Greycat

They ... tried to get names after the script was run? The devs reported the results? You know, something that doesn't rely on players self-reporting? (Not that players would know the name was freed up from another account, no.) But, since apparently the only evidence you'll potentially believe involves me figuring out time travel, inventing a time machine, and hauling you back in time to 2007 to speak with the devs and look at the data personally instead of actually believing what they reported then, I'm stepping out of this conversation as it's fairly obviously a waste of time. 198, see addendum. That's not what you asked, so stop trying to move the goalpost. But even then, no, I rarely need to retry. Hell, my "hit" rate is probably better than that, as I'll come up with an idea (or someone will make a comment in a raid or mission) and I'll try to /friend that name and see if it's available. It is, roughly half the time. I rarely make characters FROM that, but for checking names? Yeah, they show available pretty often. I didn't have to "try again" on live all too often either, and there were far more names used then.

And yet we have people from live here, when it happened, who can back it up. It happened precisely like that. I can think of exactly one name in my hundred-plus characters (I'm probably coming up on two hundred, total, with all servers and both accounts) where this has been an issue. And I make alts... I'm not going to say "frequently," but often enough as a new idea comes along I want to try or an idea for a new character or plot comes along. Edit: Eh, two, but one was so obvious it didn't surprise me. I've been more surprised at the names I *have* gotten.

That's why I had the (generic) in front of "you." To indicate it isn't YOU, ZemX, specifically. And whether you (non generic) want to believe it or not... that's what happened. Would some names be freed that someone else takes? Sure. The actual impact, though, would probably still be underwhelming.

To what extent do you want to take that, though? I mean, if we start that line of thinking for an advanced, high-tech enemy proven to have biotech and portal technology, why are we still seeing Hellions and Skulls 20-plus issues later? They're not even portrayed as a national threat (like you can imply, say, the Family is - clear out one group, others from Miami move in to keep the business going) much less the level of the Rikti. One or two good concentrated sweeps from all the heroes should clear that right out.

There was never an automated name release. That information was copied directly from the wiki which talked (accurately) about both times that script was used. They kept the script handy (and could modify it,) but never felt it worthwhile to rerun it after the second time. And yes, the script found "tons" of names to release (note, it didn't set all the characters to "generic," just marked the names as available.) If the account was inactive (due to suspension, not having an active subscription, whatever - don't forget, this was pre-Freedom) for 90 days, and the character was under level 35, the name was marked as available. The second time it was run, they just changed the level to level 5 and under, as they found the majority of names freed were at that level. The second time, frankly, should have had more impact since it was run in preparation for people being able to transfer servers and rename characters. But here's the thing. Even though all those names were *released,* they weren't necessarily names anyone *wanted.* As the article itself states: Honestly, the script chould have had one more "ideal" time to activate - though I don't think it would have made a difference. The second time the script was run was August 29, 2007. They did a one time (that accidentally ran twice) Prestige grant for SGs, per-member, at the beginning of December 2007. So people set up temp accounts and loaded them with characters that never leveled, just to have the members for a SG to be able to build bases. However, I suspect most people who did that did what I did and used "non-names" - essentially serials (like MB-001 through MB-036) and the script would have had the same lack of impact being run (say) mid-to-late-2008 after those expired. But, again... even if all those accounts were inactive, it doesn't mean the name (generic) *you* want that (generic) you're *sure* is being held by some name-squatting inactive account actually is and will be freed up. Plus we don't have the same definite "active/inactive" indicator we had on live. They had inactive accounts (as in either forced-inactive or not paid) for 90 days they could look at. Here? That 90 days is *nothing,* and can be easy to bypass even for people interested in (but not necessarily focused on) the game. Sure, that can be stretched out to a year or something... but then you're also marking fewer and fewer names as available, too.

Most of my magic-based (or interested) characters are finishing up Croatoa at that point. ... y'know, I don't think I've had Freakshow-heavy arcs for a while, even with my Brickstown/Founders characters...

Flip side being sents have shorter range, so...

I ... wouldn't go that far. There's nothing (as far as I recall) to say the Rikti that were banished back to their dimension didn't keep control over some significant portion of the population and decide to keep trying. We might have thrown things into chaos, but if you're counting that being a decade, that's a lot of time for "stuff" to happen there. And, if we're using that as a justification, shouldn't we kill off Incarnate trials or banish those to "run them through the crystal?" That war's pretty definitively over, or would have to be massively restructured (Praemidon finds a way to try to invade Primal?) after all...

Not ... really. They had a script they ran, twice. The impact of running the script to "free up" names was ... not particularly earth shattering. So, yeah. With *many more* accounts than we have here, it just didn't do that much. (Also I should point to the points that were a bit more severe, not knowing if this would necessarily have to be tied to name issues - losing mail, losing spots in a SG, friends lists being gone, othe rpeoples mail from you being listed as "unknown," etc. If that *can't* be avoided, IMHO that's reason enough not to do it - given I'd rather not lose mail and have characters kicked from SGs from at least one player who died. Death does make it rather difficult to log in....)

Not necessarily. I know I've found myself on hiatus and gone "Hey, I haven't checked on that game for a while, wonder if they've patched that annoying thing / that event is over (see: D3 randomly throwing storms/boulders/etc everywhere at a season start)" and logged in where it's been a year or more. Given Homecoming (and the other servers) had the whole "Will they be allowed to stay? How many will stay? Which will have THE DRAMA?!" on startup, someone could very well have decided to wait it out before becoming attached again.

*Hovers over the blender in an MSR. Pops Ultimate. Drops big piles of rikti to be ground up. Rinse, repeat.* Also lovely with a Warshade that likes Eclipse and Mire.

Yes, I'd love to color and customize my henchmen, repaint my robots, use clones of myself, but there's one other thing I don't think I've seen mentioned as a customization request: "When I finish here, I'm coming for you!" Yeah. The command responses. For instance, the one above is from the Necromancy set Lich. Which fits, thematically, if you're a villain forcing it into service. But not everyone's character is the same - if I'm running around with willing assistants, or "actually robots made to look this way" or what have you, the response doesn't really fit. Same with robots - maybe you want them saying something else. Or beeping. Or not saying anything at all. (Note this is looking mostly at response text. I have no idea if you can shut demons up without making them emote - I suspect that's under sound customization.) I have no idea if this would be easy (since you *can* make them say other things with /petsay) or a real pain, but it'd be nice.

Part of the problem with character backup options for other servers is that, depending on where they branched off and what they've done, the characters could be pretty incompatible. Anything from costume options to powerset changes might make a transfer like that difficult if not impossible (what would, say, Thunderspy do with Fold Space? - assuming they haven't made the same change the same way.) For that matter, what would it do with a Sentinel if that AT doesn't exist? There's a range of what has been changed, too - to my understanding, some wanted nothing to do with the changes done by SCoRE ("issue 25") and started with where things were at shutdown. Which already would cause a vast difference in the games. Not saying it's "impossible," but there are a lot of little land mines waiting to be tripped in a conversion like that.

Running around on my Nec/Poison melee, I'm at a level where I'm considering sets. She does have gloom and life drain, because I want to do more than just watch my pets. :) Its a ranged attack and self heal - and I use it for both (not that it's the strongest at either.) Now, I can go all in on one thing - healing, ranged damage (which for me is usually thunderstrike if I have multiples,) to hit debuff. I can frankenslot, sure. Looking at the Accurate Healing sets, though... while there's a damage proc in Touch of the Nictus, it's still primarily focused on the healing side, ignoring the damage portion of this power. Given most if not all classic ATs, plus Warshades, have some (typically "Dark" flavored - melee or ranged) set with a version of this power, I'd think an Accurate Heal set or two with some focus or boost towards damage as well would be welcome. (Same sort of 10-30, 30-50 level split for the heal-plus-damage sets.) Only Peacebringers and VEATs wouldn't ever have a use for them, AT-wise (I know not all *sets* use them, but the other ATs have powers in some sets that could.) ... no, not going to rough up a set or worry about numbers, this is mostly a "this could be worth looking into." I'll leave the config and number crunching to people who enjoy that. ;)

Cutscenes need to include random snippets of whatever else is going on in game at the time. People street sweeping. Costume contests. Fighting GMs. ERP in a dark corner of the D. Base building. Catgirls insisting the 'nip is for medicinal purposes. Just randomly.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Category:Villain_Contacts Also available by clicking "More" and picking "unofficial homecoming wiki."

And huuuuuge... tracts of land.

Part of the difference, though, is that Diablo (since D1) has always been a loot-based game, from people going for Godly Plate of the Whale and Rings of Jordan in D1 through... whatever they've come up with now. (Personally not a fan of D3, so... I pretty much fire it up once every few months. hold a button down to kill everything on screen for a while, then pack it away again.) While you can *try* to say COH is a "loot" game, it's honestly not. Even "rare" recipes aren't all that rare or hard to get, between just playing the game, the auction house and merits. Just going the merit route, the most expensive thing is 100 merits - and if you ignore everything else (marketing, converting, what have you) I can say that on everlasting you'd have a full set of whatever you want in two nights, hitting the full string of hami raids (3 sets, so 120/80/80 = 280 merits in a night) and the two MSRs in between them (converting, should be able to get at leaat 60-70 merits) - and going "straight merits" is a fairly inefficient way to get kitted out. In a gear game? The shortcut makes sense. Unless you're really grinding, you may not *see* those final pieces for whatever the bonus you want is. In COH? It's a matter of time - and not that much of it. So the need for that sort of shortcut isn't really there - and the content doesn't really support the mentioned overpoweredness it would push. Edit: Also, with most of those gear games, you get a very few bonuses. Say, you have the armor and gloves, you get +3% defense. Add the boots, 5% attack speed, etc. You have a limited number of slots - with inherent properties of whatever gear your using, plus the set bonus, you might have 10-15 bonuses (say.) In COH terms, this would be like having six slots for your primary, six slots for your secondary - not "per power," but to affect the whole thing - then maybe the anciliary and your "epics" would be whatever incarnate bonuses you get. But of course we don't do that. (It'd be a radically different game.) With COH, you've got multiple powers, *each* of which start stacking those bonuses, you can stack them up to 5x each, plus procs and just what your powers *do.* If we could walk our characters - even not top-of-the-line builds - into almost any other game, we'd be starting off as gods and completely break the game because of the bonuses and builds we can have now.

A few things here. 1. Don't say something like this and complain about anybody else being "toxic." This right here is a prime example of toxicity, coming straight from you. 2. The response you were responding to mentioned we're overpowered *already* in the end game, which is true. It's already trivially simple to be perma-whatever and defense capped to where there's essentially no challenge. 3. People will build their characters however they want to, whether you like that or not. Some people want to be Superman. Some people prefer being Clint Barton. Or a regular beat cop or soldier just trying to make it. They'll play the characters they *like.* You don't like that? Too bad.

Who is "Getting in your face" and recording you? If I'm sitting on 27th St. with my camera for whatever reason and someone on the other side of the street gets in my picture, I am not "in their face," nor is this "a scummy thing to do" by *any* stretch of the imagination. If I'm streaming (I don't) it's HIGHLY unlikely I"m "Getting in someone's face" unless I'm PVPing with them. THere's a HUGE difference between "you happen to be caught in someone's stream" and "getting in someone's face and being scummy/deplorable." I swear, this is like the live days where some people insisted anyone and everyone who was the least interested in PVP wanted to kill everyone's character, bake their babies into pies, kick their dogs and burn their houses down.

This line needs a *little* clarification: Winter-Os, yes, expensive. More when buying superior. Overwhelming Force can be (or you can run SBBs.) ATOs... can be. Especially if you buy superior. Attuned set IOs - buy these. THey draw from the exact same pool in the AH. So if you're trying to decide between (say) a level 30 Trap of Manticore's Essence and an attuned one? Buy the attuned. Same price, same number available.

Yeah, magairlin pretty much explained it the way I thought I remembered it. Though I'm wondering if anything can be done with "chest details" to add pseudo-patterns... on the other hand, that kind of brings its own tradeoffs, too.

As far as "streaming tags" and "announcing" - ok, great. As far as announcing, how often should someone be announcing their stream is live? Every five minutes? Every minute? Every 30 seconds? Because if someone's (say) streaming their DFB runs, announce it, I log in - I don't see that announcement. Whether I want to "be streamed" or not (for clarification, I don't care, as long as the person isn't being obnoxious,) I'm now showing for a few moments on their stream as I go about my business. Tagging? Same thing. Do you look around while zipping over to the next mission or whatever to see what everyone's tags are - and in the case of a streamer, which way they're facing? Are you going to run *way* around someone so you don't get "caught on camera?" My guess is no. I'm not against having a tag/color/whatever, and sure, it's polite to say "Hey, I'm going to start in 5 minutes" or what have you, but there's only so much *they* can do and should be *expected* (or even just requested) to do. Get to know who they are, put them on a friends list so you know when they're on. Do your part as well. Honestly, given how much info we already put out *willingly* about ourselves that would potentially be *far* more damaging than anything we might say as a character in an RPG...

... they have killed each other in the past. On live, not sure about here, they've also lasted long enough to do enough damage to each other that players didn't get *enough* damage to get their badges, even after killing them.

Yeah, have to say this is really subjective - I mean, it took a while for me to get a TW character to 50 because I don't enjoy the set. Only did it because I enjoyed the character. However, you want a slow, enemies will die of old age build, Earth/FF controller will do it...