Proof of concept - Colored Names

[Spirited]

I'm always impressed by what you offer this forum, Ultimation. I wouldn't mind seeing more threads like this one. It's a nice showcase that newer members can get involved in, and senior members can appreciate. It's an interesting topic that isn't normally discussed in this section, but remains as a large part of private server development. Keep up with the great work. Cheers.

[Arby]

Let's stay on-topic please

[Ultimation]

Issue: character names can only be 16 ~ 20 bytes. Yet i need more space for the color syntax, so without modifying the servers(custom source or Binary), any suggestions how i can overcome this problem and increase the name to like 40-50 bytes?

Regards

Ulti.

[Korvacs]

Your going to have to modify something be it making the field 64 bytes long, or creating a new field entirely if that turns out to be simpler. You could look at compression but any way you look at it your going to have to modify the server and client.

Oh and your syntax is far too complicated, simplify it by reducing it to %0 - 10.

%0Korvacs%7[PM]

And just have 0 - 10 as predefined colours.

[_DreadNought_]

Originally Posted by Korvacs

Your going to have to modify something be it making the field 64 bytes long, or creating a new field entirely if that turns out to be simpler. You could look at compression but any way you look at it your going to have to modify the server and client.

Oh and your syntax is far too complicated, simplify it by reducing it to %0 - 10.

%0Korvacs%7[PM]

And just have 0 - 10 as predefined colours.

He already looked into that kind of colouring, I think(and i) kind of prefer his way o.O.. it's more customizable.

[Korvacs]

Originally Posted by _DreadNought_

He already looked into that kind of colouring, I think(and i) kind of prefer his way o.O.. it's more customizable.

Its more customizable, but its less user friendly and presents alot more technical problems as he has now demonstrated, you could expand it to be %0-255 if you want more colours and then use that as a scale.

Realistically how many people are going to want to use the entire 24bit colour pallet? No one, they are going to want to use primarily a very select pallet. You need to weigh up the advantages of a 24bit system over the technical limitations, and in this case unless you are going to increase the name field, spouse field, fixed length string field of every packet in CO to accommodate such a large syntax, there really is no big advantage to having it when a smaller, simpler system will do.

[Ultimation]

but both systems still require a bigger name field, even if the syntax only utilized one byte per letter.

[Korvacs]

Well, you don't have to if the syntax is simpler, you just cant have extremely long names, but that's rare anyway, if the syntax was 2 bytes, your name for example could still be:

%3Ul%0ti%8mation

Less flexible, but a good compromise compared to the task of modifying every fixed length string in the client/server.

[Ultimation]

no but, lets say the player wanted to color each letter.. 8 byte name would require 16 bytes or in your case 24 bytes.

[Korvacs]

Well, the player cant have everything the player wants simply put.

[Ultimation]

yes, but wouldn't it be nice to offer i was thinking utilizing a seperate mini server that runs along side, reading a new field from the DB to query the name colores, who knows, but perhaps ill just offer 1 color per name to start of with.

[Korvacs]

Of course it would be nice, but like I say, nice isn't always practical, sometimes you just have to make do with what's practical, at least to start with.

[Mr_PoP]

wouldn't it be easier if you made new flags to change the colors? like

 Hero.LongStatusFlags |= LongStatusFlags.RedName

, kinda thing I believe they are using it atm with their new PK-System Jiang Hu , that makes your name Pink or whatever!?

[Super Aids]

Mr Pop, the thing is. With this you could change color of each character

[LordGragen.]

having different color for each letter will be very annoying XD, i think its better letting them choice 1 color and 1 only, very simple very neat, gives the server and the player good look, but having few colors it will be mess XD