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Hiding player IDs
One of the things I've always wanted to see in an mmo is the ability (via a cloak or cape) to hide a person's character name, level and class to strangers. Let's say you have a cloak with no stats on it, but when you wear it, your character name, level and class were hidden to anyone not on your friends list or guild. There are a couple of reasons why I'd like to see this. First of all, I like the RP value of it, as it adds that more realistic element to the immersion where you have to ask someone who and what they are rather than just instantly knowing about it.
But there's a practical side to this as well, which would be to discourage PKing. Players are a lot less likely to attack someone if they don't know how strong that person is.
Any thoughts?
But there's a practical side to this as well, which would be to discourage PKing. Players are a lot less likely to attack someone if they don't know how strong that person is.
Any thoughts?
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Nice idea for RP.
Against PKs, I guess they will wear it to be anonymous and attack people that doesn't wear it. But perhaps I see the bad everywhere :)
Thank you for the Google sheet link.
It's not really more realistic, in a game environment everyone looks relatively the same. In the real world people can easily remember a face they've seen before even at a fair distance - in gameworlds most faces are nearly identical and too small to see clearly until you are right next to someone. In real life an experienced 'combatant' can notice tell-tale signs of military or other training in someone else. In an fantasy setting you'd expect adventurers who've survived to have similar ability to discern another's relative level of experience by their movements and other tell-tale signs. Displayed names and character level are simply providing players an equivalent shorthand means within the gameworld of recognition and context that they would reasonably have in a real world environment.
Typically in PvP-oriented games hardcore guilds will have a simple Kill on Sight policy for such obscured players when working an area to prevent sneak attacks where they might otherwise ignore a lower level character gathering resources or passing through. Your suggestion would more likely have the opposite effect of what you think.
I didn't notice that until you mention it. What an amazing doc you made midnight-shadow. Did you do everything yourself?
Back to topic,
I'm personally against the idea of anonymity. My reason is that we have already seen what anonymity can do on the internet. People troll, act a fool, bully and do the worst things when they have no social consequences to their actions. We're essentially removing risk as people aren't able to discern who you are, which will lead to a % of people doing things we normally won't see because they won't get caught doing it.
I'm not advocating for a care-bear game. I'm advocating for people to take responsibility for their actions and own up to them. If you're gonna spam world chat with idiot phrases or go around town harassing people, nothing is stopping them except for social ostracization. Unless the devs have moderators to police chat and action, anonymity cloak will remove players only recourse on how to deal with unsavory players.
Also, with regards to the information sheets, I can't take credit for any of those, as I had nothing to do with making them. I just use them to show them to as many people as possible, hence putting them in my forum signature.
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/hiding-player-ids/#post-24458" rel="nofollow">Walormr wrote:</a></div>
Thank you for the Google sheet link.
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I didn’t notice that until you mention it. What an amazing doc you made midnight-shadow. Did you do everything yourself?
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I can't take any credit for that as I had nothing to do with the making of those sheets. They were made by Nivhawk and Ducky who also keep them updated. I just use them to show them to new players so they can learn more about the game.
:D