Excraft

"Comments like this" are easily avoided by allowing respectful discussions of other servers to take place. Restricting the topic is inviting people to comment. Making rules to squash healthy, constructive discussion isn't a good look in this case. Seems very strange to hand out warning points over something so trivial and so arbitrary.

With due respect, I have an honest question about this. There's a whole subforum devoted to discussing video games here where forum members can discuss and critique all manner of other games. None of those other game makers can comment or address points raised about their games either. What's the difference here? Is it because the other CoH servers are direct competition to you? Is it because those other servers are accomplishing just as much, if not more in many instances than HC is with little to no financial backing from player donations? Something seems really weird about handing out warning points and such to members who just want to talk about what some of the other CoH servers are doing, especially if the discussion is being done in a respectful way.

Is this counting real players or just accounts? What portion of these are people double or triple boxing on multiple accounts?

Have to admit, it's really telling that your ire about strawmans is directed solely at me while appearing to be perfectly fine with others doing the same to me. You're welcome for your new downvote. 😉

I understand perfectly how the system works and that it is being done this way whether I like it or not. I just disagree with the implementation which I believe we're allowed to do here. Assuming it's ok with you of course. I'll also reiterate yet again that inactive accounts (accounts that haven't been logged into for more than a year or two) should have all names regardless of level opened up. I see, so its ok for others to misrepresent what I wrote, but its not ok for me to respond in kind. Got it. Thanks for making my point for me. Good day to you 🙂

This is nice. It's got nothing to do with what I was saying and its way off base, but it makes for an interesting and entertaining read regardless. I think it's fishy because it seems like the assumption is if an active player is messaged about releasing a name they won't do it, so let's just make them do it by adding a new (albeit trivial) requirement. That doesn't seem to fit with what I've seen here on these forums with people releasing names publicly to those who would like them. Sorry, but if people are going to misrepresent or twist what I've said, I'll respond to correct it. Thanks. 😉

Nice try, but I haven't defended non-players who don't play anymore. I've said the opposite. I've said it a few times throughout the topics on this over the years. Here's a few examples from this thread since you obviously missed them. I understand that the norm here is to attack anyone who doesn't agree with and fall lock step in line with every single decision the folks here make, but putting words in people's mouths and misrepresenting what they've been saying isn't accomplishing anything for you.

Out of curiosity why was this even a requirement? If the account is still active, the player can be contacted and negotiated with to release a name. Is the assumption that most people won't release a name? We've got threads in most all the server forums here of people releasing names, so seems to me that most people would be willing to let a name go if they aren't using it. If they don't want to, they shouldn't be forced or annoyed into releasing it. Something seems fishy with this requirement.

You could PL a character to 50 long before AE even existed. It's a very bad idea to try and impose one way and one way only as the "right/correct/approved" way to play and enjoy the game. Lots of things are new here that required programmer time to design, build and test. Not trying to be disparaging as I think it safe to say everyone appreciates all your efforts, but it sounds like you all took the easy route on this one instead of putting together something that's a better solution more in line with modern games. You can take whatever route you want of course, it's your server, however what you've implemented here is obviously very annoying and a nuisance to RPers and IMHO sends the wrong message to any potential new player. You're basically telling them "play or lose your character". People play different things and take breaks from time to time. I know if I were a new player, I'd be super annoyed that my characters were lost because I hadn't played in a while, especially when other games don't rename or delete anything. It sends the wrong message. A group of us recently got back into LoTRO after about 3 or 4 years. Our characters, gear, kinship, everything was all there just as we left it. This game doesn't have anywhere near the server population that a game like that has. Seems very funny that the people here who promote and encourage (and enforce) creativity and "originality" are the same people who can't be bothered to be creative when using a thesaurus to come up with a different character name if the one they want was taken.

Yes, I've offered my opinion on what would should be done as I believe in the long run, it's a better solution. We're allowed to share our opinions here. Again, I never said it was an easy thing to do. You're trying (and failing miserably) to put words in my mouth. What I did say is that there has to be some connection between accounts and characters on shards. You don't need to be a database administrator or expert coder to understand that much. Nor did I say the folks here are incompetent or incapable. Nice trolling attempt though. 😉

I already volunteer my free time to defend my country and help my local community, along with coaching kids basketball and soccer. We don't have to be volunteering here to be able to share ideas, and disagreeing with the direction taken doesn't make our opinions any less valid. I never said it wasn't difficult, nor that I don't believe anyone when they say its difficult. Nice try though. The best solution isn't always the easy one.

So? That makes them incompetent or incapable of making complex changes to the code? Seems to me they have the time and people to take on big projects. Wouldn't something like tying this to accounts - or better yet, changing the code to use account/character instead of just character - be worthwhile to the long term health of the game?

It's possible but I think it safe to say the game has a link between an account and characters on shards. It has to otherwise it wouldn't know what characters to display when you picked a shard. That can be used to flag activity at the account level.

I don't have my hopes up for anything. I'm just going by what we were told. Most of the ones with actual words are most likely 50s that are excluded from the naming policy. The rest sounds like meaningless gibberish words.

How many of those 600K are actual words and not gibberish? People are being dazzled by big numbers and getting their hopes up.

The game has to be able to know whether an account is active or not from back when the game was subscription based or even when it went F2P. The game has to have some link between account and characters on a shard, otherwise it wouldn't know what characters to display once you've logged in and selected a shard.

It's a meaningless metric, measurable or not. It's a non-issue. Amazing you don't see the irony in your own post. You're supporting releasing names because "people aren't using them", then go on to talk about all the crap you have but never use. 😉 But that's ok because it's you.

Very similar to where I work. We've got data that's going back to the days of 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. Trying to use "database stability" as the reasoning for deleting characters is silly.

And players are the ones holding the names. If they're active, you can message them and negotiate for the release of a name. It's not complicated or difficult to do. It literally takes under a minute to message another player. I get it though, someone getting annoyed by all of this naming stuff is ok so long as it's the next guy. Because that's where this is going. People are already suggesting players are just going to PL characters to 50 and park them to exclude them from this name release silliness. The GM even said above that chances are pretty likely most of the "desirable" names are 50s. That just leads to people coming here and crying about not getting a name they really wanted and demanding that ALL characters regardless of level should have names released. To me, that's ridiculous. Why not take it to a free for all then? If you aren't actively logged in, your character names should be fair game. That's how ridiculous this whole thing has gotten in my view. I'll repeat, if an account hasn't been logged in for a couple of years, go ahead and release all of the character names. But if a player is still active, they can be contacted to negotiate the release of a name and not be forced into some silly policy because a few people can't be bothered to use a thesaurus or do without. Like I said, I get it. It's ok for someone to be annoyed and for someone to lose out so long as it's the next guy. I totally agree this should be done by account, not character. I get that there's technical limitations in doing that, but as far as I remember it was never said it would be impossible to code. I think the folk here are smart enough to come up with a better solution than this.

I'm not here to persuade or win anyone over to anything, just as no one else is here to win me over. I'm having a discussion and offering my personal viewpoint, just like everyone else. If that's alright with you of course? ^ This is the point I think a lot of people are missing and why I believe this effort was a waste of time. Seems like a lot of time spent on something that's going to offer very little, if any return in the long run. Everyone should be prepared that level 50s are going to be added to this since there's no doubt going to be a lot of crying about names not getting released even after this goes live.

Correct. That's my opinion. I never said it was fact. Good try though. 🙂 And yes, they have more information but for some reason won't really share too much of it. 😉 You missed the point. The argument for all of this is "use it or lose it". Ok, well if you aren't logged in and playing your characters, then their names should be immediately available to be swiped as soon as you log off. You aren't using them, so they should be fair game. No need for timers. But it's ok, I understand that it's fine to swipe a name, so long as it's the other person who loses out. Again, this should have been based on account, not character, inactivity. Someone who's got a lot of alts but still actively playing can be messaged to negotiate for the release of a name. If they account is inactive for years, go for it and release all the names on the account. Better yet, take the time to code this properly so names are a combination of account-character, like Cryptic did. It's my understanding the folks here already understand what the hurdles are with that. Surely they are smart enough and capable enough to do that. Fix that and this drama about name swiping nonsense becomes a non-issue.

I'd agree so long as any character you have that isn't actively being played at the moment can have the name swiped from you. You aren't using it, right?

LOL! Absolutely hilarious how far off the mark you are here. Like, not even remotely close. My "actual problem" is that this effort to code this nonsense was a colossal waste of time. Seems like quite a lot of folks here are getting their hopes up that the name they're hoping for is going to get freed up and they're only going to be disappointed. Chances are very unlikely they will get the one they're looking for, and there's more than likely going to be even more complaining once this goes live when by chance someone else grabs a name first. It's great to say "2 million names!" will get freed up. How many of those names are gibberish? If they aren't words people would be looking for, they can free up 200 million names and it won't make a difference. You're being dazzled by numbers without knowing all of the information. In all my years playing this game, I think maybe once there was a name that I tried was taken, and at that point I used this little known thing called a Thesaurus to come up with something else. If by chance a name I tried here, I'd do the same. I certainly wouldn't come crying on the forums about how my life is over because I couldn't name my character SuperCoolMcShooterGuy and demand that the owner of it release it to me because I THINK they may be inactive.

Ok true but how many people are making dozens of free accounts and filling up every character slot on every server? Pretty safe to say there's less than a handful if any at all doing that. How many of those are "desirable" names and not just gibberish?

Yeah this is true, but you can infer a lot of things based on that post.