Game-changing communication feature for pubs

develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
Disclaimer:
There will be no mechanic changes discussion here.

References/examples:
Garry's Mod: Murder and Dota2.

So. Names are fundamental and very useful.
But goddamn people are just picking unpronounceable sets of symbols to mark their identity. As a result, the commander's orders and horizontal exchanges are often imprecise in the very important part - "who must do the thing".

It boils down to orders like "someone go to the base" (where "someone" eventually turns into "everybody" or "nobody"), or raging over the fact that "everyone" is, for example, walking alone (without specifying the exact people that are doing that).

Sometimes the commander's brilliant plan turns into some mysterious (for rookie) waypoint just because the rookie didn't listen carefully as he hasn't heard his name. (enough things are going on already!)
Does he remember in which room he is? If the comm uses location-based naming system then actually the name of that poor player changes every time he goes to another room.

Have the rookie failed or just "everybody" failed (as commander said)? He has done something wrong? No one complained directly mentioning his name...

Mics are underused. On this level of "addressing granularity" you can play without it.

So, a great thing about Dota is that you can refer unambiguously to the player by his hero name. Which is writable, pronounceable, comes from predefined set of names and it is unique during the round. It transports useful information and rage to target very fast. That is due to fact that emittent and recipient both operate on common predefined set of names.

I think that we should try Murder-like naming system for the low-mid pub servers:
each player receives a second nickname from a predefined set of sane names for the duration of the round.

(there are some implementation details and tweaks that I don't include in the first post. don't want to blur things)

What do you think?

Comments

  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    No, I found the murder name system to be quite annoying.
  • NordicNordic Long term camping in Kodiak Join Date: 2012-05-13 Member: 151995Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    I see a problem with space on the tab screen, the mini map names, on spectator screen.
  • SaltlickSaltlick Join Date: 2013-01-03 Member: 177347Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    This might be a cool and clear naming system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet (aside from the conflict with Echo). But I agree that the screen would get cluttered and I wouldn't be fond of replacing my handle entirely. Interesting idea though.
  • AurOn2AurOn2 COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS! Australia Join Date: 2012-01-13 Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
    That kind of actually sounds really cool.
    ..but will people actually pay attention to it? O.o
  • develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
    Need to move this thread to "suggestions" subforum, I think.
  • twilitebluetwiliteblue bug stalker Join Date: 2003-02-04 Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    "You are Squad One." "Squad One, defend Extractor!"
  • develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
    "Squid One" for alien side.
  • 2cough2cough Rocky Mountain High Join Date: 2013-03-14 Member: 183952Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    but names are on the minimap now. what excuse is there to not call out someone's name?
  • develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
    coolitic wrote: »
    No, I found the murder name system to be quite annoying.

    Ok. Arguments?
    james888 wrote: »
    I see a problem with space on the tab screen, the mini map names, on spectator screen.

    Minimap is a problem, but tab and spectator are not very useful on low lvl pubs.
    AurOn2 wrote: »
    ..but will people actually pay attention to it? O.o

    It is a tool for commander to manage rookies with names like this: ¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸
    (real example)

    This tool Just removes a barrier. It leads to more communication, potentially to more successful commanding. So usage of this tool by a commander would become a sign of a good commander.
  • SantaClawsSantaClaws Denmark Join Date: 2012-07-31 Member: 154491Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    @devel - call him wave.

    To be serious for a second. Assuming the person you want to command is someone who is willing to interact in the first place, you should be able to ask the person how he would like to be addressed. If the person is not being coorporative at this point, then what do you think the chances are he will listen to your orders anyway?
  • develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
    SantaClaws wrote: »
    @devel - call him wave.

    And every time it will turn into imagination exercise with 3-5 nicknames. No one does it in a real world.
    And it is not guaranteed that the whole team has the same cultural/linguistic background to understand created association.
    SantaClaws wrote: »
    To be serious for a second. Assuming the person you want to command is someone who is willing to interact in the first place, you should be able to ask the person how he would like to be addressed. If the person is not being coorporative at this point, then what do you think the chances are he will listen to your orders anyway?

    Serious thing is a player retention rate.
    You are just saying that amount of effort to be made by the player to start having fun and stay in the game is ok already. If you think that required amount of effort is good and doesn't need to be minimized (but in fact it is high, cos "niche game"), then how the retention rate can be increased without adding more reward (i. e. big gameplay features)?

    So, effort requirement can be lowered. New player need not understand why communication is important and when he should establish it. The thing simply starts working out of box.
    Lower requirements - higher retention rate.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    edited October 2014
    You would not believe how many people wouldn't even bother to look at their assigned name in pubs (and in that case, this assigned name thing would worsen the situation).

    Sorry, I can't find any use of this system.


    Also, calling players by the hero they picked in dota is different because those players specifically picked their hero.
  • develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
    coolitic wrote: »
    You would not believe how many people wouldn't even bother to look at their assigned name in pubs (and in that case, this assigned name thing would worsen the situation).

    Sorry, I can't find any use of this system.


    Also, calling players by the hero they picked in dota is different because those players specifically picked their hero.

    These things are the implementation details. And of course they are different for each game. Somewhere they are inseparable from the low level game mechanics.
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    Best games of NS2 are when most of the team and more importantly the commander has a mic. This just adds another layer that for 99.99% of the time isn't a problem.
  • zeepzeep Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3367Members
    Admins, players, do us all a favor and (vote)kick players with a name that's a weird collection of unpronounceable characters. Also kick the noname having ones (space characters).
  • SantaClawsSantaClaws Denmark Join Date: 2012-07-31 Member: 154491Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    @devel - I'm not sure it's worth the effort from the developers perspective. If they implement something similar as to what you're suggesting; great. If they don't; what ever.

    I usually point to the locations the marines are in rather than their name though. "One of you guys in mezanine, go back to hub please" i.e.
  • WyzcrakWyzcrak Pot Pie Aficionado Join Date: 2002-12-04 Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    TGNS strongly protects the spirit of this idea's motivation (strong coordination in play). The server disallows unicode characters in player names, and we otherwise socially enforce that players have a name that others can easily use.

    When we encounter players who seem unable to hear team voicecomm, we use text to educate about our communication requirement (mics optional) and default chat binds, and we remove those who still don't respond at all, ideally before their inattention to team coordination can too negatively affect collaboratively play. We've removed countless isolated players through this enforcement, but those who return night after night find the cull's effort more than justified by the fantastic play that's possible only when everyone is reliably participating in effective coordination. We don't require mics, but most regulars use them when comms aren't too crowded.

    Keeping the bar as high as reliably usable names and reliably effective team coordination takes a lot of social diligence and effort on a public server. TGNS has specialized mods that make education and enforcement easier, and maybe NS2's stock offering can be improved, but I really think the spirit of OP's need will always require a strong social enforcement.
  • develdevel Join Date: 2014-09-13 Member: 198444Members
    @zeep, @SantaClaws, @Wyzcrak, yes, you have described some "manual" approaches to address the problem. However, computers were actually invented to automate the problem solving. And they are directly involved here, so they could share some load.
    Wyzcrak wrote: »
    but I really think the spirit of OP's need will always require a strong social enforcement.

    This feature places a person who "does that social enforcing" in more advantageous position.
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