Forums » General

Fix the nick-problem.... (for the Devs)

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Jul 11, 2003 Eldrad link
BusMaster... I don't think A1k0n's post was supposed to be mean.
Jul 11, 2003 paedric link
It would help if the chat font was adjusted or changed. I've had to do a double take a few times to get what was typed because of it. Some alpha/numeric characters are just too close.

IMHO, Nick names should be unique to the game, not just the "nation". Similar nicks are ineviitable. Changing the font may go aways to help sort things out. It may help to stop the use of spaces in names also. For example, I've found that it was impossible to send a private message to invisible one due to the space peresent between "invisible" and "one". Kept getting this message from the server "/msg invisible: one blah blah" ***server: user is not online*** or something to that affect. If spaces in nicks remain, then perhaps the colon should be inserted by the pilot sending the message and not auto inserted by the chat client at the first space as now seems to be the case. [i.e. /msg invisible one: blah blah]

*Paedric is not picking on invisible one. The pilot noted in the above example was used for demonstrational puposes only. No animals were injured during the typing of this post (except for a very annoying mosquito that was buzzing quite near my ear)*
Jul 11, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
There can only be one "Suicidal Lemming" in the game spelled that way, if someone trys to create that name, no matter the nation, it will say "That name already exists"
Jul 11, 2003 a1k0n link
BusMaster, sorry. I was just joking around, not intending to dis you or make light of your concerns, which I share.

paedric, names are already unique to the game, not just the nation. What made you believe otherwise? We all also agree that the game font should probably be different. Waylon's spent some time cleaning it up in the past, but obviously 5/S, 2/Z, etc are very similar, and it's overall just hard to read.

If you want to /msg someone with spaces in their name, use quotes. You can also tab-complete, which will quote for you. i.e. type /msg invis<tab> and it'll fill in to /msg "invisible one".

I agree we need to make a better effort to "sanitize" character names to prevent this sort of thing. It's on my list of things to fix on the server.
Jul 11, 2003 [TFV] swandown link
BusMasteR, hey don't leave. So many good guys have disappeared from the community, and vendetta is not just about botting and trading, it is also about community.
I got impersonated too last night, as a red.
I agree the bug need to be fixed.
[Meltdown]
Jul 12, 2003 Jorus link
well it seems he got his fix, so we dont have to have anyone going and leaving vendetta now do we.
Jul 12, 2003 Rabid Panda link
"S" and "5" are not the same, in the upper left corner of "5" it is a right angle, I know that most of you say that it is the same, and I know the pretty much are, because someone logged on as some name with a capital "s" in it, and I told him out. Perhaps you people can't tell the difference because you aren't running as high a res as I am, or perhaps you just aren't used to it because you never played Diablo II.

Make an effort to find impersonators and point them out, before someone's feelings get hurt more.
Jul 12, 2003 Leqiator link
3mb to fix the name bug...god i hope more was fixed in that version.

/me strokes his poor innocent 64k
Jul 12, 2003 Leqiator link
Btw, can we have a specific war area devs? :P Like, where you can always get Valks, but if you leave the sector you loose your valk and go back to the ship you had? and all ship are free etc etc? That would be excellent :P or maybe im just new :(
Jul 12, 2003 BusMasteR link
Hi guys/girls...

I can only say one thing: sorry...
I overreacted BIG time - propebly mainly because of personal problems (WHICH i shouldn't have involved here), just triggered by this. For those i've insulted or the a like through time, i hope you bare with me - i will try and improve myself and get a nights sleep on it before reacting ;)

a1k0n: Now i can only say one thing... It were actually a fun typo - i gotta give you that...

/me IS a head egg...
Jul 13, 2003 raybondo link
Heh, at least you're not a head crab! Ewww! ;)

Anyways, yes, S and 5 are very similar in the font. We'll try to modify the font to show the difference a little more.

Impersonators will be hard to find. Just report the offending name (try to be exact, look in your errors.log for a log of everything) and we can easily look it up to see who it was. It may not be perfect and the offending username may be a dud, but it's something.
Jul 13, 2003 vx link
Yeah, the font could use some tweaks to make it more legible. Things like the X, x and k could have the branches split a little bit more to make them more readable. X is a bit too close to an H in both the upper and lower case versions (though the lower case x doesn't actually conflict, it's just a little hard to read).

1 is reasonably distinct from l and I is completely distinguished, however, giving the l a little curve to the right at the bottom wouldn't hurt to distinguish it from the pipe symbol and other straight characters. Also, splitting the pipe in the middle can help. Make the i and j stems come up a little higher and move the dots to compensate. The dots are a little thin for my tastes, though that's okay if you like that.

S and D should be more curvy. (D too close to O, S too close to 5)

Z's middlesection should probably be straightened somewhat or completely to differentiate it further from 2, it'd also be more readable. Note that K has straight diagonals, so it's probably okay for Z to have one as well. :)

The numbers should have padding so they are monospaced. This is important. Try /profile and see if the numbers at the ends of the lines are readable (especially in RenderFrame), they move very quickly as numbers are of varying width. It's also a good idea to pad + and - to this width.