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Homecoming Code of Conduct Updates - March 7th, 2020


Jimmy
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  • Homecoming Team

Hello!

 

Today we’ve made two updates to our Code of Conduct. One focuses on ensuring everyone in the roleplaying community is on a level playing field, and the other relates to video content.

 

Existing Characters & Groups
We’ve updated the Content Guidelines to clarify some recent misunderstandings regarding usage of existing characters and groups from the City of Heroes lore.

 

Old wording:

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Additionally, creating copies of signature characters from the City of Heroes lore is not permitted. As with the retail version of the game, these are only to be used by staff. Use of these characters in Architect Entertainment and character backstories is permitted.

Understandably, this wasn’t clear enough and there were many grey areas regarding what constituted a signature character. Additionally, we didn’t foresee there being issues with players representing themselves as an official group in-game, so the language has also been updated to cover that. 

 

New Wording:

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Additionally, creating copies of existing characters from the City of Heroes / Villains lore or naming your Supergroup after existing groups from the City of Heroes / Villains lore is not permitted. Use of these characters in Architect Entertainment and character backstories is permitted, and you are free to present yourself as a member of an existing group or portray your Supergroup as an offshoot or subdivision of an existing group, but you cannot portray yourself as owning or being in control of any existing group.

Note that this doesn’t mean you can’t play as a division or subgroup of an existing entity - while you can’t name your Supergroup Arachnos, it would be just fine to call yourself Arachnos Boilerpeople Local 451. The key part of the rule is that you can’t claim to represent an existing organization as a whole.

 

You are also completely free to create your own characters within an existing group - such as a Longbow officer or a Malta operative - but they must be original characters, not copies of existing characters (such as Agent Crimson or Director 11).

 

Videos and Streaming
As we requested a few months back, we would prefer if streams and videos of gameplay on Homecoming were not broadcast or uploaded whilst we are still working on legitimizing the server.

 

We’re now going to be enforcing this as part of the Code of Conduct:

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Video Policy
Whilst Homecoming is still undergoing efforts to become a legitimate operation, live broadcasts or uploads of gameplay footage are not permitted.

Any videos uploaded before tomorrow (March 8th) will be left alone, but any new videos or streams will be treated as a Code of Conduct violation.

 

While we understand this may be frustrating, it is unfortunately a necessary step we must take. This rule will only remain in place whilst these efforts are still ongoing - we will be lifting this restriction once this process has reached its conclusion.

 

The full Code of Conduct can be found here. Thank you for your understanding.

 

- The Homecoming Team

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4 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Additionally, creating copies of signature characters from the City of Heroes lore is not permitted. As with the retail version of the game, these are only to be used by staff. Use of these characters in Architect Entertainment and character backstories is permitted.

How about "knockoffs" or "tribute" characters, like, say "Son of Statesman" or "Hippogriff" (as an homage to "Manticore")?

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I'm out.
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2 minutes ago, The Philotic Knight said:

How about "knockoffs" or "tribute" characters, like, say "Son of Statesman" or "Hippogriff" (as an homage to "Manticore")?

You quoted the old wording there, not the new wording. The examples you listed are clearly permitted under the new wording.

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  • Homecoming Team
1 minute ago, The Philotic Knight said:

How about "knockoffs" or "tribute" characters, like, say "Son of Statesman" or "Hippogriff" (as an homage to "Manticore")?

That's the old wording, but tribute and related characters (like your two examples) are perfectly fine.

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2 minutes ago, The Philotic Knight said:

How about "knockoffs" or "tribute" characters, like, say "Son of Statesman" or "Hippogriff" (as an homage to "Manticore")?

I'd say that's covered in " Use of these characters in Architect Entertainment and character backstories is permitted "

Primarily on Everlasting. Squid afficionado. Former creator of Copypastas. General smartalec.

 

I tried to combine Circle and DE, but all I got were garden variety evil mages.

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The new non-streaming video policy is certainly very unfortunate! Waiting for you to become legitimate will either not happen or take forever.  Been hearing this for about a year  now. Sigh... my guess this is actually the first step in this game going away again. Oh well, it was a fun year getting to play this game again.

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Just now, Crimson_Blade said:

When COH was live we had a SG named The Vanguard and later we ran into The NPC Vanguards. Right now my wife and I play Homecoming and use our old SG name The Vanguard. Is this in compliance with the rules?

Two different things, I think you're fine.
Vanguard is the alien-fighting pseudo-military force.
The Vanguard can be anything.

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i am entering my unhinged villain era.

i am the local forum cop.
fear my keystrokes.

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Just now, VileTerror said:

Oof . . . and how will this effect roleplay groups such as Paragon City Hall and Paragon Police Department?

PPD will need to be renamed, going off of the discussions that were had in COR.
Not sure about PCH.

unknown.png
i am entering my unhinged villain era.

i am the local forum cop.
fear my keystrokes.

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Goodbye Dawn Patrol SG 😄!

 

As a British man myself it always kinda bugged me people were running around with characters under that SG name for RP. Since we know so little about the group in terms of the lore it felt kinda crummy to use the name and do whatever with it, I much prefer the idea of using subdivisions of the lore based groups. Skulls, Arachnos, Longbow etc etc. Its better narrative and it gives players freedom to do what they want without stepping on the shoes of the people who wrote the original lore. Bitterness aside, its a good thing the CoC is being updated, it keeps our server safe from lawsuits or any general nastiness.

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As one of the upper officers of The Dawn Patrol, I can tell you that we have always RP'd as the Paragon City division of the original British group.  We also did get permission to use the name 15+ years ago and have the original email granting it.

 

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I'm fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world.

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I hope the video rule only applies to publicly listed videos. To ban unlisted videos from being shared on the forum itself could cause many issues within the community in terms of guides.

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Rerolling far too often, even by this game's standards.

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I hate to be that guy, but i am going to be that guy because i feel it is important to say, if you want people to follow a set of rules and guidelines by pretending to be official, wouldn't it be fair to show how deep in talks you are? i mean its all well and good to have rules in place i get that but what about people like Positive Gmaer who makes videos based on your server? his income may be affected now, what about proof of being in talks? you make claims of "legitimizing" the server and yet you have not given the playerbase any kind of honesty or truth to these claims, i am just being devils advocate and would like a reply about this as it seems you enforce more rules to people who play on your server without giving anything back to the players.

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