Can we please code it so that people can't choose names starting with gua (for example, since it can easily cause issues when they are around guards).

Make a list that can be added to as problematic circumstances arise?

Sure, someone could argue that you should type more than 3 letters but given that for most chars that's unnecessary it probably will catch people off guard. It must be quite easy to fix too?

Ban stuff starting with sel or self while we are at in, and starting with PC Charmies too please.

Ps. I haven't died to said people but just noticed a mistargeting in a log caused by this.

What if instead all combat initiation commands defaulted to players if there were mobs present? So you type 'bash gua' and it will always hit Guarpadillow instead of guard. There might be very isolated situations where you're ranking with one of those folks and you might want to make sure you're typing the full mob keyword out or a different keyword, but overall it will reduce the pk advantage the names have.

I do *not* speak for team code on how easily this could be done, but I think it eliminates the advantage those names have without restricting anyone's creativity.

Once again, I'm not promising this will work. Valg could read this and go "Arv you butthead, you got their hopes up for something we can't do. Go back to your corner."

I may be wrong, but I think someone requested that under a Santa Zulg or somesuch and it was denied. Something about traversing a linked list and getting stuck in the flux capacitor.

Not so good if you wanted to subvert a guard of a trib called guardiola.

I guess I thought my solution was probably easier than this too. Just a short list that the first few characters of names are check against on creation. Can start with gua sel and cabal mobs, plus races and then be added to if needed as time passes.

But yes, I think your solution would be an improvement. It would still potentially struggle with people that call themselves things like selfren tho, since that can cause you to target yourself accidentally.

nt

It was just an advantage for people who knew how to alias.

It is different if the character was named guardo or something like that. But I can think of names that start with sel that are totally legit and cool.

It is more of the matter of not being lazy and typing only 3 letters (or in some cases only 2).

Has a char with first four letters guar and takes place in galadon and includes special guards.

Very simple to prevent these issues so why would anyone not want it done apart from to exploit it?

Then again, I do agree that sounds fishy.

Get offended when their name is forcibly changed later on, even if their intention was to pick a dodgy name.

No reason not to just make them unpickable.

Type the extra two letters and be done with it. In the case that typing two extra letters dulls your PK edge, get Mavis and practice.

You could have a guy called nightwalket or something.

It shouldn't take much resource at all, I wouldn't have thought.

What you are saying is effectively that everyone should type full names all the time, wasting the imms coding effort to date, so that a minimal amount of extra coding isn't required. That or continue to allow people to pick names for mechanical advantage.

The first three letters of your forum handle match "incendiary cloud"...

At some point, if you block all users via code from having 3 or more letters match any command in CF you will have 30 users all named some variant of ZZquyr. I can't speak for everyone else, but my character names generally come from Rinkworks name generator. If there is an obviously OOC name (like your nightwalket example above), so many people will pray about it that they will get nuked before they make it out of the academy generally.

At no point will a chars name conflicting with a command such as incendiary cloud cause any difference to what happens in game.

Having a name that conflicts with a key mob does. And people have even admitted to abusing it.

However, it is true, if they hard coded it so you could not have the first letters in any mob name you would end up being bad for the mud in general. Most clients support aliasing so you can just shorten their name to whatever you want anyway if they are your target. I am just saying. It really should be a non-issue. Also, your nightwalket example has the word night and walk in it, and is against the naming rules. :P

"Everyone" and "all the time" are vast exaggerations.

>"Everyone" and "all the time" are vast exaggerations.

Because it is precisely the fact that you'll develop a habit of abbreviating that will cause you an unexpected problem when you fail to appreciate that the start of someone's name conflicts with a mob.

If you don't want that to happen, you need to get into the habit of using full names -- hence the everyone and all the time.

You can play whole characters to age death without it ever being an issue. So, some people, rarely, need to be aware of their opponent's name. The first time you screw up is an indication to be aware. Honestly, I can't imagine being so unaware of it in the first place, unless I imagine myself using complex triggers and aliases to gain an artificial edge.

If it's any consolation, I've never hit a mob instead of a player or a player instead of a mob on accident.

Not being a contrarian. Just think it's a waste of coding resources, even if it takes 10 minutes to code. Better to just punish these people and let their cheating ways force them from the game in a dramatic forum explosion. Those are always fun.