ZacKing

No one is suggesting people should not be held accountable for violating the CoC and ToS they agree to by logging in. Where you're getting that from is beyond me. I agree, the onus is on the player to read the rules, however I can totally understand why most people don't read it. There is specific verbage in the CoC that talks about wasting volunteer time. If adding some instructions/clarification into the costume editor about not violating existing trademarks helps eliminate a good chunk of the trademark violation reports, that's freeing up volunteer time to do other things like helping out players with in-game bugs and issues.

You seem to have missed the part in my post where I specifically pointed out that the names were only part of it. Costumes and character bios were violations too. Again, it's not up to any of us to decide. It's HC's call. Making the parts in the CoC about not violating copyrights/trademarks somehow more prominent is what I was suggesting. I play mostly on Excelsior, Torchbearer and sometimes Everlasting. Mostly Excelsior. I see flagrant violations fairly regularly there. Spend some time in Atlas Park and they're cropping up. Thank you. At least someone got it! I think you might have something there. We do have loading screen tips... maybe it could work in the character creator. Not a bad idea at all.

That's wonderful, thank you. Still seem to be missing the point of the thread though. Insights into trademark law are totally irrelevant as the rules here are the rules here, so whatever armchair legal interpretation any one of us may make, they're ultimately irrelevant as what HC says goes. It's their server. I'm just wondering if there's a way to make this part of the CoC more visible / prominent so more people are aware of it.

Yes, it is there. That wasn't really the point though.

Ok so I didn't start the thread to belittle and bash people over their "lack of creativity and/or imagination." Let's please not turn it into that. If you want to look down your nose at others because their character(s) don't live up to your creativity standards, go right ahead. You do you. For the record, I don't care if people want to play Superman or Spider-Man or Wonder Woman or Batman or Iron Man or Howard the Duck. If playing your favorite character from your childhood brings back fond memories for you and makes you happy, go for it. More power to you. It's not my server though and not my decision to allow it. For better or for worse, we can't do that here and these are the rules we all have to agree to when we log in. I'm just saying I'm seeing a lot of it lately and tossing out the idea that maybe something could be done to make the "no trademarks" part of the CoC more visible to be more obvious. I'm sure there's people who generally don't know about it. It would suck for them to get invested in the game only to log in one day and be disappointed to see GenericSuperDude0034543 where their favorite character once was and quit the game over it.

For clarity as I think you might have misunderstood my post.

Not sure about anyone else, but I've been seeing a whole lot of people using trademarked names, words and costumes of late. For those who don't know, the words Jedi and Sith are trademarked by Lucasfilm/Disney, so no, despite protestations to the contrary, you can't have a character named Jedi Fred or Darth Bob in the game with a costume that's spot on for Obi Wan Kenobi or Darth Maul with a profile that talks about your prowess with the force. You also can't be dressed up like Batman or the Flash or Superman and say your SS/INV tank with a profile that mentions how you're from Krypton is "cosplaying so it's ok". I know hardly anyone reads the CoC or ToS when they agree to create an account and sign in. There's been a lot of this lately. I feel bad for the GMs who must be getting flooded with tickets over it. Maybe the parts about not violating copyrights and trademarks needs to be made more prominent?

Right. Moving toward the WoW model of must have tank/heal/DPS trinity to do anything. This would be sweet, although I suspect its way too much work to implement. Not saying HC couldn't do it, just that its a big project for a volunteer group.

Well no, there's no bad faith comparison being made. There's nothing wrong in pointing out the fact that your "you didn't try it, so you can't comment on it and your opinion doesn't matter" just doesn't work.

I'm not underestimating anything. I'm speaking from personal experience. It's not worth re-hashing in this thread, but you do have a lot of people here who throw hissy fit temper tantrums when someone questions them, questions numbers they provide or offers an opposing point of view that runs counter to their world view. I'm happy to send you specifics via PM.

Yeah, a lot of that in the Suggestions forum is noise, but I don't think that's what was meant. As far as the beta feedback, I've definitely seen well presented feedback that wasn't "you suck! this change sucks!" type feedback against changes that get hidden or shouted down or both. There's definitely a white knight brigade ready to pounce on anyone who disagrees with a particular change. More often than not and more and more recently, you're not able to even question other people. Honestly, it's like watching a cult sometimes, at least to me. It's HC's server so they can run it however they want, and I totally agree HC has done some fantastic stuff and very much appreciate all the time and effort they put into this game.

The recent CoT and Council revamps. The "early pain" comes from the lack of tools to counter their debuffs and status effects. Fighting Concil and CoT at lower levels in Perez or the Hollows or ToTing is a lot different than fighting them at level 45+ when you've got most of your powers and slots.

Telling someone you don't know and have no experience in dealing with that you don't believe what they're saying isn't necessarily a personal insult or character assassination, which is what an ad hominem is. It's being prudent in not taking the word of a stranger as fact. "Trust, but verify."

I very much agree with this, especially the first sentence. The direction of content being driven by a very select few seems to be inching more and more toward the WoW model where every team is a must-have tank/heal/support/damage teams to do anything. Not every player is following the latest meta to build purple IOed out to the gills characters with every last drop of resist/defense/DPS squeezed out of it. I can confidently say this because I team with a lot of random folks on PUGs and can see the lack of set bonuses on their characters. I'll also echo the sentiment that feedback is taken into consideration, but it does seem very, very, very heavily slanted toward feedback that's praising changes. More often than not, feedback that runs counter are shouted down and/or hidden from view. It's HC's server so they can do whatever they want, just providing an honest opinion on that.

As an option I don't see a problem with this. It's not a necessity, more like a nice to have.

Not sure that's the case. I don't think that the name thing was even a major driver behind developing the new engine. There were quite a lot of substantial technology upgrades made to the Cryptic engine, how names were handled was just one among them. As for social blowback, I can't really say what the result would be. I imagine there's some who will complain about it, but there's always someone complaining about something. People can already copy costumes and biographies from other players they like and I don't see anyone mentioning that. Personally, if someone has the same name as my characters, go for it. It doesn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the game. Others I'm sure will feel differently and that's fine. I very well could be wrong as its been a long while since I've read the HC folk posts on the topic, but as I remember it, there's not a great link between the tables for account info and character info on the individual shards. There would need to be all new tables built to accommodate that and to make it so that inactivity could be based on account activity instead of at the character level. It sounded to me like HC folk understand what would be required to do the kind of work to make names non-unique and are fully capable of doing it, but its more than they want to take on in their spare time given this is a volunteer effort. I don't blame them that at all as I get that this is a passion project for them. I'd rather they focus on what's fun for them to do so they don't get burned out.

It is kind of interesting to see how there's people here complaining that people with sub-level 50s doing the exact same thing are "name campers", but you doing this is ok and no one blinks and eye. I mean, the arguments being made in these threads is that you really aren't using your characters whereas someone else wanting the name might play it much more frequently, so why not release the names? Not saying you're doing anything wrong at all as I don't think you are, just commenting that the arguments being made for what is or isn't camping seems highly dependent on the person. It does seem like its always the other guy who's wrong.

Well I can only speak for myself, but you're in no danger of me ever naming a character "Bionic Flea". And even if every player in the game created a character named Bionic Flea, you'd still be you and there's still only one of you. Certainly not you, that's for sure. You'll also note I wasn't making demands that anything should or shouldn't get done, or trying to dictate what HC should be working on. So relax, I was commenting on a statement that didn't make sense in that a database wipe wouldn't be necessary. I understand this is a volunteer group working on a passion project and it's up to HC to decide what they want to work on. Feel free to dismount your high horse now.

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.