You will spawn in game at some random location along with the "birth" of many other new players. Stacks upon stacks of players tangled into themselves and a blur of blue letters fill your screen of character names that you somehow know, but have never met.
You're chat window flutters past with words from people across the world all with names of people you've never met.
This is every MMO we've played, but what if...
When you spawn, I'm not sure how Pantheon is doing it, but if your in a designated spawn location where others spawn, you will see the people, but won't see the names. The only way to see someones name is if you Introduce yourself and they receive your introduction and offer a Salutation. Think of how the Parlay card game was in Vanguard. It doesn't have to be a long drawn out process, but it could help with a number of things. First let me explain how it could work.
You (Blindy) spawn in the game, you see 5 or 6 other players who have also recently spawned running about killing butterflies. You approach a character, right click (or whatever key is the interact key) on the person and choose Introduce Yourself.
Unknown players screen has an alert an a small unobtrusive window pop up saying, "Receive Introduction and offer Salutations?" Yes / No. If they chose yes the window becomes bigger and a few options appear on it. Offer Class, Offer Bio, Offer Friendship, Offer Trade.
Blindy screen shows a window appearing also after Zander accepted the Introduction. Blindy also knows Zander's name. The windon on Blindy's screen has the same options. Offer Class, Offer Bio, Offer Friendship, Offer Trade. Only after a Friendship has been offered can a guild invite be offered.
Once Blindy and Zander are done with introductions Zander runs off and now Blindy can see Zander's name above his head. Also, on the chat window Blindy sees a lot of:
Unknown: Haha, I just died to a moth.
Zander: They are butterfly's.
Unknown: LFG for lvl 9 raid, pst
Unknown: Oh, they look like moths.
Unknown: WTB SOW PST!!
Unknown: We cant send a tell if we don't know your name, stop with the PST's!!!!
(You say): Where is the Bard trainer?
Unknown: ?!? You're a bard?
Zander: Haha, cool, Blindy, I can see your name in chat.
(You say): Yea, me to, err you to me, err whatever. Everyone is Unknown.
Unknown: Thats because you can only see the names of people you've had an introduction with. It stops people from spam tells, blind guild invites, gold farmers, and forces player with player interaction. It's a great idea.
Unknown: These butterflies are hard!
Unknown: How are you a bard?!?a
Unknown: Is she really a bard?
Servers will be coming down in 10 Minutes.
You could also hide chat from Unknowns, or even "forget" an introduction or block a known aquantance.
In a mmo where characters can look the same it's good to be able to just see other characters names so that at a glance you can recognize someone.
I may not have met every person yet but I know that Troll named Stinkythumb is a shifty fellow that trained me a few days earlier.
Or that cleric that just gave me a drive by buff and I just got a glance of his name but there wasn't really time for introductions.
In a lot of cases it's a characters name that carries their reputations because illusions can be used to change forms and swapping out armors can really change the look of someone.
Thanks in advance,
Kiz~
You can right click and name a character yourself. You wouldn't be able to /tell and their name would still appear as Unknown in chat, but in the world you'd see them as the name you assigned until properly introduced.a
Just think of joining a group with you and two friends. The other three people are unknowns, you get to introduce yourselves and make friends. Seems neat to me.
Yeah I see how this could be more real world like as you don't know someone elses name until you talk to them etc but I do like to see names above peoples heads. Take this example, someone makes a new toon and never talks to anyone and then uses that toon to train people, noone will ever know there name to report :)
sorn said:Kittik said:sorn said:"Gross Creepo #1", "Probably Owns 5 Cats"...
There a couple.
I have a system for identifying cat people. As a druid it is my duty to drool and bark at them while in wolf form.
Why the hate on cat people? One of my hood feral cats got ran over the other day and I gave it a viking funeral. I could of went a lifetime without smelling burning cat tho.
Zeem said:Why the hate on cat people? One of my hood feral cats got ran over the other day and I gave it a viking funeral. I could of went a lifetime without smelling burning cat tho.
I don't have a problem with cats. Just cat people (especially if they set dead cats on fire (?!)). Bark! Bark bark bark!!