Addressing multiple characters and builds

Imagine this:
Your mining deep in Andooweem with maxed out hammer, luck, and a few other mining based skills. You decide you’re done mining and would like to go hunting for a while. You head back to your house where you see a player standing behind one of your selling plynths. You walk up to the character, press “E” while facing him, and are instantly transferred to that character, you now control that character who was built and leveled specifically for hunting. While you’re leaving your house you glance over and see 2 other characters of yours each with there own unique specialties.

I realize this doesn’t address all of the communities concerns however, I feel it would address the convenience of switching characters as well as adding the ability to have idle characters that you can place in different areas to add to the atmosphere of a bustling city. Cmon now…how hard would this be to do? :grin:

Your thoughts? Be gentle…:flushed:

17 Likes

If there was a way for people to know that this was an idle character versus you being rude when they address you that would be good. Also what happens when a spitter comes up and kills everyone that is just standing around?

trying to be gentle

2 Likes

Easy!!! There’s no name that shows up when looking at them. Or if a name does appear it’s in red to show it’s currently an unused character.

Also mobs aren’t attracted to an idle unused character any more then they are to a tree.

3 Likes

Ok I will say that does work. I might not want to use alts but your suggestion is good if that is the only alternative offered.

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I feel like returning to sanctum would be easier. What if the alt you want is a long way away and you don’t want to go all the way back home? Returning to sanctum is a bit awkward, but at least you know that when you switch to your hunting character he will be exactly where you left him and your mining character will still be in the cave when you switch back. It just prevents a lot of backwards and forwards running.
Also, what happens when you forget where you put your alt? :stuck_out_tongue: (I would definitely do this)

Maybe have all of your alts standing in the sanctum instead of the real world, and you can still do the whole interact-to-switch-into-their-body thing? No fiddly menus to clock through. You could have a ‘window’ behind them to show where they are in real-world location in case you haven’t played them in a while.

3 Likes

Why not just have that as a secondary way of switching. Either find your alt in person or teleport to the sanctum and switch that way.

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As it is a great idea it comes with many possible bugs

  1. What about collision detection? Can you build something in place where the player stays?
  2. If yes, think about possible griefing
  3. Does that idle character prevent regen? If not, what would happen it that char was regenerated into the landscape
  4. If mobs can’t kill him, some players may build a living wall from alts and negate damage.
  5. What if you change to 2nd character and your player is in awkward postion? Can you change his location?
  6. Can you make your alts levitate mid air? - destroy blocks below them.
  7. uh many other possible bugs.

But it’s a great idea.

6 Likes

All possible bugs, but good thoughts.

1 Like

No - this is already not allowed. (You can’t place blocks over yourself or other players.)

Surely this is a case of safely “parking” your character?

I’d always thought about crafting and placing beds and your alts could be snoozing happily in them ready for you to switch.

Alternatively if they’re parked in your beacon free-standing then players could easily leave messages for you.

Also (in the future) your alts will always be friends so you can easily build Warps to them. At the moment building Warps feels a little clunky and we want to make it painless. Returning to the sanctum was only introduced for circumstances when it was impossible to recover (for example, walled in within another player’s beacon). Maybe Warping in the sanctum should be more expensive than in the live world.

Maybe characters left outside of beacons will return to the sanctum as they do at the moment, but in your beacon you can insta-switch?

They would likely be exposed to all AFK issues. But floating is not one of them.

11 Likes

We could have an alternative mediation or thinking pose?

3 Likes

Either is good or I liked @Cookviper suggestion of the name in a different color. That way where ever they are you can tell.

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Just tag after the name [NPC], this is assuming you could use them as a mailbox :stuck_out_tongue:

I really like this idea though, could be tied in with making places looking a little busier :slight_smile:

3 Likes

You could potentially have a set of idle poses which you could select from, when leaving your character in the world.

It could also be something you could add to with more poses purchasable with micro-transactions, such as your character juggling, slow dancing, or playing air guitar etc.

4 Likes
  1. What about collision detection? Can you build something in place where the player stays?

Answer - There is a little collision detection. The character is only there to look pretty but you can’t build it into an oven

  1. If yes, think about possible griefing

Answer - not yes :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

  1. Does that idle character prevent regen? If not, what would happen it that char was regenerated into the landscape

Answer - The IC (idle character) does NOT prevent world regen. If you leave a character out in the wild and regen covers over the place it’s standing it would simply disappear at which point you would recollect it in the sanctum.

  1. If mobs can’t kill him, some players may build a living wall from alts and negate damage.

Answer - there would be no point since there is no collision detection. Again, just there to look pretty.

  1. What if you change to 2nd character and your player is in awkward postion? Can you change his location?

Answer - if the IC is ever in a weird or awkward position (such as meeting it’s girlfriends parents for the first time) it’ll disappear and reside in the sanctum until you take control and move it again.

  1. Can you make your alts levitate mid air? - destroy blocks below them.

Answer - If a block is removed from under an IC it will fall. Which denotes a small level of collision detection. But you can’t harm or kill an IC. It will simply respawn in the sanctum.

  1. uh many other possible bugs.

Answer - All of which are solvable.

1 Like

Sorry @james I wrote that last one at the same time you wrote yours.

Great minds think a like :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

yes @Cookviper but all these questions are possible problems that needs to be solved somehow :slight_smile:

I wonder if it ever will be a feature :smiley:

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I think any suggestion comes with a huge list of problems and potential bugs. The thing is to find the content worth bug battling.

I’d love game to be as UI-less as possible. This would be awesome addition.

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Hehe kinda like the lag piles in Everquest I where there’s a hundred people and their pets and mercs and familiars all afk…

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