Alternatives to Unique Character Names
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Hi,
I'm a bit curious as to why common character names and the ID System are being done away with upon release since there are several ways to make them not so problematic. Three of the more prevalent reasons I've seen here and outside of here for online games that also had their fair share of complaints regarding this topic:
- Confusion.
- Impersonation.
- Lack of exclusivity or the feeling of the aforementioned.
If implemented poorly, those three reasons are completely understandable because there would be no way to tell two users with the same name apart, it would be too easy to impersonate another player by capitalizing on the first reason, and... well, while I truly do not care about having a unique name if it means everyone else has to choose a name they don't like or type gibberish for their names, there is merit in being able to choose a name you want and ways to also make it feel exclusive. There are quite a few ways to solve those three problems I explained, and here are my solutions for them:
Confusion
- If the ID System is kept, it should remain visible in a character's Character Sheet which other players can view upon right-clicking them; in addition, a character's ID could be shown in all chat channels they type in and next to their names in a smaller font size through a setting that can be toggled.
- Since the ID System is very similar to the way Blizzard, Discord, and possibly Glyph did it, our unique account names from signing up for Fractured could also be shown alongside our characters' names and their IDs in certain windows and commands like it is shown in the list of occupants of a city. (I.e., Prometheus#0000 [Jacopo])
Impersonation
In addition to everything listed under 'Confusion', a helpful chat command called '/age' could be implemented to tell its user the age of their character and the age of any other character they're interested in by typing their ID or their unique account name which will automatically target their currently logged in character. (E.g., '/age Promestheus#0000' [ID] or '/age Jacopo' [account])
Exclusivity
I can somewhat understand why someone would feel satisfied to have a name no one else can acquire despite the name itself being exactly what they wanted even if it wasn't unique/could be acquired by more than one person. A way this could be somewhat rectified is by making us all choose unique family/last names which... I'm personally not a fan of it in comparison to the ID and account name, but any alternative to unique character names will do.
To conclude, I honestly just want everyone to be able to have the character name they desire without having to spend minutes to hours trying to figure out which character names are not taken—that they did not even want in the first place—only to eventually give up and settle with a character name like xXxPoonSl4yerxXx. Similarly to reality, there are ways to figure out who and who despite both or many having the same first name, last name, or first and last name and that discrepancy can be done here.
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I've always been a fan of Unique character names in MMOs.
I hate logging into a game and finding 15 versions of Gandalf, Merlin, and Drizz't Du'Orden in the game. It always takes away from the immersion for me.
I am also not a fan of account ID/Tags attached to names for the same reason, and non-sensical/profanity names are also a no go.
Unique house names are a compromise I like, but even then, I wouldn't want 50 Merlin _______ out there with just a different last name. Part of the fun of a Role-Playing game is to come up with a cool fantasy name for your character, afterall.
