Curse

KoalaMeatPie · Nov 13, 2006, 06:44 AM // 06:44

Is it a good idea? - Yes
Is it Feasible? - Depends

We are talking about GW, there server would expload, unless you store locally, but, as with the templates, you could potentially edit the profiles.

Marco1983 · Jan 01, 2007, 10:21 PM // 22:21

Though it has come up already in some other small topics, it never got the attention it deserved: 'in-game player profiles'.

As all of you might know, many people are experiencing lots of troubles with the banlist system. In most of the cases people are saying that it's too short for the amount of players they want to add to this list. As a solution to this problem, and to add extra functionality's to the whole guild and friends system, i have come up with the following idea:

As we all know, we currently have the option of adding friends, joining guilds, etc. There also is the hero tab, which contains info about the character we are using to play the game. Here one can already see his or her's information about Faction points, and the vast variaty in titles. The idea is to unite the information that is available inside the hero tab, with that of the friends and guild system.

First there needs to be a new tab created inside the hero tab. A new tab which contains information about the player itself. This should be the usual stuff, together with some more advanced features:

Usual Stuff:

Real name
Age (linked to a system that automaticaly takes track of the birthdate and calculates the age)
Country of origin/currently living in
City of origin/currently living in
E-mail adress(es)
The possibility to create a short story (max ? characters) behind your character of yourself.
Together with all the other usual stuff...

Advanced Features:

Player rating system, similair to that of Xbox Live. The possibilty to rate other players, and/or make comments on them. This should have different options you could rate with a star system. For example you could rate if someone is a scammer. When the person has 0 stars, he would be the truth itself, of when he has 5 or 10 stars (depending on the rating system) he would be a master scammer.
Linking to player profiles of the same person's account, if that person has more than one character on his account, or has another account in Guild Wars. Note that it is a little tricky to plug various accounts to a single persons name, as one could maybe pretend to be someone else.
Making an in-game option in the friends and guild system that allows others to see all the information that is stored inside one's hero information tab. By doing this, guilds possibly won't even need to create a website anymore, as they can share all the standard neccesary information in-game.
Making a 'Top 50' list for each in-game title that is available to players.
Maybe even give others the possibilty to see full player statistics of current armor, weapons, etc.

The main benefits:

Player's can express them selves more by sharing personal information about them selves, and creating a backstory behind them selves and/or their characters.
Rate others on their behaviour.
Creating a universal scammers/rude people/etc, list.
Expanding the friends and guild system.
And above all: creating a more safe and enjoyable game and community!

I would like to ask the people that have read this topic what they think of these idea's. Would you want to see this option in-game? Or do you think that Guild wars is just better off without it? Also make sure that you tell why you think this way!

All that is written above is a start of things that are possible by creating an in-game player profile system. If this thread will attract a major audience i will surely expand the startpost and add some more flair to it!

KESKI · Jan 02, 2007, 03:33 AM // 03:33

dont know about you

But I hardly tell any one I only know online my real name and age.(they are welcome to guess

)
And I dont see how that going to solve the problem....
age group, nation group...any of these ring a bell??

now if its anything illegal, there is ip address, it is as good as a real address(in most cases, and if you make ur local police actualy care about something happen in-game

)
Why do you want their real address yourself?? Dont tell me you are planing something nasty like go there and throw eggs

but I get nothing against role player, so the short story part...go wild.
and if anyone want to, they can put their "real" info in there(role play themselves??

)

divinechancellor · Jan 02, 2007, 04:46 AM // 04:46

Sure a profile would be kinda cool, but like KESKI said, guild wars isnt Myspace.com

Njaiguni Blaze · Jan 02, 2007, 06:59 AM // 06:59

I wouldn't use my e-mail address in it. I don't like the advanced options either.
Apart from those: /signed

Edit: With the advanced options I mean the rating thing and the full statistics of inventory. Would get on only more beggers or gimme gimme traders.

Perynne · Jan 02, 2007, 08:16 AM // 08:16

/notsigned

Like it was said, Guild Wars isn't myspace. Many players don't like to have their real name and information displayed, and what's to keep people from lying about their information? This kind of system would easily be abused by scammers and immature players.

The only suggestion I like on that list is to have short descriptions of your characters for roleplaying and such. Maybe changing it so that the stats showing are those that you made for your character? Like the character's age, place of origin and short description. That would suit the game and work very nicely for the roleplayers around.

Anyway, this suggestion kind of reminds me of the Guild Wars Messenger suggestion someone posted a while back...

I don't understand why people have the need to bring personal information and constant contact into everything. If you want to have a huge friends list and keep in touch even when offline, there are plenty of other places for that.

Njaiguni Blaze · Jan 02, 2007, 08:47 AM // 08:47

It is useful for finding people who live in the same countries and such. I would like it to meet more dutch people ingame. Talks easier. (although sometimes I do better english than dutch it seems

) Same thing is also available in a game like Goonzu. Also, if you don't want to or need to, you can always choose not to fill it in. Just like a profile on a forum or something.

Ashleigh McMahon · Jan 02, 2007, 02:57 PM // 14:57

This idea has got great potential, but it would be very unsafe to give out personal details. Therefore I agree with Keski.

Edit: W00H :P-1,000'th post

Quote:

Originally Posted by KESKI

dont know about you

But I hardly tell any one I only know online my real name and age.(they are welcome to guess

)
And I dont see how that going to solve the problem....
age group, nation group...any of these ring a bell??

now if its anything illegal, there is ip address, it is as good as a real address(in most cases, and if you make ur local police actualy care about something happen in-game

)
Why do you want their real address yourself?? Dont tell me you are planing something nasty like go there and throw eggs

but I get nothing against role player, so the short story part...go wild.
and if anyone want to, they can put their "real" info in there(role play themselves??

)

Stupid Shizno · Jan 02, 2007, 03:12 PM // 15:12

I would /sign it if you kept everyting in-game relavent. disregard the age/sex/location/favtorite movie to watch after sex/

and put in system information guild wars already keeps on record. I want to know if someone wearing the survior title actually has 0 deaths, so put a char info on, Age of char (in months like /age), how many deaths that char has, information thats more usefull then billy joe bobby lives on 123 fake street

Cold · Jan 02, 2007, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Just on the topic of rating other people...
I decided to earn some money just before Christmas. And since I get bored really fast with farming of any kind I tried trading, that is buying and selling things. Got a million in one week

but here is a bad part, I started with empty ignore list and ended up with dozens of names, beggers mainly. I don't think they are bad people but trying to trade Sskai Sword + Candy Canes for Kanaxai's Edge and saing "I really need it" is really annoying, especially if you are forced to flee to other city/district (wonder if it's possible to disable "trade" button for people in my ignore list

).
And I am pritty sure that my name was added to many ignore lists as well. Any kind of in-game rating system would give me "VERY BAD PERSON, AVOID AT ALL COSTS" title. And it was just one week and just one facet of the game. I don't think it would be fare

Dj Tano · Jan 02, 2007, 05:00 PM // 17:00

i think thts one of those really big and important features that anet hasnt implemented...

Sujoy · Jan 02, 2007, 05:33 PM // 17:33

how is it a more safer environment when you give your personal info?

/notsign and don't bring this up anymore.

Either work on it so people feel safe or else get rid of it. And the rating system wil just be purely abused.

Stupid Shizno · Jan 02, 2007, 06:09 PM // 18:09

yea, lets allow a rating system in this game that is user controlled...

WAMMO: WTF MONK WHY YOU NOT HEALZ ME!!!
Monk 1: You over extended buddy
WAMMO: WELL WTFZORZ TEH OTHER MONK CAN MOVE TOO!!!
Monk 2: I dont heal, I protect, and your not worth 5e for rof
WAMMO: OMFGZ YOU BOTH F*ING NUBZ BAD RATING FOR BOT HOF YOU!!!!

yup, this rating system by user control is a great idea

nightshade_eyes · Jan 02, 2007, 08:28 PM // 20:28

/not signed

The whole profile thing with age, name, dob, etc is just dumb. Like Perynne already said, Guild Wars is Guild Wars not Myspace.

The only thing I can think of is having an account flagged if it receives too many complaints [i.e. scammer]. Simply having the name of character show up as red will let people know not to deal with that person. It would make sense to make it very obvious that red flagged players should be avoided.

Marco1983 · Jan 03, 2007, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stupid Shizno

yea, lets allow a rating system in this game that is user controlled...

WAMMO: WTF MONK WHY YOU NOT HEALZ ME!!!
Monk 1: You over extended buddy
WAMMO: WELL WTFZORZ TEH OTHER MONK CAN MOVE TOO!!!
Monk 2: I dont heal, I protect, and your not worth 5e for rof
WAMMO: OMFGZ YOU BOTH F*ING NUBZ BAD RATING FOR BOT HOF YOU!!!!

yup, this rating system by user control is a great idea

I absolutely respect all the things people say about this sort of system. You either like it, or you don't. Some functions maybe indeed be a little pointless, as they do not fit perfectly into an RPG, and take away the whole role playing concept, so far it exists in GW.

However, your reaction, as a concept of how player profiles are going to look like, are not proof of a bad system, but of a rotten community.

The GW community has defenetely got more rotten appels than some other one's. I know that from my own experience. But the rating system works just fine in other community's! As an example i like to name Xbox Live. It works just perfectly there, so why shouldn't it work in other games? The only problem with this kind of system would be that people are going to use it for things it wasn't intended for. That's not proof of a bad system, but of bad people.

If i give a platic toytruck to play with to a twelve year old, and he uses it for smashing the neighbours windows, it's not my fault. If you know what i mean.

jank · Jan 03, 2007, 02:23 PM // 14:23

I'm not going to be for or against this idea, as in the spectrum that you have given it would be bad. This being game wide, I can see a few problems.

First, you have the issue of personal information being spread to anyone who adds it to their profile and being viewed by who knows what kind of people. I for one know of government officials who play this game, and well, you should be able to figure it out from their on the amount of crap that is said wherever, that mostly is false, but some is true and yeah, no more on that one. Besides the fact that you open up a whole new ball game for identity theft towards individuals from online thieves. Now if this information would be all character related, then I could see this not being a problem.

Second, the rating system would be abused no matter how you look at it. No matter if someone is a bad person or not, they most likely would put some bad remarks on someone just because they pretty can. Example:

Quote:

A single monk is in a mission town and the only one present. Five parties need only one monk and then they would be entering the mission. If you so happen to be away and were actually needing the mission, or just didn't want to join any of the parties and were standing in the town, you most likely would be given a bad rating because you didn't join the party.

Yes, this might be an extreme case, but when it comes to this type of situation; an extreme case might be needed for proving the bad. I do have to agree though that the xbox live rating system does seem to be doing well for its self, even with the amount of younger children making up the vast population of that particular system. I realize that the Guild Wars community is actually a higher age range than most other online communities due to ease of playing this particular game, but their are still quite a few people who do the act before you think method and give people a bad playing experience.

Third, I do think that if this sort of system would be implemented, it should come with stipulations for rating and who gets to view the information. As in, only those people who are a member of the characters party would you be allowed to provide a rating for the player, otherwise the system would be overly abused to boost a players rating based upon guild/alliance members. This would also mean that only members who are not in the guild/alliance can give a rating to a player's character, as then it would cause more trouble to leave the guild, give a rating on someone, then be invited back in; as well as costing the person a lot of gold in the long run, just to have a better rating. A time limit would also need to be present, like a month from leaving the guild/alliance before you can give a person of the same guild/alliance a rating. No, this time limit should not change, even when you join another guild and leave that guild. It should stay one month from that particular guild/alliance before a rating can be given.

Just some thoughts to consider.

freekedoutfish · Jan 03, 2007, 03:36 PM // 15:36

I dont see the need to know personal information about a player in any way shape or form.

Especially in an MMO.

This isnt the nicest thing to think about or post, but the reality is that in MMOs you have pedophiles, stalkers and those looking to take advantage of vulnerable people.

You also have hackers, and criminals looking to steal accounts. The golden rule about the internet is NEVER display personal information, especially in such games. The only people who need to know that information are the game developers, incase they need to persecute individuals for harrassment or abuse.

And displaying emailing address is a very bad idea for obvious reason.

You may say that it should be a choice to show such information. But would you honestly trust a 13 year old girl to do the safe thing and hide her personal information? I wouldnt and I wouldnt want my child playing on a game where such things are displayed (not that I have a child).

You just have to look at stuff on faceparty or myspace to see how niave people are.

A large section of the population of GWs are young vulnerable children who think its funny to strip their character half naked and dance infront of someone. Its not nice to think how old the other person is watching, and if their getting their jollys from it.

I know thats extreme, but you get the idea.

Id be a hypercrit though if I said I dont have personal profiles online myself which display information. But most are hidden and can only be viewed by people I know and trust. Id also be a hypercrit to say ive nevet met anyone from online. But im 24 and ive more sense then a child.

/notsigned on showing personal information.

However, not to be completely negative.

This idea of displaying ingame information, which has no relevance to the real world, isnt a bad idea. I cant really see the need to display your characters information such as experience, titles, skills, etc. But im sure some people might want to know it.

/signed at showing ingame information.

Sorry if that all came off as a bit strong, but its the kind of thing you have to be carefull of.

Achilles Antony · Jan 03, 2007, 05:28 PM // 17:28

While the player info is not a bad idea, I personally don't see myself using it. Heck, I don't even have my personal info filled out in MSN... why would I bother here either?

As for the rating system, I see what you're saying, however, I could see it going bad pretty fast. I'll give you an example as to why. A few weeks ago, I was in the ToA forming a group to go down to the FoW. While I was there, some dude was spamming chat trying to sell a shadowblade. I personally love the look of them, so I said I'd have a look at it. Unfortunately, the stats were not to my liking and I told him so. He then went on to tell me his sob story of how he had been trying to sell it for five hours and was getting nowhere. He asked if I had no sympathy, but of course I did... however, I'm not going to buy a sword I won't use. I then suggested instead of spamming in game he should go to a forum like this one and put it up for sale, as he may find it easier. I offered a few more suggestions to which he told me to f off, shut the f up, and go to f'ing hell. Well... how nice of him. However, if we had a system like what you suggest in place, I'm sure he would have made me look like a real jerk for trying to help him. It would just be another feature immature jerks would abuse, and I'm really not for that. In the end, your player rating probably wouldn't really reflect who you are because of some of the people who like to ruin this game for others.

/not signed

Domino · Jan 03, 2007, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Quote:

Id be a hypercrit though if I said I dont have personal profiles online myself which display information. But most are hidden and can only be viewed by people I know and trust. Id also be a hypercrit to say ive nevet met anyone from online. But im 24 and ive more sense then a child.

My little brother is 7 and can spell "hypocrite"

viskey · Jan 03, 2007, 06:08 PM // 18:08

no way... people guild wars is a game... not myspace..... lets get that clear...... people lie on my space as it is... i don't really care that the guy thats tanking for me is a 40 year old greasy man that pretends to be a woman... noone cares