Hi, everyone!<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">2007/6/13, Parker Coates <<a href="mailto:parker.coates@gmail.com">parker.coates@gmail.com</a>>:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 6/12/07, Aaron J. Seigo <<a href="mailto:aseigo@kde.org">aseigo@kde.org</a>> wrote:<br>> voila, a default name. offer a menu item to change the name (or via the high<br>> score dialog itself? you could ask at the start of the game as Burkhard
<br>> suggests, but that seems like an annoyance for something that the vast<br>> majority of people would just click through as it would have the right info<br><br>I think there's a major problem with these "don't ask for name every
<br>time" solutions. We're forgetting one of KDE Games' biggest user<br>groups: the shared family computer.</blockquote><div><br>I agree with you absolutely. I also don't like the idea of using the system name of the user as entry into the highscore list, because most people like to give themselfes a nickname ("Mastermind" or "Quick-Finger" or ...). As a first guess the system name is okay, but the player should have an easy option to change it to whatever he wants.
<br><br>It also came into my mind how things work on multiplayer games on the Sony PlayStation. Before you can start a multiplayer game, every player has to enter his (nick-)name. I think that is really annoying.<br><br>I think my earlier suggestions can still be good solutions to the problem, when they are implemented wisely:
<br><br>1) The "Type in name on program start" can be optimized: The name of the last player is stored in the rc file and inserted here. So it is only the matter of pressing "Enter" for people who don't share their computer or user id with others.
<br>One could even integrate this "Players name" field into the recently discussed welcome screens. Since the player has to press any button or select any game configuration to start the game, no additional action is necessary: He changes the name, if it isn't correct, and after that hits "Play" or whatever. This would only mean one additional field to the welcome screen, that is very easy to understand even for unexperienced users.
<br><br>2) Same holds for my second suggestion, to have a small widget at the top of the window, containing the name (also stored between games in the rc file) and a small button "change" or similar. It would also be possible to just have a line edit (or something graphically more pleasing) there. The player can edit his name everytime he wants during the game (split personality?). He just have to make sure that it is correct before he finishes a level. So no extra action is necessary. This second solution has also the advantage that the player is addressed on the screen (something like "Hello, XY! Your score is ...! You are doing a great job!"), so we can "talk" to the player personally, and show him that we love him. :-)
<br><br>So, to summarize, I would say the best solution requires user interaction only if necessary (so, only if someone else is playing the game than last time). And changing should also be as easy as possible (just changing the entry of a line edit,
e.g.) And avoiding annoying popup windows when a new highscore is reached is also important.<br>I also like the idea of a small slide-in-message-box. They are becoming more and more popular at the moment, Google mail also uses them to signal incoming new messages, and Windows uses them to inform the user of a broken internet connection etc.
<br><br>These are just my ideas, and since I don't have to implement them, the maintainers should decide what they like most.<br><br>Cheers,<br>Burkhard<br></div></div>