Excraft

I'd wager the majority of folks here are vets from when the game was live. We all found something to keep us here for 18 years. Why wouldn't some of these mythical new players do the same?

How do you know that a name you might want isn't on an abandoned account? Something doesn't smell right there. Another player actively playing who has a name you want can be contacted and you can negotiate with them. If they don't want to release it, tough luck on you. Pick another name. I'd be in favor of me being able to take whatever character names you have whenever you aren't logged in and playing them. You're not using them at the time so I should be able to use the name. I find that entirely reasonable. So what exactly is a "typical player"? And as far as not caring, this isn't what roleplayers posting here have said. They have legit reasons for wanting to keep their characters at a specific level. But I get it, it's ok to be inconvenienced so long as it isn't you.

That's a very good point. I can totally see how people who have a lot of alts are going to be in for a real chore with this. Excluding accounts that haven't been logged in for a couple of years, active players should be allowed to keep whatever names they want without being forced into this poorly implemented, annoying login routine to try and coerce them into playing less characters than they want. If you're an active account, you can be contacted and work with another player who might want a name you have. Releasing a name should be up to the player, not annoying code.

Exactly. That's the discussion that should be had, at least I think.

You're asking the wrong question with this. Why are people so interested in playing AE farms over the "correct/good" content in the game? What does that say about the quality of the content outside of AE? Why aren't more people playing it? Not trying to argue here, just that I think these are the questions that should be asked.

Yeah unfortunately the game does use the character name as a unique identifier. The code is super old and wasn't really optimized well. Not something that can be fixed outside of an entire engine revamp as I understood it. Cryptic fixed this in the newer version of their game engine. You see the same ship names and even some character names over in STO and no one makes a stink about other players being named James T. Kirk piloting the U.S.S. Enterprize. It's just not that big of a deal. To your point, here is something truly hilarious - there are people in this thread who are saying that they MUST have names released because they can't just come up with a different variation on a name who are also posting in threads totally berating others for "not being creative enough" with other people's costumes and such. Oh the irony! 🤣

Name camping is only bad if someone else does it. 🤣

Yes to this please. No objection to there being a name release policy for inactive accounts, just the implementation needs a lot of work.

Oh I wasn't thinking you were being deceptive or confusing. I understood you just fine. I get that you all have control over different things. My point was that regardless of what team you're on, people will still view you as representing Homecoming. Sorry if that wasn't clear on my part. No harm done. I still think it would be nice to try and tie into some of the very cool open bases out there somehow. Something for you all to chew on.

That made sense when the game was a commercial venture. It isn't anymore.

I want to play getting vet levels and EMP merits in AE. Can I do that?

So you're all the "Homecoming Team" without being the "Homecoming Team".... k. Understood I guess.

That's just going to create more lag.

You are promoting it. You've held base building competitions and select Dev Choice story arcs in the AE. I get that content is different on each server. Just thought something to point people in the direction of forum threads or other info that would help people find them. Some players sunk quite a lot of work into them to make these bases available for the specifically for the public at large. A few even have very cool bases used for specific themed events like the Halloween base. Just seems a real shame to provide a disincentive to explore these.

I just don't see this as a problem as there aren't really all that many new players coming in from what I can see. That's just my opinion. Reducing lag in the starting zones makes much more sense than this excuse. Why not add something to help promote all these very cool community built bases in game to all these new players instead?

Difficult or not, this is the correct way to do this. Just have any login to the account update all characters on all shards.

Just adding my agreement to those who have said this needs to be account based, not character based. Going to get super annoying real quick to log into alts that are in various stages of being worked on all the time just to preserve a name. "It's hard to code" isn't an acceptable excuse for not doing this by account.

Sure this works great so long as the zone isn't crowded and you can actually get some kills in.

I just don't think they care about alienating anyone who doesn't "play the right way" as they define it. They just don't give a shit and the only people they seem to listen to are the 3 or 4 people constantly crying and whining about farming on the forums. They keep chasing these mythical new players who don't exist in mass numbers, never will exist in mass numbers for an 18 year old game with out of date technology running on a pirate server. They keep making the same mistakes Paragon Studios made over and over again hoping for a different outcome. Of course they can do whatever they want and there's nothing that's going to change their decisions on this point. Best thing anyone can do is just accept their changes and adapt or leave and go play something else. I have a suspicion this is just the first of many more nerfs coming to the AE content and it's pretty clear at least to me what effect those will have. All anyone needs to do is look at all the other "traditional" servers out there being barren ghost towns. What's the difference between farming those missions and farming in AE? People are outside the AE building?

I'm not lost in anything. You clearly are and you're still not getting it. The writers for the new series have made very clear their intentions with what they're doing and their labeling the fans of the series as bigots, racists, fascists, nazis and whatever other isms they can throw at them. If you've got an example of Peter Jackson saying those kinds of things about Tolkien fans, by all means please share it. Peter Jackson's trilogy might have been made before social media, but he's given quite a lot of interviews about it over the years, so again if you can find somewhere where hes' called fans homophobic nazis and racist fascists, link it here. I'd love to see it.

LMAO! Pot, meet kettle. Bullshit. There's no double standard. @ShardWarrior is exactly right. The people behind the new series and those shilling for them have called Tolkien fans everything from homophobes and misogynists to fascists to racists to nazis because they dared to disagree with their totally absurd talent less mangling of the world Tolkien created. They have made it very clear they are absolutely injecting their political beliefs into what they are doing because they can. That much is totally clear. Google is your friend here. Use it and educate yourself. Now, if you can find any interview with Peter Jackson or Philippa Boyens or Fran Walsh where they completely berated the Tolkien fans as nazis or homophobic, by all means please share it and then we can agree they're behaving the same as the Amazon folk. If all Amazon wanted to do was expand the lore and start telling new stories taking place in Middle Earth while respecting the lore, no one really would've batted an eye. Instead, they want to whole cloth distort characters to fit modern political views and inject them where the original author never intended them. Smart decision.

Yes please. Add to this storage items that aren't massive in size.

Yup, but sadly, the Tolkien stuff has been purchased by a corporation who has no intention of sticking with or honoring the source material. The people behind the new series have no real talent, no real knowledge of Tolkien or Middle Earth lore, so they have to bastardize an existing property in the hopes name recognition will attract bring a built in audience. Going to be a spectacular fail IMO and I look forward to this garbage crashing and burning. Same thing is happening with Star Wars and Star Trek. They've been taken over by talent-less hacks.

So what? Was anyone precluded from attending either raid? Was there never another Hami raid run ever again? Get over yourselves. You're proving the point the guy was trying to make about others being pricks and harassing others. Seriously, your reading comprehension skills are just awful. Let me refresh your memory again... "Sounds like most of his issues are his own doing. There are quite a few bad seeds here though and I can see how they'd be pricks harassing someone over stupid stuff. The rest is his own fault really. " First sentence, pay attention to the word "most". Most does not mean "all". Second sentence should be self-explanatory. Or are you suggesting the guy harassed himself? Last sentence should be self-explanatory. Never once did I say the guy is a saint. As I said, clearly some of his problems are his own doing, but not all of them. Given the behaviour of people in this very thread, I can totally see how people like him are harassed to the point of leaving the game. That's the point. Do you understand it now? Happy to clarify more if you need it.

I'm not six months late for anything. I remembered the video which is why I posted it here since it's relevant. Nice try though. 😉 Maybe you think it's all been debunked and good for you. I still see there's a few grains of truth in there. The self-professed gatekeepers and developer white knights here love to try and dictate to others what to do and how to do it. I can totally see how that kind of behaviour is driving away players. Yes, I remember. Did you actually read what I wrote? Let me refresh your memory - "Sounds like most of his issues are his own doing. There are quite a few bad seeds here though and I can see how they'd be pricks harassing someone over stupid stuff. The rest is his own fault really. " So yeah, there are people here being douches to their fellow players and driving people off the game. Is that too difficult for you to understand? Like I said, nice try though. 🙂