Is there any way of removing players' name tags above their heads in SMP?

Question

My friends and I have set up a war server where we basically just kill each other, but we have really elaborate bases and stuff to hide from each other. However, the hidden-ness of us, can get ruined due to the name tags appearing above players' heads whether or not those players can be seen. E.G. I got into my friend's base without him knowing, but he was able to tell because he could see my name tag moving across his screen when he looked into his base. That usually kills the fun.
Should I write to Notch and ask him to add something to change that, or is there any way to fix it, myself?

Answer 1

There's a built-in way to do this (that has built-in balancing drawbacks) and a modding way.

To hide your name from other players, just sneak (crouch) the whole time you are trying to avoid detection. Your name won't show through blocks then, and even without blocks in the way it will be dimmed and harder to read.

The modding way is a Bukkit plugin called HeroSneak that will add a server command /sneak (along with persmissions hooks for who can use it, etc., so as usual you will need other mods if you want to restrict it). HeroSneak exploits the built-in way of hiding your name: it just activates the name-hiding feature with a command instead of tying it to whether or not you are crouching.

Answer 2

The Minecraft client receives packets that are specially formatted. The two that matter are NamedEntitySpawn and EntityDestroy. NamedEntitySpawn lets you spawn an instance of any player, but the player can't do anything unless programmed to do so. You can also take a real person, destroy their entity to all existing players, alter the name, then spawn the entity back. This can cause a huge number of issues because minecraft usernames are assumed unique non empty strings. What you're suggesting may break other plugins.

Answer 3

I think in some Minecraft servers when you're opped you can type /remove nameplate, and it will.