I haven’t played in like 2 years (literally returned today) so remind me please. Why would local need to display original name? As far as i remember all you have to do to gather intel is right click on someones name and click “show info” to get someone details. Maybe im forgetting about some mechanic but i dont see why it should still be original name. Even if we talk about other options like sending money it could automatically fill in the original name.
On the side note the “Original name aka Nickname” part i meant that it would only show up in that “show info” window. On all chats etc it could just show your nickname alone. Well unless its like some “official” stuff. Like for example leader of some corp should still be displayed by original name. Its a corporation with billions or trillions net worth and not some street gang.
But pretty much my basic idea for this are the same nicknames some people might have in real life among friends. You have your official name Ben Smith or whatever and then you can have a nickname.
Same thing could be done in eve - you have your original name which is used for everything buisness related like money transfers, trading, corpo stuff, etc. And then you could have nickname which could be used as display name in chats etc. I bet it could be even programmed that when you copy someones nickname it will paste their actual name.
Tho to be fair option to display names in chat in format “Nickname aka Original Name” isnt that bad either. For people like myself whos names are usually hard to pronouce for others it might be useful. How many times people in discord were struggling to pronounce my name… xD
Edit: God damn… sorry to everyone for the wall of text…
Forcing people to right click show info for every person in local is terrible game design. I could foresee a way to allow nicknames to be a thing… but the name the appears in local… absolutely needs to be the original name. And then you can do the other thing you suggested in the chat portion of the window.
Overall… I’d prefer if it was just left alone. Reputation is too important in EVE to allow methods of obscuring it easily.
People who care about their reputation wouldnt do it anyway. People who want to obscure it will do it anyway. All you have to do is to spit up some isk for skill points extractors, make a new character and transfer everything over. And people who cant afford such a transfer are not the ones who would care about obscuring their ingame identity anyway. Remaining 5mil skill points you leave behind i dont think is that big of a sacrifice.
For the above reasons im all in for a full original name changing option. Even if paid and with years of cooldown. Nickname mechanic is merely a compromise between full name changer and none at all.
Ive already suggested like 2 years cooldown between changes of nicknames so it wouldnt be a problem with people changing them constantly. Leaving original name in local and changing it in other chats probably could get a bit chaotic. Tho to be fair i guess it would make sense from like a lore standpoint? Idk eve lore but if i would be asked to explain how do you know names of people in your system i guess it would be like a reading of their ship which ofc is officially registered under their official name? Or even a signature of the pod inside the ship. Its not like any goverment would allow someone to register a car under a nickname.
Tho this also gives me an idea for ingame paid false identity. Nothing to do with actual name changer or even nicknames. More of a mechanic along the lines: theres some npcs in nullsec that when paid could provide you with false identity. Something that would for example allow you to go back to high sec without being destroyed by the gods of concord. Hide in plain sight like a true pirate mastermind.
Ofc there could also be added some modules for ships that could scan people and detect true identity.
Bounty hunters could have some fun with this one. And maybe for extra isk it could even be made to replicate signature of selected corp so when people see you in overview they think you are with them. This could allow for some really fun spying mechanics and infiltration of enemy territory.
Holy ■■■■ i want this in even more xD. What do you think?
