[Suggestion] Opt-in visible name

[Gimmic]

 

 

 

So the server I regular has an ongoing discussion about KOS problems and how they might be helped.

 

Pretty much everyone agrees, Kill-On-Sight is way too prevalent but there's just not enough reasons to not do it.

 

The problem:

1) You have too much to lose by trying to identify someone you have the drop on.

2) Everyone is effectively anonymous unless they identify themselves or are dead.

 

I had been thinking about these two facts affect gameplay, and how other mechanics could affect this so that KOS was less common. Several times I've killed someone only to learn who they were via the death message and then apologized for my actions. The typical response is 'this is DayZ', it's just a harsh accepted truth.

 

At the same time, we already have 'friendly tagging'. It isn't persistent through logouts, and requires an initial contact of trust. It causes a magic green floating dot on the other player so you know they are friendly. We mostly play on the same servers and given time, you start to identify regular players. Without some sort of forced dialogue, there's not often a way to randomly run into a player and have a net positive outcome. Usually, someone ends up dead. 

 

Why not take this a step farther and allow players to opt-in to displaying their own name if someone is aiming at them?

 

The idea is that even though I may have never run into player 'Robot' in-game, from interactions with him in side chat or in forums would allow me to give him the benefit of the doubt. If I had the drop on him and saw that it was him(because he opted into showing his name) then I might say "hello" first or ask if he'd like to be friendly. The risk is still there, as now I've given up both the fact that I have the drop on him AND who I am, but he might reciprocate and we just had a 'good' random interaction in Epoch. He might also turn and shoot me in the face, which is 'DayZ'. The side effect there is I would know it was him and his 'reputation' could be marred.

The real world current example is I see him running around with gear, I shoot him and kill him, apologize and if I'm feeling nice, help him get his gear back.

 

Some scenarios as to why nametags being a choice of the player is preferable:

• The above interaction, being a net positive. I have the drop on someone, see it is a regular and potentially friendly, ask them and we don't shoot at eachother.
• I see a player who has name tags turned off, I'm likely to just shoot them as I would today in our current system. I take their gear, or miss and they kill me.
• I decide to do some banditry. I turn my name tag off. That way, if I get in a firefight with someone, they don't know who I am. If I win- they never know who I was(unless they check the kill board).
• Someone gets the drop on me, sees my nametag, and shoots me anyway. They either don't care, don't like me, or feel the need. Their gameplay has not been affected.
• I keep my nametag on, and hope that players see me and decide not to shoot me in the back. I am banking on my reputation on the server as a deterrent to random victimization. 

 

The last part is most important. It's an option that adds more depth to Epoch and helps foster a community on a single server or hive. It doesn't cost anything or force anyone to change their gameplay habits. It is entirely optional, and in my opinion could only improve the quality of play at the small expense of losing a little realism. This realism imo is already lost with red/green dots on player characters. I feel like this could be implemented as an additional field in the character data table. It could be read in on each login and death.

 

Update:

I've been digging into this quite a bit recently and started to poke at the idea of how this could functionally work. Others have graciously linked related name tag scripts which look fairly simple to implement. I've been researching how we can provide both an item interaction and possibly a visual reference for if the 'mask' is on.

 

My current idea is to utilize balaclava code or create a custom glasses model that is a mask. This way, I don't need to make a clone model for each custom outfit that is wearing a mask. If I can apply it to the player's model head then it just goes on 'over' the player model, just like a real mask. Both Night Vision Goggles and Balaclava/glasses work to accomplish this, but in slightly different ways. 

 

The two hurdles I'm working on right now are:

1. how to dynamically apply the player model change
2.  how to handle the interaction menu to enable/disable the mask. 

[Eegore]

  ARMA already has a nameplate option but I don't know how easy it would be to chop it up and make it only applicable per player.

[vbawol]

I think this is a good idea, do you have any ideas on what sort of opt-in mechanism can we provide?

[Gimmic]

Not sure. Another idea might be to show how long the player has been alive next to the name (gimmic 1h13m). I have no reason to blast someone who shows as alive for 13 minutes.

 

• My initial thought is that it could be enabled / disabled at a trader. You could have an NPC standing near the kill board who you could enable "Friendly Name Display" or "Disable name display" with. This NPC could be considered the "tracker" NPC. Maybe for a fee, he could tell you the general direction another player was currently at? (5 gold = "I think gimmic was last seen somewhere northwest of here.")

• It could be item driven in the form of dog tags. You have your dog tags on you and your name shows up at range. You throw the tags away or put them in a safe and your name doesn't show. It could also be driven by a menu option on the item(like harvesting with the knife). IMO, dog tags should also be lootable as trophies :)

• If possible, it could be a spawn in option during sex selection. Maybe some way to drive the interface via a common inventory item or player menu?

[Armifer]

On the server I work on, we only display name tags in a trader camp, so that players know who is around and who they can and cannot trust. An opt in feature to show your name, would be very neat to have, as long as players can turn it on and off in some way for their own name visibility only as you said above.

 

Also it shouldn't  be built in by default, instead give server managers the option to turn it off in the init.sqf for server managers, if they prefer nobody having this ability as some servers like the anonymity that no kill messages bring or name plates bring.

[ToejaM]

I already wrote a script for displaying names when you point at them, see here:

 

http://dayzepoch.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1069-release-cpc-name-tags/

 

I like the suggestion in there of making name tags appear in different colours dependant on humanity, I'll be adding this soon.

 

However I have an idea. How about for an opt in/out feature, the player must equip a balaclava variant of the clothing they own but add a right click feature to the clothing to "wear balaclava". So for immersion purposes you can't see their face.

The script would work very simply on a copy of mine (or write your own but you're welcome to use it ;)) and would be something like: if playerskin = xxx_bal, xxxx_bal (these would be the balaclava variants of the skins) then display name: Unknown/Stranger, else: my usual code for displaying the character name.

 

For the code to work, it would simply does as it does now.. and swap the skins in the inventory so they would always have a clickable skin to turn the balaclava on or off.

 

I'm actually going to work on adding this with the current skins that hide players faces as I really like this idea :)

[Gimmic]

I was thinking about this more last night. I wouldn't want it to be too difficult for someone to turn off their nameplate, even have it available as an option on new spawn.

 

Problems with using a skin is:

• You would need to have to have the outfit as inventory
• You wouldn't be able to use any other outfit you might want while 'masked'.

A possible solution: How about a new custom item, the handkerchief? This could be a headgear item that uses the night vision goggles slot.

 

Everyone spawns with a handkerchief by default(in the NVG slot), and you right click it to "wear" or "remove". Assuming it could be programmed similar to the NVGs, you could even overlay a handkerchief mask over the person's face.

 

The downside would be that you can't use the handkerchief mask at the same time you're using NVG. Minor loss, imo.

 

The upside is that you could have multiple handerchief colors/designs/styles and it could be a lootable item!

[ToejaM]

I think your suggestion is a bit more complicated of a solution to your idea.

 

You could easily make people spawn with a survivor outfit so they can swap it around and if you gave them a hankerchief they'd still be able to lose it and be in a position of not being able to hide their faces (in your idea of not making it difficult for them). I like the idea of a hankerchief though, being losable/lootable.

 

The other option would be a scroll option that all players get to be able to put it on dependant on skin they are wearing.

[Gimmic]

This is true. The idea of it sitting in the NVG slot is that they could spawn with one, say a generic red one. It's always "on" the NVG slot and you just choose to show it or not. It would be a regular 1 inventory slot item if you wanted to unequip it for some reason.  While it was in your NVG slot you could right click it and choose "Hide nametag" or "Expose nametag".

 

You could find different ones as loot drops (the 'ghost' or skull type ones.. other colors / patterns) or they could be crafted using the crafting system..

They could be crafted simply if you have a hunting knife and canvas. That would be pretty easy to obtain if you for some reason dropped your spawn one.

 

I think this is better than clothing because it allows people to wear all the zany outfits(priest, rocker, terrorist, etc) and still retain the ability independently to mask or not. It keeps it out of your general inventory slot if it is in the NVG slot, which to me is rarely used. 

[Eegore]

  As long as there is a way to use NVG and this process doesn't screw it up.  Many of us still play on night servers.

[Gimmic]

Seems to me like if you're using NVG it would just default to 'masked' since your face is covered. 

[Bags2247]

I like the idea gimmic, and would you be able to tie it in with the debug monitor maybe...

 

kinda like sometimes the action 20 key can be modified with a toggle for debug...

Not sure what the other 19 odd special keys are used for but wouldn't you be able to use one of them to toggle on/off name display or something...

I'm no scripter and still learning but just something that occured to me..

 

Still on my first coffee, brain is still in login mode

[Firefly]

I think its a good idea, but at the end of the day people will still shoot each other regardless. Your picture pretty much sums it up. We run with the name tags on now although most servers operate a teamspeak service or people use private team channels which I think works well. 

 

It would help a problem I've had in the past, I spent 10 minutes stalking and shooting a person, knocking them down thinking they were dead only to be killed by them. Turned out I'd spent 10 minutes trying to kill my brother who then shot and killed me. 

[Gimmic]

People will certainly still KOS, hell I'll still KOS.

It's just a gameplay mechanic that is focusing on community / reputation rather than loot and building. 

 

 

Edit: So I've been digging into this all night- the solution middleground might be to enable balaclavas!

 

I am going to get my toes wet in Arma 2 editing next week probably since I'm off all week..

Basically my idea is to enable a way to dynamically add or remove balaclavas on your player model in-game. I'll then start hacking in the nametag script referenced above based on balaclava status. 

 

I have updated the master post to reflect this.

[ToejaM]

Looks like I don't need to put a makeshift version in: http://dayzepoch.com/forum/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F2004-change-log-1024%2F

 

Cheers :)

 

Any info on how the opt in system works as a few ideas were slung around here

[itsatrap]

Please fix the kill bandit system, makes it impossible to stay hero as it is now, so on my server every one is just KOS'ing since there is now way to stay hero