Probably not the first, or even the tenth time this idea has come up, but still. I’m going to suggest it anyway. Basically, I would like for a way to make one’s city/castle or whatever more personal. And one way to do that would be custom banners. I’m not talking completely custom, but picking a shape/color/symbol combination from a list, similar to how you create a Guild tabard in World of Warcraft, or a hero symbol in Warlords.
First, pick a shape (probably some less raggedy options than here, this is a quick google!):
Well they already do that with the building system, but yeah - the idea was not to allow people to upload their own images though, that way lies madness (plus a sh!tload of technical problems), only to select from a premade list.
You have my absolute support on this one Mikey. This would allow me to finally be able to craft some Crom banners and/or flags. In fact I have been advocating for banners for ALL religions now for some time. Complete and total agreement.
Mikey hypothetically speaking, how would one obtain the ‘symbol of some kind’ for their banner? Would the be a pre-selected variety chosen by Funcom, a copy of a downloaded symbol, something used from a drawing application? Im not too good with technology Im affraid, and am curious how this feature would work.
For practical reasons, I envision it as a selection from a pre-approved list. In an ideal world (which this is not!) we could draw or upload our own, but that’s a bit more difficult on a technical level, and a million times more difficult to police, though this being a so-called “mature” game, perhaps that matters less.
Personally I don’t mind having to witness some “immature” or “insulting” banner designs. I’m one who doesn’t overvalue logo design. For example, you could have a banner with a swastika on it and observe me complementing it’s simple design choices or the like. From the art perspective, I don’t care if a man makes mistakes waving an art piece; the man is a fool. From human rights perspective, I don’t care what art piece is used; just that the discriminatory act doesn’t happen again. In both cases the art piece itself is innocent.
“Names ashame none, but a man can ashame every name.”
While I personally agree that immature symbols mostly serve to ridicule those who wave them about, I have been “on the other side”, that is on the side of the service provider who could potentially be held accountable for their users’ inane creations. It’s not always fun.
Though granted, that was not for a game that marketed itself towards adults, or had adult themes (let alone glorious boobs & free penis!) so there’s that. Then again, we only have to look towards the ever-present call for nudity on consoles to remember that even this game is only free in certain markets / platforms.
Anyway, the reason I limit my suggestion is not because it would be my personal ideal implementation, but because I feel like doing it that way massively increases the (admittedly still small) chances of it happening, at a relatively small cost.
As already mentioned this would be immediately abused and the fore mentioned phallic images and swastika spammed all over the map.
That being said I’d still like to see it in game but simply make the banners have no ownership so we can all pick them up and when we place them back down it displays our own image (spamming issues solved) and like Mikey said it’s a mature game we should all be able to handle people having ■■■■ banners on there walls if they chose to have them.
Even now i can receive pics via psn of people raiding me with ball’s out after guzzling a potion of endowment and can laugh long and hard at it and move on and don’t see how this would be any different.
Potentially, yet not in practise. I wager that there would be insufficient amount of evidence to condemn a provider as responsible for the actions of their clientele. One has to be found guilty of provocation, i.e. a systematic upheaval, to get served. Merely giving us a brush, canvas and paint canisters isn’t enough for them to be held accountable.
Edit:
I focus on the object itself instead than its shadow, that is. Not that shadows aren’t interesting.
Don’t be so sure of that. The problem is not being found guilty but all the legal procedures that takes years before being resolved and cost an huge amount of money no company, even the big one doing AAA games, are willing to waste if they can avoid it.
And if there’s laws in Norway forbidding swastika and other symbol associated with nazis, Funcom will really have problems.
That clockwork already suffers from rust and gets clogged from time to time. It’s not the idiots I’m afraid of, but the wise ones being lazy enough in defense of their case. There’s a lot of nonsense floating the internet, but we need to remember that internet isn’t infinite and it’s up to us to clean up the mess. Our kids won’t do it so it’s up to us to educate them and bring about a platform they can all enjoy from.
However, from developer’s perspective, few preset symbols is easier to provide and this way we will have a product line to deliver; dictate to our liking as well.
No legal procedure comes to pass if no evidence is provided. No police will ever consider opening a case with circumstantial variables alone or hearsay. They are not avoiding anything they don’t have to worry about. The reason is economical if anything. Giving players the ability to make their own banners, while relatively simple to provide, is not a choice I necessarily would make when it comes to monetisation; always assemble a product line, provide a reason for customers to want to be dependent from your input for as long as possible. Them making their own products is a way to provide dependence, but it doesn’t directly fill my wallet and isn’t necessarily enough indirectly.
Specific laws like the one you provided as an example however, has to be honoured, no matter how stupid they are today and tomorrow.
Of course if some fool tries to ever confront a company that doesn’t invoke their customer base into harmful acts, they are forced down quite fast. However, a company isn’t quite succesful to begin with if they won’t take money into account when it comes to possible lawsuits. In that case they most likely will fall to the ensuing complications left from their first issue they are not economically prepared to tackle.
I wasn’t talking about penal lawsuits but civil lawsuits. In pretty much most of western countries you don’t need to provide any evidences to start a legal action at civil court.
You still need to gather evidence in those occasions as well. This is why I mentioned that companies need to take into account the monetaristic route and prepare funds for these possible events even if they think they wouldn’t happen. If I’m not mistaken, these cases won’t have any affect on how you are treated coz you are not found guilty of any criminal acts. You’re merely fined or asked to provide a compensation.
