Characters' Names & Multishard Architecture
After we spoke about the architecture change some time ago, you raised the issue of the existence of a same name on several servers. For instance, what would happen if two characters having the same name, one from Leanon and the other from Aniro, met in a Ring scenario?
1. The way to contact someone would slightly change
- By default, when you will /tell someone, the game will assume that you are trying to reach a player from your own server.
To contact Franck from your server, nothing changes; you simply type /tell franck Hello
- If you want to contact someone from another server you would need to add his server's name before his name, or after it in brackets, as follow: /tell shard.playername blablah; or /tell playername(shard) blablah
You are on Aniro. To contact Franck from Leanon, you'd have to type /tell leanon.franck Hello; or /tell franck(leanon) Hello
- In a Ring session, the same rule applies. To contact someone from your server, you would use the /tell the same way as before. But to contact someone from another server you'd need to add his server name:
/tell franck(leanon); /tell arispotle.bob
Note: upper cases have no influence on the command.
2. This system of differentiation would appear in every area it is required
(Since you would be able to contact players from other servers once the unification is done.)
- Your contact list will indicate the server of origin of a contact if he is not from your server, by adding his server name in brackets:
Franck(Leanon)
- As you would be able to send a mail to players from any server, add the server name of the recipient if he's not from your server:
leanon.franck; or franck(leanon)
- When you receive a tell from another server, the query will indicate the server of origin in brackets:
Franck(Leanon) tells you: Hello
- When characters from different servers are together in a Ring session, the server name of the ones not coming from your server will be indicated next to their name.
- The messages in the System Info window will specify which character hit someone or was hit:
Franck(Leanon) has been hit for 1300 damage
Would '@' be an option
The idea is very nice, so noone has to fear to loose its name he is accustomed too. Why not add a third version to address names like playername@shard as we all do it with emails every day?