Okay so, this was weird

#1

I’m sitting around while nothing is going on, and I see characters popping up in the Show All list. Oh, someone’s making an alt! … oh, it’s [famous cartoon rabbit], cute. They uploaded a pic. Then disconnected.

Then another media character. Picture. Disconnect. Over and over and over.

At first I thought it was an admin reserving names, but why would you upload a pic for that?

And it was a weird mix, too. Some media sources had their whole cast pop up, some just had one or two.

Is there actually a limit on alts?

Edit: Okay, so this has been continuing, it’s up past 50 names, and multiple variants of name for the same character (Lugosi Graywolf and Lugosi Gray Wolf). If this isn’t an admin blocking names, someone’s being kinda greedy. And/or, being a butt.

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#2

Thanks for the heads up! I see them.

And nope, it was no admin. I am the only admin, and it wasn’t me :slight_smile:
But I can see who, and I think it is not out of bad intentions. But I’ll send 'em a message.

Hehe, God Almighty is one.

But, this raises the need for a few things:

  1. Character limit - Start off with a fixed limit of 5? 10? . Later, when I have implemented some sort of “score” system, the limit will start smaller, but grow as you become a more “trusted” player.

  2. Rule clarification - Name grieving, hogging, or stealing (including taking exact names of existing characters such as Sonic the hedgehog, or Fidget the nimbat) is not allowed. It will be punished by a friendly request to delete the character or changing the name.

  3. Name blacklisting - Allow admins and moderators to blacklist name patterns.

Does that sound reasonable? Any thoughts?

Best regards,
Accipiter

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#3

I popped in with a few names early on while testing the limits of the character name system and to see if there were any limits on poking at names like Jesus, God, Satan (y’know, obvious ban list type stuff for most services). But - canon character names from excessively popular anime, cartoons - I can see why some folks with objections to canon characters would tackle removing a bunch of those names from availability by simply making mostly empty characters for them.

I’ve since deleted the handful of names I was toying with during my brief test (like an hour or so after making them)

My personal opinion is to bar canon characters (especially those from religions currently practiced) - but that’s because I’d prefer to see people making original content.

Also, I don’t see a problem with first come, first serve, so long as there’s a purge of unused characters every 3 months or so if they haven’t been logged in for 12+ months (unless they’re on a public building exemption list due to room/object ownership concerns)

#4

Hi Spottycat! And welcome to the forum :partying_face:

Yeah, I saw you being one of them, which made me a bit relieved :sweat_smile:.
I think a rule and a blacklist is in place. Religious (God, Jesus, Hare Krishna). Famous real life people (Barack Obama, Donald Trump). Canon (Donald Duck, Robin Hood). Mean names (Acci has a short tail). Etc.

And, canon names…? Yes, I can see why people would like to play canon characters. But I fully agree with you; more fun if they create their own. ~So, I am willing to make a “softly enforced” rule on that, meaning only apply the rule if someone actually reports it as an issue.~

Or actually… I am not sure about canon characters yet. Easiest would be just to say ‘No’.

Phew. I really should be doing other work than Wolfery work! But I like being here :smiley:

#5

I was hoping to avoid character purging. That is one reason for that annoying surname thing, to prevent popular first names to get occupied. But, time will tell if that is enough, of if some purging will be needed.

#6

Don’t worry too much - and if you need us to slow down on shaking the place for structure and rules testing, I’m sure everyone around can ease up on making trouble. XD

But, yeah.
Trolling, edgelording, shitpost characters with obvious RL names - NOPE. Religion - NOPE.

Canon characters vs Name squatting - if you make rule limiting but not banning this, people will make alternate accounts to surpass the rules unless you plan to enforce through extra manual surveillance (and potential misfires of admin action if you’re not careful about your aim) at the end of the day. Either way - people can still make these characters with variation of first/last name. It would take some immeasurable effort to block every combination, even if the one true spelling is blocked more easily.

Char Limits: It might be good to limit people to 3 new characters per day in order to slow down the generation of characters and to have a 45 character limit or something though in order to help reduce the chance that people will retain interest in squatting character names in one neurotic session of name grabbing though - hard to stop the truly dedicated tho. I think the approach to that is to sort out some purge automation rules and to establish what the limits for inactive/unused characters are so that people don’t feel as if they can just grab once and forget forever while keeping the name with minimal effort.

#7

Those seem like pretty good general guidelines. My thought is that the problem with someone playing a canon character like say, Isabelle from Animal Crossing, is that while they may be okay with their adaptation of that character, not everyone else may be. As a fennec, I know it would be weird to me if someone showed up playing Fenneko from Aggretsuko. Now that no one’s still reading, it was totally me earlier and I was just having fun while also testing out the system. And what if two people want to play the same character? Sure, they can, but now they’re infringing on each others’ shared fiction. Honestly, I think that pushing players to make their own unique creations will not only help them bond with the experience more, but also be more constructive toward growing their ability as a writer and in roleplay.

/=c_c=\ fennocent

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#8

Ah HAH. I thought it was you.

Ahem. About canon characters, I’m against banning them. Tapestries bans them, FurryMUCK and Furtoonia don’t, and I haven’t seen any measurable difference in the quality of RP from ‘original characters’ versus ‘characters from something’.

A difference in quantity yes, since FM isn’t ‘porn is OK everywhere’ and FT is a ghost town, but not quality.

#9

Why not all three? Unless there are very specific circumstances, people seldom need to create many characters in a short timespan. Rate limiting this to x/day is probably a good idea, even if there is also a cap on how many characters in total you can hold. I do like the idea of it being at least a settable quota, if not a ‘trust over time’ metric where you gain additional character slots with account age.

Rules should be clear on where the line in the sand is drawn with regards to character naming. One question that trumps a simple question of individual preference is the legal aspect of allowing canon character names. Intellectual property laws are best left untangled with, IMO.

Moderator tools should indeed allow blocking names, perhaps using both explicit names and PCRE regexp, at the very least wildcarding.

#10

Ehehehe. hides under his big ears and does a little scree! n///n! <3 I hope you got a kick and/or chuckle out of it.

#11

After some thinking, I think I have an idea regarding canon names:

Let’s start with saying “No”. It is easier to go from “No” to “Yes”, than the opposite.

Later, when public/shared characters are introduced, I would imagine saying “Yes” to public/shared characters with canon names.

Meaning, if you want to play as Fidget the Nimbat, she exists as a character in the Nimbat village. If she is available, anyone may wake her up and play her.

Eh… Is it too strange…?

/Accipiter

#12

I would find public / shared characters that aren’t very clearly marked as NPCs ‘puppeted’ by multiple people very strange.

I understand the benefits of having the ability to play well-known people in the setting (such as shop keepers, for instance) to provide a more realistic backdrop to other people sceneing. But I also think it is a proverbial minefield for people going “you’re playing that character wrong” or fights over who gets to puppet the public char for a specific event, etc etc.

This is “tread warily and discuss well” ground, I think.

Public/shared characters (puppets)
#13

I have a query thing for why the surname is there.

Say there are people with two the same first names and different last names.

How are they differentiated when messaging, whispering and mailing? (I’ve only every had to use the first name)

#14

It is due to the magic of the client. If you only type the first name, the client will look up the character in the Awake , Watch, or In Room lists, depending on command.

  • whispers looks in the In Room list
  • messages looks in the Awake list
  • mail looks in Watch and Awake list.´

If only one matching character is found, it assumes that one.

Also see topic: [Documentation] Clarify single name vs full name - #3 by maximus

/Accipiter

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#15

I feel like the energy behind this is delightfully positive - but sadly this is still the internet we’re on.

If this was going to be done:
• A Puppet is owned by a Player Account and a character is designated the owner of the Puppet (simlar to rooms).
• Permission to create Puppets would be allocated by Admin/Moderation
• Permissions to access the Puppet would be assigned by the character who owns it to the character which wants to utilize it.
• Possibly limit movement options of the puppet to rooms/zones which are flagged in a particular way in order to keep them caged in areas which the owner wants to utilize them? (Like the bartender of a cafe for instance.)
• Ownership and Operator identifiers should be immediately identifiable by ANY user on any character for the sake of reporting bad behavior should the person operating a puppet decide to act in bad faith. (via rollover hover-text on any command usage and via look panel data field info at time of look)
• Puppet Owner at any time can change Puppet access permissions to private/shared to block access to shared operators.
• Puppet Owner has Force Sleep to boot the current user from the Puppet (in case they AFK in it and its wanted.)
• Possibly disallow usage of whisper, message, mail commands by puppets to ensure they’re being used as public-facing puppets?
__

Even with this sort of stuff in place - shared characters definitely feels a bit strange, but it might be worth a test so long as it is very controlled as to make sure users who is responsible for any shenanigans which occur should a moderator need to become involved.

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Public/shared characters (puppets)
#16

I love the idea of shared characters. It’s a really neat feature that could introduce some fun new interactions and inspire people. These points are pretty identical to my thoughts so I’m just going to second everything here that Spottycat wrote.

Except I think whispers and messages are fine. Mail may be wise to disallow on them, but I’m not sure on that one.