Proposal Discussion Cheating the system with commander names.

Mobius

Mobius
cheating the system with used unique commander names.

so you backed Elite Dangerous and was given the option to register a unique username,

"Reserve your Commander name in the game (first come, first served, except Jameson),"

I bet that many of you have some great commander names but you're not the only one that can use that name.

so let me give you some examples of how this works.

Cmdr skywalker
I imagine that this was an option for many but it was taken, but you can still use it by cheating the system

you can have the below variants
Cmdr Skywalker.
Cmdr Skywalker,
Cmdr Skywalker'
Cmdr Skywalker_
Cmdr Skywalker-
Cmdr Skywalker;
Cmdr Skywalker"

how about that name that only players who pledged £1500 could have
Cmdr Jameson.
Cmdr Jameson,
Cmdr Jameson'
Cmdr Jameson-
Cmdr Jameson_
Cmdr Jameson"

or maybe you want to be
Cmdr Braben.
Cmdr Brookes.

basically your name is not unique as players have been registering names with added stops commas and so on to fiddle the system.

it doesn't stop there, you can change the o for a 0 or a 1 for and l.

so even though you may think you have a unique name frontier are allowing these varients.

you may not think that this affects you now but when the user base gets larger what happens when someone has a name the same as yours with a full stop goes around causing trouble and gets a noticeboard mission to kill them you are not going to notice that little full stop or comma, and they may end up killing the wrong player.

what's your take on this?
 
Last edited:

Andromalius

Andromalius
AFAIK the CMDR names are manually checked at the moment. Not sure if this will continue but I had to submit a name and get it approved. So no CMD $KYw@lKherr.
And as far as taking someone for someone else, the world is full of Henry Martins anyway.
 

CATPAIN KIRK

CATPAIN KIRK
Mobius said:
what's your take on this?
Click to expand...

I don't see the major problem - names in real life aren't unique either after all - there's roughly half a million Smiths in the UK alone and probably tens of thousands John Smiths worldwide.

I'd be fine if the game would allow for 1:1 duplicates.
 

Rhaedas

Rhaedas
This is something that I've been on the fence about. I'm all about not being heavy handing with censorship, but from a ED universe sense, why would they let commander names have anything but alpha characters? Now when we get to name ships, whatever goes, because that makes sense. You can register stuff, you can paint whatever name on it, etc, but your name is a name, it's not some handle...well, it is, but having a name filled with numbers and punctuation will most likely start a fight at a space bar when they think you're being smart with them.
 

jabokai

jabokai
Rhaedas said:
This is something that I've been on the fence about. I'm all about not being heavy handing with censorship, but from a ED universe sense, why would they let commander names have anything but alpha characters? Now when we get to name ships, whatever goes, because that makes sense. You can register stuff, you can paint whatever name on it, etc, but your name is a name, it's not some handle...well, it is, but having a name filled with numbers and punctuation will most likely start a fight at a space bar when they think you're being smart with them.
Click to expand...

I agree with this, don't like censorship either, but... I'd have gone as far as disallowing any name not only with punctuation but even with diacritics! Not to be mean or disrespectful to the people with a foreign language festooned with diacritics but just because it's a pain in the hoop! ;)

And definitely no numbers.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Robert Maynard
jabokai said:
I agree with this, don't like censorship either, but... I'd have gone as far as disallowing any name not only with punctuation but even with diacritics! Not to be mean or disrespectful to the people with a foreign language festooned with diacritics but just because it's a pain in the hoop! ;)

And definitely no numbers.
Click to expand...

The checking algorithm could simply remove any punctuation marks (including spaces) and "anglicise" all diacritics (and digits?) then compare with the existing name database - if there are any matches then name disallowed, i.e. "Rób3rt.M4yñ4rd" would not be allowed as I already have "Robert Maynard".

I would agree about no punctuation marks and no digits....
 

CMDR Texas Stu

CMDR Texas Stu
You raise a valid point. I guess it's good to be original but that still doesn't stop some one from sabotaging another player they do not like.
 

Mobius

Mobius
I was under the impression that at the very beginning it was just alpha characters, it would appear that this has either since changed or I was wrong to think that they was doing this in the first place.
 

Philip Coutts

Volunteer Moderator
Philip Coutts
I have to say I would be remarkably ticked off if there are going to be Jameson. or James0n or whatever having spent a small fortune on reserving that name but hey I'm not that smart, didn't do that well at school, wasn't able to get a really high paid job and couldn't afford it so just another of lives cruel disappointments anyway then......
 
Last edited:

Adam Lusardi

A
Taken from KS backer app. Maybe still relevant.

"Are there any restrictions on choosing Game Names?

Yes, though we will try and be as accommodating as possible. The following list covers the majority of reasons why a name might be rejected:

Universal Reasons
Duplicates - the name you selected was already taken
Profanities
Non UTF-8 characters used
Use of Elite/Frontier names (Jameson, Elite, Braben, etc)

Commander names
Name includes a rank e.g. Captain, Major, General etc.

NPC names
Use of numbers and specific special-characters e.g. "J0hn Smith@22"
Potential IP violations - while OK for commander names we can't accept names for game characters to which we don't own the rights; so no "Han Solo" or "Coca-Cola" here.

Space stations & planet names
Advertising - overt advertising would clash with the game fiction, so be careful if you want to use your company or brand e.g. "Frontier World" would be fine but "Frontier.co.uk" would not.
Potential IP violations - while OK for commander names we can't accept names for in-game assets, such as space stations, to which we don't own the rights; so no "Death Star" or "McDonald's".

Jameson names
Including Jameson in your name e.g. if you wanted "Rob Jameson" (already taken), just enter "Rob".

Be forewarned, no employee of Frontier will enter into a discussion as to why a name was rejected. To try and justify the reason for every rejection would be far too time consuming and would take time away from more productive activities, such as working on updates, moderating, and helping people with technical issues."
 

Mobius

Mobius
well even if FD says that there will be no variants on Jameson, that would be a kick in the teeth to other backers who thought they had an a one off name.
 

Flip

Flip
Andromalius said:
AFAIK the CMDR names are manually checked at the moment. Not sure if this will continue but I had to submit a name and get it approved. So no CMD $KYw@lKherr.
And as far as taking someone for someone else, the world is full of Henry Martins anyway.
Click to expand...

I don't think they're manually checked. When I set my cmdr name a couple of weeks ago, the change was instantaneous and the new name appeared in the page when it reloaded.

And if they were manually checked, I don't think "Mobius." or "Mobius," would be allowed. They shouldn't be, IMO.
 

Rhaedas

Rhaedas
Any remember or can find the verbiage on when FD first told us we could reserve our names? Was it limited to pre-release, or did it carry over? I guess my point is, since we have so many very odd names already chosen, there'd be a backlash if they suddenly tightened the naming rules the way they should have started. Especially if they promised the name would be kept once chosen for the game. Although frankly I'd say do it, and tell them to get over it, as ending names with commas...really?
 

Darcikon

D
I'd have to agree that there shouldn't be anything other than alpha characters and a single space separating names but only between them, never at the beginning or end of the commander name.

I'd go further to say that all names should start with a capital letter and subsequent letters should be small case.

e.g. Jameson
not jaMeson

This would apply to commander names made of multiple names

e.g. Jameson Smith
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Robert Maynard
Darcikon said:
I'd go further to say that all names should start with a capital letter and subsequent letters should be small case.

e.g. Jameson
not jaMeson
Click to expand...

Another way would be to allow any random capitalisation but, when considering whether a name has already been used, convert to all upper-case (or, equally, all lower case) before comparison.

In this way, if "jaMeson" already exists then "Jameson", "jAmEsOn", etc. would be disallowed.
 

Philip Coutts

Volunteer Moderator
Philip Coutts
The big issue here is the horse has well and truly left the stable. I'm not sure what Frontier can do now to change anything. Could they go back to the people with "controversial" names and aske them to change? I just can't see that, too much time has passed.
 

DaveB

DaveB
Mobius said:
I was under the impression that at the very beginning it was just alpha characters, it would appear that this has either since changed or I was wrong to think that they was doing this in the first place.
Click to expand...

Alphanumerics are definitely allowed - I'm "CMDR Da5id Weatherwax" (Echoing an identity from another place)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom