Same char name, other player

[Black Cat]

Well,

It seems someone came up with the same name as one of my character, namely Truk. So far I haven't notice any problem in game, but when you look on LORE, the 'Truk' played by Gavin shows up with my Truk portrait and when you click on the name it sends you to my 'Truk' page.

Don't know if this will create any further problem, but I wanted to point that fact out.

Black Cat

PS: I send a tell to the player in game to make him notice the fact and that perhaps he should change the name of his char if possible.

[Nehetsrev]

Aren't the Character Approvers supposed to verify the name on a new character submission doesn't match an existing character?  I thought I'd read something about that when I first came to Layonara back in March.  I could be wrong.

[EdTheKet]

There are at the moment I type this 3117 characters registered in LORE. The character approvers cannot be expected to check if a name is already used or not, that "burden" (if you want to call it that) lies with the player who submits the character.
What the approvers do try is that the name is not a name from a work of fiction/movie/game or otherwise known.

[Black Cat]

I didn't post this to say that someone should or shouldn't have checked the name beforehand.
I just want to know if this will cause further problems besides the one I've seen with LORE.

And if further problems should be expected, what can be done about it?

[Nehetsrev]

Okay, perhaps my first post wasn't very constructive.  I apologize for that.  

I'll volunteer to check LORE to verify whether the name in a character submission is being used yet or not if that would help the character approvers and also the rest of the community.  The characters are listed alphabetically in LORE by first name then last name, so it shouldn't take more than a couple minutes for each character name to be checked so long as the LORE system is functioning.  I could make the check once each day for whatever character submissions had been posted since the last time I checked and then simply post the results of my findings in the character submission of the appropriate character.

How does this sound?

[Etinfall]

Thats nice of you to offer your time. But maybe a single sentance in the guidelines that says to please check the Lore pages for the name you want will do. I have seen a few names the same but usually it is either the first or the last name only. That shouldn't be a problem. But if someone uses the same exact entire name could cause some kind of problems. Just like when someone messes up on the char creation, they ask you to do it again but change the name by 1 letter. So say I messed up first creating my char Cole Etinfall, and asked if I could remake him I could change his name to Cole Ettinfall or something similar. If not, it could cause a problem with the database retrieval. Did I spell that right. Boy I wish Firefox had a spellchecker.

Etin

[EdTheKet]

Nice of you to offer Nehetsrev , but I really think that responsibility should be in the hands of the one who submits. As Etinfall states, it hardly ever occurs that exactly the same first and last name are submitted, so the time cost invested into checking this for every submission doesn't seem worth the benefit.

[Weeblie]

Etinfall - 9/3/2006  8:02 AM

Thats nice of you to offer your time. But maybe a single sentance in the guidelines that says to please check the Lore pages for the name you want will do. I have seen a few names the same but usually it is either the first or the last name only. That shouldn't be a problem. But if someone uses the same exact entire name could cause some kind of problems. Just like when someone messes up on the char creation, they ask you to do it again but change the name by 1 letter. So say I messed up first creating my char Cole Etinfall, and asked if I could remake him I could change his name to Cole Ettinfall or something similar. If not, it could cause a problem with the database retrieval. Did I spell that right. Boy I wish Firefox had a spellchecker.

Etin

I don't think you have to worry about any in-game database problem if someone else has the same character name as yours.

This is only a guess, but to make things mess you, both the character name AND account name has to be the same. Like, everything is stored in the "BIOWARE_LOGIN_NAME#CHARACTER_NAME" format... Or something.

[Lilswanwillow]

real life... in america, there are millions of billions (ok, not that many) people with the same name.  where I'm from, John is popular, Nick, Matt, things like that.  I'm told other names are just as popular other places...
what I mean is, SO?  that may make for interesting rp... unless it messes with the game or something.  But lore isn't connected to far into the game play itself, so I personally wouldn't worry about it.  maybe you need to for some reason, but why???

[IceDragonDuvessa]

I see a truk and a trukk played by the same person and then a third Truk Ironjaw none of which have the sameportrait on lore. If it is the same picture and such it could be a bug we have had in the past where someone does not set their port properly for two people in the same house playing and two people wind up on server status as playing the same character then the character gets falsely put under the wrong name on lore because of it.

As for two characters with the same first name I do not see any reason to limit that as long as the last names differ and one is not doing it to pretend to be the other player. My name in RL is Nicky. I meet probably another nicky a day, there were three in one single college course I took. Its just not realistic to limit the first name to belonging to one single player.

[Black Cat]

I assure you, someone is playing another Truk (I looked in LORE and yes only mine is showing up). As for the Truk and Trukk, those are two char I created, Trukk was deleted (but somehow still shows up in lore). The thing is I don't mind at all that another char has the same name (on the contrary I find it fun, especially since he's a half-giant and I a goblin).



As for playing in the same house, it is not that. I don't know the other player.

[Black Cat]

Things begins to be quite mixed up in LORE now

see this

LIsted under my char name, with my char class and levels are things totally wrong.

Last time I was killed was indeed by a Giants (as far as i can remember, but not in Wolfswood
I don't have heavy armor proficiency (for a rogue/wizard ), nor have I some of the items listed.
The stats are those of the other char  it seems while the crafting experience are mine.

[Etinfall]

Weeblie - 9/3/2006  3:58 AM  

Etinfall - 9/3/2006  8:02 AM  Thats nice of you to offer your time. But maybe a single sentance in the guidelines that says to please check the Lore pages for the name you want will do. I have seen a few names the same but usually it is either the first or the last name only. That shouldn't be a problem. But if someone uses the same exact entire name could cause some kind of problems. Just like when someone messes up on the char creation, they ask you to do it again but change the name by 1 letter. So say I messed up first creating my char Cole Etinfall, and asked if I could remake him I could change his name to Cole Ettinfall or something similar. If not, it could cause a problem with the database retrieval. Did I spell that right. Boy I wish Firefox had a spellchecker.  Etin

 I don't think you have to worry about any in-game database problem if someone else has the same character name as yours.  This is only a guess, but to make things mess you, both the character name AND account name has to be the same. Like, everything is stored in the "BIOWARE_LOGIN_NAME#CHARACTER_NAME" format... Or something.

 
  Duuhhh! I wasn't even thinking about account names. Well, that shows you how much I know. Thanks Weeblie.
 
  Etin

[OneST8]

When LORE does a character vault update, it creates a page for each character by name. If the page exists already it gets updated with the assumedly current information.

However, if two people have the same name for their characters they will be "fighting" for the same LORE page name. One day it's your Truk, the next it the other guy's Truk info in your Truk's page.

There are only two solutions to the problem and neither are very fun.

Option A)  Get Players to police the problem themselves (make doing a LORE query for your char name a required step).
Option B)  Re-write parts of LORE code and rename 3118 character pages. You would no longer have something nice and simple as "http://nwn.layonara.com/Truk" it would have to be something like: "http://nwn.layonara.com/Marc%20Mermod:Truk".

Currently I do not have the time to hack up Option B so it looks like the onus is on the community for the time being.

[Leanthar]

Please read onest8's reply above:

In addition. I have added a sentence in the character submission wording on LORE that states that if a character is looking for a unique name they need to do a search (query on lore) for the name.