Excraft
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Posts posted by Excraft
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On 1/25/2024 at 5:05 PM, Coyotedancer said:
I play solo/duo mostly... When I do team, it's with the family SG only... So, just having more people around really hasn't made any difference for me.
Same here. Been more of a hassle in the few times we had to queue to log in if I'm being honest.
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To be honest, I'd rather that older, slogfest TFs like Synapse and Citadel get a refresh rather than a straight merit boost. HC could more than quadruple the merits for Citadel and I still wouldn't run it unless I wanted the badge for the accolade.
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50 minutes ago, nzer said:
Regardless of the name policy, blatantly camping 400 names with unplayed level 1s is something that should be actionable. A GM should be able to generic all of those and leave an email saying "please do not do that again, or you will be banned."
While I agree with the sentiment behind what you're saying, this is making an assumption that all of the names are "high quality/desirable". Unlikely as it might be, someone may have created characters named "test001" through "test1000" or any combination of gibberish letter/number combinations just to try various costume concepts. I've done that and I know of others who do the same. We don't have hundreds of characters like that, but it does happen. I'm not sure banning people for poor houskeeping of gibberish names on unplayed characters is a good idea.
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1 hour ago, Skyhawke said:
Do I need to circle the words in crayon?
Sure. Please circle the words where GM Crumpet spoke to the specific quality of the names. Maybe I missed it, but all that was said was they saw accounts with 300 and 400 names being camped. No mention of what any of those names were, gibberish or otherwise. It also wasn't stated how many accounts there are like that or how large a portion of the total accounts they comprise. You seem to be the one making assumptions about this, not me.
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15 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:
Except whoever these people are. Screw them.
Why? For all any of us know, those characters were all named gibberish or something like costumetest001 through costumetest400.
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1 hour ago, BrandX said:
When people thought of Superman, they thought of Christopher Reeve.
That's exactly the point. I'm sure were you to ask most people who was Indiana Jones, they'd say Harrison Ford, not any of the other actors.
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2 minutes ago, Mopery said:
There is no reason for there to be 15 Ubermans on the same server
Why not?
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On 1/5/2024 at 7:02 PM, BrandX said:
Personally I would've recast Indiana.
That's easier said than done though. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is iconic. When people think Indiana Jones, they think Harrison Ford. It's not a simple thing to recast iconic roles like that.
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Going to be honest, this looks terrible to me. Sad as it is to say, I'm pretty much done with superhero movies. The MCU has stunk since Endgame and don't even get me started on the DCU. Good luck to James Gunn. Everything I read about upcoming projects sounds like it's all going to be another steaming pile.
The trailers for this look like more pushing of "the message" instead of actually writing good characters that have good characterization that go on a journey.
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5 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:
I have seen accounts with 300 and 400 level 1's that are just name camping. They are never going to be used.
Would you happen to know how many accounts with 300 and 400 level 1's are there in relation to the total number of accounts? I would wager it's a very small, fractional percentage, if that. Also, how are you determining they will "never be used"? Unless those accounts belong to someone you all know personally who is definitely never coming back, it's still possible someone may use the name, small as a chance as that might be. I'm not suggesting this policy get changed or removed. I'm just curious about the stats as I think it important and more data provides more clarity. Thanks.
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30 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:
Doesn't matter. The name is enough.
I believe you either missed or misunderstood what I wrote.
1 hour ago, Excraft said:Reading the subsequent posts here, I see it was a combo of name and character bio, so yes it should get changed.
I was only commenting on the design of the costume, and not in context of whether or not is should have been genericized. It definitely should have been based on the name and character bio.
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27 minutes ago, ZemX said:
This goes double for all the suggestions further up thread (including yours) that it might be possible to tweak the way names work to allow duplicate names on a server. Something similar to the Champions solution. But if THAT were possible, why did this name release policy even get created OR moved up to the warning phase again, by the people who know how hard it is to do stuff?
You're still misrepresenting this. It's not impossible, nobody said it was impossible to write code that would allow names to be non-unique here. The people who do know the code here and know what kind of effort would be involved with that said that it was a lot more work to do versus re-using the old name release code from live server days. That does not make it impossible, just more work.
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12 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:
My own feeling is that the GMs and team look at stuff in the round.
Given Homecoming's history, absolutely the very last thing they need to be worrying about is a C&D notice from an IP owner.
They have every right to protect this environment and should do diligently. I would be guided by the expression "better safe than sorry" and so should everyone else who plays here.
I don't object to anyone at HC doing what they think is best. I still think some folks are getting very carried away. Reading the subsequent posts here, I see it was a combo of name and character bio, so yes it should get changed. The costume isn't anywhere close to the character though.
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2 minutes ago, nzer said:
It is for precisely this reason that courts regularly rule terms of service to be unenforceable: it is well understood that people do not read or remember them in detail. The idea that players are solely culpable for failing to apprise themselves of the intimate details of something as utterly banal as a name release policy that is only communicated in patch notes and an FAQ is absurd.
Not sure that's a fair comparison. The HC patch notes are nowhere near the biblical length of the service agreement with places like phone service providers, social media, etc.
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3 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:
Rest in peace beyond the rim, Ciitzen G'Kar. You were... perfect:
Looking at this, it confirms my belief that some people reporting these characters are going overboard. The name, yeah I can see that... but the costume? Doesn't look anything like the character from the show to me.
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17 hours ago, Indystruck said:
Yeah okay badges sure neat I guess. I'll get them once and then totally forget about them?
Same. I don't see a need for this to be honest. Players are already building diverse teams to run content. Isn't that rewarding enough for them?
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On 2/6/2024 at 3:20 PM, nzer said:
That player's first exposure to this system is going to be when they see an inactivity icon on one of their alts, likely one buried several pages back in the character list. They may not see it in that 30 day warning period, depending on how often they play and which characters they happen to choose to play. They may not even see it until the name has already been claimed by another player.
Personally, this is a fair point and something I thought is an issue as well. It's a niggle of a UI problem, but to me it will be easy to miss for some to miss for sure. I wonder if there is a way for HC to move any characters to the "front of the line" to show up on the first page of the character listing to make it more obvious to the player?
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12 hours ago, nzer said:
We should not be discriminating against players who are categorically not inactive on the basis of whether they know the exact details of the name release policy. Anyone who is logging in regularly should be exempt from inactivity-based name release, because they are not inactive.
I don't disagree with you here in one respect.
3 hours ago, nzer said:Again, there is no reason the policy has to be written this way,
For clarity, many of us campaigned for this policy to be based on account (not individual character) activity. If the account is active, that player is reachable by others to discuss exchange of a name. A couple of the HC folk contributed to that discussion where they explained how the account tables were separate from the individual shard tables, and there was no easy way to link them together to flag all characters on every shard for that account as "active" when someone logs into their account. I'm sure there are HC folk who could explain this in much finer detail, however suffice it to say they said to do this would be difficult and time consuming, so they opted for the low-hanging fruit solution of reviving the name release code that existed on live. Personally, I think HC should take that whole linking of accounts and characters on shards together properly to solve this issue once and for all so everyone can have the name they want without arguing over this kind of stuff. Given they are volunteers with limited time, makes sense that they went with this policy though. I do hope they can take on larger projects to correct these long-standing issues at some point though.
No doubt there are old accounts from 5+ years ago that haven't been logged into since the "secret" server was announced publicly. At least to me, an account that hasn't been logged into for 5 years (or longer) is abandoned. Your opinion may differ and that's fine.
As for people not reading patch notes or in-game popups, I can't say I agree with you there. The information is readily available to everyone and HC can't be responsible if they provide that info, but the player doesn't take the time to read it. Once this job is set live, I've no doubt it will be put into the patch notes and show up in game. If a player clicks the close button immediately on login, that's on them.
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On 2/3/2024 at 2:12 PM, macskull said:
So I think there's some miscommunication here in how the statistics are being represented. If there are 2 million characters and 700,000 of those are "inactive," then the odds of an already-in-use name being taken by an inactive character is 1 in 3 (well, 1 in 2.85174 but we'll round). The other poster is basically saying the name release policy would free up about 1/3 of the total character names that are already taken.
I can make up math too. The odds of someone getting a name they want is actually 50/50.... they're either going to get it or they won't. See how easy that was? 😁
If Mr. Math Wizard really wants to dazzle people, have him calculate the odds of finding just 1 acceptable name in all the combinations of all of the words in all of the languages you're able to create a name in game with. Chances are pretty good that people will find a good name in that... much better odds than it getting freed up by the existing policy. 😉
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21 minutes ago, Snarky said:
That's great! LOL
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1 hour ago, ZemX said:
I'm not incorrect.
Yes, you are. Embarrassingly so.
1 hour ago, ZemX said:YOU are the one who said the "HC peeps" know what's involved in fixing the problem. That's when I said these very same people are the ones who presented the name release policy in the first place, updated its terms later, spawned a whole feedback thread about it, and then actually activated the warning phase only recently. What does this tell us? Why would they be moving forward with a name release policy and asking us to discuss it (a discussion they had to know would be exactly THIS heated) if they thought this more comprehensive solution, which would make name release utterly irrelevant, was feasible/easy/imminent? That is all I am saying. Your idea that they can pull a Champions here with the name database has shown absolutely zero signs of life from the devs. COULD they be secretly working on it and just not saying anything to avoid raising hopes? Well sure. They could be doing anything. But there's no sign of it. This name release policy is what they've talked about and actually done visible things about.
@ZacKing is absolutely correct. The HC people have shared technical details on this topic in multiple threads and explained the challenges in working with the separate account and character/shard databases, the difficulties in fixing/upgrading the code to change it so that names don't need to be unique and why they chose to go with the name release code instead. That name release solution is the more simple, low hanging fruit method they are comfortable with using since they are volunteers with limited time. I'm sure there are others who have seen the same HC posts who can confirm the same things.
1 hour ago, ZemX said:Yes, the odds are certainly "around" 1 in 3.
The odds of a single desired name even being in a list of 700,00+ to begin with isn't "1 in 3."
1 hour ago, ZemX said:I just rebutted this "gibberish" idea a page or so ago.
You haven't "rebutted" diddly. You've provided your opinion, just like everyone else. You have as much knowledge of what is or isn't in the "inactive" name pool as everyone else does, which is none. You're guessing.
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40 minutes ago, ZemX said:
It seems to be coming from your imagination actually, unless you'd like to quote someone actually SAYING these things you claim we believe.
Imagination has nothing to do with it. Of course some people are getting their hopes up that a name they want is going to get released once the policy is live. Of course there are some people who are hoping the name they want is in that 700,00+ number being tossed around. They wouldn't be vehemently arguing for enabling the job right now if they weren't. To say otherwise is being disingenuous. As for the rest, I never said anything about anyone expecting a 100% guarantee. That's you adding in nonsense that I never said. What I did say was that some (not all) people are getting their hopes up and they're likely to be disappointed. That's it. If you don't feel that's the case, good for you. I'm sure we'll have this very same discussion after the name release routine is set live and the inevitable myriad of complaint/rant posts start cropping up about the job not working right because a name someone wanted didn't get freed up for them.
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3 minutes ago, ZemX said:
Why do you think so? Here is some actual educated guessing...
The post where this was mentioned is from July 2022, so obviously more names have been used (but also more names abandoned) since then. But if we look at that snapshot in time, it's mentioned:
- There are over two million names in the database.
- Roughly 700K are in the 1-5 level range and inactive.
- "Significantly less" are in the 6-49 range and inactive.
These are fuzzy numbers obviously, but even so it's possible to estimate that at that time around 1/3 of names in the database would probably have been freed up by the policy. That means the rough odds are probably around 1 in 3 that any name you were denied back then is on an inactive character just based on this. Obviously, that's assuming no special relationship between desirable names and player inactivity. And it doesn't mean a whole string of names you tried can't all be on active characters either. This is statistics, not certainty.
Fast forward to the present, these numbers might have changed a little, but I doubt by much. Like I said, people have both come and gone since then. It's not likely the needle has moved very significantly. It could be 1 in 3 still or 1 in 4. It's not going to be 1 in 100. The inactives are a not-insignificant percentage of the total names in the database.
And this is where the false sense of hope is coming into play. People see big numbers like this and are getting their hopes up that the name they're after is going to get freed up immediately when the job is enabled. 700,000 names seems like a lot, but how many of those names are just gibberish? Nobody knows.
9 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:
See, they're not yours or anyone else's names. Thinking they are is why we have this problem. You don't own them, you are simply being permitted to use them. And if you're not actively using them there is no reason, other than narcissism and selfishness, that anyone would feel like they are entitled to them.I'm confused. Aren't you saying you're entitled to a name?
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15 minutes ago, macskull said:
My point was that any amount of inactivity-based name release is based on an arbitrary timeline because life happens outside the game and just because someone is gone for a while does not mean they’re going to be gone forever.
15 minutes ago, nzer said:I think the point here is that it's not up to other players to decide what constitutes them being invested in their characters.
That's fair and I agree as everyone is going to have a different opinion on what constitutes "long enough" or when an account can be considered abandoned.
16 minutes ago, nzer said:I would be curious to see the stats on how many failed name availability checks actually hit names that would be considered expired according to this policy.
I'd be curious to see this too. It seems to me people are seeing numbers like "700,000 + names will get released!" and thinking that the one they want will be in there. They're gambling on the hope of it being in that list and are going to be frustrated and disappointed when it isn't.
the Fantastic 4
in Comic, Hero & Villain Culture
Posted
No thank you. Casting Pedro Pascal just cements it for me that this movie is going to suck. I'm sure he has fans and that's ok, but I personally think he's awful and can't act his way out of a wet paper bag. His performance in WW 1984 made an already terrible movie even worse.
Also seems like this is going to be a period piece? Which means yet another multiverse setting of some kind or other silliness. Honestly, the MCU is dead at this point. This is going into the "maybe watch it once its available on streaming for free if there really is nothing else even remotely interesting on" category.
I could not agree more.