Post by neutralman on Jul 22, 2008 13:40:49 GMT -5
Hello,
I'm a new member, but I've been following the forums for awhile now. I have an idea that may help with the contact list privacy concerns. Just to start off I am a software engineer, I've been developing for over 15 years. I am also working with the iPhone SDK, so I am familiar with the APIs.
As my user name implies I would like to stay neutral on my opinions. I do like the game a lot, but I'm trying not to let that cloud my opinions. So I'm not just going to complain, I am going to offer a solution that I think will benefit the user community and the developers as well.
Firstly I do not agree with the fact that if you opt in to the community that all my contacts are sent over the wire for review. I understand what the developers are wanting to do. I do not believe they have any malicious intents. But I must disagree with the full contact list inspection. Most MMO & MMORPGs do not do this; if any do it at all I'm not aware. When I played WoW, Blizzard did not look through all my contacts on my Mac. I opted in to the community, but my friends and I choose to join with each other.
So now for my solution, and I apologize in advance if anyone else has already suggested this. Again I am familiar with the SDK. The address book/contacts allows you to create groups. You can place contacts in multiple groups. The API allows you to search these groups and the contacts in them. So I think that Aurora Feint should be updated to look for a specific group only! So for example maybe the developers can change the application to look for a group called "AF Community" or something similar. The game would then use that group ONLY!!!! This allows users to opt in which contacts they want AF to look at and use.
I think this allows the users to have more control over their data and the developers can continue with the features as they planned.
Here's the cool part. This group could act similar to a "guild" in other games. Basically users would only add the people they wanted to play with in that group. So you could avoid playing with people in your contacts that have the game, but you don't want to play with.
I'm sure this community can decide on the group name for the address book. And we could also decide on how we wanted to use the contact fields. For example do you use the player's real name in first and last name; do you use the character game name as the nickname field. Or do use use the forum user name as the nickname etc... At least this allows users to keep the AF community contacts in a separate group, I like to be organized.
I feel this would not be very hard to implement, but I don't want to speak for the developers. I think this would be a clean solution since the presence of this group could be used as the opt in or out indicator. This allows the developers to use only the data supplied by the user and no one should have issues with that.
Let me know what you think.
I'm a new member, but I've been following the forums for awhile now. I have an idea that may help with the contact list privacy concerns. Just to start off I am a software engineer, I've been developing for over 15 years. I am also working with the iPhone SDK, so I am familiar with the APIs.
As my user name implies I would like to stay neutral on my opinions. I do like the game a lot, but I'm trying not to let that cloud my opinions. So I'm not just going to complain, I am going to offer a solution that I think will benefit the user community and the developers as well.
Firstly I do not agree with the fact that if you opt in to the community that all my contacts are sent over the wire for review. I understand what the developers are wanting to do. I do not believe they have any malicious intents. But I must disagree with the full contact list inspection. Most MMO & MMORPGs do not do this; if any do it at all I'm not aware. When I played WoW, Blizzard did not look through all my contacts on my Mac. I opted in to the community, but my friends and I choose to join with each other.
So now for my solution, and I apologize in advance if anyone else has already suggested this. Again I am familiar with the SDK. The address book/contacts allows you to create groups. You can place contacts in multiple groups. The API allows you to search these groups and the contacts in them. So I think that Aurora Feint should be updated to look for a specific group only! So for example maybe the developers can change the application to look for a group called "AF Community" or something similar. The game would then use that group ONLY!!!! This allows users to opt in which contacts they want AF to look at and use.
I think this allows the users to have more control over their data and the developers can continue with the features as they planned.
Here's the cool part. This group could act similar to a "guild" in other games. Basically users would only add the people they wanted to play with in that group. So you could avoid playing with people in your contacts that have the game, but you don't want to play with.
I'm sure this community can decide on the group name for the address book. And we could also decide on how we wanted to use the contact fields. For example do you use the player's real name in first and last name; do you use the character game name as the nickname field. Or do use use the forum user name as the nickname etc... At least this allows users to keep the AF community contacts in a separate group, I like to be organized.
I feel this would not be very hard to implement, but I don't want to speak for the developers. I think this would be a clean solution since the presence of this group could be used as the opt in or out indicator. This allows the developers to use only the data supplied by the user and no one should have issues with that.
Let me know what you think.