[Request] Automatically transfer custom portraits in multiplayer

Stargazer5781

If it were possible to automatically transfer custom portrait files with character files when you play a multiplayer game so you don't have to send them to one another ahead of time, that would be pretty awesome. Apologies if this has already been brought up.

RaphielDrake

Sounds like a good idea. Sounds would be good too. If I could do that... oh wow. The possibilities.
I think the first thing I would do is make an extremely suspect chaotic evil bard who sings the dawsons creek theme tune when you click on his song ability. Then when you click to attack he screams "I'm gonna skullfu-*beep* the shi-*beep* out of you!"
I'll make the beeps sound authentic, like their out of The Osbornes or something... what were we talking about again?

Zante

I'm not sure the volume of potential abuse is likely to be all that large given the target audience of this game.

codencrazy

Audio I can see being relatively abused, pictures, though would be awesome, and much harder to abuse. If it became a problem (pornographic in nature for instance) you could either:

a.) Make an option in your UI, defaulted to off, so people would manually opt in, accepting all risk this entails
b.) Make images go through some kind of community or developer review process (more on this later)
c.) Have a report option, that instantly blocks your picture to that person, and after a certain number of reports, removes your "right" to have multiplayer portraits
d.) Have an image algorithm checker when you set your NPC image, to flag it as multiplayer shareable or not, and only allow facial portraits to be shared (not too hard with modern technology to check to see if an image resembles a face)

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More detail on Option b.)

I kind of like this idea, maybe if someone in the community (heck, if the hosting was free/officially part of baldursgate.com, and I could take donations, I would do it), or the developer team themselves, posted a user-submitted content gallery for voice packs and portraits.

The user-submitted content would automatically add to the game in an automatic bi-monthly update or something; the content would have to get "approvals" from a certain amount of people on the site, in order to be allowed into the gallery though.

We would have a huge site where we could add our own images, and voice packs, to the gallery, to be included in the game, for "everyone" to use. People would be able to pick/vote on which ones they wanted added, to keep download sizes reasonable on the updates, and the lists from getting bloated, we could include like the top 10 voice packs, and top 25 portraits every 2 or 3 months. Let the community vote on them, and let the community pick additional content for the game, so we would have an ever-expanding arsenal of portraits and voice-overs, that the community as a whole, thought was the best. I would be happy with getting a guaranteed 100 new portraits over a year, and 40 new voice packs, that the community thought was the best.

They could re-use this gallery for Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition as well that way, and for other things; maybe even NPC contests or something, selecting the best/top NPC to be added as a new NPC once per year. New areas, same kind of deal, run the new area contest, limit it to a certain size, certain qualifications, and the best new area, designed by the community, top-voted, once per year, is added to the game.

That way we'd have "official" community content, added to the game, and of course, Overhaul could tweak it as necessary, do stuff that's beyond what we have capabilities to do with the modding tools, and adding official support for it.

This might also help people with the crowd of people that think "hey, I spend 20$ on the product, and all I get is...can’t I go to GOG or somewhere else and get it cheaper? With mods?

Well, no, you cannot; and the more content like auto-updating portraits, in multi-player, especially bi-monthly patches of them, and 1-year content upgrades like a new area, or new NPC, officially baked into the game, that everyone can use, and play with together, cross-platform without mods? That would be awesome.

Stargazer5781

Sure, this could be dealt with pretty easily with a "Do you accept custom portrait Y/N" dialogue and a disclaimer that "Online experiences may not be represented in the ESRB rating."

Corvino

Given the current hoops you need to jump through to get online play to work, most people are likely to be playing online with RL friends. I'd actually expect the likelihood of them transferring something pornographic/offensive is higher than random strangers, for the lulz.

The OP makes a very good point. This feature would be very good, and a simple "do not accept incoming portraits" box would keep it safe for under 18s.

(Are there actually under 18s who play this game? 99% of the folks on these boards played it back in the day)

elminster

elminster endorsed (it sounds like a good idea).

Wiggles

My friends and I downloaded the Super Ultimate Portrait Pack and so when we LAN we have all the portraits available. I know it's impossible, but if everyone downloaded it than everything would be ok.

Freche

While the pack has a lot of portrait there are plenty of people using other images.