Yes Mr. Trader, I hate to offend your religious beliefs, but I like it, (or its variants) too.

*sighs* You misunderstand me. I'm not the type to ever get annoyed at other people's opinions on suggestions. Disagree, sure, but you can feel free to disagree with me just as much as a I disagree with you (and as it happens, on this issue I'm more in favor than not).

But apostrophe misuse is one of my pet peeves, and really... kind have makes no sense whatsoever.

People on your 'friends' list would have to identify themselves to you automatically (so you know who they are from the start), so you don't accidentally end up running away from them or blowing them away.

Also, I think you'd have to be able to identify somebody within 500m of you or so.

Let's give a hurrah for this being an opportunity to name our ships!

content++

I will butcher the english language in whatever way I plea's

just a small thought that came up, you can add the word 'Ace' and 'Top Ace' or something else to a players description based on pk's, Lets say, someone with 100 pk's is concidered an ace by the system and someone with 500 pk's a top ace.

Other descriptions could be added based on different stats.

well the easiest explenation for how we can determin player's names is this:

All ships have transponders that continualy transmit that information. Flying without one is illegal and removing the device would reduce your standing permanetly to -900 with every faction*.

as for the gameplay reasons, i don't think it takes anything away from the game to have the information available, but it would make playing more dificult were the target's name and health not esily determined.

*that last part isn't in RP tearms, deal with it.

Alright. Here's my 'explanation' on how this would be done:

When in Nation space, targeting a ship would display both Ship Name and Player name, because their IFF tranponder has to be functioning fully in nation space, for legal reasons. However, when going into grey space, the IFF transponder would be turned off, or at least adjusted to protect you from hungry pirates, with the effect of masking your name but not ship designation and name, up to the 500m point, where your ship registry would be readible. Additionally, your ship would automatically let certain individuals, (those on your friends list) know who you are in-system, as well as stations...
any other thoughts?

~Seldon

I really don't think hiding player's identities makes any sense.
Especially if you find out who it is as soon as they hit you, or kill you.
The only reason for hiding who you are would be if you could keep it hidden, which is why I think some black market devices that could hide or spoof your ID/faction would work much better than just limiting info of non faction players.
If a pirate could sacrifice a weapon port in order to invade protected space that could amount to some really fun times ;)

Cam's idea makes sense. Other than that its pointless, Why bother to fight people if for all intents and purposes, they are just bots that patrol space lanes. I can guarentee every noob will think "Bot!" and start backrolling/firing without a care in that situation. Taking player names out is a huge hit to roll-playing imo, Since we all become nameless ships. Thats like saying "Lets hide everyones name in "Insert MMORPG here" and make it so you only see who it is after they have hit you with thier double triple uber firewall, leaving you with 2 hitpoints and confusion." The only outcomes I see of this are backrolling noobs because they think everyone is a bot, Massive ganking since you dont know that guy is a pirate, and massive running since they dont know who it is, they arnt going to take the chance. It would also require a rework of the insector userlist as well as some reworking of debug. Seems like an awful lot of work for no real gain.

tramshed: See, it is when you start using language like "pointless" and "guarantee" (although you said 'guarentee') that your argument against my suggestion simply falls apart.

It's not pointless. I'll repeat that the pilot name is not being totally and completely annihiliated either. Once again, you can STILL see a pilot's name. You just have to have them Hail you. The point is that your pilot name is being publicly broadcasted to anyone, without your consent, and I think there should be an option for that consent.

You cannot guarantee anything of what a new player is going to do. If they do not read the manual, then, best of luck to them in trying to play the game. In fact, when I first started playing, I recall this fairly well. I had no idea what I was doing, and somehow I managed to jump to a sector with some ApuTech's. Of course, I was killed fairly instantly, and it happened one more time after that. On top of this, I didn't even know they were bots. All I knew is that they obviously wanted to kill me.

So, will some new players scream bot? Perhaps? What does it matter? If the player is HOSTILE, regardless of whether it is a bot or not, what does it matter what the new player does. The *best* thing would be to 1) Alright, we know the player is hostile, lets find out his/her intentions by -hailing- it. 2) Proceed from there. Does that mean the new player is going to always do that? No. Same is true for "vets" too, I'm sure. Especially since the player is showing up as hostile, I've got every motivation to ensure that he doesn't blow me up first.

Once again, I'm not suggestion that pilot names be taken out. So, no: It would not be a "huge hit to role-playing', because they would still be in the game. Just not handed over on a silver platter like they are now.

Cam's idea does make sense, at least for faction spoofing. But there should be no reason to have to spoof your 'name' because what really doesn't make sense is that everyone, hostile and non hostile, knows who you are, instantly. Now, if you want to configure your game to act like that. Fine. Set it to broadcas t to everyone. If you only want your nation to know who you are, broadcast only to your nation. If you want to go rogue and be that unknown ship in the background (I'm sure many pirates would love this) then go rogue and don't broadcast.

Lord Q: The only thing you've done is attempted to justify the current setup, but in doing so, you've pointed out the flaw that I would like to see resolved (as per my suggestion). It does not make sense to be required to broadcast your pilot name to the enemy. If you want to do that, if you want to role play the friendly that travels between all nations (which I'm sure lots of people do), then, thats all good too. Broadcast to everyone. But for those that don't want to go against the semi-war that exists, for those that would rather battle it out and have some fun at the same time, without worrying about who they are fighting, or potentially "how good" or "how bad" they are, you don't broadcast.

So, if 'hiding player's identities' doesn't make sense, explain to me how displaying them to everyone is any better.

Hey yo man!
if you don't wanna see other pilots info i'll give you a tip :
just put the hud off !
by typing F4 or F6 but let us see who we are shooting on ...

[double rejection!]

This has less to do with seeing other people's information as it has to do with broadcasting publicly your information to the enemy. Hence your suggestion does not render solution to my idea.

I don't mind people who reject my ideas. However, it's very rude to simply reject it without explanation. Even so, that's your right, and I'll respect that. But I wont consider your reject as valid as most of the others that have replied.

[triple rejected]

yes, all i was trying to do was explain why the name is broadcast to everyone. But think about it if you are in a war, you want your name (or at least your afiliation) broadcast so that you don't get shot by your own forces. A way to scramble or block your signal would be good, perhaps a new widget like the scanner.

I'm sorry to have gotten in late on this discussion after it turned. Busy day for me. This IS a forum for suggestions. You are free to discuss and debate, but you must keep it good-natured. Just posting "rejected", or kibbitzing about grammar/ punctuation/spelling is unwelcome here.

I don't want to miss the feature to see a players name ... and i will not tell you why ... :)

Lin
<who hates the hail-function and suggests it to be removed>

Who a person is is such a basic part of any MMORPG that adding even this small layer on top of it further depersonalizes our already sparse game.

No, I would not broadcast my name to an enemy if I were traveling through a dangerous sector of space in my oddly speed-limited spacecraft that shot bright bolts of energy. Points if you can pick out which part of that is the most ludicrous. This is a game, not reality. Hiding the name is such a detriment to making this universe feel alive that it far outweighs whatever minor benefits an individual may gain from it. We've got a ton of NPC traders that all fly the same ships, and the very occasional player. By implementing this suggestion, that occasional player becomes even more of a faceless piece of the background than they already are - I rarely talk to or am talked at by people I pass in my travels, except for a "good fight" after a battle.

If anything, we should be getting more information about people on our targetting display so that this universe feels less like a simulation and more like something vibrant and alive.

I'd like to point out that the devs are mulling over the idea of stealth in-game (read the Wiki post, near the bottom). This goes hand in hand with the stealth idea.

Already we have NPC traders that give you varying levels of information based on your faction/nation standings. Masking names is simply an extension of this.

This is another example where we should take real-life as an example. An aircraft (let's say, a Boeing 747) can opt to fly without a transponder signal. If they fly over national protected airspace (eg. US airspace), they are picked up by radar, tagged as a UFO and most likely will attempt to be communicated with (eg. Hailed). If identity is not confirmed within a short time, a squadron of fighters would be scrambled to escort it down.

So, lets say in the VO universe, if someone opts to fly with their transponder off, they would not show up on the sector list, if within radar range (3000m), they will show up in the sector list as a masked player. Once a 2 way hail has been confirmed, or a private/sector message has been sent by that player, they will become known (assuming some identity information is sent in-band with the comm carrier signal).

Flying w/o transponder in monitored/nation space SHOULD be illegal and strike forces should be dispatched to discern the identity of such player.

A nice solution for the whole 'nameless face' deal might be targetting a masked player for 15 seconds will give your ship's computer long enough time to get a signature off the ship, send it in for lookup, and get a reply back from your nation's registries. Much like the police doing a plate lookup on a car. If you're hated, you may not get this information. Damage information can be projected simply by being in range of the ship... getting rid of this information would serve no purpose other than to obscure the obvious.

I don't see why this is getting rejected so much, it's a decent foundation of an idea that can be expanded upon to give the game more depth. Be a little more constructive.

I cast BBS necromancy spell #1: Raise thread.

I like the idea, but I suggest the following alterations to it, heavily borrowing from tkjode's previous post:

Names will be (forcibly) displayed once they are within 1000m (500m, 250m, whatever. Significantly smaller than max radar range).

Players beyond that range would be labeled 'Unknown Player #' (or Bogey, if we want to make it militaristic), and be numbered in the chronological order in which your scanners discovered them.

Names once determined could be saved (not automagically; not on the server; not for everyone, like players of the opposing faction that aren't your buddies, or a more intricate way to determine that, perhaps the number of times the target killed you, your buddies, etc.), so they display at a range still smaller than max radar range, but larger than initial identification range, maybe 2000m.

The status of fellow group/guild membership disables the 'no-show', you can always see their names, at 1m or 3000m (and beyond for group members).

There are special gadgets that let you push the limits of this, perhaps by 20% or so; the permission to get them could be obtained through special mission trees.

...and while we're at it: It's "should have" (or, if you must, "should've") rather than "should of".

I like the idea of a gadget for partial anonymity. Maybe all ships would have a unique identifier code (preferably long so as to discourage easy pen-and-paper logging) so that one could at least assign friend-or-foe status, or know that it's the same ship that jumped them earlier.