I was thinking of a good idea that I thought I'd share and see if people thought it was stupid or not.

I was thinking for more immersion on at least RP servers nobody should be able to see other players names. That is of course unless you are a king of a city so you kind of have an advantage? I dislike in MMORPG's how you can always see players names .. but I guess you'd have to have millions upon millions of clothing items.

I think it'd be a great element of surprise! Lemme know what you all think.. hope this hasn't been covered before, never seen it though!

For RP purposes that might be great, but quite annoying for a newcomer to the game that needs a few feet underneath him first. But then again we are talking a good RP server.

The no name idea could work for regular PCs, though it would be complicated to make the playability get there. I think it would be manageable if you were able to see the names of persons that you know, a sort of recognition device. This would go for all the NPCs in towns that you know, perhaps a few quests to unlock knowledge or just speaking to people to get them on the 'known' list. Everyone on your friends list would/should have a name with the opportunity to show or hide names.. or just make them smaller than what many MMORPGs have floating like signs of god that you can read from 100 yards away.

All in all I think it has the chance of making a game much more immersive, it would invoke the whole 'who is that' feeling, then the realization as you greet the various persons you meet.

Unknown if it was talked about before but wanted to drop my two cents in how it might be workable without alienating new players.

I don't mind name plates so much (though I'd like them to be smaller) but I'd really like to see a FFA PVP game where there was no way to tell what level the other player really was.  That would put some real excitement into PVP as gankers wouldn't know whether the person they were after really was a noob...or a high level pretending to be one.  Would be even better if you could disguise yourself as well. (i.e., your sword of uberness could be displayed as a +1 wooden sword)) 

Originally posted by tiink
darkfall has no levels like other mmos do... and it has been suggested that the time it takes to fully level a skill will be very short (a matter of a few casual weeks..if that) but beyond any of that is that the combat is twitch so it will be more about the skill of the player not the level of the toon.

This is one thing I really like about Darkfall, how the names are hidden and there are no levels. I think maybe if you have your mouse over someone, if you know them it would show their name but I prefer not to have big floating names that scream "HEY IM OVER HERE" while you're trying to hide behind a tree and your last name is sticking out.

There's pluses and minuses to having them and not, but I'd like a game where there were none. Makes things more interesting. Friends lists and all that are great, just the on screen neon floating name thing I don't like. Making it optional doesn't help, its having it disabled for everyone that makes it interesting.

I don't know if anyone really hammered this point home; but, there are no floating names in darkfall.  Only those of your group will be displayed.  You can actually hide behind a rock from your enemy without being seen.   Sorry if the OP already understood this. 

I dont know if you guys read the post or what. But he didnt actually say any thing about name plates. What he means is being able to see a name at all. Such as if u are in a party you couldnt even see a name. What he wants is to have it completly based off recognition. Like it is in the real world where u have to recognize some one by how they look, clothing, hair cut, etc.

Originally posted by ghostwyren

I dont know if you guys read the post or what. But he didnt actually say any thing about name plates. What he means is being able to see a name at all. Such as if u are in a party you couldnt even see a name. What he wants is to have it completly based off recognition. Like it is in the real world where u have to recognize some one by how they look, clothing, hair cut, etc.

Okay, well the problem with that is, How advanced is the character customization in Darkfall? We don't know, but I can tell you not advanced enough for this to be possible. As players will constantly change their armor and equipment, that won't be recognizable. Hair cuts & facial recognition... Doubt it. How many haircut styles will there be? How much will you be able to customize your characters physical features? These questions haven't been answered yet, but I'll tell you one thing. With 10,000 players per server, some people are just going to look alike. This would be a terrible feature imo.

Keep the game the way it is. No Nameplates. To see the characters name/info, place your curser over them. It doesn't remove the element of surprise, but it doesn't complicate the game.

be happy and rejoice for no name tags unless ye hover yer mouse over them...

this will immerse people in strategic combat and surprise and will allow stealth without ..oh look i see a name tag above that bush

rejoice for there are no levels in DARKFALL....

ye ll be hard pressed knowing what skills yer ennemie master except maybe guess concerning the armour he wears ..but then again he might have been robbed earlier and got nothing besides his starter kit on