CLOK BBS

In game a lot of people like to introduce themselves and ask each other for their characters names. I have been giving a nickname for my character instead of her real name. I noticed earlier today that someone out right called my character by her real name although I haven't given it to the person in question. So what I'm proposing is an introduce/greet system.

You would only see a short description of each person, let alone this would let others know race, gender, characteristics, and the only way to see someones name would be to introduce yourself through game mechanics for your short description to change to your characters name. Or otherwise, you can greet someone as a nickname or other name instead.

I was also thinking along the lines of giving your description to someone else so they would see you as whatever someone dubbed you as. So if for example I dubbed someone as a really nice healer. That's what their short description to me would be displayed as unless they introduced themselves to me.

Example A:
In room: A short stocky young human
/Greet human/
/human greets you/
/A short stocky young human/ Changes to /Ron/
In room: Ron

Example B:
In room: A short stocky young human
/dub human a really nice healer/
/A short stocky young human/ changes to /a really nice healer/

Example C:
In room: Me, A tall amazon woman
:A tall amazon woman asks you: "What did he look like?"
/describe human or healer to amazon/
/A short stocky young human/ changes to /Ron or A short stocky young human/ for the amazon

Already been discussed several times, long story short Clok isn't built that way, fixing it would be more trouble than it's worth. That's whoever called you by names fault btw, and should immediately be retconed. You don't know people's name in clok til they introduce themselves.

Correct, sadly it's not how clok, is built, also it's hard sometimes to not do that by mistake, I try and keep from doing it but it can get a bit messy at times. But the best way is to try and work around that sort of thing. it's not hard, and when I catch myself doing that I usually have to correct myself ooc.

Yeah like Kunren and Lavi said we've been told something like this would be very difficult to put in place at this point. I use the friend system to keep track of people I know by name. Maybe one day someone will figure out a clever way to keep our identities hidden from other players and their characters.

Too difficult to implement an introduction system ?

In that case, I would propose that the current system of showing the name be abolished, and only a description be visible, whether you know them or not.

For example, when you walk into the room Kent is in, you see:

Also here: Kent.

Lets change it to,

Also here: A tall elderly man wearing a beaver-felt top hat and a tailored scarlet surcoat, holding a sleek iron rapier.

When you first see someone, their hat and outer garment is what catches your attention the most, as well as what they have in their hands.

Details of the character (in this case, 'a tall elderly man ') would undergo an approval process similar to what we currently have for crafting marks.

Upon character creation, a default description of eye colour, hair colour, gender would be assigned, ex. a brown-eyed blonde haired woman,
until changed via the above-mentioned approval process.

They would have to entirely rewrite the core code of player character sheets/objects to get this done, which would be a pain in the rear end

Just to give an example (I have no idea how it looks in the actual code).

Changing "look" to display a short, wouldn't specifically be difficult. However, EVERY time you did ANY action in game your name would be displayed. So, getting, dropping, attacking, defending, preparing, searching, riding, mounting, dismounting, doning armor, removing armor, eating, drinking, sitting, standing, laying, farming, blacksmithing, fletching, wood working,(Lets just shorten this to ALL profession skills and all commands therein) hiding, unhiding, stealing, tumbling (Lets shorten this to ALL guild skills and every application or instance there is a message sent to the room using or being affect by a guild skill), appraising, buying, selling, reading the boards, posting on the boards, sending mail, receiving mail, (and as you can imagine, this list continues you for pages.)

So, that's the problem, the system was never designed with that aspect in mind. If you wanted to be anonymous, then you'd need a check in every instance on EVERY aspect of the game that someone's name is displayed and thus would ruined the aspect of what your anonymity.

Again, this is conjuncture based on what was said in the last thread this was brought it. Hopefully this explains a bit about why this isn't something that can just be *snap* done.

Not only what Vinz said, but Rias and Jirato freely admit that their code is a bit of a nightmare to look at and go through, not all sleek and prettied up. To impliment an introduction system or get rid of names entirely (which I would be strongly against as it would make absolutely no sense, since every time the person changed their clothes you'd basically not recognize them as if you had been hot in the head or something) would require them to comb through all of the code and modify practically everything. It might even be the equivilant of just rewriting the entire code from the bottom up, which could also be what they ended up having to do. This isn't something that would take days or even weeks, this would take months or possibly over a year. I'm not so unhappy with the current system that I think this is necessessary.

Now, something that may be doable and would certainly help a little bit is changing charactsr names to show up as yellow instead of blue, though that has it's own unique set of problems.

Too bad you didn't read my suggestion but only skimmed it.

As I said, the phrase 'a tall elderly man' would be displayed on the permanent basis. In essense, this would be my 'name' as far as the codebase is concerned, other than ooc things like who, tell, chat, and question.

The clothing and items held would change just as it does now for 'lightly armored' or 'bloody' or ' heavily armored'... on a case by case basis, as you change it in game now.

Kent wrote:Too bad you didn't read my suggestion but only skimmed it.

As I said, the phrase 'a tall elderly man' would be displayed on the permanent basis. In essense, this would be my 'name' as far as the codebase is concerned, other than ooc things like who, tell, chat, and question.

The clothing and items held would change just as it does now for 'lightly armored' or 'bloody' or ' heavily armored'... on a case by case basis, as you change it in game now.

I read it, myself.

However, like Vinz said, Jirato has informed us that doing what you like would take too much work at the moment. And personally, I'd prefer it if the GMs focused on the general gameplay of the game, even if I really, really heavily support introductions.

Also, if it was permanent, what about all the young women with red hair and green eyes? I can think of several right off the bat. How would you tell between them, especially if more than one was in a room? You could make your own custom one, but most people wouldn't, I'd wager.

Though all in all, not a bad suggestion, just something to think about. With the way targeting works, it'd be difficult to specify which of the three men with unkempt brown hair you want to punch.

Kent wrote:Too bad you didn't read my suggestion but only skimmed it.

As I said, the phrase 'a tall elderly man' would be displayed on the permanent basis. In essense, this would be my 'name' as far as the codebase is concerned, other than ooc things like who, tell, chat, and question.

The clothing and items held would change just as it does now for 'lightly armored' or 'bloody' or ' heavily armored'... on a case by case basis, as you change it in game now.

I did read your suggestion, and I still stand by what I said. A general description isn't enough for a "name," there are only so many ways you can describe people with similar traits in a few words, and that's assuming people actually used custom "names," which, like Lacie said, is likely many people wouldn't take the time, plus would make more unnecessary work for the GMs, since they' have to approve them all.

Whatever, Fayne.

Kent wrote:Whatever, Fayne.

Can we keep posts on topic, please?


I would love an intro system and find it a shame the entire game would need to be rewritten to accommodate it. But, such is life.