Nametags

Scribble · Post by **Scribble** » 2005-09-18 00:26

5-10 meters? erm for myopic soldiers maybe. I've no trouble identifying people at 200 meters...

matew1 · Post by **matew1** » 2005-09-18 00:27

Take tags out all together, but make them visible when you zoom in, if you can.

OverwatchX · Post by **OverwatchX** » 2005-09-18 00:39

Scribble wrote:5-10 meters? erm for myopic soldiers maybe. I've no trouble identifying people at 200 meters...

At 200 meters, you say you can clearly distinguish "John" from "Steve" when both are in nearly the same BDUs, perhaps running for cover, among foliage, and under fire. Wow. Yeah. I must be myopic. Thanks

OverwatchX · Post by **OverwatchX** » 2005-09-18 00:52

{GD}Snake13 wrote: Realism is more then technical accuracy, the limitations of the digital medium require that certain aspects be simulated in order to have a better representation of reality. The fact that PRMM is a video game and not real life does not afford us the ability to make each soldier geneticly distinct, or allow us to convey a familarity with our fellow soldiers that comes from spending time with them 24/7, as such we have nametags which allow us to identify our comrades under the assumption that our ingame personas would recognize our comrades ingame personas. This familarity is simulated to the player by giving us a nametag.

Ummm Duh! I agree. Did I say otherwise?

Furthermore our computerscreens, even if powered by the latest IMB supercomputer, do not afford even a fraction of the resolution of the human eye. As such it is sometimes neccesary, 'realistic' even, to provide visual aids in order to simulate the visual abilities a real soldier would have. allowing players to identify other friendly players is one such acceptable aid. However the range of this aid shouldn't extend beyond that which a soldier could reasonably identify a soldier (or vehical's) uniform/insignia. beyond that range a soldier would have to rely on his knowledge of friendly unit's activities in the area (this is represented by the player in question checking the minimap).

Dude, where are you coming from? I'm for nametags I just want them limited to a distance simulated more in stride with realism....and less in stride with say someone's Commodore 64 computer issues.

I think the range which a friendly nametag appears should be at least 100m. However I'm not opposed to leaving it a server variable

At 100m, I think it would hard under combat conditions to discern a particular squadmate from another since everyone would be wearing the same uniform. But others think we should extend that range to 200m. Why not throw in ESP while were at it.

CobraPhantom · Post by **CobraPhantom** » 2005-09-18 01:12

Easy there John, its just a discussion, everyone has their opinions so try not to take things such as this personal

{GD}Snake13 · Post by **{GD}Snake13** » 2005-09-18 02:43

at 100m I might have trouble telling one squadmate from another, but I can sure as hell tell the difference between two camo patterns. Whereas even though I'm running this at 1600x1200 with high texture settings, at that distance in game the the person just looks like a silloutte.

The problem is compounded not only by the abysmal resolution of a computer screen compared to a human eye, but by the fact the computer screen only offers us 90 degrees of vision, but is 90% of the time displaying more then that so we don't feel like we're running around with a carboard tube straped to our eyes. this trade off gives us a defacto "zoomed out" view of the world.

Perfect example, if any of you have played IL2 Sturmovick, the ability to change your "cockpit" zoom in IL2 is not actually giving you bionic eyes. In IL2 the furtherest zoom you can set actually represents a true 90 degree FOV, effectively showing you what you're real vision would be like, but we're so used to playing games with the screen giving us a higher then 90 fov that it feels like we're looking through a sniper scope.

In fact I think PRMM should incorporate the same feature, when looking through the sights we should be given a true 90 degree field of view (aka zoom). if the fov was set to 90 then it would be realistic because it would only be giving you the zoom that you would normally have in real life.

worst 3 · Post by **worst 3** » 2005-09-18 03:02

realism is the most importent so we cant have them in like now that is for sure. as i said befor it should be able to be seen anly as close as you could read the tame tag on the soldier in real life. i think that u can see them at 5m both Enemy and freindalu but enemy a few seconds and not realy from the back. also the people about hellie not seeing you can see it in real life usualy people ask for an air strike and it would be nice if you could have some thing like that. some thing that can be seen by any one and have a few options like need bombing run, suport, hellie suprot ect normay they dont just go after persoal too.

there should posibly be a minimap type thing

OverwatchX · Post by **OverwatchX** » 2005-09-19 03:51

'[R-DEV wrote:CobraPhantom']Easy there John, its just a discussion, everyone has their opinions so try not to take things such as this personal

Yeah. Copy that. It just rubs me the wrong way when someone starts out there opinion with, "are you saying the USMC is blind" ****. Then they go off on a tangent that misses the point completely followed up with another person who says, "Oh great point..I love you..you said what I meant to say what I was thinking what I tried to say what I think I mean".

OverwatchX · Post by **OverwatchX** » 2005-09-19 04:02

{GD}Snake13 wrote:at 100m I might have trouble telling one squadmate from another, but I can sure as hell tell the difference between two camo patterns. Whereas even though I'm running this at 1600x1200 with high texture settings, at that distance in game the the person just looks like a silloutte.

Obviously no one can simulate the psychological effects of being in combat (tunnel vision, stress - things what would hamper your ability to do that), or, while I'm at it, eliminate gamey tactics (charging a machine gun nests across open field, knowing if you die you can respawn).

Revealing friendly nametags when within 5-10 meters "simulates" recognizing the face of a squadmate, helps to prevent gamey tactics, and helps to "simulate" battlefield stress....in my humble opinion of course.

C'mon. If you have a hard time determining friend or foe at distance, so will the opposing player. And a byproduct of that just might be better squad cohesion...which is umm...a good thing.

{GD}Snake13 · Post by **{GD}Snake13** » 2005-09-19 17:49

I'm not missing the point, you just disagree with my assesment of how far away a soldier could reasonably indentify a comrade.... and then acting like i'm bat-shit insane because I have a different number then you.

Unless you can come up from some hard numbers from some scientific source, or from someone who has "been there done that" the random numbers you came up with hold no more water then the random numbers I came up with. So please drop the holier-then-thou attitude.

Edit: to clarify my position, if we are basing the nametags on how far a soldier can recognize a face, I would say at least 25-50m. If we're going on how far a soldier could recognize a uniform, I would go with at least 100m.

My personally basis for these numbers is my experiance playing paintball, which while not remotly combat, is probably the closest experiance you can get without actually being in combat. Which is also the reason why I have such a broad range for face indentification as in paintball everyone is wearing a mask, I personally can do it reliablely at atleast 25m, and would assume soldiers with unobscured faces would be alot easier to identify.

OverwatchX · Post by **OverwatchX** » 2005-09-19 22:07

Snake13: How do you get what I said to you as a holier than thou attitude? Man. Chill. Couldn't you read that I was referring to CobraPhantom? I even used the quote tool. Yipes!

In regards to you, didn't I say "in my humble opinion"? For pete's sake.

Artnez · Post by **Artnez** » 2005-09-19 23:02

I don't see what the problem is here.

You point your crosshair over a soldier. 2 seconds pass. Their name pops up over their heads. No problem.

BF2's graphical quality cannot be compared to real life, so you have to compensate.

What the hell is the point of removing nametags? What purpose does it serve? Realism?

Well guess what, if you want complete realism, then we should have different faces for every single soldier. We should also have over 50 different body formations you can assume and we should force everyone buy a monitor that represents a human's FOV.

There is no way to have complete and utter realism in BF2.

The most you can hope for is to depict realistic battles, where people dont run around randomly and you are forced to adhear to military tactics that are used in real life.

Removing nametags will only do one thing, increase team killing.

Post by **BrokenArrow** » 2005-09-19 23:12

removing nametags will make people more careful, thus probably decreasing TKing. IRL it doesnt matter how long you point your gun at someone, they arent going to show you a glowing nametag so that you can decide whether or not to pull the trigger. by looking at weapon, helmet and uniform patern you should be able to reasonably tell if your target should be your target. and if you arent sure, risk the TK (thus making you stupid and careless) or dont take the shot and try to warn a team mate about your inidentified target so that they can properly identify and deal with him.

{GD}Snake13 · Post by **{GD}Snake13** » 2005-09-20 00:05

JohnDoeGamer wrote:Snake13: How do you get what I said to you as a holier than thou attitude? Man. Chill. Couldn't you read that I was referring to CobraPhantom? I even used the quote tool. Yipes!

In regards to you, didn't I say "in my humble opinion"? For pete's sake.

Because except for one short post in which you primarly were refering to other posts, you quoted my posts exclusively

Post by **BrokenArrow** » 2005-09-20 00:29

guys this a discussion, keep it civil.

dont expect everyone to agree with you, and dont flame anyone who doesnt.

OverwatchX · Post by **OverwatchX** » 2005-09-20 01:48

Okay. I apologize. Lets move on. Agreed?

Post by **Paladin-X** » 2005-09-20 03:09

Lies. I win.

Artnez · Post by **Artnez** » 2005-09-20 03:22

BrokenArrow wrote:removing nametags will make people more careful, thus probably decreasing TKing. IRL it doesnt matter how long you point your gun at someone, they arent going to show you a glowing nametag so that you can decide whether or not to pull the trigger. by looking at weapon, helmet and uniform patern you should be able to reasonably tell if your target should be your target. and if you arent sure, risk the TK (thus making you stupid and careless) or dont take the shot and try to warn a team mate about your inidentified target so that they can properly identify and deal with him.

Wrong yet again.

It will cause more team killing... how can you possibly say it won't?

Another thing you aren't accounting for is the fact that some people tone down their graphics to the bare minimum... in which case it is impossible to tell who is who.

What about ghillie suits and snipers? What if I am sniping on a hillside and some jackass thinks I am the enemy and team kills me? What if I am sniping and sneak behind enemy lines to hit the enemy from the back?

I garauntee.. 100%.. that this will irritate the hell out of people more than it will promote them to "be careful".

I'm not saying that it will irritate a person if he gets a teamkill. I am saying it will irritate the people getting killed my new players.. that's all.

First of all, if you want to relate this to "real life", you have to think about the fact that squad leaders verbally tell their troops that they have friendlies located at a certain direction and to not fire. Attack plans are very carefully laid out so that all squad leaders know exactly where other squads adjatent to them will be and when.

In this case, you have people spawning all over the place, troop transports driving all over the place and people sneaking around.

And yet another issue is... in real life you don't normally see one guy just running across the street to take a position. In BF2 this happens all of the time. A single guy running around doing stuff. So either he is lost from his squad or he is trying to be sneaky and spec-ops like.

If this guy circles behind enemy lines and sneaks back and forth just to get to a location, only to be killed by a friendly sniper that only sees a near-silhouette at a distance is simply frustrating.

The idea is to have fun because the gameplay makes you feel like you are in a real battle. This will only makes things drastically annoying for people.

And as a final point, I'll give you a completely realistic example:

- You are playing Strike at Karkand.
- You see 2 guys at the first MEC flag crouched, so you can barely see their helmets.
- You see another two guys even further away shooting at them.

So, you say to yourself that the guys at the distance must be enemy right? What if they're not? You end up killing your own guys.

Now, let's say, for arguments sake, that you are a person who is very patient and you decide to come in for a closer look. You leave your cover and run closer to the flag.

On your way there, you get shot by a friendly from far away who made the decision to shoot you because you were not firing on the enemy.

If this were a real life situation you would know that no friendly units have assaulted that flag.

Most of the friendly fire incidents I have heard of come from the fact that the people getting shot either did not inform that they are where they are, or that they did inform -- but it didnt go through.

In this case, the only way to check if you have friendlies is to bring up your map.

Checking the map is extremely cumbersome, first. And second, like I said before, your squad leader would verbally inform you that you have friendlies in a particular area and maybe even point to that location -- so you wouldn't have to look at a map.

Can you imagine if US forces in Iraq had to judge who to shoot based on looking at them and every individual soldier bringing up a map? It's ridiculous.

worst 3 · Post by **worst 3** » 2005-09-20 03:38

people will learn, this is supposed to be real and doing thingsstopped to some de like going behind lines and taking a position by your self would be gree (becuase it would be dumb, team work would be more important). If your killed because your running behind enemy lines sucks for you maybe you will learn your leason. if not, it not my problem and it is not ranked. I think there should be a very close range name tag. also a name tag and indicator on the map so if your not sure check the map many not fun but you got to do it. If I get shot I made a mistake my fault and I don’t complain, and I think little "kids" that play like Rambo shooting every thing with out blue tag should not be playing reaity mod they sould play regular bf2. the regular people who if they play it can lean what to do easily
also the spotted thing is dumb because I cheat with it, if I am unsure if some one is there is use it and it tells me if they are there and who they are. I think that there should be a way you can check to see if there friend or fo others then a sign above there head.

war if fought in squad and people use team work because of the things like this and other aspects of reality.

sorry again about illegibility but some times I just right a post don’t look at and don’t type clearly fixed it think. it was bad i did not know what i sad

Psycho_Sam · Post by **Psycho_Sam** » 2005-09-20 10:23

Maybe improving your written english would help people to understand what you are trying to say better.

I say keep in nametags especially if you are going to remove the minimap. If the mini map goes then keep tags! If you keep the mini map I would say remove the tags as you can use that to see who is friendly or not. Then you have some way of knowing rather than educated guessing.