picks his nose
looks pretty ugly. We are all used to it, so we don't regard it a problem, but a newbie does. When I joined, we had short numbers, but the long numbers look pretty awkward.
To the mentioned points:
1) Other games do it just like this. Every name can be seen and still it is a matter of roleplay to introduce. I play a game that handles names this way and among the roleplayers, I have *never* encountered somebody who says "Hello (my name)" without me introducing first. Sure, there are some noobs who don't get it, but with a nice reply like "Hello! How comes you know my name? Did we met before? Oh, my memory..." they usually get the point. And those who go like "Your name hovers over your head", well, they need a lesson in RP... Nevertheless I'd not choose this option for I think the Illarion-way of technically not knowing other's name is quite fine.
2) Sounds nice. A customizable description, along with a default description is just fine. Problem might be that people now really loose the overview for not everybody looks the same but now everybody might even have the same default description (e.g. "A human says: "Hello").
3) Best solution. Our devs get bugged with this for 7 years now, maybe it is about time to see it realized. With customizable avatars, one could also drop the numbers entirely even though it makes rereading a log difficult
Someone(2134589342389024213414) says: "Hiho"
Someone(4239482379420739048273498023749082374) nods and smiles at the dwarf
Someone(2223821983219381298213) watches the scene and picks his nose
looks pretty ugly. We are all used to it, so we don't regard it a problem, but a newbie does. When I joined, we had short numbers, but the long numbers look pretty awkward.
To the mentioned points:
1) Other games do it just like this. Every name can be seen and still it is a matter of roleplay to introduce. I play a game that handles names this way and among the roleplayers, I have *never* encountered somebody who says "Hello (my name)" without me introducing first. Sure, there are some noobs who don't get it, but with a nice reply like "Hello! How comes you know my name? Did we met before? Oh, my memory..." they usually get the point. And those who go like "Your name hovers over your head", well, they need a lesson in RP... Nevertheless I'd not choose this option for I think the Illarion-way of technically not knowing other's name is quite fine.
2) Sounds nice. A customizable description, along with a default description is just fine. Problem might be that people now really loose the overview for not everybody looks the same but now everybody might even have the same default description (e.g. "A human says: "Hello").
3) Best solution. Our devs get bugged with this for 7 years now, maybe it is about time to see it realized. With customizable avatars, one could also drop the numbers entirely even though it makes rereading a log difficult
Personally, I think the system's fine now. You can name someone with a fake name, and you don't know the names of people you haven't met. It saves confusion, I like my chatlog having names like that, and you can identify people on the town boards by their numbers. You can examine them if you want a proper description, and if you really wish to remember someone you can name them "Guy with grey hair" etc. And you don't have to right click and introduce, it takes quarter of a second to type #i.
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Magdha Tiefenerz
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- Location: Kupferberge - Copper Mountains
Hello!
If you don't know who you are talking to, then ask for their names. This is just like in real life and as simple as that. If you are lucky you'll get a "#i" as well. If not, feel free to asign a name to that character by yourself with the command "!name".
I'm totally against showing names by default.
With kind regards
If you don't know who you are talking to, then ask for their names. This is just like in real life and as simple as that. If you are lucky you'll get a "#i" as well. If not, feel free to asign a name to that character by yourself with the command "!name".
I'm totally against showing names by default.
With kind regards
I like the idea he had where a player can have a short description instead of a number
Such for my charcters instead of Someone(439756432), it would be "Tail-less Lizard". Would make things much simpler, and people would still not know the name. Just make it an f12 option, press f12 to see short descriptions or numbers.
Though names would override descriptions
Such for my charcters instead of Someone(439756432), it would be "Tail-less Lizard". Would make things much simpler, and people would still not know the name. Just make it an f12 option, press f12 to see short descriptions or numbers.
Though names would override descriptions
Thank you for the comments and the feedback. Hope I am not annoying you lot too much!
I still think this is trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist to start with, and in doing so has introduced several more.
A lot of information is lost in translating what we would like to be a realistic senario into the game interface/world.
My character has five senses to interact with the world around them:
They can actually touch the game world - as players, we can't.
They can smell the game world - we can't.
They can taste the smoke in the air & the crisp morning breeze - we can't.
They can hear the subtle inflections of someone's voice & the rattle of their armour in battle - we can just about hear a sword strike, if there is a sound file for it - and then it is the same sword stike every time.
They can see the game world in detail, towering over them. It fills their vision, they can see the grain of the wood in the bar and the beer stains on someones shirt - we get a half screen image and a few lines of text.
Letting people see names (or some variation thereof) is one of the few chances to recover some of this missing information. To actually give the player a chance to identify and recognise someone. By hiding names, not only are you giving up the chance to minimise the in game information lost through the interface, you are aggravating it.
The game itself is a compromise and abstraction. Character descriptions are part of that. I as a player simply cannot give you as a player the level of detail of description of my character that your character can see. I could write several pages and it would mean nothing because you probably wouldn't have time to physically read it on the screen when you met me before something happened in game.
Then, allow for acelerated time in game. Say I meet someone, wave and say 'hello', moan about the weather. We chat a bit, I tell a rude dwarf joke, he tells the tale of when he beat up half a dozen dragons with a rusty shovel. All in all we chat for a good hour realtime. In game these characters have been chatting for much longer than that. We have been joking and boasting and chatting long into the night - and there is still a chance I won't recognise him when I meet him next?
What about the 'invisible population'? You know, the background npcs that you don't want to represent ingame because filling the screen full of peasants just slows things down. The people who buy the rusty knives and fish off the merchant you sold them to. Can I not just ask one of these people 'just who was that guy?'
I can understand why it has been done I think, and what people think it does:
They think it adds realism. That you don't know the name of that guy walking down the street in the real world, and you shouldn't in game either. True - but I have seen them clearly. Clearly enough that if I saw them watching me five minutes later, I may well recognise them as the same person. If someone introduces themselves to me at a party, chances are good I will promptly forget their name. But I may well have learnt it by the end of the night. Even if I havn't, I can phone one of my friends and ask "That cute blond girl from last night, who was she? Can I have her phone number?" Once you have met someone you do actually know who they are, even if you havn't been properly introduced. Even before you meet them, you may know who they are anyway: 'Ooh, you don't want to talk to Fred, he is a nasty whatsit..'
They think it encourages role play. By forcing people to introduce themselves it encourages them to interact and role play. I find it exactly that - forced and artificial. I find it awkward, unnatural and think it detracts from the flow of that interaction.
As people have said in this thread, the game needs imagination and suspension of disbelief. I find that all the 'someone's simply isolate me from the game world rather than immersing me.
So I can add my own names/descriptions onto people. Ok, that helps quite a bit. But, and I'm not trying to be funny here, it still strikes me as a nasty fix to a self invented problem. I am still having to leave the game world, use the interface/client to tack on a name, and then return to the interaction.
So I should ask people for their names? I have had several people introduce themselves - by name - to me during a converstaion. They just forgot to click the 'introduce' button. What about when someone has been introduced by a 3rd party, ie someone else in the conversation gives you their name? Should I still be unable to recognise them?
As for the example of what happens if someone ambushes me in the street - I have just had a stand up fight with someone who has tried to beat me to death and you are trying to tell me I WON'T recognise him when I see him again!? You are telling me that I won't be able to describe him to the city watch? That there wasn't some nosy housewife watching from behind the shutters, or a tramp asleep in the rubbish?
This just for one person. Once you start getting two or three people then it becomes very disorientating and confusing. With two, or three 'someone's speaking at once you don't know who said what. It doesn't help you imagine and immerse yourself in a game world if you can't even understand what is happening.
Yes, it is an abstraction. No, it isn't perfect. But I honestly think it is better than the other options. It is easier to find fault with things than it is to praise. There are lots of things about the game that i DO like, and I honestly do think that you folks have a very good game here. I am just trying to explain the one main element that detracted from it for me, why it did that, and offer alternatives. If you don't want to change anything, that is fine.
Man, why do all my recent posts seem to have turned into book length essays?
Take Care
Morden
Ps:
To Pellandria: The reason I didn't respond on the newbie thread was that I was afraid of draging it further off topic, into a coding/game mech discussion which didn't seem suitable for the thread. One of the reasons I posted here. Sorry for apparently ignoring you!
I still think this is trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist to start with, and in doing so has introduced several more.
A lot of information is lost in translating what we would like to be a realistic senario into the game interface/world.
My character has five senses to interact with the world around them:
They can actually touch the game world - as players, we can't.
They can smell the game world - we can't.
They can taste the smoke in the air & the crisp morning breeze - we can't.
They can hear the subtle inflections of someone's voice & the rattle of their armour in battle - we can just about hear a sword strike, if there is a sound file for it - and then it is the same sword stike every time.
They can see the game world in detail, towering over them. It fills their vision, they can see the grain of the wood in the bar and the beer stains on someones shirt - we get a half screen image and a few lines of text.
Letting people see names (or some variation thereof) is one of the few chances to recover some of this missing information. To actually give the player a chance to identify and recognise someone. By hiding names, not only are you giving up the chance to minimise the in game information lost through the interface, you are aggravating it.
The game itself is a compromise and abstraction. Character descriptions are part of that. I as a player simply cannot give you as a player the level of detail of description of my character that your character can see. I could write several pages and it would mean nothing because you probably wouldn't have time to physically read it on the screen when you met me before something happened in game.
Then, allow for acelerated time in game. Say I meet someone, wave and say 'hello', moan about the weather. We chat a bit, I tell a rude dwarf joke, he tells the tale of when he beat up half a dozen dragons with a rusty shovel. All in all we chat for a good hour realtime. In game these characters have been chatting for much longer than that. We have been joking and boasting and chatting long into the night - and there is still a chance I won't recognise him when I meet him next?
What about the 'invisible population'? You know, the background npcs that you don't want to represent ingame because filling the screen full of peasants just slows things down. The people who buy the rusty knives and fish off the merchant you sold them to. Can I not just ask one of these people 'just who was that guy?'
I can understand why it has been done I think, and what people think it does:
They think it adds realism. That you don't know the name of that guy walking down the street in the real world, and you shouldn't in game either. True - but I have seen them clearly. Clearly enough that if I saw them watching me five minutes later, I may well recognise them as the same person. If someone introduces themselves to me at a party, chances are good I will promptly forget their name. But I may well have learnt it by the end of the night. Even if I havn't, I can phone one of my friends and ask "That cute blond girl from last night, who was she? Can I have her phone number?" Once you have met someone you do actually know who they are, even if you havn't been properly introduced. Even before you meet them, you may know who they are anyway: 'Ooh, you don't want to talk to Fred, he is a nasty whatsit..'
They think it encourages role play. By forcing people to introduce themselves it encourages them to interact and role play. I find it exactly that - forced and artificial. I find it awkward, unnatural and think it detracts from the flow of that interaction.
As people have said in this thread, the game needs imagination and suspension of disbelief. I find that all the 'someone's simply isolate me from the game world rather than immersing me.
So I can add my own names/descriptions onto people. Ok, that helps quite a bit. But, and I'm not trying to be funny here, it still strikes me as a nasty fix to a self invented problem. I am still having to leave the game world, use the interface/client to tack on a name, and then return to the interaction.
So I should ask people for their names? I have had several people introduce themselves - by name - to me during a converstaion. They just forgot to click the 'introduce' button. What about when someone has been introduced by a 3rd party, ie someone else in the conversation gives you their name? Should I still be unable to recognise them?
As for the example of what happens if someone ambushes me in the street - I have just had a stand up fight with someone who has tried to beat me to death and you are trying to tell me I WON'T recognise him when I see him again!? You are telling me that I won't be able to describe him to the city watch? That there wasn't some nosy housewife watching from behind the shutters, or a tramp asleep in the rubbish?
This just for one person. Once you start getting two or three people then it becomes very disorientating and confusing. With two, or three 'someone's speaking at once you don't know who said what. It doesn't help you imagine and immerse yourself in a game world if you can't even understand what is happening.
Yes, it is an abstraction. No, it isn't perfect. But I honestly think it is better than the other options. It is easier to find fault with things than it is to praise. There are lots of things about the game that i DO like, and I honestly do think that you folks have a very good game here. I am just trying to explain the one main element that detracted from it for me, why it did that, and offer alternatives. If you don't want to change anything, that is fine.
Man, why do all my recent posts seem to have turned into book length essays?
Take Care
Morden
Ps:
To Pellandria: The reason I didn't respond on the newbie thread was that I was afraid of draging it further off topic, into a coding/game mech discussion which didn't seem suitable for the thread. One of the reasons I posted here. Sorry for apparently ignoring you!
I'm also a fairly new user, but after playing around with the system a very little bit I've found that I like it a LOT.
In a crowd full of strangers not knowing who said what feels very much the way it does in RL.
I always turn logging 'on'. Then, after a session where I think I would have known someone well enough that I would recognize them, but didn't get that #i I manually edit my Names tbl file.... Also, once I noticed that the forums often say someone looked like (1234...) I started keying on the first four numerals of people I just met. That's been working very well for me. I can go back through the log and label the guy who spilled the drink as nebbish afterwords, if it didn't occur to do it at the time.
In a crowd full of strangers not knowing who said what feels very much the way it does in RL.
I always turn logging 'on'. Then, after a session where I think I would have known someone well enough that I would recognize them, but didn't get that #i I manually edit my Names tbl file.... Also, once I noticed that the forums often say someone looked like (1234...) I started keying on the first four numerals of people I just met. That's been working very well for me. I can go back through the log and label the guy who spilled the drink as nebbish afterwords, if it didn't occur to do it at the time.