Homecoming Server Update (May 20th): What's Next?

[Marshal Valor]

As far as the "getting to level 21" is easy. So what are people who have jobs and lives supposed to do? That's just too much. Yes my original suggestion is what Champions Online does. The system works believe me.

[Blue Pulsar]

As far as the "getting to level 21" is easy. So what are people who have jobs and lives supposed to do? That's just too much. Yes my original suggestion is what Champions Online does. The system works believe me.

 

Are you suggesting I or others don't have a job? lol

 

My career job keeps me busy 5 days a week, 8 hours a day or longer. My family keeps me busy when I'm not working. My personal projects take up a lot of time too... But I can easily get on here and level a toon to the teens in a short night. Well over 20 if I have a whole day to do so.

[Blue Pulsar]

The naming policy is awful. It goes overboard. It's too much. A better solution would be to tie character names to Global Handles and then people can have whatever name they want because there is only one @Marshal Valor. So if I decided to make Steel Phoenix as a character, as far as the character process goes, it is Steel Phoenix@Marshal Valor. Another player could also make Steel Phoenix and his name in the system would be Steel Phoenix@Arbiter. Doing it this gives everyone what they want.

 

This would upend a lot of the way local names (non globals) work; effecting friends lists, invite commands, friend commands, make chat confusing, target calling in PvP, etc, etc.

 

I tried so hard back in the day to get the devs to implement this.

 

Obviously, there was a reason they didn't.

[GM ArachnosPhobia]

The naming policy is awful. It goes overboard. It's too much. A better solution would be to tie character names to Global Handles and then people can have whatever name they want because there is only one @Marshal Valor. So if I decided to make Steel Phoenix as a character, as far as the character process goes, it is Steel Phoenix@Marshal Valor. Another player could also make Steel Phoenix and his name in the system would be Steel Phoenix@Arbiter. Doing it this gives everyone what they want. I tried so hard back in the day to get the devs to implement this. I urge you to consider it, please. We know how horrible it is with the naming and people not able to get names that are taken. Also even though you let level 50 characters keep their name indefinitely, what will happen then when they never come back? That name is forever lost. FOREVER. It's not hard to get to 50 at all. Please implement this. It would benefit everyone and then everyone could have any name they wanted.

 

The game does not use character name and global interchangeably. Globals only exist for the purposes of the chat server - they have nothing to do with character data. This solution would be ideal, and obviously literally anything can be coded into anything else, but there is no expectation for this anytime soon.

[Dr. Gemini]

I don’t see the naming policy as a bad thing at all. Get it to 21 and you only have to log it in once a year. Any good DFB team takes about 15 minutes to complete it, and with double experience, it will only take you 5 runs to hit 21. An hour and a half of time for a character you plan to play is not too much to ask. On the other side of that argument, “But I want to stay a lowbie for RP reasons or to play with my friends!” I can only say that you should probably be playing or role playing more than once every 30 days or you’ll fall way behind.

 

...or I don't want to farm a specific trial on every character over and over to 21. Not everyone wants to rush to 21. Some people like to play through the missions. Apparently, though, we don't count anymore because "you can get there in an hour, it's no big deal", or "how can you be attached to a character name you only play once a year?" is the only way you're allowed to play the game now. I rarely actually lose my temper but this policy has me so pissed I've had to rewrite this post half a dozen times because I can't express my opinion of this within the forums rules. It seems like they are catering to the "I couldn't get Hero Man as a name so there's no good names left! Wahhhhhh!" crowd. But, whatever, I get the message, don't make alts, just play one character to 50 and if you get bored only being allowed to play that way go do something else.

[Eiko-chan]

Since most of the posts thus far have been from people objecting to the name policy, allow me to post in favour of it. It is extraordinarily fair; if you can't log in your level 1 name reservation character once a month, you really ought to have the common decency to let someone who would be more invested in the name use it instead. "I got here first" is a really poor reason to allow resources to lay fallow.

[KillaD915]

I don’t see the naming policy as a bad thing at all. Get it to 21 and you only have to log it in once a year. Any good DFB team takes about 15 minutes to complete it, and with double experience, it will only take you 5 runs to hit 21. An hour and a half of time for a character you plan to play is not too much to ask. On the other side of that argument, “But I want to stay a lowbie for RP reasons or to play with my friends!” I can only say that you should probably be playing or role playing more than once every 30 days or you’ll fall way behind.

 

...or I don't want to farm a specific trial on every character over and over to 21. Not everyone wants to rush to 21. Some people like to play through the missions. Apparently, though, we don't count anymore because "you can get there in an hour, it's no big deal", or "how can you be attached to a character name you only play once a year?" is the only way you're allowed to play the game now. I rarely actually lose my temper but this policy has me so pissed I've had to rewrite this post half a dozen times because I can't express my opinion of this within the forums rules. It seems like they are catering to the "I couldn't get Hero Man as a name so there's no good names left! Wahhhhhh!" crowd. But, whatever, I get the message, don't make alts, just play one character to 50 and if you get bored only being allowed to play that way go do something else.

 

so your solution is to cater to "dont take the name on a character ill rarely or never end up playing! wahhhh!" Sorry i dont think you or anyone else can justify that. Lets be completely honest. if you want to argue that its that time consuming to get to level 21, how in the world are people going to have time to play the thousands of characters with desirable names?

[lobster]

You may not multibox on a shard that has more than 1500 players logged in

You may not use more than 3 accounts at once

You may not use more than one Mastermind at once

 

 

I'm fine with the naming stuff, and with the multi-boxing stuff in general, with exception to the 1 mastermind limit.  Dual boxing masterminds was kind of my thing on live, and I was really looking forward to doing it again.

 

I haven't even bothered to multi-box yet as I'm still enjoying the leveling experience and trying out new sets, but my real long-term goal was mm duos.  Is there any chance this restriction might be lifted in the future?  Maybe if we're playing on the lowest population server?

[BOTDuo]

I don’t see the naming policy as a bad thing at all. Get it to 21 and you only have to log it in once a year. Any good DFB team takes about 15 minutes to complete it, and with double experience, it will only take you 5 runs to hit 21. An hour and a half of time for a character you plan to play is not too much to ask. On the other side of that argument, “But I want to stay a lowbie for RP reasons or to play with my friends!” I can only say that you should probably be playing or role playing more than once every 30 days or you’ll fall way behind.

 

...or I don't want to farm a specific trial on every character over and over to 21. Not everyone wants to rush to 21. Some people like to play through the missions. Apparently, though, we don't count anymore because "you can get there in an hour, it's no big deal", or "how can you be attached to a character name you only play once a year?" is the only way you're allowed to play the game now. I rarely actually lose my temper but this policy has me so pissed I've had to rewrite this post half a dozen times because I can't express my opinion of this within the forums rules. It seems like they are catering to the "I couldn't get Hero Man as a name so there's no good names left! Wahhhhhh!" crowd. But, whatever, I get the message, don't make alts, just play one character to 50 and if you get bored only being allowed to play that way go do something else.

 

so your solution is to cater to "dont take the name on a character ill rarely or never end up playing! wahhhh!" Sorry i dont think you or anyone else can justify that. Lets be completely honest. if you want to argue that its that time consuming to get to level 21, how in the world are people going to have time to play the thousands of characters with desirable names?

 

Going to second what Killa said here. Basically you’re going the route of “Better get all these good names while they’re available before people take them. I can’t play this character 6 months down the road if this name is taken!” But then you’re complaining that you have to log that character in, never played before, for less than a minute...once a month? It’s baffling how that is too much work. I don’t know, there’s going to be thousands of excuses. I don’t see the naming thing as a bad idea at all. I’d even be for yearly or by yearly wipes of toons with more than one year of offline time. If you step away from a character for an entire year, you either quit the game, or quit that character. Let someone else have their fun also.

[Marshal Valor]

The naming policy is awful. It goes overboard. It's too much. A better solution would be to tie character names to Global Handles and then people can have whatever name they want because there is only one @Marshal Valor. So if I decided to make Steel Phoenix as a character, as far as the character process goes, it is Steel Phoenix@Marshal Valor. Another player could also make Steel Phoenix and his name in the system would be Steel Phoenix@Arbiter. Doing it this gives everyone what they want. I tried so hard back in the day to get the devs to implement this. I urge you to consider it, please. We know how horrible it is with the naming and people not able to get names that are taken. Also even though you let level 50 characters keep their name indefinitely, what will happen then when they never come back? That name is forever lost. FOREVER. It's not hard to get to 50 at all. Please implement this. It would benefit everyone and then everyone could have any name they wanted.

 

The game does not use character name and global interchangeably. Globals only exist for the purposes of the chat server - they have nothing to do with character data. This solution would be ideal, and obviously literally anything can be coded into anything else, but there is no expectation for this anytime soon.

 

Thank you, I really appreciate (from the tone of your message) that the devs and co at least considered it. I know it's spotty from what you said, but hopefully we'll see it someday!

[Dr. Gemini]

Going to second what Killa said here. Basically you’re going the route of “Better get all these good names while they’re available before people take them. I can’t play this character 6 months down the road if this name is taken!” But then you’re complaining that you have to log that character in, never played before, for less than a minute...once a month? It’s baffling how that is too much work. I don’t know, there’s going to be thousands of excuses. I don’t see the naming thing as a bad idea at all. I’d even be for yearly or by yearly wipes of toons with more than one year of offline time. If you step away from a character for an entire year, you either quit the game, or quit that character. Let someone else have their fun also.

 

Actually I'm not, but I guess you have to push the "you just want to reserve all the good character names" narrative to justify your position. I'd be fine with unlocking level 1's that haven't been played in 30 days. I'd be fine with unlocking names of all characters on an account that hasn't been played in a year. I already said in an earlier post that I'd be fine with a 6 month or a year limit. But, don't let me get in the way of your justifications. Your justifications are just as much "excuses" for backing an opinion as mine are, but don't put words in my mouth while you're trying to makes those excuses.

[Number Six]

I'm fine with the naming stuff, and with the multi-boxing stuff in general, with exception to the 1 mastermind limit.  Dual boxing masterminds was kind of my thing on live, and I was really looking forward to doing it again.

 

The initial policy is based mostly on the "common knowledge" that pet classes take more resources - the reason the Paragon devs gave for making Masterminds and Controllers available to subscription accounts and higher freemium tiers only.

 

We need to do some testing to see how much much load the pets really cause and if that was overstated. Without that evidence in hand yet, based solely on what I know about engine performance, I think it's likely that this restriction will be lifted at some point.

[AlwaysAPrice]

Name policy's goofy, but better than nothing. It's the 1000 slots that enables hoarding and making people sit through a few load screens a month to keep their camps isn't that much of a deterrence. Just drop the cap down to 50 so camping a name actually takes up some of a limited resource and make +1 character slots a reward for level 50 and/or purchasable for several hundred merits.

[bonzaicomp]

^^

 

Except that someone could easily just make a new account and do it all over again!

 

 

[PeregrineFalcon]

May I suggest that you simply remove the name restriction altogether?

 

After all, if I have a character named Peregrine Falcon and someone else does as well, does it REALLY matter?

[Jaguaratron]

I think the naming policy is horrible. It is incredibly short. I wouldn't mind 6 months or a year. For me, I don't play one game exclusively all year. I play a game for a few months, then put it aside for a few months and play something else. On the old game, I had 128 characters, because I like trying different things. I don't play one character constantly, I don't power level, it took me 4 years to get my first 50. Now, I'm being forced to play one character exclusively to 50 or lose my name because I'm not going to be logging on and mucking about with dozens of characters that I would otherwise have, especially when I'm not playing. To me, this basically says "we don't support alititis", which is, frankly, what makes this game so great.

 

Or you know, log in every 30 days/90 days/365 days/never depending on the bracket. I mean really, if you dont play the game why should you get to block someone else who could spend a great deal of time in game from using a name? All you need to is get them to level 6 and log in once every 3 months.

 

I have zero fear of losing a name because I intend to play, and if I dont play and do lose one oh well, I was well aware of the policy and made my choice.

[ZephyrWind]

I have to post against the name policy as-is.  I don't mind the unlocking after 30 days at levels 1-5, and I'm OK with 90 days up to 20 or so.  But if you get a character to 2, you've invested enough time in it that you should not have to worry about losing your name because you have not logged in for a while, IMO.

 

I think it should be a one-time sweep to unlock all level 1-5 that have not been logged in for 30 days.  That would take care of folks squatting on 277 level 1 and 2 names.

[Lyrium]

To me, this basically says "we don't support alititis", which is, frankly, what makes this game so great.

I fully agree with this

[jkwak]

Good step in the right direction, but i still think the name restriction should be crossshard, if someone is named "captain capitanose"(made up name, if its still free use it) on one shard there should be no one using that name on an other shard. This way you can transfer your character without having to rename it.

[DarschPugs]

While yes, that is a great idea, but the game wasn't programmed that way and it would take a great deal of code rewriting to change it.  It is not in the scope currently of what can currently can be done.  The policy isn't overboard and fairly reasonable considering the current situation of things.

 

How do you know? Are you a programmer or a Dev? Alot of things can be done these days with programming. The policy is fair in your opinion. To be honest I dislike it enough to consider leaving and I have heard some other people say the same thing already. I shouldn't have to be punished and have names stolen just because I am too busy to play a "login all my characters" game. That is just unfair.

 

I have done a fair amount of programming and game development, and depending on the code it could be a nightmare to implement or impossible.  I think the name policy is too lenient myself.  I have an insane amount of characters and it literally only takes 5 minutes to log them all in. this is more than fair. if you can't be bothered to do something so simple only once a month then that is on you and no one else.

 

 

Welcome to team all you new community reps!

[DarschPugs]

Everything looks good to me guys. Only issue I have is multiboxing. it has been shown in the past to be unhealthy in the long term for a game, but it seems like most the issues that crop up with multiboxing won't be as bad here considering this is CoH and yall can fix the markets if they get to out of whack.

[GM Tempest]

Altitis is fine. I have it myself. But your character doesn't get deleted if you let this time out, the name gets 'unlocked'. If you log in before someone takes the name, it's still yours. If you have dozens of level 1s holding onto names you *might* want, that's not how this was meant to be used. If you have a character you will rarely use...just log it in once in a while. This is a specific use of stopping people from 'camping' on names for no other reason than to prevent others from taking those names. For example, someone makes 'Hero Man' as someone mentioned, but isn't playing them. They just have the level 1 default character they made just to snag the name. Maybe you have a personal character you were going to make, and someone that doesn't particularly like you snags the name to prevent you from getting it?

 

These are measures to put a dent in this kind of behavior. Ultimately if you want to hang onto the name, all you have to do is just log into the character once in a while.

[Rhinoxx]

The naming policy is fair and not a problem - if you cannot be bothered to log in every once in awhile to keep your named characters, then you are just not that interested. And yes, I create a massive amount of alts myself, some are experiments, some are keepers, it's only fair that the name be vacated if I am not using it actively. I know this is hard to swallow if you suffer from entitlement, but sometimes you have to put in a little effort to keep something - just like in the real world.

On top of that - losing the name of a character because you don't use it - first world problems; if that is the worst to happen to you on any given day, it's still a pretty good day.

[nDervish]

I suppose I'll raise another voice in support of the naming policy.  It seems quite fair to me.  Even without doing DFB, I regularly get new alts up to level 5 within an hour or two, and then the policy only requires logging them in once a quarter to keep the name locked.  So far, I've got (only?) about two dozen characters on Homecoming.  Even with a full-time job, I haven't seen the character select screen report a single one of them as having been idle for more than 4 days, so touching even ten times that number of characters at least once every 90 days would be quite easily doable if they were all characters that I had any interest at all in playing.  The policy is not anywhere near the "you must play only one character straight through to 50" that some in this thread have claimed.

 

Also note that, elsewhere on this forum, there has been another thread within the last week (sadly, I forgot the title, else I would provide it) specifically on the topic of allowing non-unique names, via a Champions Online-style "character@global" system.  While changing to that has strong proponents in that thread (as in this one), my impression is that the substantial majority of posters in that thread were in favor of keeping things as they are and continuing to require all names to be unique.  I would prefer to see SCORE spend any development time elsewhere, rather than on overhauling character name management solely to please a noisy minority by inflicting a new, ugly-as-sin naming scheme on us.

 

I don't know about you, but I've grown up with Spider Man comics, not Spider Man@Stan Lee comics.  And that's the way I'd prefer to see City remain.

 

(And, yes, I know that serious comics fans will debate how Spidey has been handled differently by different writers/artists and so on, but that's beside the point.  The comic has not, to my knowledge, ever been sold with "Spider Man@[author name]" as the main title splashed across the cover, and I am dead certain that no character within the comic has ever referred to him as such.)

[Impish Kat]

I also think the name policy is extremely fair. 

You do not have to grind your 500 alts to 20

You don't even have to play them to 6

All you have to do is LOG IN.

 

In the end, though, my opinion doesn't really matter, because this is not a democracy. 

This is someone else's sandbox, and they get to set the rules.

I knew this from the beginning, and I accept it. 

 

Also, this volunteer sandbox is not guaranteed to last. 

So I will appreciate the gift as given, and be thankful to play in the City again.