Naming and descriptions (was Re: [MUD-Dev] Introductions and descriptions)

[Mike Sellers]

At 10:05 AM 11/18/97 PST8PDT, Matt Chatterley wrote:
>> Hi there, thought you might be interested to know that I had a go at the
>> player recognition system I was talking about before I lost access.
>
>Oo..
> 
>> Description is currently determined by gender and age - so you might be
>> 'a handsome elderly gentleman' or a 'pretty young teenage girl', etc.
>> However, to get around the problem of 'silly names', each player gets a
>> random first and surname when they connect (over 100 first names for
>> each gender and almost 1000 surnames means duplicates are unlikely).
>
>Now this, is a VERY interesting twist! Does the player get to choose a
>'connection' or 'account' name to log in under, and then have the 'game
>name' assigned, or is the 'game name' synonymous(sp?) with the 'account'
>name?

This *is* interesting.  Given that we randomly generate character stats all
the time in games, I'm surprised randomly generating names isn't more
prevalent.  After all, how many of us got to choose our names? :)  (And I
suppose for a fee, you could go to city hall or whatever and register to
change your name if you wanted...)


>> Players descriptions are also determined automatically, although players
>> can chose their eye/hair colour when they create their character, and 
>> these basically sum-up the appearance.  Character descriptions are still
>> a long way from completion though.
>> 
>> I'd be interested to hear any of your player-recognition ideas - 
>> particularly on how you intend to generate descriptions.
>
>This is another interesting area actually, and the first point I'd keep in
>mind, is that if you are aiming at a very rp-centric game, fully automated
>descriptions are probably a bad idea (note: for the benefit of anyone in
>the audience, rp-centric mainly refers to Tiny-derivs, but could
>technically be anything. Most tiny-derivs have player-written descs, but I
>know at least one which does not).

Perhaps you could let people write their own descs as a function of their
level/rank/score in the game?  Or, perhaps better for RPing, keep the desc
automatic, but include a bit more spice if the character is powerful in the
game, where this 'spice' accentuates the character's most powerful
attributes.  Frankly, if I never see another desc along the lines of
"flaming red hair and lips to match, ice blue eyes that at once chill your
soul and inflame your desire..." (ugh) that'll be fine with me! :)  


While we're talking about names, how do you propose to deal with
name-collision?  I've never really liked the fact that all names in typical
MUDs must be unique.  It seems like you could easily allow for multiple
name instances by keying off the combo of character name and player name
internally.  The only problem comes up in areas where, for example, I want
to talk to "Joe" or send game-mail to "Joe."  If there are a dozen Joes out
there, how do I know which one I want?  Even in the scheme described above,
you could have several "Joe Doe" characters.  I suppose you could list
further, publicly known information for each, such as occupation, general
area where they live ("Joe Doe of Tos, who is a merchant"), or in a
graphical environment, a picture of them -- anything to help other players
differentiate their Joe from all other Joes.

Thoughts on this?

Mike Sellers                                    Chief Alchemist
mike at online-alchemy.com                         Online Alchemy              

        Combining art & science to create new worlds.