These characters have an advantage over others. Players must type 5 letters of their name, instead of the normal 2 to interact with them. Otherwise, the game thinks you are refering to self.

The split seconds it takes a slow typer to type, and the increased chance for typos with greater # of letters, gives them an unfair advantage. Moreover, the fact that people will refer to them as se, sel, and/or self and miss their command on them.

People who currently have names like this are powergaming, and taking advantage of ooc code.

I suggest, no names be allowed to start with Se, Sel, and Self.

I agree with the poster. I've run into the character that is being referred to and it's not only annoying but can cause rp gaffes. These can't be explained and by mature players will just be ignored, but we've all run into jerks that try to force people into explaining IC something that's obviously to everyone involved something that happened OOC and was in no one's realistic power to control.

As a compromise, I would suggest not allowing names to start with 'Self' only because people see this in a name and type it so quickly that they do not think about it. I don't think (many) people are picking names like this on purpose, but restricting this one combination of four letters will not leave people at a loss for acceptable names.

I know as Manden, whenever I was in the Inn I had people bowing, nodding, and giving things to Olin all the time because they would type in 'glare man' and end up glaring at Olin.

SPELL THE WHOLE NAME OUT!!!

Yes, if someone was talking to a character named Selfinar (just a name on the top of my head) and they kept typing 'bow self' or 'slap self'...they'd look silly. However, that is why they are not limited to typing 4 letters...instead they could type 'bow selfinar' or...should they wish to shorten that...type out 'bow selfi'.

The reason that I mocked this post is because the poster was apparantly having a powergaming hiccup (at least that's what it came off sounding like to me) and couldn't be bothered to type an extra letter.

I'm hoping now that I've added a little clarity it begins to become apparant why this entire post is a little on the silly side.

Yeah, but keep in mind having the option for laziness, it seems a lot of people fall into the habit. I got Quezzumpliet upset with me more than a few times trying to "tell que" to talk to Quevea. Secondly, there is the reasonable arguement people have been having about the thief "Guar". Trying to kill someone who sneaks, who's natural habitat is around guards? Not pleasant, and there's utterly nothing you can do about it, because no matter what abbreviation, or not, that you use, you're still quite likely to strike a guard instead, if he's walked off, or hidden, etc.

Chars who start with Self-something, or similar things? I agree with Manden. Yeah, I'll admit. We're lazy now, but I do the same thing...rush of a pk, I'll cut the name down to try and get that attack in before them, and it's resulted in me doing very bad things to myself. (Skill % loss as well, which was REALLY annoying) Even his groupmates mentioned it later. So, yeah, I'd *like* to see maybe no names startable with Self-something, and having self be unabbreviatable. But...it involves a coder wasting their time on what we can deal with ourselves...so if it doesn't get done, I understand. I just did want to point out I do think people choose these names intentionally to cause other people aggravation with this new code, and it seems a breaching of the spirit of the game, if not the hard rules.

Second case...that's really nasty. Having a name *shorter* than a common mob shortname. That I'd *REALLY* like to see something done about, but it kinda seems a bit hard to keep track of what you could do or not. So, yeah, name change as it comes up, or some ingenius code, but something please?

Anyways, just through out my agreement with Manden and some...yes, it's our own fault, but I don't think it's a cry at powergaming, but more a perceived intentional abuse by another player of the abbreviation code. Which is just making other players unhappy.

>Second case...that's really nasty. Having a name *shorter*
>than a common mob shortname. That I'd *REALLY* like to see
>something done about, but it kinda seems a bit hard to keep
>track of what you could do or not. So, yeah, name change as
>it comes up, or some ingenius code, but something please?

I am in full agreement here.


A guard is here.
A guard is here.
A guard is here.
A guard is here.
A guard is here.
Guar is here.

trip guar

Oh, but he left. You couldn't see it because he was sneaking. Now you're fighting the guard. Sure hope you aren't a Trib.

Is Guar a real character? Because it's a real word found in a dictionary and used by people.

Other than that, I think my points are valid, and so are the Shokes. I guess we'll find out on November 3rd what the public really wants.

And it is crazy to allow a character with sneak that spends time around guards to have that name.

Oh, the horror. How dare the cruel imms of carrion fields make you actually type out a name?!

Little tip for everyone. I typed names out playing via a unix shell for over 7 years. It's NOT that big a deal.

I've been playing for over 7 years and typed every single name out for most of that time. Any idea how long it took me to start shortening everyone's name after this was put in? I would say about 10 hours of playing.

I think nearly everyone can relate to having sent a tell to someone unintended by shortening the name. When I was Provost a couple of my leaders got shipped off to Seantryn Modan because someone attacked the wrong person because of a shortened name. That was their fault, but it's nearly impossible to explain these mistakes in character. Very rarely will this be a problem except with something very common, like "Self-".

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that names not be allowed to start with Self- (meaning allowing current characters to keep their names but not permitting any new ones to be rolled) and changing the name of the character Guar (because it is a violation of the naming guidelines).

Now with all the due respect to someone like you who has been around since nearly the dawn of cf time, I think that you might be having one of those "Ivory Tower" moments. Do you have some current characters that you are playing right now? Or have you had some current characters very recently since people have started taking advantage of this? Is it a huge problem, not really. But does this sort of thing seem to come up a lot, yes it does. I'm far from any sort of powergamer, in fact I'm not much of a pker really. But imagine a bit of frustration on the players part when you try to bash some thief and you end up bashing a guard and then that thief kills you. Or you try to hit someone you are hunting and you end up trying to hit yourself and they get away. The problem isn't typing the extra letter, the problem is that there are commands that we use all the time, like murder three letters of someone's name. And there are players that have chosen names to make them immune to other people's normal gaming style. They take advantage of the code. The real point is that one of Imms went through the trouble of implenting some cool code that let us abbreviate names, and now that is devalued to some extent. Now it's not the hugest deal in the world, and I just went back to using tab completion which works just fine. But the point is that it is coming up more and more often which means people are picking names on purpose to get a little bit of an edge in pking by using the code to their advantage. Since the Immstaff is always talking about how they don't want number crunchers and people trying to do all sorts of wacky weasily things to gain advantage and powergame, was it so unreasonable for someone to call attention to this behavior and think that it might be taken seriously? Because let's face it, picking one of these names is an Arolin-Style maneuver(take that as a compliment or insult as you will :P). Is it a huge problem? Not really. But does it come up a lot? Well, it is coming up more and more, enough for someone to post a thread and enough for me to go back to using tab completion :). Not that I mind tab completion, it worked well enough for a long time after all. Just my two cents.

Tell me how tab completion would help against the sneaking character called "Guar" that I mentioned, when you are around city guards, special guards, shrine guards, temple guards, barracks guards, keep guards, royal guards, bodyguards (since many are targetted by "guar").

Luckily for me, when I saw this character, I only tried to look at him, rather than attack him. I ended up looking at a high level mob instead, which would have killed me had I tried to attack the thief.

I did manage to wither myself trying to kill someone who's name started with self. It sucked. I'm in favor of some kind of protection against this.

It's about time I start my imperial perma of Orumousnal and Ghaeleki, so that ragers don't even have to thirst for me to get them to kill themselves.

I had a character named Guardlon. How great was that! I totally rocked because everyone tried to kill "guard" or something and attacked the city guards!

Seriously, you need to drink decaf if this is what bothers you. :)

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

...and decided that the only fair and thoughtful response I can come up with is:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *snort* HAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp for air* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....


No, seriously, I have no idea what's sadder, that *you* actually think this is a problem, or that you've actually started looking so low on the ladder for pk excuses that you realised that someone with one of those names might have a split seconds worth of typing over you. Really. If it ever comes down to that much of an equal fight in terms of skills of both players...I'd be beyond amazed.

Stop the silliness.

Specifically there is a thief called Guar.

As a thief, he has sneak.

Try finishing him off in Galadon. Imagine what it is like as a tribunal or something.

There are lvl 43 mobs that "guar" will make you target, and this character spends time around them.

However, I normally type 4 letters just to be certain, the automatic 'self' I throw in is getting irritatin too. How many times have I looked at myself instead of those annoying names :s


In sort, I don't think it needs a change. Just make sure the ones who use the code make sure how annoying they were to others when they delete.


Btw, healing or wording someone with that name is just as annoying.


Yhorian.

"In sort, I don't think it needs a change. Just make sure the ones who use the code make sure how annoying they were to others when they delete."

It will, and probably is, being abused. They know how annoying it is. This does warrant a change, in my opinion.

Can't we just change the code so that self can't be abbreviated. (considering that a lot of the things you do to yourself don't even have to have "self" entered in). That way any abbreviation would go to the foe instead.

nt

If this change is ever made, I could suggest some other words that could stand to be un-abbreviatable.

.