Community Names/Account Names OFFICIAL Ideas thread

[fowlplay4]

Well we kind of need to know about the two if they're going to exist.

I.e: Systems that save stats and such depending on account name.

If it gets changed they lose their progress.

I still believe it's a choice of, go back to the old account system or keep this one.

[LoneAngelIbesu]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

Well we kind of need to know about the two if they're going to exist.

Not if community names are seamlessly implemented. Account changes are rare, anyways. They really aren't even needed. I hate my account name, but I'm not going to beg for it to be changed. People know me as "Dylan", anyways.

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu

Not if community names are seamlessly implemented.

Community names will never be as seamless as normal account names, for as long as they can be changed, and that's the whole point of the system.

Which is being able to change your "variable account name" so you can have a * in front of your nickname, so you can't plan systems based on community names always being the same.

If they change the system so that they can't be changed, then they might as well admit defeat and go back to the normal account creation.

Originally Posted by DustyPorViva

Could perhaps trigger a function when the player logs on and they have a new community name, allowing them to adjust scripts accordingly... however with my idea in mind players should hardly ever be able to change their community names, just like they didn't allow them to change their account names. But if something happens and they need to, it will be much easier and won't break the player completely.

I'm sure if they really tried hard, they could implement community names in a way that will make them seem just like old account names did.

Yeah but I doubt they're going to try real hard to make it work for us.

Also it's just easier to plan your systems to use player.account, then having to write something to make it feel seamless, not to mention player.communityname looks ridiculous compared to using player.account in scripts.

[LoneAngelIbesu]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

Community names will never be as seamless as normal account names, for as long as they can be changed, and that's the whole point of the system.

I thought the point of system, on the user-side at least, was to play the game then pick out an 'account name'. Not to have some kind of flavor-of-the-week nickname service. Through all of these threads, I'm 85% sure that I've seen admins say that changing your community name isn't a common service.

Account name have always been able to be changed. It's only a matter of frequency and ease. If it happens often, then either scripters are screwed or users are screwed. But, as far as I know, it doesn't happen often and it could be fairly easy to seamlessly integrate community names. For instance, there are plenty of online utilities that assign user IDs for use with maintenance tools or background tools, but display usernames for all human-powered functions. The same principal can easily apply here. To see an example, just open up the source code of any popular web application, e.g. phpBB.

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by LoneAngelIbesu

Account name have always been able to be changed. It's only a matter of frequency and ease. If it happens often, then either scripters are screwed or users are screwed. But, as far as I know, it doesn't happen often and it could be fairly easy to seamlessly integrate community names. For instance, there are plenty of online utilities that assign user IDs for use with maintenance tools or background tools, but display usernames for all human-powered functions. The same principal can easily apply here. To see an example, just open up the source code of any popular web application, e.g. phpBB.

Okay but we pretty much have that now except..

- player.account is the user id.
- player.communityname is the name displayed.

[LoneAngelIbesu]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

Okay but we pretty much have that now except..

- player.account is the user id.
- player.communityname is the name displayed.

Yes, but because the burden rests on us to differentiate the two, it's not seamless. For it to be seamless, we should never be seeing the userid. It can still exist, for functional reasons, whatever those may be. But on our end, we should only be dealing with the username. If the username changes, so be it. We don't need to bend over backwards so that a fickle user can keep his or her server data every time they get bored with their username.

[DustyPorViva]

Originally Posted by fowlplay4

Well we kind of need to know about the two if they're going to exist.

I.e: Systems that save stats and such depending on account name.

If it gets changed they lose their progress.

I still believe it's a choice of, go back to the old account system or keep this one.

Could perhaps trigger a function when the player logs on and they have a new community name, allowing them to adjust scripts accordingly... however with my idea in mind players should hardly ever be able to change their community names, just like they didn't allow them to change their account names. But if something happens and they need to, it will be much easier and won't break the player completely.

I'm sure if they really tried hard, they could implement community names in a way that will make them seem just like old account names did.