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Complete overhaul of the nametag system proposal - more immersive, prevents a lot of MG while still being OOCly reportable etc


Kaasisbaas

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Short description:  

A complete revamp of the nametag system that prevents pretty much all potential metagame with nametags and feels more immersive - the Stranger System.

Read more below to get a full understanding of the system as to how it should work, it's a bit too complicated to explain in short.

Detailed description:

Every character in the game will have their nametag to others as "[GENDER] [AGE] y/o Stranger (XXXXX)",  XXXXX being a string of numbers linked to that specific character, by default. It'd probably be the easiest to make this the already existing character ID. Upon acquiring the IC knowledge of that stranger's name, a player could label that stranger with the name they have discovered through IC means, with a command, something like /nametag [stranger id] [name]. This command would then change the "[GENDER] [AGE] y/o Stranger (XXXXX)" nametag to whatever was provided as input, but keeping the (XXXXX) behind the name. This custom name-tag is only visible for the player's character that assigned it to the stranger. 

 

This system is not just nametags, as you've noticed - it also includes setting a date of birth & gender to your character. This doesn't have to be very in-depth, just a simple /setdob and /setgender command would suffice (this command would be a one-time use, and only staff being able to change a player's DoB or gender after that, e.g. when a character namechanges, undergoes gender transition, accidentally set it to the wrong value) \

 

Nametags would be both displayed like this above a player's head, as well as in the chat. Basically fully replaces every occurance of "John Doe" with "Male 69 y/o Stranger" by default, until the /nametag has been set. 

 

Commands to add: /nametag, /setdob, /setgender

Items to add: None.

How would your suggestion improve the server? I think this suggestion would generally feel more immersive to everyone, and prevent (almost) every form of metagaming (intentional or not) when it comes to nametags. 

 

Since this system is quite the revamp and I've personally never experienced it being in use - it'd definitely take time to adapt to if implemented.

 

Additional information:

Edited by Kaasisbaas
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I can imagine this being an absolute eye-sore in situations where there's a lot of people (like at a club for example). That being said, the age of a character isn't something you'd be able to guess at a glance - a lot of people can look older or younger than they actually are, so the whole "age" floating by their nametag serves little purpose to negate metagaming. These are things that are already incorporated into the script through the attributes system, where you can describe your character in more detail - age included.

 

How would speaking work? Does your chat appear as "Stranger 50151_44 says: Hello"? Again, if this would be the case, it would be increasingly difficult to distinguish between who's talking or doing emotes.

 

It's not really practical.

Edited by Anselmi
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It's a headache to not know who's in the car ahead of you pulling stunts or about to DM you and between an eyesore and a headache I pick an eye-sore. My eyes are already sore anyway. Implement an ID system or some way to find out who's who. Things are gonna get abused now that you can't see 2 feet around you. 

 

Or keep it like it was since the only argument being "mg" isn't going to stand. If that stuff gets mg'd it's easier to deal with than not knowing -literally- anything. 

 

 

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Just now, Anselmi said:

I can imagine this being an absolute eye-sore in situations where there's a lot of people (like at a club for example). That being said, the age of a character isn't something you'd be able to guess at a glance - a lot of people can look older or younger than they actually are, so the whole "age" floating by their nametag serves little purpose to negate metagaming. These are things that are already incorporated into the script through the attributes system, where you can describe your character in more detail - age included.

 

How would speaking work? Does your chat appear as "Stranger 50151_44 says: Hello"? Again, if this would be the case, it would be increasingly difficult to distinguish between who's talking or doing emotes.

 

It's not really practical.

 

As for distinguishing who is talking / doing emotes in chat - that is the main flaw of the system. That's why I thought of adding in the age mainly, to make it a bit easier to do so. Perhaps make it so that /me's also show as a /ame, and show in-character speech in the same way. 

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I disagree personally as for purposes such as forum complaints where the complaining party won’t be able to efficiently describe the situation let alone the person because of the stranger tags. 
 

In my opinion I don’t think this is at all necessary and people can still metagame through your face attributes etc (I know it’s unlikely, but it’s possible) - you’ll never end metagaming not any rules but we can reduce it.

 

I disagree with this as everyone’s already pointed out, I agree with Anselmi and think this wouldn’t be practical - it’s a given that people will see names through things sometimes and you can’t stop them but what you need to take into account is how you react as your character. 

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Given that it's text based, a big thing for me is association. Having simple names helps because you can associate what lines are coming from what character based upon the name on their head.

 

Having GENDER AGE etc etc above their head is a lot more information to mentally process to make that association. Masks are bad enough as it is. 

 

For example - there was one time there were four people masked up. Two of these masked people had Mask_ABCDEF_12 and the other one had MASK_ABDCFE_12 (as an example). That's very similar. When they did a /me for firing their gun at someone from a prone position, it took a significant amount of time to process that, look at the two people side by side and go "wait they've both got the same number at the end, which one is it?".

 

Edited by Westen
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