Mutable Character Names

[ImpalerWrG]

Currently when someone kins a character they immediately know the characters "true name" which is an immutable and unique name for each character and seems to be one of the oldest sacred cows of RPG's. But names are in fact entirely SOCIAL constructs and are not immutable, false identities and alias have been part of history for ages and add an element of intrigue to social interactions.

I propose that instead players not actually have these kinds of True Names, a player instead has a mutable "Giving Name" box on their Kin list. A person kinning the player by Hearth Secret or who accepts a kin request from the player will receive this name at the time of kinning. Later changes to the Giving name will not update what the other player has received. When accepting a kin request the player will have a text Box in the pop-up with their current Giving name already entered, they can enter a different name though before accepting and that will be what the kin requesting player receives. As with the current system all players can re-name people in their Kin lists and see those names for themselves without effecting other players.

Some of the effects

* Annoyance and frustration from not being able to create characters with a desired name, particularly of dead characters
* Allows players to simply rename themselves at any time, a freedom denied in nearly all other online games
* Allows disgraced or infamous players to 'start a new life' under a new identity (for good or ill)
* Rewards the clever juggling of alias by any criminal element or spies, as opposed to the more 'gamey' use of alts for the same purpose
* Increases the importance of description system to foil the above

It may be possible to implement this by simply converting every players true name to their giving name while leaving kin lists unchanged, but its possible that the codez do not support it. Also the removal of True names would tip the scales in favor of the criminal elements so some compensatory change in the justice system would likely be needed to maintain present balance (assuming you believe it to be in the proper place, which is a whole other topic).

[SacreDoom]

1.*Looks around*

2.*Calls hearthling ImpalerWRG as "Giving Name"*

3.*Trolls everyone in-game and tells em my name is the same thing on the forums. *

4. The real ImpalerWRG will get spam PMs and a lot of people wanting to kill him.

5.???

6.Profit.

[barracuda546]

1.*Looks around*

2.*Calls hearthling ImpalerWRG as "Giving Name"*

3.*Trolls everyone in-game and tells em my name is the same thing on the forums. *

4.???

5.Profit.

You can just name yourself ImpalerWRG anyway so I do not see the problem exactly

[SacreDoom]

It's not a bad idea, I just see problems with it..

[Sever]

Good problems.

[sabinati]

it's a interesting idea, and i think it could be cool.

It's not a bad idea, I just see problems with it..

what problems? like barracuda said, you can name yourself whatever you want in the current system anyway.

[cobaltjones]

All this would do would add a massive amount of hassle on the other end where to manage your own kin list you'd have to manually assign your own name for every character. The way it's set up now is to relieve some of that work from the user.

[ImpalerWrG]

All this would do would add a massive amount of hassle on the other end where to manage your own kin list you'd have to manually assign your own name for every character. The way it's set up now is to relieve some of that work from the user.

No you don't manually assign the names, the Giving Name dose that for you when you kin, what the other player enters in that Text field becomes the name that appears in your kin list. Players wishing to simply be known by one name need never modify their Giving Name and their experience and the that of their kin would be identical to the current system. People can already rename entries on their Kinlist and do for all kinds of purposes (such as adding KoS labels for memorized Enemies, or labeling another persons alts) so again no more work then already exists except for those cases ware a person has aliases which should require some detective work to unravel.

[cobaltjones]

That's what I'm saying though. You could never really trust the name given to you when kinning using this system, so you'd still have to edit the name with some sort of personal identifier or descriptor.

[ImpalerWrG]

That IS the point, the whole game is built around concepts of unrestricted player actions. Considering that other players can already kill you at any time the inability to 'trust' the name they gave you is a rather insignificant risk. Also editing with 'personal identifier or descriptor' is what any smart person already dose as a players name under any system is a completely arbitrary string of characters that really tells you nothing about a person, it's merely a symbol.