Can we lift the name restrictions already?

[Nericus]

I prefer to let names be unique. Allowing names to be reused by everyone opens the door for trolls and griefers to make a character with the smae name as yours and attempt to grief/harass and besmirch your name. Presuming they don't check the persons global ID.

 

 

Also while examining the code in the process of setting up a Lan server for me to test alts and builds on, it would be inadviseable to try to change the naming system

[Skele101]

My 2 cents: Nah, there are other shards you can try and there's a nifty tool that if you type a name and click the little magnifying glass that will tell you if that name is available or not. Just use that.

 

I don't know.

 

If after two weeks of having the game around gives you problems to find a suitable name, then:

1.) You looked for the most generic ones.

2.) You tried to be a knockoff of a existing character from different brands and universes. Yes, I saw Gambit, Wonder Woman and a few others already.

3.) You didn't try hard enough.

 

We had to deal with that for years, so when you already got problem with a name now, with the playing field being reset, then I am sorry.

 

Tough luck. :\

 

[Snow Globe]

Near the end, didn't they implement something that would free names up on accounts that hadn't been used in X amount of time?  Perhaps a "character hasn't been used in X amount of time and the name becomes free again" type scenario?

 

I remember them doing so.  A time limit would be good.  I think 1000 character slots is way too generous too.

Sadly, they don't have a way to prevent multi-box accounts, though that really should be a part of the code-of-conduct.

 

The solution that the live game had was they did a name purge about 2 times on accounts that didn't log in for x amount of time. That wouldn't seem to apply at this time here.

 

Personally, I'm in favor of a Champions-type naming convention. Arcanaville was opposed to that due to privacy issues.

[Hyperman]

If people are worried about names that are stuck on alts that people aren't playing, or people preserving names, the PTB could just wipe the server of unused characters to free up names like the Devs use to.  Same guidelines.  Accounts that have been inactive for X amount of time.  (Years, not months or so.  If we EVER get to that point.) 

 

There is also the possibility of more shards opening up where the name you want isn't registered.

 

These are just alternatives in case everyone is a stickler for One Name Per Server rule. 

 

Personally, I don't mind linking the names to the global and allowing people to share similar names.  I can't recall ever running into someone with the same name on Champions.  Not even the names of my alts.  And I have some pretty unoriginal names.

 

I should mention that the reason why I'm for name sharing is because we have fewer servers than we did when the game was under the rule of NCSoft, so there is a statistical likelihood of people missing their names.

 

Hopefully that'll change as time goes on.

[Nericus]

If people are worried about names that are stuck on alts that people aren't playing, or people preserving names, the PTB could just wipe the server of unused characters to free up names like the Devs use to.  Same guidelines.  Accounts that have been inactive for X amount of time.  (Years, not months or so.  If we EVER get to that point.) 

 

There is also the possibility of more shards opening up where the name you want isn't registered.

 

These are just alternatives in case everyone is a stickler for One Name Per Server rule. 

 

Personally, I don't mind linking the names to the global and allowing people to share similar names.  I can't recall ever running into someone with the same name on Champions.  Not even the names of my alts.  And I have some pretty unoriginal names.

 

I should mention that the reason why I'm for name sharing is because we have fewer servers than we did when the game was under the rule of NCSoft, so there is a statistical likelihood of people missing their names.

 

Hopefully that'll change as time goes on.

 

Well it is true I am attached to a few character names and yes I have reclaimed them but I also have a long list of names and archetype lower setups I never got to use,

 

And of course attempts at name griefing/stealing are inevitable but I think people can use their imagination and come up with a name for them to use.

 

Also....have the admins given an official ruling on trademarked names being used?

 

I have seen Spider-Man, wolverine, captain marvel, captain mar-vell, banner hulk, hulk, and so on.

 

I get it, we all want to be our favorite character, but you can be without using a trademarked name, on an emulation server of a game that was "creatively obtained" from it's owner :)

[Cryos]

I'm fine with the current naming convention, and I say that as someone who lost a couple of names on Homecoming that I had since launch in CoH on Virtue.  Just like the game was originally, it forces us to be more creative.  Even in the comics, there's only one "Captain Marvel" in Marvel comics at a time, but then there was also Miss Marvel, Mar-Vell, etc. in existence.  I think it breaks the uniqueness of characters and part of the superhero genre a bit to have several characters running around with the exact same name in the same universe.

 

Take some time and come up with something unique for your character, they deserve it.  Creating new characters through the original life of CoH forced me to do that, and I was able to get about 90% of my character names on Homecoming because they were unique enough from previously.  The couple I lost were based on more common words/names anyway, so I adapted for them.

[Oubliette_Red]

I don't know.

 

If after two weeks of having the game around gives you problems to find a suitable name, then:

1.) You looked for the most generic ones.

2.) You tried to be a knockoff of a existing character from different brands and universes. Yes, I saw Gambit, Wonder Woman and a few others already.

3.) You didn't try hard enough.

 

We had to deal with that for years, so when you already got problem with a name now, with the playing field being reset, then I am sorry.

 

Tough luck. :\

 

I'm fine with the current naming convention, and I say that as someone who lost a couple of names on Homecoming that I had since launch in CoH on Virtue.  Just like the game was originally, it forces us to be more creative.  Even in the comics, there's only one "Captain Marvel" in Marvel comics at a time, but then there was also Miss Marvel, Mar-Vell, etc. in existence.  I think it breaks the uniqueness of characters and part of the superhero genre a bit to have several characters running around with the exact same name in the same universe.

 

Take some time and come up with something unique for your character, they deserve it.  Creating new characters through the original life of CoH forced me to do that, and I was able to get about 90% of my character names on Homecoming because they were unique enough from previously.  The couple I lost were based on more common words/names anyway, so I adapted for them.

 

I have to agree with both of these statements.

 

I too prefer the unique naming system, since it would prevent 14,000,605 Doctor Strange's from running around. The "all the good names are taken" argument was used in the original forums as well, which was reputed by many players that continued to come up with good names.

[nDervish]

Since NCsoft or cryptic arent running this mug, can we lift the restrictions? There is no reason for us to not be able to have more than one hero with the same name. Far too many generic names like "whiplash", "thirteen", "toxin", (which i proudly own lol on my server), etc etc etc are taken. Even lame ass champions online has no restriction on names being the same.

 

So, wait a minute...  Your entire reason for why we should switch from unique names to ugly-as-sin email-address-style names is so that everyone can have generic (which is to say, boring) names?  Umm, no.

 

When I play my mafioso necromancer MM, I want to be THE Don of the Dead, not A Don of the Dead.

 

And I want him to be only The Don of the Dead, not The Don of the Dead@nDervish.

 

And I really, really don't want to someday find myself on a team with Don of the Dead@CopycatNames, Don of the Dead@nhisso, and Don of the Dead@RandomHaxxorDude.

 

More broadly, I suspect that you want to interact directly with the players (i.e, the team is nDervish, CopycatNames, nhisso, and RandomHaxxorDude, regardless of whether any of us happen to be playing our separate Dons of the Dead or not), while I prefer to interact first with the in-game characters and only later (if at all) to interact directly with the player across multiple characters.  And I'm not even much of an RPer in these kinds of games; I expect that serious RPers would have an even stronger bias in favor of interacting primarily with characters rather than with players-as-players.

 

I like the name system. Makes me feel unique knowing I'm the one and only so-and-so.

No my name is unique I don't want another running about with my name.

I like the current naming system. It encourages creativity/sense of humor.

Not a fan of the way CO does it. Sorry, but I like my unique names. There have been a few that I wanted, but have had to come up with something else:

Example: Aquaria... it was taken so instead I am Aquariana

 

100% agreement with all of these.  I would much rather keep a system which (sometimes) requires a little thought and creativity to come up with unique names, not  give it up in favor of a system that allows you to be on a team with seven other people who are all named "Toxin" (or something equally banal).

[Roughtrade]

I prefer the current system which allows my names to be unique. 

 

That said, I think some the arguments supporting this position are rather spurious.  If people were able to “copy” names, I do not think we would see hundreds of Doctor Stranges.  There are many players who would abandon a name if they saw ten or more of the same names running around.  Especially if they were all the same archetype.

 

And we might see three or more “Don of the Dead” though, because pun names are just popular.  It might not be that someone saw your name and stole it so much as someone else thought of the same joke.  It doesn’t mean they would all be MMs though.  Someone else might think of it as a dead mobster come out of the grave with darkness powers.

 

And that is where I think I could be okay with it.  One person might want to do a Guardian that is an homage to the shi’ar Guard character.  Someone else might want to do a shield carrying knight called guardian, someone else might think of it as a street fighting Batman type. 

 

There should be room for everyone’s imagination.  The real problem however is the coding of the current game probably prohibits the sharing of names.

[nhisso]

Most unique names arent going to be reused so that isnt a good reason. This universe has 60k players. So yeah, it makes sense in the marvel universe that you dont have 2 scarlet witches. But it makes no sense here to take something like Frost or thunderbird or insert any other simple super hero name and restrict it to one char. Id take 1000 frosts over 1 person with a name like atomic french fry or a name that is just a description of powers or personality that are akin to calling yourself "hey shoot fireballs from my hands"

 

 

[buzzbcm]

Reasonable question, OP.

Just be glad it's not the same as DCUO.

Slap in a hyphen - or a space, or a period.

Ok, have a good one!

[SwitchFade]

Most unique names arent going to be reused so that isnt a good reason. This universe has 60k players. So yeah, it makes sense in the marvel universe that you dont have 2 scarlet witches. But it makes no sense here to take something like Frost or thunderbird or insert any other simple super hero name and restrict it to one char. Id take 1000 frosts over 1 person with a name like atomic french fry or a name that is just a description of powers or personality that are akin to calling yourself "hey shoot fireballs from my hands"

 

Again, I vote no. I much prefer that names are unique, I don't want others seeing mine and copying it. The magic of this game is how real and personal the creation is, which just becomes generic when anyone can copy anything. The only reason I can see anyone wanting names to not be unique, is that they want a name for themselves, which is taken. I understand the desire, but that's like wanting someone else's wife, or motorcycle or house. Non sensical.

 

Might as well just call everyone generichero1.

[Oubliette_Red]

Most unique names arent going to be reused so that isnt a good reason. This universe has 60k players. So yeah, it makes sense in the marvel universe that you dont have 2 scarlet witches. But it makes no sense here to take something like Frost or thunderbird or insert any other simple super hero name and restrict it to one char. Id take 1000 frosts over 1 person with a name like atomic french fry or a name that is just a description of powers or personality that are akin to calling yourself "hey shoot fireballs from my hands"

 

 

 

Atomic French Fry - Rad/Fire Blaster

I find this preferable over Frost or Thunderbird, never mind a thousand of them.

[Impish Kat]

Near the end, didn't they implement something that would free names up on accounts that hadn't been used in X amount of time?  Perhaps a "character hasn't been used in X amount of time and the name becomes free again" type scenario? 

On the flip side, there's no way of knowing what's going on in a person's life that prohibits them from logging in.

 

True... I remember several players taking months (years?) off, and they were always grateful to come back to have access to all their characters.  Like coming home.However, how do you address name camping?  It's an old problem, for certain.  A level 1 character that is just languishing on someone's account as a name holder is obviously not a major investment.  I thought that was the secondary layer that they came up with back on live?  character had to be low level... but how low?  I mean, you can level a char to 17 with 4 runs of DFB now.  so....

[Zolgar]

Near the end, didn't they implement something that would free names up on accounts that hadn't been used in X amount of time?  Perhaps a "character hasn't been used in X amount of time and the name becomes free again" type scenario? 

On the flip side, there's no way of knowing what's going on in a person's life that prohibits them from logging in.

 

True... I remember several players taking months (years?) off, and they were always grateful to come back to have access to all their characters.  Like coming home.However, how do you address name camping?  It's an old problem, for certain.  A level 1 character that is just languishing on someone's account as a name holder is obviously not a major investment.  I thought that was the secondary layer that they came up with back on live?  character had to be low level... but how low?  I mean, you can level a char to 17 with 4 runs of DFB now.  so....

 

If I were to implement a name purge, I would probably do something akin to:

Character must have been offline for at least 1 year.

Character must have less than 1 hour total play time.

 

In other words, if you want to squat a name, you need to dedicate an hour of your life do doing so, per character.

 

If you roll a character, play them less than an hour, and never log back in to them... yeah, maybe something unfortunate happened, but odds are the character just didn't click and you never wanted to go back to them.

 

 

[jubakumbi]

I'll just add here that when the server was under full retail control with funding, they could not solve this 'human' problem.

It is a human problem of perception and reality, the adding of 'value' to names.

 

No action or inaction by this team or any team running a CoH server at this point will be able to keep the whole playerbase happy on this topic.

Even _if_ someone spend what looks like a ton of time changing this in the code, implementing will have both sides screaming.

 

I for one think we should not be pushing the server hosts about this topic at all, as they are volunteers, we know this is deep in the code, and is simply not a big enough fish to fry right now, IMO - just play the game.

 

My pennies.

[Paladin]

I'm fine with the current naming conventions but understand the draw of being able to name them whatever you want. As a poster said a few entries up, even if you have multiple versions of a more generic name the creativity of the player can shine through to make it unique. Similarly, people can get creative to come up with more unique takes on a name. The only issue I have is the amount of slots a single person can have on a server - 1000 free names camped out without any effort seems excessive.

[Panache]

/jranger