Hide character names by default and introduce a recognizing system to display names

[Mistery14]

Detailed Description

 

Alright, so this one is going to be a little tricky to explain but here goes nothing:

 

Currently, players are able to see character's full names at all times at the top of their head at all times, no matter if they actually know the character or not - This alone makes it extremely easy to recognize people and encourages subconscious or intentional metagaming, that could be hard to detect the legitimacy of an interaction that could have been prevented without that knowledge of someone's displayed name. (i.e: Someone reading a name-tag to recognize a person even though their backs are turned, they have a hoodie on and are wearing different clothes).

 

Here's the proposed system:

 

- A system that makes it so that all characters do not initially have their names displayed for everyone. People will still be able to recognize your character based on their individual traits like clothing, the way your character speaks, their faces, their physical description via /ex, etc without the need to read your name tag.

 

- Since unknown characters would not appear in chat, player IDs along with a part of their character's description would display instead, until that player allows you to recognize them. Here's an example of how it'd look in chat:

 

- [ID 55] A 5'9ft Caucasian male with brown eyes and dark hair... says: This shit is fucked up, man. (This is a character that you do not recognize)

- [ID 36] Charles Jarris says: Yeah, tell me about it dude. I'll mess this guy up!  (This is your character)

- [ID 106] Xavier Green whispers: Yo, just let go, man, it's not worth going after that guy. (This is a character you recognize)

- [ID 11] An older-looking Spanish woman... says: Huh! Why the hell did he even do that for though? (Another character you do not recognize)

- [ID 55] **A 5'9ft Caucasian male with brown eyes and dark hair... Sparks up a cigarette and looks down the road, shaking his head.** (This is the same character that you do not recognize)

 

Of course, this doesn't translate great purely by text. But in-game, there would obviously be physical and visible clues, which makes it much more easier.

 

Relevant Commands/Items

 

Here are the mechanics of character recognition:

 

- A command that allows you to display your character's name to any players within a given radius. Basically, anyone within /w, /s, or normal speech radius can recognize you if you allow them to via that command. Once that command is entered, the players that you allowed to recognize you can now see your name tag.

 

- Alternatively, you can select an individual player via the command or F3'ing and right-clicking on them with your mouse, and click a "Allow to recognize" prompt for individual players.

- In addition, /showid to a police officer, or, well, anyone in fact, would also automatically allow that name tag to be revealed to that character temporarily.

 

- Players could opt to toggle their names, this is meant to facilitate RPing name tags for first responders, or cashiers for example. Anyone with, well, a physical name tag could make use of this toggle system.

 

- The people or the friends that you have allowed to recognize you, will be able to see your name tag. This is very important not only for factions and gangs, but pretty much anyone. Name tags should not completely be out of the picture on the server.

 

 

How will it benefit the server?

 

- Masks would not become irrelevant, they still serve the use of hiding name tags to those who not only know the character, but also beyond hiding someone's name tag, it still hides their faces. Mask#[ID] would still display and nothing would change in that regard.

 

- Characters who are looking for other characters to hurt them would actually have to investigate and /examine people's descriptions and take a better look as opposed to just reading a name-tag on top of people's heads. This is still do-able in a car, drive up near someone and do /ex. This means that, if someone is being hunted by someone else, they can take the necessary measures to hide themselves and not fear their name-tags will give them away from several meters away.

 

-  The aim is to make name-tag metagaming less of an issue overall. Again - If your character knows another character's first and/or last name, that name will be displayed to you if the player has allowed it. Your friends will most likely allow you to recognize their character's name as soon as this would be in effect, so in itself, this would have absolutely no impact on already established friendships.

 

- Admins, and the staff team in general would be the only ones to have full access to viewing character names on top of their heads while on-duty, this is to facilitate their work. In addition, /b chat would still display character names to everyone, just like it does with /mask currently.

 

- We already have the option to talk directly to characters via /to, or /tolow, ect. Which means you don't have to know someone's name to address them directly.

 

END OF SUGGESTION

Conclusion

 

So, the system itself is actually not my idea, nor is it a new one, at all.

 

It's a well-known and utilized system on an RP gamemode from a game that I still play on to this day (The Heavy-RP forumula is still the same), and has been in place for as long as it's existed (over a decade!), and that system actually decreases metagaming cases by a whole lot, on top of that, that game has limited character models and relies on displaying a physical description displayed upon looking at a player instead via text over a character's head, provided that character is unknown to your character.

 

But GTA V's more recent technology allows for unique facial traits, unique clothing, and GTA W also allows for written character descriptions on top of that, so it actually has several more advantages over the gamemode I mentioned, and makes it actually easier without names displayed automatically. It is something that people would have to get used to, and I understand if there is reluctance and confusion, but if you can wrap your head around how it works, it actually makes a whole lot of sense. I merely took the idea and adapted it.

 

A very important point is, this is not going to eradicate name tags entirely, nor is it meant to bring "1:1 realism", nor any handicap to any faction, be it legal or illegal, and doesn't aim to benefit any specific group or RP, because this would affect everyone.

 

Now let's talk abuse, it's inevitable - Yes, people would be able to do /characterdetails and completely change their descriptions like age, and whatever physical description they have like height and weight and whatever, but that falls into an OOC issue more than an IC one. Potential abuse is always a factor for every addition and feature, and command added and planned for the server.

 

Thank you for reading the suggestion, please be mindful and try to provide some constructive criticism if you have it.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Mistery14

[pendeja]

I only read a little bit of it and it's enough to convince me. I'm sick of the MG on this server and I think it would be great to have. 

[Mistery14]

1 minute ago, Muerta said:

I only read a little bit of it and it's enough to convince me. I'm sick of the MG on this server and I think it would be great to have. 

 

Hahah, hey I appreciate it a lot!

 

Of course I know that this isn't going to be pleasing everyone, it's normal. And I'm aware the system can get confusing to read about but I'm more than happy to elaborate further for anyone wanting some more insight. It's a system that has proven to work exceptionally well so far in my eyes.

[dionkoffie]

Nah. -1

 

If people MG, report them. I never had an issue with it.

[pendeja]

3 minutes ago, Mistery14 said:

 

Hahah, hey I appreciate it a lot!

 

Of course I know that this isn't going to be pleasing everyone, it's normal. And I'm aware the system can get confusing to read about but I'm more than happy to elaborate further for anyone wanting some more insight. It's a system that has proven to work exceptionally well so far in my eyes.

I can't park a car without somebody coming up and name checking. That'll save me from flooding the report section like a karen.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Muerta

[Triple Seven]

No, been discussed before. If this is needed, that just shows how low the standard of the server has become. Deal with the low quality of roleplay through reports and rule enforcement instead of stooping to the level of needing a crappy alias system, which this suggestion entails pretty much.

[Mistery14]

8 minutes ago, dionkoffie said:

Nah. -1

 

If people MG, report them. I never had an issue with it.

 

That's a valid answer, actually, if someone metagames, go ahead and report them. It's a simple fix.

 

I do have a counter-argument to that:

 

But, how can you know for sure they're metagaming? It's a rule that can be exceptionally hard to enforce because it's a case-by-case and contextual thing. Name tags (at all times) actually make the issue worse because people can use all sorts of excuses to metagame you via your name and point out other reasons that are hard to verify in reality.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Mistery14

[Mistery14]

3 minutes ago, Triple Seven said:

No, been discussed before. If this is needed, that just shows how low the standard of the server has become. Deal with the low quality of roleplay through reports and rule enforcement instead of stooping to the level of needing a crappy alias system, which this suggestion entails pretty much.

 

This would suggest that any server using this system has low quality RP standards - Which is absolutely not the case. But again I understand your skepticism, and while this system does mitigate name-tag metagaming, it doesn't exactly "fix" the metagaming issue, per se. Metagaming is always going to be an issue and this is not going to be a magic fix, I'm very aware of that.

 

It's merely a different name-tag system, it doesn't aim to replace any rule.

[StiffChocl8]

+1

Forces some realism into the way people interact with unknown parties.

[joshua]

i personally don't mind this cus i come from HL2RP where this was always the norm. you only see character description (/examine) until they "F2" you after giving you their name IC (which is the equivalent of this suggestion, where then their name comes up)

 

i completely understand why people may not be receptive to this at all tho, as i know the current method of nametags has been in use since early SAMP days for a lot of players here