ZacKing

I'm not sure that you'd need to wipe the database to do this? I get that the code is whacky, but this doesn't sound right. I don't think I've ever come across a situation where I had to wipe out all the data in a database to start over from scratch with something. I'm not a professional DBA, but I do know a thing or two about about SQL and databases. There's no way to run an update statement to prepend the global@ to the beginning of character names? You wouldn't be in the chat, unless you specifically wanted to see global names. In chat, your name would still be Bionic Flea. That's how it works in CO and STO. You wouldn't see the global in the name floating above your character either.

I'd like to ask a follow up question if I may. Allow me to preface it by saying very clearly this isn't intended as an insult to you or anyone else personally. I'd like to follow up on this comment - I'd like to know where I expressly said that bases and base building isn't important and that HC shouldn't care about it. I've never said that. I've said yes, it's a small community. I never said HC shouldn't care about it or ignore it. I just understand that it isn't a priority for them and that they should be the ones who decide what they want to work on in their spare time. I'll also say that as a builder myself - and yes, I am a builder - I don't feel attacked in the least that the base CRs position got eliminated. No, I don't see that as a personal insult by anyone at HC, nor do I see it as anyone from HC ignoring builders and bases or not caring. As I've said many times here, I understand this is a passion project run by a group of volunteers in their spare time. I thank them for that effort and appreciate all the work they've put into this project and all the work they continue to do. I may not agree with everything they do or everything they say, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate their hard work. I'd also like clarification as to what exactly constitutes being a "member of the community"? I've built bases, included them in your directory, posted photos of them and such in threads on the forums here and shared the code with others for them to use and enjoy at their leisure. I've spent a lot of time visiting bases others have built and enjoying exploring them. I'm working on several different base projects right now. Is that not good enough? If not, please let me know what the requirements are. Anyway, point taken. I'll steer clear of any of your posts from here on out. It seems like that's for the best. Good day to you. I wish you the best.

Thank your for clarifying. I can see how it might be taken that way. With that said, I tried several times to clarify my position, which I think you and everyone else knows already, and I think you know this isn't what I was suggesting. You'll note that I didn't say I was "glad" about any one person losing a position. I can't help it if that's how people felt or how they interpreted what I said, but that's more on them than it is on me. I think I've apologized and clarified my thoughts enough times to get that message across. But just in case that isn't clear, I'm sorry that people lost a title that meant something to them. I'm sorry people feel bad about it. All I'm suggesting is titles don't change who they are or what they can do or the positive impact they can have on the community. And as has been said already, the actions speak far louder than the titles ever will.

Ok so just for my future reference, I'd like to understand something - are we not allowed to offer differing opinions or perspectives on topics related to bases any longer? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you and I very well could be, and if that's the case I apologize. It seems to me that's the message we're being sent. To be crystal clear, I was not arguing. I was never arguing with you or anyone else. I was not personally insulting you or attacking you at any time. I was only asking questions and offering another perspective on the very thoughts and ideas for changes you were sharing. I provided examples to back up what I was suggesting. Are we no longer allowed to do that here? Maybe I'm wrong, but I had thought that's what discussion forums are for. We may not agree on the need for PR people or CRs or whatever you want to call the role. At least to me, the actions of others devoting their free time toward organizing events and helping other players out is what matters. Again, apologies if you feel like you've been insulted, attacked or berated in some way. That certainly wasn't the intent.

Right so, just to be perfectly clear, I am not attacking anyone nor is it my intent to insult anyone. I have a lot of respect for other players who dedicate their free time toward organizing events and doing things for other players. I've mentioned several of them by name here and thanked them for their generous help. I've also personally thanked @Dacy several times in this thread for all the effort put into doing things for the base community. As far as questioning numbers, I'm sorry but that's just what I do. Please don't take it personally, it's nothing against you personally. I don't take anyone at their word and I was raised to always get all the facts. It's nothing against you personally and I'm not saying you're lying or that you're a liar or anything the sort. A very wise man once said "I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers I can't question." I'm being honest here, but this kind of response from you is just a clear indication of what I said earlier in the thread in that anything that gets questioned gets labelled as "toxic" or "trolling" or "being argumentative." Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it appears to me anyway. I can't help if it you see my disagreement over the need for CRs as a personal insult or an attack. That certainly isn't the case. I don't have "disdain" for the role, nor do I feel like you or anyone aren't worthy of it. I just don't see the role as necessary, sorry. I also don't see how not having a blue title anymore prevents you from continuing to be the kind, helpful person you have been in being generous with your time in working with and helping others. I hope you do get your title back. It seems like it's very important to you, so best of luck in that pursuit. I don't think you need it to do what you do, but go for it if that's what you want and will make you happy.

I agree that there's way more bases now than before because prestige was eliminated and removing that silly system was a good thing. I'd caution against reporting numbers like this though without context. It's like the HC folks giving everyone a false sense of hope in telling people that's there's over 2 million "inactive" names that are sitting there unplayed. A LOT of people are thinking that's an absolute guarantee the name they want is going to get freed up when the name release finally goes live. That's not a good thing to be putting out there in my opinion and it's going to lead to a whole lot of disappointment when a name someone is after isn't released. Anyway, 33,000 bases might seem like a lot, but there are important qualifying questions about that number. Some examples - Over what time frame have these been built and are the accounts of the builders still active? How many of these bases have actual passcodes that can be used by the public at large? How many individual players (not accounts) does that number represent in terms of builders? Just about every single person I know here has multiple accounts. How many of those bases are something more than experiments to try different things to be used in "real" bases? As an example, I have "test" bases I use on alt accounts to try out different things and then incorporate those items/techniques into the base I'm actually working on. How many of these bases are what would be generally be accepted as "contest ready"? How many of these bases aren't just one room storage bins cobbled together for someone's alts? How many of those bases were built by one person who built it for another person? Again, removing prestige is a great thing and I agree there's more people messing with bases now than there were on live. That's a good thing. Whether or not they're a base that people would consider entering into a contest is another story. If there's over 33,000 bases on Everlasting alone and it's been difficult to find people to enter a contest, that's telling to me as to what people are using bases for and how small the building community is in relation to the overall player base. I'm not questioning the overall numbers nor am I saying the sheer number of them means people aren't using the editor and building. Just saying that it's important to have all the context.

Dacy, I understand where you're coming from and what you're saying just fine. I just don't agree that CRs are a necessity or that they'd have as large an impact as you think they would, if any at all. That doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong or you're right and I'm wrong. It's only a simple difference of opinion and two people having a discussion. CRs collating player feedback and suggestions to organize and feed to the HC people isn't going to make more people engaged in running events or make more people feel like they're being listened to by the HC folk. They're never going to please everyone, CRs or not. I think it's you who has been missing what I have been saying. There's plenty of good and helpful and kind players out there who don't have any blue titles, aren't "official" in any way yet are having just as much, if not more of an impact on the community than CRs have. You just don't hear about them or they're basically on one server. As far as player events, they're out there. Here's one group from Torch advertising server wide events to celebrate their anniversary. Here's another one from the leader of the weekly Saturday Night Synapse League on Torch which is a hugely successful player run and player organized event. Here's a shout out to a fellow base builder from another player I too gave a couple people a shout out in the threads I posted who helped me out with building, especially @ShardWarrior who probably spent more than 40 hours helping me out with building stuff instead of playing their characters. I'm being very honest here in saying that getting that level of help and devotion of time from another player does way more for me personally and my sense of the community than any server wide events ever will. This is just one example from me and a few examples I found in 2 minutes of searching the forums. There's a whole lot of very kind, very helpful people here doing all kinds of things in their free time to help make the game more fun for others. You just don't hear about them. My point is that none of the people doing this stuff have blue titles and they don't need them. These are successful player run events that get a lot of participation and are fostering a great sense of pride in the community. That's fair and I would hope you'd understand that to some, the current state of things is good enough for them. Anything new that comes along is icing on the cake. What you consider "good as possible" is going to differ wildly than someone else. Ultimately, it's up to the HC people to decide what's best for them to do in their spare time and the direction they want to take the game. You're welcome. As for whether or not other players will run events, see above. I wasn't suggesting that having CRs would make all requests from players happen. Apologies if that wasn't clear. I was only suggesting that CRs would be getting bogged down with requests instead of HC folk. It's just shifting the work from one person to the next and it would still mean some requests may get worked on and others wouldn't. There would still be those who would be happy with changes and others who wouldn't be. Again, there's no pleasing everyone.

The HC folks have always been working on and from what I can see will always continue to work on things they want to work on. I've also seen there's a very vocal and loyal group of people who are going to lap up every single change made no matter what it is and will continue to support the game and HC for as long as they're alive. It's honestly like watching a cult sometimes lol. I don't mean that as an insult to anyone. HC is never going to please everyone, nor should they try to IMO. As I said before, this isn't a commercial venture. There's no shareholders to worry about hitting revenue numbers for. It's a passion project for a group of volunteers. So what constitutes "toxicity" exactly? Who gets to decide what is or isn't "toxic"? From what I've witnessed here, anything in the slightest that goes against a change being implemented or that questions a decision made by the HC team is labelled "toxic" or "trolling", regardless of how well thought out and respectfully presented. I could go on and on and on and on and on and on with specific examples of this, but there's no point in rehashing any of it. It is what it is and I don't see PR people or CRs changing that ever. Nor do I think even with CRs or PR people or whatever the HC staff will be able to keep up with player demands. That's always the case. I don't know if you've ever been in a leadership or command position of any kind, and if not, you'll quickly learn that you can't please everyone. The HC folk do what they want and work on what they want and listen to a very small subset of players in their inner circle. That's fine by me, I can't change it. I've complained about it before and probably will again at some point in the future, but I also understand it's not going to change nor do I expect it to. Again, this server is a passion project for a group of volunteers. If it were me running it, I'd probably be doing the same thing they are. I don't mean that as an insult to any of them at all. I understand we're all here at their pleasure and they can cut any single one of us off at any time if they want to. It's their house, we're just guests. If anyone feels like they're being marginalized or ignored or don't like the direction this server is going in, there's other options out there to try. Some of the other servers have done some very cool things that are far and away better than anything implemented here as of yet. Again, not an insult to any HC people. Yup. Every single day in my professional life. I know who you all were just fine and thanked you for all your efforts. I understand and appreciate how much work it is to set up events and to get people involved. It's no small feat. All I'm saying is you don't need a blue title for any of that.

For starters, whether an item is "actually wanted" is highly dependent on the individual making the request. As for the rest, well from what I can see, it isn't true at all that there's no line of communication with the HC folks. They're asking for player feedback on changes all the time in the various focused feedback threads. I don't personally use Discord, but from what I understand they listen to and gather player suggestions there too. What players they listen to most is another discussion entirely. I understood what you wrote just fine. I'll reiterate that I don't see adding yet another bathroom sign to the editor is all that important or critically needed by any stretch. I get that it's important to you though. Your post is also making my point about CRs getting bogged down by requests for nice to haves that are personal pet projects for someone. All your doing is making another avenue for ideas to get lost and/or ignored. What happens when the HC people don't implement your idea for a bathroom sign? Start pestering the CR every 5 minutes about whether the HC people heard the idea? It's proving my earlier point that some people can't manage their own expectations and making demands of what a volunteer group should be working on in their free time. CRs won't change that. As far as forum threads being "bogged down with random off topic comments about peoples personal opinions", well you're doing that too. In your personal opinion, another bathroom sign is a must have. To others, it's not even on the bottom of the list nor should it be. The forums are a place for discussion and for people to share ideas.

So I'm not going to lie, but I don't see what you asked for taking a long time being a huge issue. I'm not trying to insult you as it was something that was clearly important to you, but I personally don't see adding that item into bases as being "mission critical" by any stretch. It's also a very good example of how the CRs would get bogged down by tons of requests for personal stuff that isn't really needed or helpful to everyone or the stability of the code. Adding a bathroom sign doesn't do anything to address things like helping to reduce item counts in bases. Changes that'll reduce item counts will lead to less memory and storage and lagging in bases and that's good for everyone, not the one or two people who want a specific sign. I'm sure everyone who builds a base has a list twice as long as their arm for items they'd personally like added. I've made a few suggestions on that front too, but I can admit they're more "pet project" things that are nice to haves for me and I'd much rather see more comprehensive changes made that increase stability of the code and reduce the lagginess in the editor.

That's fair and I see this mentioned by a lot of people. The games got a very healthy playerbase from what I can see and there's literal tons of veterans playing who've been around since the game went live 20 years ago. They don't appear to be leaving anytime soon and from what we're told, there are new players coming in every day. Donations are filled in literal minutes every month, so I don't see that as being a problem either. The game and the loyal players don't look to be going anywhere anytime in the foreseeable future. I'd be more concerned about the HC folk getting burned out and not wanting to do it anymore than I would about a dwindling player base. I don't know that'll really make any difference to be honest. We already have a lot of great, very kind people here with excellent people skills who don't have blue titles and aren't affiliated with HC. I've had a couple of really kind players devote way too much of their free time helping me out with building stuff. I don't think HC needs that kind of role when the players themselves can do it just fine and don't have to worry about whether or not they're following proper protocol. haha I'm not the only one! 🤣 It's all good though. The editor is what it is. I think it's important to say that I personally don't feel like I'm being marginalized if changes I'd like to see to the editor don't get addressed and stuff I'd like to see added into it doesn't happen. I understand the HC folk are volunteers and they're doing this in their precious spare time for free. I think more people need to understand that IMO. If they see something I suggest and want to act on it, great. If not, oh well. Of course I'll try to advocate for changes I'd like to see, but in the end, I get it that this is a volunteer group doing this in their spare time. Maybe more people who are feeling that they're being marginalized need to manage their expectations better. Others might feel differently and feel like they're being ignored. That's a personal thing though. I'm not sure I understand why we couldn't have base crawls without CRs? There's all kinds of player run events going on every day. Just last weekend I brought a Kronos Titan to the weekly Saturday Night Synapse league which is a hugely successful and ongoing player run and player managed event on Torch. I'm not sure why base crawls would be any different? Back in the live days, on Triumph there used to be Supergroup Faires where SGs would recruit and host all sorts of contests and such. That was all player run too. That kind of stuff happens here, like nightly Hami raids and MSRs. It just takes interested and motivated people who want to make that stuff happen to do it. This is an interesting topic and discussion to be sure. I respect your perspective on it.

I was bummed to read about this, but given what I've witnessed firsthand from some of the HC folk, I can't say I'm at all surprised and to be honest, you're better off. That's all I'll say there and leave it at that. I think people are forgetting that HC is not a commercial for profit venture and it's never going to be one. They don't need "PR" people for HC. It's just making more work for a volunteer staff. IMO they should continue to focus their limited time in developing the game the way they see fit and doing what's fun for them. Having to come up with all kinds of training materials, new positions that need to be monitored and such is another step toward making their limited volunteer time into a full time job, which I don't think is the goal. Somebody said in base chat the other night that we really don't need CRs at all. I agree to be honest. Only speaking for myself, gold titles and merit rewards and such don't mean anything for me. I really like the whole base crawl more than a contest, especially since it's a small enough community that less than a handful of people are ever going to get a real shot at winning top prizes in a contest anyway. To be honest, it's more special I think when it's run by the community instead of having any HC involvement. We just don't need it IMO. At least for me, sharing a creation with the community or being able to visit other peoples bases is the real reward. Anyway, that's my 2 inf. Thanks for all your continued efforts. Other than not having a blue title anymore, I honestly don't see the difference.

Sorry mate, but this isn't true. I played the game and visited the retail forums frequently back during the live days and I don't recognize any of those names. Sorry if I don't remember your friends though. Does that mean I'm not part of the community then?

That base is truly amazing @ShardWarrior! I'm honestly blown away by this one. It has to be seen to be believed. I'm really impressed with the level of effort that must have went into building something of this scope. I think the engineering section is my favorite. Reminds me of the engine room from Galaxy Quest! But I love the bridge and command center too. This base really deserves a showcase/walkthrough tour video from @Dacy. I also just love the thought you put into the story behind these bases and the supergroups. Wanted to ask ... What exactly are they looking for?

Just being honest here, there's a real big difference between someone known by a billion people and a small handful of folks known by a small handful of other folks from the forums of a video game. Just so I understand, if we've never heard of any of those people you mentioned, we're not part of the community? I don't think that's what you're saying or what you're intending, but wanted to ask because that's certainly what it sounds like. If it is what you're saying, well then you're just wrong. We're all part of this community whether we've heard of these other players or not. I'm sure there's lots of people that remember those names from back in the day and that they're famous to them. I don't think that automatically means they're considered famous by everyone, nor do I think not knowing who they were/are means you aren't part of the game community.

WOW! I am blown away by this base. These pics definitely don't do it justice. It has to be see to be experienced. Thank you @ShardWarrior! You are most definitely the GOAT! 😁

I didn't assume anything, and I think you know that. You haven't offended me. If you want to keep looking down your nose at others, go right ahead. You keep doing you. I don't need to stroll through your bases at all, nor do I want to. I'm sure they're ok as is and I'm sure there's much, much better ones out there.

Just being honest, but I read that post you quoted differently. And unless that GM spoke in person to the player in question and that player admitted they "stole" names just for the sake of being a prick, you can't say your interpretation is correct. I admit I don't know much about that person in particular either. If they did do this out of spite or malice or just to be a jerk, then yeah, they're a jerk. I don't think they should be forced to give up the names for that though. If they're still active, they can be contacted and negotiated with to release a name.

So long as they made it clear in advance this is what they're doing, I don't see a problem with it. Like you said, no one is holding a gun to your head to join the team.

I can't imagine it's that difficult to copy/paste the item code for a storage rack and have it reference a smaller, already existing item like a crate or pallet or box. I say that without no knowledge of the internal coding of the game, just saying it doesn't seem that impossible to do.

This is very arrogant and just as close minded. You may well be efficient and fast with the editor, that in no way means everyone else will be regardless of how much time they spend editing. Not everyone is at the same skill level. Jordan knew others weren't at the same skill level as him, but he didn't look down his nose at them either. The base editor isn't "easy" or "effortless" or whatever other word you want to use to describe it when it comes to building above the base in rooms with thousands upon thousands of items. As someone said in the base building chat the other night, the editor simply wasn't designed to work in the way it is now, and anyone trying to claim otherwise is trying to sell you something it isn't. The editor works very well and is easier to use if you stick within the confines of the interior base rooms. That's not hard to learn how to do. Fabricating complex structures, items and environments is a whole lot more tedious work than just drag and dropping an existing item into a room.

The Current Room items list very desperately needs to have search functionality added to it. Finding one single item in a list of potentially thousands that can be in a room is an extremely tedious and painful process to the point of it being unusable. Nice to haves would be smaller functional items or single items that can hold the total number of salvage items or teleport points. Cimeroran NPCs and Store/Trainer NPCs for bases would be great too

Very cool!

Yes, I know. I was joking, hence the LOL emoji. 🤣

Just wanted to say, after visiting this base, I've started watching all of the Star Trek series again. 😁