Excraft
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Posts posted by Excraft
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On 6/1/2023 at 10:25 AM, Captain Fabulous said:
If people didn't harbor resentment, contention, and animosity between the servers then I would likely agree with you. But knowing those exist it's wise to just avoid discussion of other servers altogether. Even in places like Reddit such discussions get messy very quickly. Discretion is very often the better part of valor.
I don't disagree that some people can get very passionate about the subject, but the same can be said for any topic. If moderating is such a big concern, just add this to the CoC and ban any and all discussion of other servers and be done with it. Seems weird to single other servers out but allow discussion of other games IMO.
21 hours ago, lemming said:The discussion is probably restricted because someone would have to monitor said discussion to make sure it doesn't go off the rails.
It's the same reason they don't want other topics discussed in the chats because there are people who debate in bad faith and it's a headache to monitor.
Having to monitor and moderate forums and chat rooms and such comes with the territory though and if you want to host those things, you have to deal with the consequences of your decision. Pretty sure the mods here have to keep an eye on all kinds of topics. Like I said above, if they don't want people talking about what other servers are doing, add it to the CoC and just outright ban discussion of the topic.
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2 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:
This is not constructive nor respectful discussion. Banning discussion of other servers prevents people from making these kinds of inappropriate comments.
That's your opinion which you're more than welcome to. It certainly wasn't my intent. I notice you selectively edited out the part of my post where I began with "with due respect."
2 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:They don't want people bashing other servers. Or this one in comparison to others. Or getting into long drawn out arguments of "well so-n-so server does this, why can't Homecoming?" The mods here already have enough work, let's not make more for them.
There are other neutral places to take such discussions, like Reddit or Discord.Reading the OP and follow up from the GM, it sounds like the post made wasn't bashing any server. As far as bashing other games, there's a thread in the Video Games subforum right now discussing the worst games ever. I'm sure some people can get very visceral and disrespectful of other games they didn't like and those game makers can't come here to respond. Allowing threads like that isn't making more work but somehow discussing other CoH servers does? Not trying to be disrespectful, what you're saying here doesn't quite add up for me.
As far as mods needing to respond to posts where newer players may ask why HC can't do what other servers have done, the mods here have already addressed that, a few times as I recall. Players can help by linking to those responses in threads to answer the question.
I understand this is their house and their rules and they can do whatever they want. I've no objection to whatever rules the folks here decide to put into place.
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7 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:
Because they want to avoid comments exactly like this.
"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.
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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.
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Is this counting real players or just accounts? What portion of these are people double or triple boxing on multiple accounts?
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42 minutes ago, ZemX said:
so I'll just collect one more childish down-vote from you, if you don't mind, and then I'm done wasting my time on you.
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. 😉
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20 minutes ago, ZemX said:
First off, this is exactly what it means. If someone won't voluntarily give up a character but also refuses to play them for more than a year (and they are not 50) then their name becomes unreserved and if someone tries to use that name, they'll get it. That there are some people willing to voluntarily release names doesn't mean literally everyone is gong to or that nobody should have to. It also doesn't do anything about inactive accounts. This plan handles both at the same time and with an amount of effort the devs are willing to expend on it. It's not the way you'd like it done. We get that. But it's the way it IS being done.
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.
22 minutes ago, ZemX said:Saying it doesn't make it so. You absolutely just accused everyone disagreeing with you of doing so simply out of a desire to attack you and to be "in locks step" with the devs. That's a strawman AND an ad hominem. If you don't understand why then it's probably not worth continuing to argue with you. I can present logical arguments, but you seem to have trouble doing the same.
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 🙂
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16 minutes ago, ZemX said:
There is nothing fishy here. It might seem that way to you if you think your view of character name ownership is somehow objectively correct. It is not. There is no equivalence to personal property here. Nothing is being taken from you, because you don't own it. That should be apparent to anyone who saw all "their" stuff go poof when the Live servers came down. And it will happen again when HC shuts down for good. That day WILL come, btw.
The idea of your character lives in your head and in there, it's yours. The digital representation of that on some MMO server is not yours. Never has been. You're leasing it. These are the (now updated) terms and conditions of the lease. And those of us arguing FOR it will be just as subject to those terms as anybody else. I care about my character names too. That's why I play them.
Use it or, eventually, lose it. It is a reasonable proposition and hardly unique to Homecoming. And one year is a very reasonable timeline. 50s being permanent is more than reasonable, in my opinion. You may not think so, but really, stop pretending this is some universal truth. It's just your opinion. It is not shared by the people in charge. Tough break. It could easily have been the other way round. Neither position is "correct".
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.
14 minutes ago, ZemX said:You've done little else here but build strawman after strawman of your opponents' arguments. Now everyone disagreeing with you is just doing so to agree with the devs? Nobody but you has thoughts of their own with any merit? How convenient for your own argument when you get to say what everyone else is thinking, eh?
Sorry, but if people are going to misrepresent or twist what I've said, I'll respond to correct it. Thanks. 😉
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20 minutes ago, Ghost said:
Also seems funny that people will defend non players, over actual players
I mean, they cant defend themselves because they NO LONGER PLAY
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.
On 2/21/2023 at 9:41 AM, Excraft said:If the account is inactive for years, go for it and release all the names on the account.
21 hours ago, Excraft said: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.
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.
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13 hours ago, Number Six said:
Since the design goals for the name release system included dealing with active accounts that have 10 active and 900 inactive names that haven't been touched in years, there wasn't any sense building an extra system to look at account activity that doesn't meet those requirements.
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.
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5 hours ago, UltraAlt said:
It used to be a badge of achievement to get to level 50, that is not longer the case. That is long gone. You can doorsit a character in the AE, go AFK in a couple of hours, and the character is level 50.
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.
9 hours ago, Number Six said:The authentication server of course knows, and the second part of your question seems to be, well why can't the shards just ask the auth server "when did User3897 log in last?". The answer is that sure, we could build something to do that, but no channel of communication currently exists to do that so it's a net new system that would require programmer time to design, build, and test. Programmer time that is currently being spent on other projects.
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.
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13 minutes ago, MHertz said:
You said a lot about what “should” be able to be done, without (as far as I can tell) any experience or knowledge that would make yours an informed opinion. If the devs say it’s not a thing they can easily do, I’ll side with them, rather than accuse them of being “incompetent or incapable” (your words).
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. 😉
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23 minutes ago, MHertz said:
Again, I reiterate, they are looking for people with knowledge and applicable skills. Armchair vaporizing does no one any good.
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.
24 minutes ago, MHertz said:Or just maybe when the devs say something is difficult, we … believe them? Crazy, I know.
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.
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39 minutes ago, MHertz said:
It is a volunteer staff.
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?
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1 minute ago, Greycat said:
This one, I'll argue we may not actually have - not in the same way, at least, as we don't have a subscription / payment server (NCSoft has that, and it's not something the live COH devs would ever have touched, because it's not part of the game.) While I'm not a database developer or anything, that is something that could have been handed off sort of like -
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.
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8 minutes ago, MHertz said:
If you’re assuming those 600k names are mostly gibberish, then you’ve got your hopes up too. Some of them will be idle names like “Phoenix Dark Dirk Steel” that are useful to very few. Some might be names like “ashagsjah” that people used as a mule or as a base builder or as a spammer. But I’d wager a good portion, maybe 60%, will be at least second-tier names that would smooth the process of getting a character online: the whole Darkblade, Shadowblade, Nightsword, Starstab, Shadeknife iteration people go through when they can’t think of anything really superior. Maybe 5% would be names that make people go “yeah, awesome!”
I don't have my hopes up for anything. I'm just going by what we were told.
On 2/20/2023 at 1:23 PM, GM Crumpet said:I think Number Six said a number that was mind boggling, but are they names people would actually take? Good solid names are most likely to be level 50 characters which would never be picked. A lot of the inactive names are pretty random and aren't likely to be chosen by another player. You might be lucky and find the perfect name that has been languishing on page 9 of someones alt list for three years at level 1. I wouldn't rely on it though.
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.
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1 minute ago, MHertz said:
We still have the issue of, what did we estimate, 600K potential names being freed up, out of 2M names? That’s a number worth discussing. That’s 30% of the existing characters — it’s not nothing.
How many of those 600K are actual words and not gibberish? People are being dazzled by big numbers and getting their hopes up.
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3 minutes ago, MHertz said:
I believe it was already mentioned that this is a distinction the game cannot make, because there is no “account activity” that can be tied to a character. I would be in favor of this hypothetical example, for all the good it does.
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.
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4 minutes ago, MHertz said:
At least it is a measurable metric, as opposed to hypothetical scenarios about people who feel a certain possessiveness about a thing they don’t care enough about to use, but can’t allow anyone else to enjoy.
I keep boxes of old crap in my garage too. MIDI cables, external Zip drives, old computers, portable CD player, chargers to batteries that turned to lumps of acidified plastic long ago. If I’m honest, I’m never going to haul out that old PowerMac 7100 and play “Fool’s Errand” ever again. If someone was volunteering to clean that crap out, I would never miss it. I might go, “Dang.”
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.
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2 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:
In my previous job the company kept every fiscal transaction, along with all the associated medical information ( procedures, resources, guarantors, insurance [including how it changed over time], contact information, providers, locations, payments, charges, etc.) going back for 30 years.
It is hard to see how our character, especially coming from what was constrained by the technology of 18 years ago, is really producing that much clutter in terms of modern storage.
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.
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26 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:
I disagree. It's not about whether a player is active or not. It's about characters, as those are the things that hold names. If you're an active player you shouldn't have any issues taking the time to at least log in a character whose name is flagged for release. I mean, it's not complicated nor difficult. It literally takes under a minute per character.
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.
56 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:No one is advocating for immediate release. No one. I don't even know why you went there.
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.
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46 minutes ago, Mjolnerd said:
Oh, I see we're doing that instead of having a discussion.
Very persuasive. Surely it will win folks over to your side and convince them to take your opinions seriously.
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?
21 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:I will say that there is a huge number of names that would potentially be released. I think Number Six said a number that was mind boggling, but are they names people would actually take? Good solid names are most likely to be level 50 characters which would never be picked. A lot of the inactive names are pretty random and aren't likely to be chosen by another player. You might be lucky and find the perfect name that has been languishing on page 9 of someones alt list for three years at level 1. I wouldn't rely on it though.
^ 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.
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On 2/19/2023 at 11:25 PM, Ironblade said:
No. Your OPINION is that it was a waste of time. However, the people actually allocating the time and effort clearly do not agree. I would also point out that they are in a position to know how much effect it will have, while you are not.
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. 😉
On 2/20/2023 at 1:03 AM, Captain Fabulous said:And that's exactly what will happen. The policy applies to everyone. If someone takes a name that was released and they don't play the character the name gets released again.
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.
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2 hours ago, SaintD said:
Honestly, level 50's shouldn't be immune to this.
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?
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The Marvels
in Comic, Hero & Villain Culture
Posted
Scores on Rotten Tomatoes are notoriously suspect, same as any other site where "customer" reviews and product ratings are easily manipulated by bots and sellers paying for good reviews. The Marvels being good or bad is subjective, but numbers don't lie. Overall, the 46 million dollar opening weekend followed by a near 80% drop off in the following week is enough to inform you that the movie isn't performing and is a complete box office disaster.