Smuggler Archive
Thread: Fairly decent idea if you think about it
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FlyinDuke
Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:25 am
#1
Ok, I had mentioned this in another post, but I didn't go into it in much detail.
Basic: A Smuggler can change his name, and/or his title.
Requirement: Underworld 4/Master Smuggler
In-Depth: A smuggler with the required skill can temporarily change his name and/or tag, for an hour or so, so that he can elude Bounty Hunters. This obviously cannot happen now, because Bounty Hunters cannot hunt us right now. If things change for the better as posted in the revamp posts, they will be. This will be a great way for us to "elude" them. Of course, to balance it out somewhat, you would have to make it so Bounty Hunters could "detect" name changes, and scan subjects to see if the name matches, or if it is a name change.
Another way to use this skill would say to add a guild tag to your name and infiltrate a guild meeting, pretty much, being a spy, which would be an incredible improovement.
A problem I just though of with this could be people changing their name and buying something off a vendor labeled for another person. But it wouldn't be that much fo a problem because the sale would be put in the Smuggler's real name, not his tag name. Like, NPC interaction won't remove the name, but Vendor/Bank Interaction will revert the Smuggler's name to his originonal
After about an hour, the name would revert, no matter what, and it would be another hour or so before this ability could be used again.
Let me know what you guys think
Korrack
Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:47 am
#2
It's a neat idea and I would love to see it happen, but changing a player's name, even for a small amount of time, can cause huge problems with the database.
Let me explain:
Objects crafted by players and ownership of items and admin on structures appears to be stored in a text field of the owners name. For example, everything I made or own is "okie". Ever wonder why when you look at the name of the crafter it's in lowercase and only the first name?
This has been shown when there was a mass onslaught of people having their names changed by CSRs because the names were against the TOS, copyright or just plain vulgar. Many many people lost ownership of items and houses because of name changes.
Now, I know they could really code it nice and have it store the information differently, but the way things are coded now, if I was to change my name, I couldn't access my factories or house.
All kinds of code would require changing so that invalid errors would not occur. /who /find /addignore /cityban any /emote. As a toon, I am Okie. If my name is masked and shows as Bill, thenthe game needs to be smart enough to realise that Bill is Okie and do whatever associated action to Okie. This may not seem like much, but consider tha amount of code in the game that requires interaction with player objects, all of which are currently referenced by a text field for their name.
Even though it is a great idea, it is sadly one that would require a ton of coding by the DEVS and a ton of troubleshooting to make sure nothing breaks because of it. To be honest, I don't see it happening. It's too much work. Something like this would require so much work, we'd get nothing else. EVER.
FlyinDuke
Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:00 am
#3
True, and atm, I am trying to think of a way to code that simply heh.
Like even a "middle name" persay which would be displayed instead, leaving everything else (houses/vendors) to reference the first name.
If you did that it would just be a matter (for smugglers only) of having the middle and last name displayed to people instead of first and last.
Eivo
Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:07 am
#4
Yeah this has been posted several times. I called it the "Alias" skill in my fantasy ravamp post. I think it's a totally awesome idea. You would think something like this wouldn't ba hard to code, seeing how the jedi revamp or even player citys would require more code then this should. However they programmed it so none of us now how the architecture of the game truely works, we can only speculate. But as for the name changing idea, I LOVE it.
Zandergeef
Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:07 am
#5
It is a good idea but what they could do instead is make smugglers "invisible" for a time... it would have to be a smuggler skill that you got in underworld and got better as you got higher in smuggler.. bh would in turn have an ability to find you.. with there skill getting higher also as they moved up in bh. It would be used when smuggling items.. if that ever happens.
They could give us the appearance of a random npc to everyone. A neat idea for the smuggler revamp that may someday happen.
FlyinDuke
Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:46 am
#6
Lol, then they could get a slicing menu in radial around us, and when they asked for a speed or damage slice it could just say
"How many times have we told you, it is RANDOM"
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