Some Ideas from GF's Creator
Status: Planning
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tsayles
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The basic idea behind the first version of the pre-registration web site is two fold. First it will allow potential players and server admins to start reserving names for future use in the GF game. Second it will allow us, the developers, to collect information, ideas and feedback from two of the three main audiences of GF. [The three main audiences are developers, players and system administrators.]
The names will be used, in the context of the game, for several different items including: starships; space stations; solar systems; user names; and sovereign spaces. [A sovereign space is a volume of the virtual galaxy hosted and controlled by a system administrator.] As the design and development of the game progresses additional items may be added to this list. At least initially all the names should come out of a single name space.
In addition to registered name(s) and e-mail contact address I also want to collect some basic demographic info like age, sex, and zip code (or other geographic locator). This kind of info will help build more momentum for the game as we begin to roll it out.
TTFN
Tom Sayles
Creator, Galactic Frontier
A few ideas for the pot ....
1) Registration should be by number not name (as in the real world ships change names on a regular basis ... sometimes legally, sometimes ... You might consider a system/ship type system (allows for the systems to control their own ships).
2) At a minimum, based on the above, you'd need a splash page, what the game is about (not the long version), a pointer to the long version for developers, and a page for each of the stakeholders. You may want the registration/feedback on the same page or a different one -- the web design will tell you that.
3) Caution with the collection of demographic info. If you collect it you'll need a privacy policy and ... I'd suggest you think through what information you'd like to collect and what it will REALLY tell you. Then try to figure out how that will REALLY help you. You might find that it's more trouble than it's worth.
songster
everything in between. I recommend using email addresses. Email addresses are already guaranteed not to collide in the user namespace, and they are usually already commited to the users memory, unlike some arbitrary random number we assign to them. I have like three orphaned ICQ numbers for this very reason.
I agree if we are talking about individuals or a log e-mail address (i.e. just for the game). The problem is that ships can change owners. The individual may lose the ship to pirates or creditors or ... If you use an e-mail to identify the ship then if the owner changes the links have to be rebuilt. Having said that there is nothing preventing using the e-mail address to list the ships ... sort of like a drop down list. Then of course you run into the problem of e-mail addresses changing (I've lost 4 e-mail addresses in 7 years due to ISP bankruptcy). But that at least is reasonably controllable.
Why not keep the names in a database and have them associated with emails (the emails will be the user logins) and that way ownership can change easily? People should just login to keep track of their fleets.
Also, why should ships' names be all unique? I'm sure a hundred people will try to register "the Enterprise" or some such cliche. They can all have the same name as long as there are unique ship ID's for all of them.