Timothy the Knight
Sergeant Knight at Arms
Before you start frothing at the mouth and yelling that this has been discussed before, hear me out. Yes, a heraldry system of some kind has been suggested numerous times, but there have been very little examples of exactly how a system of this kind could be implemented. Well, I'm here to change that.
So far, everybody's been rather set in the idea that heraldry would strictly be image files imported from outside of the game, but what about an in-game coat-of-arms maker? Apparently, there was going to be something like that in M&B at some point, as this here mod uses the incomplete code.
Now, this sort of system has many advantages, and isn't all that complicated to whip into a working model. First of all, since the system is all contained in the game itself, there is no need to traffic around large amounts of image files, so no additional stress on the servers because of it. Second, since the content is all checked and approved by the developers, there should be very little chance for someone to put inappropriate stuff in their coat of arms. The only big cock they could have on their heraldry is this:
If you have doubts of how well this sort of system would work, or have no idea of how it would work, check out this little online coat of arms designer. It's quite basic, but very effective. The only problem is the lack of images available, which brings me to my next point.
If one would want to be a bit more lenient, we could have a system where users can import their own images to be used in the in-game heraldry maker.
Having someone add their own image of, say, an abstracted rather than heraldic dragon, would be as simple as having an alpha channel (for those who are unfamiliar with the jargon, the area that determines transparency) of the dragon and importing it into the game. Since alpha channel is black and white (the texture is in the game itself, we only need the alpha channel to tell the game what areas the texture is applied to), the images shouldn't be very large in size and should cause minimal extra stress on the servers. To illustrate, here's an example image:
This is an alpha channel. It simply tells the game where the dragon's separate colour scheme is on the image.
and here it is applied, without any hassle with the textures at all.
just to illustrate, the texture adapts as the image is moved around, replicated and shrunk.
Of course, to avoid naughty stuff making it into the game, we could have this custom image system moderated somehow. Perhaps anyone showing up with tits on their shield would get baned from the servers. Or we could have this system only for the duration of the beta, when the devs have a much smaller influx of custom images to deal with. The best stuff would, of course, make it into the game.
The disadvantage of this sort of system is that it limits creative freedom somewhat. If you'd want something like a rainbow pattern from a hippie's shirt, you probably couldn't do it. But that may be a good thing, since in reality official heraldry is a very strictly regulated system for the precise reason to prevent people from using confusing and stupid patterns.
And what if somebody made an exact replica of someone else's coat of arms? Well, we could have a system similar to what we currently have with names, no duplicates on the same server. Of course, this would mean that positions you can stick charges in on the shield would have to be rigid, further limiting freedom.
Then of course, we could also have the age-old system of having people import their own images into the game. This permits great freedom, but it sort of shuts out those who can't use image editing software, and there is ample opportunity for abuse.
Those two chief problems can be solved with the community helping newbies by making images for them at their request, and abusers would get baned from servers. But then the question of bandwidth usage is a bit more complicated. While the images aren't all that big, when there's a large amount of them going about it could cause lag on the server. The in-game creator system lacks this because custom heraldry made with it is essentially just a few bytes of data that tell the game how the already available graphical resources are arranged on each shield.
Now, as for making it easily identifiable who has what sort of heraldry, regardless of system used, a few very simple things could be done. First of all, how does one link a name with an image? We could have people's names float above their heads, instead of the round faction icon currently used and we could have a small image of the heraldry on the scoreboard next to the name, like so:
That should clear up most inconveniences of identification.
So, there's my idea of how a properly functioning system of heraldry could be applied to the game. Vote on the poll, post your comments/flames/spam/whathaveyou, and to the developers: please accept and consider this humble suggestion from a lowly rank-and-file tester.
So far, everybody's been rather set in the idea that heraldry would strictly be image files imported from outside of the game, but what about an in-game coat-of-arms maker? Apparently, there was going to be something like that in M&B at some point, as this here mod uses the incomplete code.
Now, this sort of system has many advantages, and isn't all that complicated to whip into a working model. First of all, since the system is all contained in the game itself, there is no need to traffic around large amounts of image files, so no additional stress on the servers because of it. Second, since the content is all checked and approved by the developers, there should be very little chance for someone to put inappropriate stuff in their coat of arms. The only big cock they could have on their heraldry is this:
If you have doubts of how well this sort of system would work, or have no idea of how it would work, check out this little online coat of arms designer. It's quite basic, but very effective. The only problem is the lack of images available, which brings me to my next point.
If one would want to be a bit more lenient, we could have a system where users can import their own images to be used in the in-game heraldry maker.
Having someone add their own image of, say, an abstracted rather than heraldic dragon, would be as simple as having an alpha channel (for those who are unfamiliar with the jargon, the area that determines transparency) of the dragon and importing it into the game. Since alpha channel is black and white (the texture is in the game itself, we only need the alpha channel to tell the game what areas the texture is applied to), the images shouldn't be very large in size and should cause minimal extra stress on the servers. To illustrate, here's an example image:
This is an alpha channel. It simply tells the game where the dragon's separate colour scheme is on the image.
and here it is applied, without any hassle with the textures at all.
just to illustrate, the texture adapts as the image is moved around, replicated and shrunk.
Of course, to avoid naughty stuff making it into the game, we could have this custom image system moderated somehow. Perhaps anyone showing up with tits on their shield would get baned from the servers. Or we could have this system only for the duration of the beta, when the devs have a much smaller influx of custom images to deal with. The best stuff would, of course, make it into the game.
The disadvantage of this sort of system is that it limits creative freedom somewhat. If you'd want something like a rainbow pattern from a hippie's shirt, you probably couldn't do it. But that may be a good thing, since in reality official heraldry is a very strictly regulated system for the precise reason to prevent people from using confusing and stupid patterns.
And what if somebody made an exact replica of someone else's coat of arms? Well, we could have a system similar to what we currently have with names, no duplicates on the same server. Of course, this would mean that positions you can stick charges in on the shield would have to be rigid, further limiting freedom.
Then of course, we could also have the age-old system of having people import their own images into the game. This permits great freedom, but it sort of shuts out those who can't use image editing software, and there is ample opportunity for abuse.
Those two chief problems can be solved with the community helping newbies by making images for them at their request, and abusers would get baned from servers. But then the question of bandwidth usage is a bit more complicated. While the images aren't all that big, when there's a large amount of them going about it could cause lag on the server. The in-game creator system lacks this because custom heraldry made with it is essentially just a few bytes of data that tell the game how the already available graphical resources are arranged on each shield.
Now, as for making it easily identifiable who has what sort of heraldry, regardless of system used, a few very simple things could be done. First of all, how does one link a name with an image? We could have people's names float above their heads, instead of the round faction icon currently used and we could have a small image of the heraldry on the scoreboard next to the name, like so:
That should clear up most inconveniences of identification.
So, there's my idea of how a properly functioning system of heraldry could be applied to the game. Vote on the poll, post your comments/flames/spam/whathaveyou, and to the developers: please accept and consider this humble suggestion from a lowly rank-and-file tester.