24 replies to this topic

[TheSilencerPL]

Hi

We've been discussing among silEnT dev team members one thing for some time and we don't know whether we should implement this thing or not. That's why I start this thread to ask you - players - if you would like that to be implemented.

The idea is to allow players to have avatars that would be displayed in game.
Players/clients would be given possibility to specify an avatar, the img that could be used instead their name in different places, for example in the players list or over player's head, like the fire team icon but personal. Or when the player gets killed also, the players avatar could be used in addition to displayed name.

That's the main concept. Please share your opinions.

[Chuckun]

Sounds good - I don't think it should ever replace the player's name though, only be an addition..

My only concern is if this would cause even bigger database sizes for largely populated servers.. But of course I'm sure it would be up to the server manager / owner to determine whether or not to use the feature.

How would we chose the image? Would it be an image on the clients machines, where the path to the image is defined by a client-side cvar? Not sure how you'd implement it but it'd be good to know..

All in all it's a nice idea though And I think it would be a very popular thing..

Suggestions:
I may suggest having a command to remove avatars, and even a ACL option to allow/disallow avatars per-user. Some people might abuse it, or put hateful imagery up such as swastikas etc, which my clan for example, would not tollerate.

Chuck

[TheSilencerPL]

We were thinking of using gravatar for that purpose so that player would only have to define url to the gravatar img. Regarding abusing of the images you are right, some server avatar ban cmd should be available.
The other thing is that avatars would be retrieved and stored client side so there would be no impact on the db size.

[Dragonji]

Useless in my opinion + as Chuckun said it can be abused.

Edited by Dragon, 05 August 2012 - 05:17 PM.

[Chuckun]

Regarding abusing of the images you are right, some server avatar ban cmd should be available.

I think just a flag in admin.db to allow avatars would be fine.. That way you can restrict it to certain level players only, AND just make a command (maybe LUA?) which removes (or adds) that flag from the user specifically - such as !plavatar [player] [1/0].

The other thing is that avatars would be retrieved and stored client side so there would be no impact on the db size.

Ok I hoped that would be the case

Edited by Chuckun, 05 August 2012 - 05:51 PM.

[Dookie]

So far i think its useless, i think player flags are great and enough.

[BECK]

I'd like to see a moch-up of what you think this would look like. I'm concerned that the avatars might add too much extra stuff to the screen that might obscure the game. Could you make a rough screenshot of the game with where you think the avatar's would be visible (size especially)? I think player customization and things like that are generally cool ideas, I'm just not sold on this one yet. Thanks.

[Chuckun]

I actually just changed my vote to NO.

As cool as it sounds I don't think stuff like this is a good idea - In my opinion (of course it's just an opinion since it's really not my place to say) SilEnT should be optimised for performance over things like this

Edited by Chuckun, 09 September 2012 - 06:52 PM.

[TheSilencerPL]

Thank you all for your votes.

[Dookie]

hope its not gonna b added.

[TheSilencerPL]

The goal of this poll and thread was to gather more opinions on the subject so we could consider more points of view. Thanks to you guys we are able to make up the decision which is:
we won't implement avatars!

[phantasm]

I have mixed feelings about it, it sounds like fun but it could be used to run hacks since it will access a client-side file that the server owner doesn't have control over. It would be like running a non-pure server.

[Chuckun]

I have mixed feelings about it, it sounds like fun but it could be used to run hacks since it will access a client-side file that the server owner doesn't have control over. It would be like running a non-pure server.

Thanks to you guys we are able to make up the decision which is:
we won't implement avatars!

[Dookie]

The goal of this poll and thread was to gather more opinions on the subject so we could consider more points of view. Thanks to you guys we are able to make up the decision which is:
we won't implement avatars!

thank you for that

[BECK]

I never voted because I wanted to see an example of what it would look like

[TheSilencerPL]

Sorry, I've forgotten to prepare it. For example like this, places where the avatars would be displayed marked in red:

[BECK]

Thanks for that, not as obtrusive as I originally thought. I probably would have voted 'yes' but I guess its not like something people have been really demanding.

[Singima]

all the way, but the idea with the img url sounds funny .. you could do it like this ... in your silent/profile you would

put in a jpg/png image and rename it to silavt.png/jpg or something like that... but i like the idea 

[Sol]

The avatars over players's head is useless imo but avatars on players's helmet, medpack, weapons instead of original icons, class levels etc, like in COD:BO are really funny but it's a lot of work with render I guess. To prevent abusing it, the avatars could be selected in such a limbo menu and admins can upload additionals avatars to their servers by pk3 packs.

[Chuckun]

I like that idea sol, but like you said, it's a lot to render and I don't really think it would be worth it.