On in-game-names, and possibly DRM

WARNING: The following may only appeal to those who enjoy reading the incoherent prattle of a rambling fool.

Poyo! <(^.^)> Long time lurker here with his first thread! During my time here, I haven't really noticed any threads that were pertinent to this question, so you really shouldn't forgive me if this has been asked before, but:

How do you think in game names will work in multiplayer, and how do you want them to work?

The way I see it, there's two extremes on a spectrum of ways this could work.​

1. Our only identity in chat and in the game world is the name we assigned our character during creation. It would work just like Terraria.
2. We are identified in chat as a username/account handle. This would be like Minecraft, among countless other games.

I imagine we'll be assigning our characters names anyways, but they may or may not be visible to other players. In Borderlands (on console at least), you assigned your character a name at the first checkpoint, but it was only used when looking at your own stats and differentiating between saved games.
Option 2 implies DRM, or incompatibility between steam and non-DRM versions of the game.
However, Option 1 seems to have a plethora of drawbacks.

(i'll put these in spoilers to reduce page clutter...)

Impersonation - We've all witnessed it. In several online games, its common to see another player claiming to be a famous youtube celebrity. Maybe it really is them, but there's no way to tell. This is probably the most common form of impersonation, and to some its just a minor nuisance to be ignored.

However, let's say you play on a public server (for the sake of an argument). Let's say you frequent this public server and you happen to make some friends. So, you log on one day expecting to be greeted with warm welcomes, but instead you're met will all-caps rage. Your friends berate you for destroying their buildings and getting them killed, but you would never do such a thing!
Some people in this situation may question whether they've had blackouts or have been sleep trolling again, but to most it's obvious this is just the other side of the black coin that is in-game impersonation! Maybe it was a passing troll with too much time on their hands, or maybe a mod just didn't like you, but your reputation is ruined! And the sad thing is, it probably wouldn't be that hard to pull off with Starbound's limited character parts and set color values.

TL;DR - People pretending to be other people, it's annoying!

Anonymous Greifing - No, I'm not talking about getting greifed by people in Guy Fawkes masks.
I have a lot I could write about this, but I'll keep it short and simple. Basically, even though most trolling on the internet is done behind the guise of anonymity, in video game people usually have to troll through an identity. However, if we're only known as our character's name, then that identity is disposable. People can just get a new name if they've dirtied an old one, and there's suddenly no downside to being a jerk. Sure there's IP-Bans, but to my knowledge an IP address is easy to change. There's also the fact that if a greifer used several characters, then you could probably run into them on several servers without knowing before it's too late...

Getting stuck in the "Stranger-zone" - Ugh bad title I know, but this is about potential friends and missed opportunities. I had a really long hypothetical written up about this, but I'll just stick to the basic idea.
At some point, we will all inevitably meet someone we don't hate. But what if an unforeseen event causes the meeting to end at an inopportune moment, specifically before you've actually had the chance to arrange for the possibility of ever seeing each other again. Or maybe you just forgot to make such arrangements.
It may seem unlikely to some, but I can see this being a problem on hardcore servers:

Code:

<Liulfr> Tonight's been great! We should play on other servers together sometime.>
<Kenny> Really? That sounds awesome. We just need to exchange Steam info for contact. My username is-
*Kenny was decapitated by DarkDeath's sniper bullet.
*Kenny has been disconnected because of Hardcore Mode.
<Liulfr> YOU BASTARDS!!!

I think it would be ideal if Starbound followed the model set by Torchlight 2. For those unfamiliar with Torchlight 2, I'll explain using partially-stolen probably-inaccurate information:

Multiplayer is peer-to-peer. That means the game is hosted on one (or more) of the players' computers. Runic Games (The Devs/Publishers) does not run game servers, except for a lobby server that lists online players and current games.

A Runic Games account is required to play in internet multiplayer games. It is not needed to play over LAN or single player.
The Runic account is used for the internet lobby system, friends lists, and ignore lists. It does not store character data or saved games; these are stored locally on your computer.

Other players' character's names appear over their heads and in chat, but their account name is used when you add them to either your friend or block list.

I think an server browser similar to Torchlight 2's lobby system (actually more similar to Valve games) is already planned, but I don't think a block list would work (with the whole large servers thing). But if you just replace block list with black list (Ban list?) then it'd work.
It'd also be nice to see a users account name if we examine them with our data log or click their name in chat. (On the topic of data logging, will we have custom bios? it could display there, but maybe that subject warrants it's own thread).
Maybe there could a server option to just display account name instead of character name, or a setting to let the player decide (either viewers or the user whose name is in question.)
Also notable - This might only work if Starbound accounts are only issued with purchased copies of Starbound, like minecraft does it. Otherwise accounts would be as disposable as characters.

Anyways, I'd like to hear the communities input on this topic, maybe just to tell me that it's possible I'm stll sane after thinking about it this long...

 

I actually don't know what difference you see between choices. They both sound same to me.

Different model, working on and for RP games is, that you see other character names YOU'VE chosen. Every new character is named like "strange elf 322" for you and you have the ability to rename each of them as you like, based on IC information. With ability for GM to reset all names given for specific character (IC change of identity matters, rarely used). For OOC tells you use account name.

 

It should show your name, and then your steam name under in smaller text, or in a toggleable option.

 

I want it to work just like Terraria. That was a very good system IMO.

 

Personally I liked Biowares Neverwinter Nights system you had your online username, and then you could have as many characters as you wanted tied to that account, some servers would allow you to use characters saved from your local vault, others would only accept characters saved to their server vault. I think this is similar to how your describing how minecraft does it. Anyway. that's what I would like.

 

I like the idea of having an account just to see who is online, and if you're able to join them. It can make banning easier due to the fact that you can ban an account instead of having to ban an IP. You could easily go to somewhat of a server menu and click a button to send a request asking for permission to see when someone is online.

 

If you've ever played Blockland, when you sign up you pick a name, butt you get a permanent ID.
Later you can change your name IF it is not in use/is available. So there's no real impersonation, you can always identify a person by their ID, but you still have the freedom to change your name.

 

I liked the torchlight idea. I didn't see any options for it, so have my vote on "It should be like another game!"

 

I think it should show your characters name but maybe have a character menu that shows everyone's forum of steam username.

 

I think you should be able to pick what ever username you want when you're creating a character but have servers keep track of what characters are made on the server (some can force you to create a new character) and make sure its a unique username and not a letter for letter copy of someone else on the server.

 

Being able to recognize people by their account names makes it a lot easier for servers and such, and even more so in events of griefing. Else they can just make/rename their character and start over. IPs can also fairly easily be circumvented, and that mostly just leads to servers having to institute white-lists and only allowing access to trusted, registered people. Simply by having an in-build way of recognizing people, for instance by their username/login ID it allows for more freedom and openness, as well as less hassle for people that aren't up to making trouble.

Now, having a username/login ID doesn't mean that you would be restricted to that single name for every character. While my powers of the force programming are limited, I don't see it as a major issue, having none unique character names, tied to a uniquely named account, you'll always be able to be recognized via your username, no matter how silly your character's name is. And if your user has been banned from a server, making a new character isn't going to allow you access again.

Short: Unique Login/Usernames, none-unique character names, for all intensive purposes, character names don't matter in the sense of server - user recognition, it only uses Login/Username for admin/mod/whitelist and other permissions. Choose to have your username shown to others you play with, or not, as long as the server knows, it doesn't matter what name others "see" ingame.

 

Like this !

And what about something like Diablo 3 accounts and characters names ? You have your ID like " testname#332 " and people can add you in the friend list with that, but you can have multiple Characters with the same name, without that silly stuff " username already taken ", it's too much annoying when you try to register your nickname that you used for every game or stuff...

Or yeah, just like with the Steam stuff ! But always with NO Unique Character names

 

Do it like steam does it. One master account name, and you can change your display name/character names via a rename option at any time.

 

I do not find it unnecessary to explain a whole new idea of a system to use names since many of you have wonderful ideas that will suit well enough.

 

I don't like the idea of linking ones username to their character name as in minecraft, but I can see how it may be confusing if two or more people decide to name their character "Sakura" or something. Which is where this idea kicks in... it's unlikely that someone will make a character that looks exactly like another even if they are named the same thing, so what I ask is to have a small face portrait next to the name such as in this MMO I used to play.

What I liked most about this system over others is that you have colored channels that are also labeled and the portrait makes it easy to see who said what, especially if the names were really similar.

Edit: The thing is, I like using games for roleplaying purposes, this is greatly hindered when names are limited. For banning purposes, I can understand why this is a problem to keep out griefers. I'd compromise with another thing the above game had: each server is linked with your character and therefore a new server has all names free even if an old server had them taken, but a single account can have 2 characters per server. As for playing in single player, perhaps it could be similar to minecraft running a server in the background that you connect to. That way it would be as if you were playing on a server so the rules would still apply, it just wouldnt' be a multiplayer server.

 

An option that I haven't noticed mentioned yet (and if it has been, please forgive me) is on servers to allow people to choose names for individual characters, but make them unique. So if I create a server and name my character "Kroniaq," no one else will be able to do that on my server. Then just make it to where server owners are able to view and ban by account name. If that doesn't make sense please tell me, I can try to elaborate.

 

Probably do it like mmos or nearly any other game where you can make multiple characters does it. Have an account name and a character name.

 

I like the Terraria way. I hate Minecraft because you were just stuck with one name that had a bunch of numbers and all, didn't get my liking. Seeing the start menu and character creation of Starbound I have no doubt that Starbound is using the Terraria method.

 

Yeah, Diablo / Steam style. Unique master account name and no limits on character names. In chat it probably should show character name by default, but it should be possible to change this. So, few client-side options:

1. "Cucumber" — just the character name, default setting.
2. "#Mikedeath79" — just the account name.
3. "Cucumber #Mikedeath79" — both.
4. "#Mikedeath79 - Cucumber" — another variant of both.

But that is only in chat. In windows like friends list it should probably always look like 3 or 4. Obviously, "#" symbol and other layout details should be thinked through with developers.

Also, in case of two characters with equal name on one server, they are always shown in chat like 2, 3 or 4, even if option 1 is selected.

And of course, it will be very good idea to make it possible to change character name at will. Or at the homeworld, with some limitations (maybe even blasphemous cooldown on name change), whatever, but without too much problems.