Good testing ground here:

What "if" naming was handled in the following way

First a little background, VO will have a fairly robust family system with allowing multiple accounts and many characters connected via many different ways. This is just one aspect of the RPing depth we are going for.

So into the naming system.

Each character will have a "first name", this would not need to be unique.

When you setup your family, you will create your characters "last name", this would need to be unique. (You can have multiple "last names" per account and multiple accounts grouped together in a single family "last name". You will have the option of displaying this name or keeping it private. Side note: A character is not forced into a family, in this case your character would only be identified by your "first name" and your account handle.

Also you will have a account handle, think of this as a global chat handle for your account. This will likely be defaulted to a combination of numbers and your accounts email address, you will be able to change this to another unique global chat handle. Your global chat handle would also have a link to your forum and steam name.


How would people find you?

1) You can add people to that characters specific friends list, this would only allow them the ability to see this specific character online and no additional information

2) You can choose to add them to your family friends list, this would allow them to see any character in your family tree.

3) You can add them via your global chat handle, this would allow them to see all characters you play on this account specifically.



Just as a note: Nothing here is final and in fact this is one of the few similar but different naming systems, so dont jump to any conclusions, this is just a perfect opportunity to open up to some community opinions and I enjoy the conversation.

SO lets discuss! Thanks in advance!

This sounds like a solution which makes everyone happy, thanks Jaximus!

AEGIS wrote:
Thanks for that question. Even modern MMOs appear to have naming policies like its 1990 and a server is already packed when 5 ppl log in.

It is very important IMO that the naming reflect the real world in an MMO. So yeah; I give a damn if another players character also is named "Frank Smith".

As has been already pointed out the best system I know IMO has Cryptics Star Trek Online. You have a handle which is the universal name for you account. That characters have, completely optional, a first, middle and last name and, thats mandatory, a call name. So "Frank Paolo Smith" showed name "Smith" (could be anything else of course) and later with gained title Captain Smith. In chat "Smith@DaCaptain59" of which the "DaCaptain59" is the unique handle the system requires.

Sure, you will still have dickheads running around with dumb names but those that care can name their chars like they want without having any worrys.

And please; make at least one space an acceptable letter for every naming field; so much suck names and headaches in the past could have been avoided if that would be in (I'm looking at you Mr. an _ is OK but a space is not BDO!).

Now that I named it: For all its really great stuff, the naming system in Black Desert is the worst in any MMO I have seen. While it requires a unique family name (acting account handle) which covers all your chars; all chars require unique names on top; with having numbers and underscores being ok in them but a space which could make "ambient names" more easily possible not.

Jaximus wrote:
Whatever you do, keep in mind that ppl don't scream "Look, its Bruce" when Batman shows up and the dinner guest don't say "Great party mister The Batman" to Bruce Wayne.

Lol, yeah we have a system to allow RPing while on "active duty" and "off duty" style and visuals/costume/descriptions and even names can change. More on this later.

Anothername wrote:
I recently played a game (I believe it was Black Desert Online?) where you could log off a character and log on an alt in the same location. This would be perfect for characters that have very secret identities, although it would place a bit of a strain on character slots. The alts (called family) in that game also shared a number of resources, so it seemed eerily well suited for just this kind of situation. Although of course it would be cool if you could do a costume transformation sequence and your name changed too. Not sure how feasible that is technically?

Jaximus wrote:
I RP *eats a sandwich while listening to the news channel*; we are talking about something that should be fundamental gameplay in a game about Superheroes But with the styles is what I had in mind too; looking forward to it
Itlandm wrote:
If you are familiar with the other 2 SH MMOs existing they both have their form of appearance cards which makes it possible to change your characters looks with the pressing of a button regardless where he/she is. So if you have a civil outfit in one of these tabs you would actually change Joe Casual to Testoman. But its just a pure visual thing. What would be nice (and I imagine Jaximus was talking about) if the game has two types of tabs; one for the civil persona; which displays a normal name and shows no hint of that beeing a superhero (to take that further to other players outside of the friendslist/guild rooster he could even be a civilian NPC) and as soon as he switches to the other tab the name shown gets replaced with the Superhero name and he is easily identifiable. Player with char concepts that have no secret ID just leave the other tabs alone and/or take the same name for both personas.

Jaximus wrote:
That seems like an excellent solution Jaximus. Everyone gets a piece of what they want.

Thank you.

(I also support the request to allow at least one space within the first name section, to allow us to use proper hero names that require more than one word. Otherwise everyone in the family would have to have the same half of a hero name.)

Sorry, I'm a total idiot, and my simple mind is missing something that is totally obvious to everyone else. What is the benefit/value of the extra layer of abstraction that comes with a family name system? Uniqueness is already guaranteed by the global handle.

I'm not disputing it or anything like that, I'm trying to catch up to everyone else so I don't feel like a moron. Maybe because I almost always solo and never try to link accounts...I don't get it?

cristobal03 wrote:
Basically just roleplay potential. If you want to make several characters part of the same family you can.

cristobal03 wrote:
We will also have systems that give benefits that you would typically see if you were related to someone. If your father was a master dancer you could see a family buff on yourself that gives you a boost to the speed you learn non-combat social professions. Just in general its a RPing feature, but also a feature to let players that enjoy multiple characters feel rewarded for having multiple characters and not punished because they didnt sink everything into a single character.

Jaximus wrote:
Even names can change? Woah, definitely looking forward to hearing more.