Unique Descriptions of Characters

[The Industriallist]

I don't know how this should be done, but there ought to be a way for you to recognize someone you have never met before. If a person steals something, there is no way they can be caught by anyone except the original witnesses, unless they do something horribly stupid. If you could make a 'composite scetch' or description or something that would allow other people to recognize him, police work could be more than just running maniacly down the road after your suspect.

Of course, there are other uses. a description would allow a hit-and-run assassin to find his desegnated victim without asking him to identify himself.

Edited for thread title. -rklenseth

[Sho]

Each character could have an ID number. This number would be set at birth. Perhaps certain kinds of clothing, such as a mask, could hide the ID number.

[Sho]

Perhaps we could make this work with the seals thing. Instead of sealing with a name, which can be changed, characters would seal envelops with their ID numbers.

[JJ]

that would just be adding everyones name back into the game.

[nitefyre]

I disagree with this whole idea, how the character identification system that works now, works fine. Next thing we'll have are big fat lazy cops in Cantr that don't want to get up and follow a crook becuase they can trace the id. The vehiculr id works well, and that could be similar to IRL with cops tracing Lisense plates.

[Sho]

@JJ: What do you mean? The ID would be different from the name.

@nitefyre: There are problems with the current system, though I admit that my idea might cause more. Right now, characters only know other characters by their approximate age and gender and an arbitrary name. Say character A is in one place and character B in another. If they both see character C, but C gives A and B different names, A and B have no way of finding out that they both saw the same person. In real life, A could say, "I saw a person with an afro and a pimple on his nose." and B could say, "Hey, I saw that person too!" This ic surrently not possible in Cantr. By the way, how would these lazy cops trace people by their IDs, anyway?

I have another idea that might be better. What if every character was born with certain random facial features? They could be seen in the character description. The detail in the description would be such that about 1 in 25 people would match descriptions with a certain person. It's basically the ID idea with less certainty and more realism; it would be the same if every person had an ID between 1 and 25.

[nitefyre]

The police would be reported the persons ID # and they'll wait around till it shows up.

As fer the *thinks about what he was going to say...* facial expressions, they'd be a bit confusing, especially in a text based game. Characters can be IDed diferently by checking their clothing....

[JJ]

what i ment about the id is its with you, the way you discribed it would make it just the same as if the names were still in place. you couldnt change the number. one thing about real life is now adays things can be changed from some minor scars to getting plastic surgery, if you were born eventualy in time your whole face would change. its just difficult, right now witht he current system you can name people, but they dont keep the same name thru out the whole cantr world, i know one of my characters goes by 3 different names, making it harder for anyone to actualy pinpoint him as he could be a good guy in one town and killer in the next. but only people who have seen him have remeber him as the person who attacked or was the good guy.

i like the current system right now its actualy pretty cool. one thing that could add to description would be hair, and eye color. eyes you couldnt change unless you wore contacts but thats not currently possible in cantr. hair could be grown even possibly adding differet minerals could change the color. things like that would be alot harder to be able to figure out as they would change constantly. even a hair cut or a shaving

ok ok, ive ranted enough as for the cop thing i only have one quote "i bust criminals!! its what i do! *sob sob*

[Lone Wolf]

How about this. When it says

"You see A Man In his twenties take a hunting bow"
"You see A Man In his twenties Leaving .....
Just name that person "theif" or "man who took hunting bow" The next time you see him that is how he will appear to him.

[JJ]

lol very plain and simple

[kroner]

How about this. When it says

"You see A Man In his twenties take a hunting bow"
"You see A Man In his twenties Leaving .....
Just name that person "theif" or "man who took hunting bow" The next time you see him that is how he will appear to him.

the point being made against this is that irl, you could go to the next town and decsribe the guy so that they could be on the look out for him too. in cantr when you go to the next town you can't just say be on the look out for "man who took hunting bow" cause no one knows him by that but you. so it causes problems.

[Lone Wolf]

[quote="kroner
the point being made against this is that irl, you could go to the next town and decsribe the guy so that they could be on the look out for him too. in cantr when you go to the next town you can't just say be on the look out for "man who took hunting bow" cause no one knows him by that but you. so it causes problems.[/quote]

I see your point now. So, I will agree. If we could have dicrpitions like hair colour and hieght, weight, and any visible scars from beening shot, that would help.

[Solfius]

I'm very against having ID numbers for description type uses. I think we should program in true descriptions rather than numbers to represent them

[Sho]

Yeah, I guess I agree. So what does everybody think of my second idea, with non-unique facial features? Perhaps we could have "plastic surgery" that would change a feature.

[Solfius]

I think it's already been suggested

but it's still the only way forward to my mind