Proposal Discussion Cheating the system with commander names.
- Thread starter Mobius
- Start date
I agree with your OP, Möbius.
I think someone using variants to change another's public perspective is a potential problem (akin to naming and shaming issue).
We've seen how a name that has garnered a nefarious reputation gets attention far and wide from players who often never had any direct experience to base an opinion other than forum posts.
A GalNet feed could easily be misinterpreted as a variant-Commander rather than the true perpetrator by more than a few Commanders. Not very fair to say the least. Of course, mistaken identities are a thing today, in the past and more than likely into the future as well. Getting shot for looking like someone else surely won't go away?
I think someone using variants to change another's public perspective is a potential problem (akin to naming and shaming issue).
We've seen how a name that has garnered a nefarious reputation gets attention far and wide from players who often never had any direct experience to base an opinion other than forum posts.
A GalNet feed could easily be misinterpreted as a variant-Commander rather than the true perpetrator by more than a few Commanders. Not very fair to say the least. Of course, mistaken identities are a thing today, in the past and more than likely into the future as well. Getting shot for looking like someone else surely won't go away?
that's my real concern, plus say if a commander places a huge bounty on for example Cmdr Skywaker and what he really wanted to do was to place a huge bounty on Cmdr Skywalker. instead? then the player who placed the bounty will be mighty miffed.
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I am guessing here but..... Will we be able to put a bounty on just anyone anyway? If so that sounds like a huge exploit for horrible griefing.
Assuming we can only put a bounty on people who have wronged us in game, then unless you were unlucky enough to have ad a run in with both cmdr Skywa1ker AND commander Skywalker at a similar time then chances are the game will track who you should be putting that bounty on.
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Ok - back to topic
This is why I'd be fine with 1:1 duplicates.
Assuming there were multiple John Smiths in the game and one of them is a troublemaker, he would most likely be the one with the bounty.
If a certain John Smith commited criminal acts, you can't just end up a SWAT team to the first John Smith you find in the phonebook - you have to make sure it's the right one.
It adds another interesting decision - you spot John Smith, who is probably the most wanted criminal in the galaxy. Do you take a gamble and shoot immediately, accepting the possibility to murder an innocent person or do you make sure it's the proper one by using the K-warrant scanner, giving him additional time to get away?
I agree that Jameson variants should be reserved for the respective backers though - they paid for the exclusive right to use that name, so that will have to be enforced by FD.
This is why I'd be fine with 1:1 duplicates.
Assuming there were multiple John Smiths in the game and one of them is a troublemaker, he would most likely be the one with the bounty.
If a certain John Smith commited criminal acts, you can't just end up a SWAT team to the first John Smith you find in the phonebook - you have to make sure it's the right one.
It adds another interesting decision - you spot John Smith, who is probably the most wanted criminal in the galaxy. Do you take a gamble and shoot immediately, accepting the possibility to murder an innocent person or do you make sure it's the proper one by using the K-warrant scanner, giving him additional time to get away?
I agree that Jameson variants should be reserved for the respective backers though - they paid for the exclusive right to use that name, so that will have to be enforced by FD.
Mobius - I agree 
Technically FD should be sanitising the input anyway for security reasons and enforcing an obvious naming policy (no numbers; punctuation; Capital first letter and the rest of the name in small) ... all standard stuff.
The game is still in Beta right now so nothing is too late.
If some loose their name IMO hard luck - shouldn't try to "game" the name system in the first place.
Technically FD should be sanitising the input anyway for security reasons and enforcing an obvious naming policy (no numbers; punctuation; Capital first letter and the rest of the name in small) ... all standard stuff.
The game is still in Beta right now so nothing is too late.
If some loose their name IMO hard luck - shouldn't try to "game" the name system in the first place.
I would think CMDR Skywalker (assuming a typo?) would be miffed as well!
And CMDR Skywalker. will get a good chuckle out of it all before repeating the conditions again that may replicate the issue.
Also, as any CMDR can pay off a bounty there may not be a way to tell.
If a CMDR could put a bounty on another CMDR it opens a way a rich Cmdr could pay credits to tap another cmdr's credit balance by paying to inflict economical damage.
Aside from the GalNet arguement of course.
I think player-initiated bounties carry too many downside for implementation and I do not see them being implemented.
GalNet notices though may indeed cause issues.
Wouldn't it be nice to 'flag' notable commanders listed in a GalNet feed so that they are a different color or some-such when you see them on contacts or HUD? Assuming a link between your on-board (upgraded?) computer and station newsfeeds.
I still would like a 'back end' on ship computers that communicate to other computers the news feeds and as CMDRs travel they bring to news with them quicker than through standard modes but it would involve a lot more coding yet in theory a quick data burst would be almost instantaneous between ships?
But I've suggested that elsewhere and never seen anyone comment on it.
If a CMDR could put a bounty on another CMDR it opens a way a rich Cmdr could pay credits to tap another cmdr's credit balance by paying to inflict economical damage.
Aside from the GalNet arguement of course.
I think player-initiated bounties carry too many downside for implementation and I do not see them being implemented.
GalNet notices though may indeed cause issues.
Wouldn't it be nice to 'flag' notable commanders listed in a GalNet feed so that they are a different color or some-such when you see them on contacts or HUD? Assuming a link between your on-board (upgraded?) computer and station newsfeeds.
I still would like a 'back end' on ship computers that communicate to other computers the news feeds and as CMDRs travel they bring to news with them quicker than through standard modes but it would involve a lot more coding yet in theory a quick data burst would be almost instantaneous between ships?
But I've suggested that elsewhere and never seen anyone comment on it.
This only becomes a serious issue when somebody needs to report a player for griefing. Presumably you will want to do this shortly after the event in question.
If so, you need a player select feature for current or recently played games from which you can choose account-linked player IDs. I regularly play Red Orchestra 2 through Steam, this facility has been invaluable in tracking down a recent spate of griefers.
My point being: the chances of 2 Skywalkers playing at once are practically nil so the right person can be easily identified from the recent player list.
If you think a particular player's name breaks immersion then tell that to my cat who likes to smother my keyboard every night.
If so, you need a player select feature for current or recently played games from which you can choose account-linked player IDs. I regularly play Red Orchestra 2 through Steam, this facility has been invaluable in tracking down a recent spate of griefers.
My point being: the chances of 2 Skywalkers playing at once are practically nil so the right person can be easily identified from the recent player list.
If you think a particular player's name breaks immersion then tell that to my cat who likes to smother my keyboard every night.
I agree with this.
Exception might be the "-" (hyphen) but only if used instead of a space between names (ie. CMDR One-Eye, etc)
thanks Liqua
and on top of this I have two screenshots as an example of having a name with a stop after it.
one with a commander name amended with a stop and one without.
its not obvious straight away,
I don't see the problem - you don't even need a k-warrant scanner to distinguish them. In that case, it's just a choice between taking the time to properly read the name or having a twitchy trigger finger.
Allowing full duplicates bears numerous benefits:
- Given that many appear to be interested in Ironman games, one can assume that people will create lots of new characters. Depending on how the game handles deceased characters names - Do they appear as taken? (I don't know - has that been decided yet?)
- If they're counted as taken, the game will run out of common names pretty fast, If they're not counted as taken, stealing someones name could be really easy.
- Allowing multiple characters with the same name adds another layer of decisions (see above). Am I the kind of "shoot first, ask questions later" bountyhunter, or am I of the more lawful sort?
- Does Frontier support want to deal with all the tickets raised due to "copied" names?
erm...
so how many people do we all hope will buy ed?
and they will be forced to come up with unique, non-l33tified names?!
you guys must be joking really. or have an average age & socialisation of a grumpy 40+ year old, like myself
oh and i have been on the back end of a name debate with hq. fdev are doing a good job on this, too.
obviously many of you can do a better job (as on so many topics). looking forward to it
ps. this debate was ended before it began anno 1998 on great lakes ^^
so how many people do we all hope will buy ed?
and they will be forced to come up with unique, non-l33tified names?!
you guys must be joking really. or have an average age & socialisation of a grumpy 40+ year old, like myself
oh and i have been on the back end of a name debate with hq. fdev are doing a good job on this, too.
obviously many of you can do a better job (as on so many topics). looking forward to it
ps. this debate was ended before it began anno 1998 on great lakes ^^
This only becomes a serious issue when somebody needs to report a player for griefing. Presumably you will want to do this shortly after the event in question.
If so, you need a player select feature for current or recently played games from which you can choose account-linked player IDs. I regularly play Red Orchestra 2 through Steam, this facility has been invaluable in tracking down a recent spate of griefers.
My point being: the chances of 2 Skywalkers playing at once are practically nil so the right person can be easily identified from the recent player list.
If you think a particular player's name breaks immersion then tell that to my cat who likes to smother my keyboard every night.
Thats exactly what I said
There's a few more than that:
Space for names like "van der Waal"
Apostrophes for "O'Reilly"
Non-latin characters for foreign names.
and there's probably several more instances I haven't thought of.
As far as I know - it's not trivial to detect unsuitable names in code. I'd imagine that humans are much better at spotting them than code will ever be. A basic code sweep for profanity / obvious unsuitable names and then allowing users to report users with unsuitable names is probably the most efficient way to go, IMO.