Character introductions

[Oasis]

Same here. I even have to reboot my browser sometimes.

[The Industriallist]

What browser do you use? Mozilla here...

[Anthony Roberts]

These errors are probably due to Cantr changing its login system to a Cookie Based system. Or so I've heard. Somewhere. From someone. Dunno who. Honestly, I hear a lot of things, a lot true, a lot false, no one ever comes over to me and tells me what's going on, I'm always one of the last on Staff to find out >.>

I'm unimportant.

And loud mouthed

Oh well. Just don't use your back button when you're returning to a page where you did something (Ie: Sent a message, moved, etc.) - That way, you shouldn't get the "Page Expired" error.

...Shouldn't.

...Doesn't mean you won't.

[Jur Schagen]

So if clicking on a name would open up a new (small) window, you could name lots of people and the events page would be loaded only once.

Or you could use the back button?

*awaits his telling off from the programming dept...*

Use shift-click instead and you have your pop-up...

Jur.

[Pulpcatcher]

This is an excellent idea although it could do with some refining so that it won't detract from the dynamic element of the game.

In busy places where there's a great deal going on it's very time consuming to go through the process of adding peoples' names. Often my characters don't recall others' names, not because they missed thier introduction, but because the system was running so slow that at the time I didn't have the time it would have taken to change the names.

Not having to always fiddle around, cutting and pasting names would greatly increase my enjoyment of the game.

[wulf]

I like the idea of clicking to add a name. However, I'd also like to have the option of always including the character description - my names for people are always in the form John Doe (<CANTR CHARDESC>) so it wouldn't save me any time if I then had to go through and change that!

Wulf

[Lumin]

I like the idea if it were changed a bit.

Instead of automatically naming the person for you, their name in their talking should become a hyperlink, and clicking it automatically sets their name.

So...

a man in his twenties says: "Hello, I'm Anthony Roberts"

Then, clicking on the name "Anthony Roberts" will send to the server that name and automatically set the character as that.

Now that would be better, save you time, and avoid Kroner's situation.

Soudns good at first, but what if your char doesn't use their full name, or wants to give a false one?

[Anthony Roberts]

*Claps*

Finally!

I've been WAITING for someone to point out the flaw!

You are all so poor in observation.

You are correct indeed. If, infact, the character LIES about their name, it WON'T be a hyperlink.

Truth: a man in his twenties says: "Hello, I'm Anthony Roberts."

Lie: a man in his twenties says: "Hello, I'm Jos Elkink."

The only way to overcome this would be perhaps HTML or some sort of 'code' while speaking, to hyperlink what you want.

For example, you type:

"Hello, my name is <name>Anthony Roberts</name>."

And it will show up as:

a man in his twenties says: "Hello, I'm Anthony Roberts."

And, now you can lie:

"Hello, my name is <name>Jos Elkink</name>."

See:

a man in his twenties says: "Hello, I'm Jos Elkink."

Honestly, I'll take the extra two seconds to write out the code, to save everyone else some time - as long as they're nice enough to do the same for me.

[Lumin]

Yay, I'm smart!

I think using tags would be the perfect solution, but of course I have no clue how difficult/easy that would be to make possible. For most players though, typing something like <name> </name> shouldn't be too much of a hassle, since it's not like you're introducing yourself all the time anyway. The real annoyance comes when you walk into a town and have to name eight or nine people in a row.

[wulf]

How about "Hello, I'm <NAME>" when you want to be honest and "Hello, I'm <NAME=Fred>" when you want to be dishonest but still present a hyperlink? The solution has got to be short enough to be easily memorable and save some typing otherwise it's much less likely to become established.

On the same line, how about shortening the <CANTR CHARDESC> string to just <DESC>?

Wulf

[Jur Schagen]

Thanks for all the suggestions... Actually I came up with the original idea because it would be pretty easy to implement, and solve something that I personally consider a pain in the ass... The hyperlink ideas would be great, but much more complex to implement. In a perfect world with payed programmers, maybe... but alas...

Given the vote, this won't be implemented like I suggested either. However, how would the "hate it" people feel about it if you could turn this on or off for your characters? In other words, would your objections be equally strong if others were using it while you weren't yourself?

Jur.

PS - And Anthony, if you reread the original post, you'll see that it is still possible to lie in that way.

[Anthony Roberts]

The original idea sucks, though. Why?

1) People can MISS their name, but still have that person named. They'll get confused.
2) Extra information will need to be stored on the server for EACH character. Not very efficient.
3) Extra information will need to be checked against the server, to see if their name is in any text they send out. Far from efficient.
4) People can't lie, unless they change their name in the box. A hassle.
5) Essentially, this idea would take longer and be harder to implement than the tag + hyperlink idea.

In order to go with this idea, what would be needed?

First, a text box and screen to enter the name.
Second, an array variable to store the name (And with one for each character... that's a LOT of stored information.)
Third, a script to check for that name every time that character says something.
Forth, a script to check to see if that person is already named against EVERY character at that location.
Fifth, a script to set that name for EVERY character at that location that received 'false' from the above check. (Of course, both of these can be merged together for efficiency)
Sixth, close the scripts.

When instead, it could be:

First, a script to check if the tag is in something that the person stated.
Second, make it a hyperlink to a script that will set their name for that character when clicked.
Third, close the script.

No variables, so nothing extra stored (Except the code, really.) - Bandwidth will increase, yes, because:

A) The text still has to be searched, either way.
and
B) People are going to click those links.

But aside from that, I find the tag and hyperlink to be much more efficient (Both server and player wise) than the original idea.

WHACHEEEE! *Whip*

[SekoETC]

That sounds great but think about all the newbies going: "Hey, how do you get that link thingy?" and someone misspelling the code tag or experimenting with options they think that might be right, ending up in OOC: Oops it didn't work, sorry, ignore the last line! But we can't avoid that with many other things so if you could add the tag thing, it would be cool. Just remember to add the instructions for using it into some place logical, like the question mark button somewhere... and hell, Cantrians are already used to getting all sorts of stuff implemented without anyone telling how they work.

[Jur Schagen]

The original idea sucks, though. Why?

1) People can MISS their name, but still have that person named. They'll get confused.

Within a day, they'll know what happened.

2) Extra information will need to be stored on the server for EACH character. Not very efficient.

For active characters, this is already stored. You do know there's a table that stores "character x knows character y by the name of z" don't you?

3) Extra information will need to be checked against the server, to see if their name is in any text they send out. Far from efficient.

Same as 2. This is already implemented, defaulting to "a man in his twenties" only when no record is found.

4) People can't lie, unless they change their name in the box. A hassle.

Oh and you think entering HTML-like code will be so much easier to everyone? I don't see the problem of typing the name you want to be known as to this group of people.

5) Essentially, this idea would take longer and be harder to implement than the tag + hyperlink idea.

Disagree... see below...

In order to go with this idea, what would be needed?

First, a text box and screen to enter the name.

True. Entering one temporary working variables only, though; this does not need a full screen.

Second, an array variable to store the name (And with one for each character... that's a LOT of stored information.)

Nope. The information would go directly to the existing dynamic naming table for all characters present and not having given them a different name.

Third, a script to check for that name every time that character says something.

If you mean checking the dynamic naming table, already fully operational and run thousands of times daily.

Forth, a script to check to see if that person is already named against EVERY character at that location.

Same as 3, fully operational.

Fifth, a script to set that name for EVERY character at that location that received 'false' from the above check. (Of course, both of these can be merged together for efficiency)

That would be a single SQL statement.

Sixth, close the scripts.

A very hard job indeed.

When instead, it could be:

First, a script to check if the tag is in something that the person stated.
Second, make it a hyperlink to a script that will set their name for that character when clicked.
Third, close the script.

No variables, so nothing extra stored (Except the code, really.) - Bandwidth will increase, yes, because:

A) The text still has to be searched, either way.
and
B) People are going to click those links.

But aside from that, I find the tag and hyperlink to be much more efficient (Both server and player wise) than the original idea.

In my idea, bandwidth drastically decreases. As it is, everytime someone names a person, three forms are processed (people in event; character description; back to event page. Sometimes "show all" in additions because other events have drifted away by then). All of these would become unneeded; instead just one query is executed for the entire location.

*whips back*

Jur.

[Anthony Roberts]

Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, okay.

Let's look at the facts, however.

Cantr has been crashing often lately. So we want something efficient. Although your idea is half-implemented already, it's still more processing power and memory, regardless of how small it may be. My idea stores nothing extra, cept the code, but yours would need code to, so shush.

Also, in order to change your name (So that it hyperlinks) you'd have to open that page, enter the information, change the variable, and then load up the previous page. In mine, it's a tag. A simple tag.

Our ideas are essentially one in the same, yours just requires an extra page and storage, where mine requires a tag to be typed. In the end, which one will be more efficient?

*WHIP!*