Pretty straight forward. I think it is very obvious when you hail a bot that they are not a player. Overall I think it would add a more immersive feeling.....

I agree with you. I suspect others will disagree though. They may claim it's the only way for newbies to tell what's a bot and what is not. Whether the hostile craft is an automaton or "humanoid" remains to be irrelevent. Or at least, it should be. Survival in space should consists of two options: 1) Fight the hostile, 2) Escape. (of course, in either option, the result will be either success or failure.)

The *, I believe, exists only for convenience. It can easily be argued that it is redundant. However, a problem occurs when a player has a name similar to a bot. Others may mistake this player for a bot, and become less cautious.

Of course, this could easily be solved if hostile crafts didn't report their name to other hostiles...

For that matter, why do the bots even have a name? And since they are a "rebeling" hostile enemy, why do they even bother to tell you what it is?

However, a problem occurs when a player has a name similar to a bot

Actually, this is one of the main reasons why I think it should be removed. When I jump into a sector and see that its just me and a whole pile of AI UIT traders... I'm not worried even a bit.

Which sucks. I wish I didn't know for sure that they were AI. It makes things more unsure... more wildcards... which IMO is how it should be...

Well, you are right. The conveniences of the game lead to predictability. Predictability is 'common place', and makes space adventure boring. This is one reason why I am in favor of anonymity, or, selected anonymity.

You should only be able to gauge the hostility level of players who are friendly. Friendly pilots report who they are to you, and, they can be referenced in Vendetta's Information Database(tm) (from which you can determine faction specific friendliness) Pilots that do not report, are hostile. This would include AI as well.

The way it is right now, we might as well have giant chocolate bars, and little candies floating in space with flowers of joy and happy songs. :)

the * was actually (IIRC) added specifically so players wouldn't be able to mimic bot names back in alpha.

IMO the best way to deal with it would be to remove it from all 'regular' NPC's (since they use the same random name generator the players use now) and leave it on the hive bots, (since they have distinct names that should be unmimicable)

Yeah, have "human" NPCs without the *, but leave it on the Hive Bots, station guards, and other "robot" NPCs. There's already a player named "DenTek Collector AD-9534n", if the Hive Bots didn't have the *, that character could confuse people.

Why should hive bots have unmimicable names? Why is the * necessary?

These conveniences are unnecessary, and even damaging. How so? Gavan describes it very well.

When I jump into a sector and see that its just me and a whole pile of AI UIT traders... I'm not worried even a bit.

Like it or not, a game has to pay attention to the new players.
If a player is confused, or frustrated, (s)he dosn't stay very long. That's very bad for biz around the Guild Software office!

Still, * in front of the name is not an "established" way to tell who's an NPC in a MMORPG, so I agree it should go when it comes to "human" NPCs. They should, IMHO, be replaced with the text "Non Player Character" in the character info screen.

The same goes for both strike forces, marshals and station guards.
The Hive, however, are active player-hunting entities.
Their names should not be immitatable, and should be easyly recongnizable as player-hostile.

What if I call myself "Orun Collector BF-9387r" and hang out in a newbie area full of Orun Collectors?
Some newbie comes along and has been shooting at Orun Collectors for 20 minutes, and has learned how to handle them. Suddenly the Orun Collector he's shooting at dodges the Govt Issue gun with no problems and attacks with Gattling Turrets and Sunflares.

Ofcourse, players who have actually seen a hornet before is not confused or frustrated by this, but someone who is yet to encounter any pirate/griefer/whatever will quickly end up thinking that theese "easy bots" (s)he got recomended for target practice in #100 are not at all easy, and will be less trusting towards the people in #100 that ment so well.

I'm not sure why "DenTek Collector AD-9534n" has chosen that character name, but I fear it is for just that reason.
Also, I'm sorry to say so if that's not the case, but I'm being honest here.

That's why I'd like to see an even clearer mark of NPC on the Hive. Call them "[HIVE] DenTek Collector (random)" and deny all player names to begin with [HIVE], like * is disallowed now.

That's my two cents anyway.

So you are recomending that the Hive be an AI guild?

that is an interesting angle. and similar AI only guilds could be added for the SF and Station Guard.

this system could also allow for players to gain membership in theses AI run guilds (after completeing missions of coarse).

I'd rather the alignment on hive bots be changed from "unaligned" to HIVE. That way a player can still spoof being a hive bot by taking a hive bot name, but if you actually look at your targetting info you'll see that it's not a real hive bot.

With starfisher on this one. I actually like for clever players to be able to spoof HIVE names, but close inspection should reveal their true (lack of HIVE) identities.

And I *really* support this idea. Remove all * on all HUMAN npcs. And leave it on HIVE bots, as well as robotized transport ships and serco/uit/itani bot ships. Anything that is not piloted by a human in-game should be marked with a *

I care little for whether these unmarked npcs might actually be hostile and player-hunting entities. If there was an aggressive pirate faction twice as dangerous as the HIVE, but piloted by human npc pilots, I'd still like it to be unmarked.

And I'm still a newbie, so I'm certain other new players wouldn't have a problem with this ,-)

I like the idea as well.

sounds good,

but lets go one further, no callsigns on the list of players. Just nation affiliation. If you want to get a name, you have to do some recon.

This could involve usage of a scanner, with one on, if you get within 500 m of a player, you can see the callsign.

Nah, just remove the player list. I'm all for restricting call signs until you're within 500-750m, but without the extra widget.

I disagree, the scanner would be nice. It creates a necessity for recon members of a team, who could track which players were where.

Specialization is a good thing.

Remove player list? Wonderfully good idea :)

[quote] It creates a necessity for recon members of a team, who could track which players were where.[/quote]For a straight up fight, it really wouldn't matter all that much. I'd rather have an extra vult or valk or whatever than someone who just flits around scanning people. Would they have to do it continuosly?

If they weren't there or had a weapon instead of a scanner, I still see enemy ships, and knowing who is flying them shouldn't really change the fact that I have a mission to complete.

As a compromise, it would probably be better to have something a player could put on a ship to make it distinctive, so that once you closed within 500m (or realistically, for a fight, 200-150), I'd see it and think, "Oh that's shape." It's basically a scanner based on memory.

Still, I don't think totally hiding who other players are helps. Making them anonymous until with 500m or less would do the trick of making other nations seem more, well, other, while leaving it possible to identify who you just fought. No one would ever equip a scanner just to know people's names...

In a group fight? its huge, if I know that Nerde Verde is one of the UIT fighting me, I'm going to approach him very differently then if I think its someone who's entirely unaccustomed to a light fighter.

with a recon ship? you have the ability to gang up on the perceived leader (assuming they're using Skype or the like) or the strongest fighter.

It would also give guild tags some actual use, as guild linked players would be instantly recognizeable.

as far as a scanner? it only takes a small port, if you've got a heavy ship, running all rockets, it could be as useful to replace one of the ports with the scanner.

Perhaps the range of the scanner should be greater, 2000 m perhaps.

But knowing who the people are around you drastically changes your actions.

And if you need a scanner to figure out who someone is, it makes it so that particular people are more difficult to target. You can't grief people easily.

"But knowing who the people are around you drastically changes your actions."

It really shouldn't be that way. Right now, everyone knows everyone and their flying styles and skills. If this were a fully populated MMO, you'd never know who the ace who smoked you was, unless he was a god.

And again, only having callsigns appear within a certain range would essentially force you to engage a target to know who it was. That's the perfect solution, to me, because it eliminates knowing who you're engaging, forcing you to be on your toes for every pilot when you approach, but lets you know who to PM a "good fight" to when it's over.

Well, why not both, have people's tags become visible at 300 m (I don't think 500 m is really engaging distance)

but, if a team wants to have an idea who the people in their sector are, they CAN buy one of these scanners. Scanners which would be the end result of a Spying/recon track, which we already have in the form of the recon missions. Of course more missions would need to be added, but its the kind of device that would fit nicely.

It's also not that different from the mineral scanners that we already have, which, hopefully, would mean less time in the coding.