I don't like community names
 

Community names are probably the most annoying thing in Graal. Please change the system somehow. The script I'm working on right now has to keep track of a player's account and community name, then update the community name if it happens to change. It has to display the community name in about 10 different places, but also hide the account so when they make changes to those places, it knows what to change. It took at least a few hours adapting the system for community names.

They're completely pointless. I'd much rather have an account like 'chrisboy123', which is unlikely to be chosen, then have to deal with all the problems the community name system presents (and not just the ones presented to developers).

Well, it wouldn't be too bad if more RC commands actually worked with community name.

Also pretty irritating to right click someone and see their account name displayed as "0"

I agree, don't know what they were thinking when they made this move. I doubt they're going to listen, they never do no matter how right you/we are.

This is the most annoying "feature" of the community names so far.

I agree, once again.
It's really a pain to make sure everything runs fine with account and community names. What's even worse is that handy features are not documented anywhere. I didn't know anything about the "/global communityname" command until I think Chris mentioned it somewhere on the forums.

i completely agree with everything said here

really it stems from a lack of information from CJ. i wish we weren't left out of every decision made by them when they affect us in some way

Agreed..

Doesn't the accounts that has accountnames show the account name as communityname?

I don't understand Chris,

Why not just use community name? As long as you've got that you don't need the account name? Right?

Generally speaking the community name is changeable. When you do not have a community name set yet, you are probably set to "GraalXXXXXX", but when the player picks a community name, that changes. The account name doesn't so it is a good way of reliably identifying the same player and so that the player does not lose their stats when setting their community name.

The problem is that the community name support is very lazy and they are not entirely supported by either the RC or client so occasionally the GraalXXXXXX account name leaks through. You can't do /openrights communityname because it is expecting an account name. Also it is habit for scripters to use player.account instead of player.communityname, for instance, with owner tags on scripts and such and that also causes confusion.

Whilst I understand the benefits of community names, they just complicate everything.

Would be easy if there was a lookupcommunityname(player.account) that would work regardless of whether the player was on-line or not.

Community-name isn't treated like an account name in every instance. I can't kick people from events or summon them based on their community-name (which is displayed), so I either have to ask for their Graal # and hope they play along, or go through the playerlist and find their name, where it does display the number. On top of that, they're a train wreck for guys with dyslexia.

A random series of numbers is way too annoying to cater to, I'd rather see it removed.

Well if that were to work, then the player would have to be online already to find the account name out. If they are online, then you would use player.communityname or findplayerbycommunityname(), but there's no disputing that the account name was just easier and less confusing. Before community names, we were able to identify players by account names and nicknames. Now we have to identify players by account names, community names and nicknames. It's just not necessary.

If community names cannot act exactly like account names used to, then they should not be there.

Edit: Oh, and it's annoying that every guest player has community name "guest", sometimes communityname comes up with no value and that suddenly I now have to check for every chat command involving a player account whether or not it's actually a community name instead of an account that's been typed in.

I've had player.communityname return null sometimes, so in order to use it you have to check for a null value as well...it's quite a pain.

EDIT:
One thing that is REALLY annoying to me is when you type /open Graal###### in RC, it echoes salesman loaded the attributes of <communitynamehere>. THEN, when you set the attributes it echoes salesman set the attributes of player Graal######

I may have mixed up the order, but my point is that it is very inconsistant. Says the community name in one instance and graal account in the other.

What are the benefits?

The days of being identified just by your account name are slowly fading as more and more Graal######'s take over :(

Its my understanding they were made to simplify the accounts process. As a new account was made, the automated style of it just added a digit. One could then play on Graal for awhile until they decided on a community name. Community names themselves could be changed although it does have to be done manually by Stefan. In the past account names couldn't be changed without a much more extensive process.

I personally hate the Graal names with a passion. They are not anywhere near as easily identifiable as the old account names and I personally find it far more difficult to keep track of people through reputation of abuse with it. I have the tools to research the accounts but its a long process with continual pc id changes. Its also easy to make errors with the numbers. If you made a typo before you usually spotted it right away. Then there's the whole, "oh! I remember Graal 739089" If any of you can remember someone by that after they disappear for 6 months I'll give you a cookie.

I didn't bother going into the annoyances of rc and client playerlists or scripting issues because its all been said but I completely agree. Outside of the simplicity of a new trial account being made they are completely the worst idea ever thought up for Graal.

If people are too lazy to come up with an account name (as in the past, and as in every other online site known to man) they should just shut the computer off in the first place.

The community names are a piss-poor endeavor, period. I can't imagine why in the world a business would want to obfuscate development by doing this, either.

Not if you stored it in SQL or so :P

Just about every other game/site/database EVER makes the person create an account name -- because it works.

During the testing yesterday I actually came across a guy whose community name was Graal#### but his actual account was a different Graal####.

@_@

How would they go about changing the account system back to how it was without screwing over all of the players who have purchased an account with the Graal###### system? Allow them to pick a real account or just give them their community name?

First convert the registration system to the old one again. Then give the ones who still have no community name to choose one, in a certain time frame. Graal###### accounts without gold will then be able to choose an account name, the guys with a community name will then get their community name as an account (pretty sure that's easily done with a script or even a MySQL query).
At least that's how I would do it ;P While converting the community name guys and making sure the ones without one will be prompted with something which makes them choose an account afterwards, there would probably have to be a short downtime. Not a big deal though.

Just giving them their community name might cause some problems because what used to be their "account" was once entirely different from their communityname. If Graal234252 is in the serveroptions as a staff member and is then given his communityname "lolnoob", he is no longer staff. Same goes with scripts that may be account-locked to him: if (player.account == "Graal234252")

Now think about if you allowed players without communitynames to choose a new account name. Graal777336 chooses Graal234252 (who was assigned his communityname, "lolnoob") as his account name and becomes staff.

I guess you could forbid all Graal###### accounts from being chosen, and server staff could just deal with all the other problems that come with the transition.

This. Players aren't going to want their bank account to reset, their items to disappear, and any other things stored in a database to be gone. It would cause even more problems if the player had some flag set that caused the system to think they had an entry in some database, potentially leading to some kind of disaster.

I think the best thing to do would be just let everyone choose their account who has a community name.

There should be some kind of function called in GlobalShopControl or something, like this:

There should also be a log that is saved to on every server by default, and a custom one on servers perhaps to indicate that it did successfully move their stuff. The default one could be checked with the server-added one if someone says their items were not transferred.

A global script should also move their accounts/whatever file to the correct place and move all their attributes, rights, comments etc.

It'd be difficult, but worth it.

Erm, was there supposed to be a point when Community Names were introduced, or just something to make it look like Graal is being improved? That's not sarcasm by the way.

I think there were a few:
1) Got rid of people just trying Graal, but creating accounts that they never returned to, thus creating a pile of inactive accounts. I think I'd rather just have them flush out inactive accounts, however.
2) Made back-door handling of account names easier. If someone requests an 'account name' change, they simply change the community name, and all other data stays intact. I don't think it was very easy to do this sort of thing before the community names.

Either way, I would love to have the old method back. I'm sure Stefan could figure out a way to convert the community accounts over to the old system.

With that same effort I'm sure he could fix the problems with community names and we'd probably be better off.

The community names themselves are the problem, so they need to be removed.

The only way I can think of that is an easy way to move from account to community name, and it'd have to work clientside as well to avoid further headaches.

I can't think of a way to fix it that isn't impractical.

I doubt this would be the reason as you can still simply create a Graal##### account and never come back to it. I have a Graal##### account that I'll probably A) Never upgrade, and B) Having decided not to upgrade it: Never use it again. Pretty much exactly the same thing as creating a trial account just to "try" Graal.

I figure it should be the old system, but with a very simple solution to people just trying and never coming back: If the account created meets set conditions (Such as never upgraded, and has been inactive for more than X amount of days/weeks/months), the service and attachment to e-mail are severed and the account name back up for grabs for another person to make use of.

Old system was working fine, could always revert back so there's no more of these silly account names being created and then support renaming of accounts or something. Would give the globals something useful to do for once. :p

but would it lose CJ money? they won't go for it if it does ):?

I don't see how they'd lose money... I don't think anyone upgrades just to get a community name.

Don't see how they'd lose money from it.

ditch Graal#s and community names, make account names changeable with Gelat purchases.

<3

Are you serious? That is a technical nightmare, account names are the ultimate method for identification, changing that would just introduce so many problems for so little benefit. A person is better if making a new account.

We have nicknames for a reason.

The whole reason we can't just use community name for identification is because it changes. Account name changes cause many, many problems with many servers. You'll be reset on just about any server using any sort of file-based item storage (GK, Zodiac, new Era, and many others). You'd lose many random variables as well (for example, on Era, bank accounts are stored in a database by account).

Account name changing would be a disaster.