A Heirachy of Allegiences Identity

In L2, a clan logo emblem and if at war or not was above the name, with a player name and own tag to differentiate.
In AoC, there is a Heirachy of Allegiences and various social organizations as taken from the wiki below,.

How are individuals various affiliations and social organizations (and/or which one ) going to be visually apparent to other players?

Affiliations

Alliances
Citizenship
Guilds
Parties
Raids
Religion
Society

Social organizations

Scholar's academy
Thieves' guild
Trader's company

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you forgot families

And shoe size.

Favorite color?

akabear wrote: »

How are individuals various affiliations and social organizations (and/or which one ) going to be visually apparent to other players?

Why do they all need to be?

Vhaeyne

The standard MMO:
[First Name, Sur Name]
(Guild Name)

That name plate is all you need to know. Ideally, you would just have that. You defiantly should never see level or HP values.

Personally I don't want titles or anything else to be displayed on a name plate. It would just be the characters name/guild. I don't want titles because they are a waste of space, it's pick you favorite achievement's name, and use that to permanently clutter the screen. I disable it in every game if I can.

Ideally you should be able to see some of the information you listed by inspecting the character when you are in range.

The bottom line is we don't need to clutter up the screen.

daveywavey

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Ideally you should be able to see some of the information you listed by inspecting the character when you are in range.

I don't even want that! Name, Guild, and some sort of colour to tell me whether or not they're a good guy or a bad guy. That's all I need. Being able to assign my own colours to the info listed above would be my preferred option.

Voidwalkers

Shhhh, don't ruin the day for spies. Keep things hidden.

Vhaeyne

daveywavey wrote: »

I don't even want that! Name, Guild, and some sort of colour to tell me whether or not they're a good guy or a bad guy. That's all I need. Being able to assign my own colours to the info listed above would be my preferred option.

Voidwalkers wrote: »

Shhhh, don't ruin the day for spies. Keep things hidden.

I totally agree with both of you here. That is why I used the word "Some" for the information that would be seen while inspecting. The reason is because not having the information available promotes better player interaction, and even allows for things like spies.

One example I can give of a game type that has greatly increased player interaction as a result of not sharing information is the starship bridge simulators like "Artemis" and "Pulsar". In these games everyone mans different stations on a simulated Star Trek style ship. Each player only has information available based on their role. In order to get the full picture information has to be verbally shared. The result is that naturally a group of 5 people end up talking like they are on a space ship fighting a group of Klingons like any episode of Star Trek. The purposeful lack of information given to each player creates forces people to role play. While the genres and style of game is completely different. I think it serves as an example of how not telling players everything can enhance a game.

All of that being said. I think it would be quite amazing if the only way to show what guild you were in was to have the guilds craftsmen put the guilds heraldry on you shield, armor, or cape. Otherwise you would just have to take someone at their word. Which is quite literally role playing. I am not even a big RP guy when it comes to MMOs, but I do like game mechanics that make role play an natural part of the game.

akabear

Noaani wrote: »

akabear wrote: »

How are individuals various affiliations and social organizations (and/or which one ) going to be visually apparent to other players?

Why do they all need to be?

Never thought all need to be distinguished, but wondered what the approach might be to identify who you might be fighting in pvp, what levels get flagged, and then perhaps you might know the why you are at war.

I also wondered if there was going to be a way to identify what allegiance you are party to other players, as after name, clan, war tag, I thought there might end up more to take note of. If that is the way they go.

The "why" was sometimes important, as in past experience some wars were purely for fun or to weed out selected players and whilst a clan and war tag was up, some players were left alone.

AoC appears to have a multitude of ways that pvp conflict may originate from.

Warth

only guild should be identifyable by default.

Node Information only to enemy nodes.

enemy Social organizations only while on missions for these organizations.

akabear

From memory, L2 had an in-game library and/or DIY bmp icon system that a guild of sufficient level/progress could upload for a guild/clan crest and/or ally crest that would be displayed concurrently above the player's head for all to see. A mini icon, each little larger than one capitalized text letter, but useful to know thy enemy.

So is AoC just guild icon?

Noaani

akabear wrote: »

So is AoC just guild icon?

Probably just guild name, not icon.

The concept of displaying a guild as an icon as opposed to the actual name of the guild is somewhat odd to me. In the 20+ MMO's I've played, I've not seen it - and only ever heard of it in one.

akabear wrote: »

AoC appears to have a multitude of ways that pvp conflict may originate from.

I mean, it does, but I don't think the list of affiliations in the OP is a list of ways that PvP conflict can arise.

There is no real difference between these things and mechanics taht other games have. Most other games see players have a home town (citizen), allow players to join groups (parties), and allow those parties to join together (raids). All MMO's have some form of guild system, and many allow guilds to formalize positive relations with each other (alliances). Most games also have a searies of factions players can join (societies), and a good number also allow players to join a specific religion.

So really, there is nothing new in any of that.

George_Black

Would like to see
~Title~
■□First Last

The rest can appear with a drop down arrow of that places tab target.

■□ is the guild logo.

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

Would like to see
~Title~
■□First Last

The rest can appear with a drop down arrow of that places tab target.

■□ is the guild logo.

I'd personally rather
First name
[guild]

Don't really care about anything else, and I'd rather have all mental associations with a guild in proper language rather than needing to associate a logo with each guild.

Give the option for displaying titles and surnames to those that want to see them, but they are materially insignificant.

George_Black

In games as well as global history, logos and emblems are way better than writting. It has nothing to do with proper language.

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

In games as well as global history, logos and emblems are way better than writting. It has nothing to do with proper language.

In terms of brand recognition, sure, in the real world where there are near infinate options.

Problem with that is that it falls to pieces when you have a limited number of small, similar logos where there is nothing at all stopping one "brand" from trying to get as close a logo to another "brand" as possible.

We are all used to seeing small differences like this in language (their, there, they're; then, than; bought, brought, chose, choose, etc), but when we are talking about a computer generated logo (or, more specifically, a logo generated by players using a set of pre-conditions), trying to remember if the guild you are talking about had the aqua square or the teal rectangle is not nearly as effortless.

Even in games with smaller numbers of guilds this kind of thing may not be that much of an issue, but Ashes is likely to have several dozen relavent guilds per server, and several hundred total guilds per server.

Vhaeyne

"Guild emblems
Guild banner concept art.[46]
Import of user-created image content (UCC) is being considered.[78] This was previously not under consideration.[79]"-From the wiki

I bring this up because I have mixed emotions about it, and there seems to be some confusion here about if AOC will have it. On one hand it is cool because it gives players more agency, and the ability to make their guild identity stand out. On the other hand, in practice... this means that half of the guilds will have anime girls as their logos. Not very IMMERSIVE IMO.

If you don't believe me... have played, L2, Aion, or Tera at any time.

Personally I would rather see a very robust heraldry style emblem creator in game. It is not that I don't like player agency, I just don't trust it sometimes. Same reason I don't want us to be able to name towns.

Noaani

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Personally I would rather see a very robust heraldry style emblem creator in game. It is not that I don't like player agency, I just don't trust it sometimes. Same reason I don't want us to be able to name towns.

Oh, I agree.

I'm not a fan of allowing players to import images for this kind of thing directly in to the game, it kills a lot of immersion. If there is to be a guild heraldry system, I'd rather it be players creating one in an in game creator.

However, in regards to nameplates, it should be the guilds actual name, as that is what the first association with any given guild will always be.

In games with a heraldry - regardless of how that system works - you don't refer to said guild by describing that heraldry, you refer to them by the guilds name. As such, the nameplate of characters should display the name of the guild they are in, not an icon associated with the guild.

daveywavey

Noaani wrote: »

I'd personally rather
First name
[guild]

Don't really care about anything else, and I'd rather have all mental associations with a guild in proper language rather than needing to associate a logo with each guild.

Give the option for displaying titles and surnames to those that want to see them, but they are materially insignificant.

Yep. I don't care if someone's a Master Fisherman or if they're the Tavern Drunkard or if they're the UberLeet Dungeon Killer. Less clutter on my screen, please!

daveywavey

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Same reason I don't want us to be able to name towns.

You know you'd love to be the High Priestess of Daveyland.

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