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

[Ted Maul]

As someone who has terrible alt-itis and, in all honesty, who has more toon concepts/names that they will reasonably be able to play I feel that the new naming policy is fair.  Personally I would rather see players being able to use those names then have them sat unplayed and unloved on another's account.  Given we have so many character slots (and conceivably accounts) its seems all too easy for a lot of good names to be hoarded up.  There are no unreasonable steps to keep any names secured in my opinion.

 

Otherwise great work with everything peeps, keep it up.

[Ssieth]

Another voice in favour of the naming policy.

 

I understand that it doesn't support everyone's style of play perfectly and I understand that it would be better if we had a Champions style CharaterName@AccountName style thing going on under the hood.  I also understand that could potentially be a hell of a lot of work.  Changing any authentication and identification system is a pain at the best of time, one that's built to work across multiple shards, pulling together single-instance and multi-shard comms?  Yeah - that's not going to be a walk in the park at the best of times.  Trust me - been there, done that, worn the beaten-down expression you only get from some obscure bug that manifests itself only when a member of a character in a group inside an instanced mission teamed with someone in the group with the same name tries direct-message someone else on another shard with the same character name.....

 

And the currently proposed solution?  It seems reasonable. 

 

As has already been stated - getting into the 90 day zone takes maybe an hour or two of gameplay, even at a fairly sensible pace.  I know that some people like to take things at a relaxed pace and fair enough.  I'm one of them.  I don't enjoy power-levelling on the whole and would much rather remember the arcs my characters take to get to the heady heights of power.  But level 6?  I'd say I average _maybe_ a couple of hours for that.  Maybe 3-4 at an outside if I happen to be distracted.  I mean, you exit the tutorial at level 2. 

 

So yeah... 90 days.  I kind of feel if you can't log a character in for 90 days or can't put a couple of hours effort into it then you've probably not earned the right to reserve their name indefinitely. 

 

And let's be clear.  The name doesn't get taken when those 90 days are elapsed.  It just becomes available.  That really isn't the same thing.

 

And getting to 20?  Well - that's a commitment for someone who works full time (like I do) and has a family (like I do) who don't also want to play City of Heroes (who can guess why?).  But really - it feels like the privilege of blocking out a name for 365 days of completely ignoring that character (to the point of not even logging in) is due some sort of commitment.

[Harlequin565]

No problem with the naming policy.

 

I can understand people jumping on names they want, but if you have so many that it's a problem for you to log on and rotate them, then as has been said by others, you're not playing the game the way it was intended.

 

I have toons on Torchbearer that I will just let lapse (I jumped to Excelsior but am not deleting my Torchbearer toons!). I suspect people who have the same name reserved across multiple servers will find this a bigger inconvenience - and rightly so.

 

As to the "just change playername to globalname@playername" crowd - nothing is stopping you downloading the code to get cracking with it yourself. Unless you don't have the skill to do it within the timescales you're expecting? Or maybe you don't have the free time because you have a paying job you need to focus on first? If it's outside your area of expertise, suggest it, but don't whine about it.

 

I wonder how the playerbase would react if your name was only valid for 7 days, or 365 when at 50. Meaning you could really only "work" on one alt at once. The problem would be the same for everyone, so all cool names would get shared out. If you stopped playing, your names would all release after a year. It's probably a good job I'm not in charge :)

[starro]

no to multi-boxing.  pretty sure some kind of scam/spam/hack things will happen.

 

no to naming policy.  Make it based on the global logging in the last year.  no logon in 365 days?  tough.

[_NOPE_]

Welcome to our new CR overlords. I've updated the tracker to track the additional Administrators and Game Masters that I could find, including the new French ones that weren't listed here so that we can all creepily stalk them on the forums...

[Hszmv]

My one gripe with the naming policy is that there should be some exception for people in the military (or similar rapid deployment) who may be deployed without game access for long periods of time.  I don't think it's fair to the real heroes. 

[BlueDrache]

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.

 

To be honest I dislike it enough to consider leaving and I have heard some other people say the same thing already.

 

Don't let the door hit you.

 

https://files.catbox.moe/2ir2o0.gif

 

Because, for one, that means a more grateful person can fill your slot.  One that I'd probably enjoy playing with more than a spoiled and entitled brat.

[Burnt Toast]

I have absolutely no issues with this naming policy. I'm sorry but if you can't be bothered to get to level 6 (which literally takes 15 minutes) and then log in every 90 days thereafter - then really how important can that character and/or name be to you? I have the same names of a few characters on three of the servers... some of them are only level 1 because well... I don't want another Fixxer running around. So I will probably log them in ... get to level 6 and then relog them in every 60 days (just to make sure I don't forget it). Because that's what you do when something is truly that important to you... you take the 15 minutes initially and the 1.5 mins every 90 days to keep the name. People threatening to quit over this... talk about hyperbolic reactions.

[Elegy]

Would you mind users piggybacking off this event? I have a plan for hosting a gladiator tournament w/ a fairly large grand prize but if itd be too much server stress that day I can schedule it another day

[U235]

In regards to the costume contest...

 

Are we expected to use the same costume for each tier of the event or are we allowed to switch it up? Need to know if I have to build more than one to compete. Thanks! (And I don't have any issues with the Naming Policy lol)

[Shadojak]

My (heretofore unwritten) response to any past and all future announcements re: CoH: Homecoming...

 

Thank you for allowing me to play this game on your server.

 

[JusticeBowler]

Naming policy.

 

/signed

 

In fact, after hearing people complain about it, signed, sealed, and delivered. Good lord folks, you got lucky and nabbed "Spiderman" but you only played him for an hour and now you want to make sure no one in the game can ever use the name just in case you ever feel like playing him again. Name squatting has to be the MMORPG equivalent of a 6 year old demanding the piece of cake with most frosting at a birthday party and then never actually finishing the piece of cake.

[Judicator]

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.

Totally Second this!

[Sirgod]

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.

 

Thank you for the information here. I had done the same thing a longtime ago, Multi-Boxing three Masterminds, But to be honest, IF I play two Of any other class at once these days, I'll be doing fine.

[Blue Pulsar]

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?

 

As I mentioned in another post, if multiple people are playing on the same server and have the same name, it messes with every single slash command that you would use to invite a player to a team, a supergroup, send a tell, add them as a friend, etc. Other things like target calling in PvP, quickly made binds and macros** for teams, etc, where if you happened to team with or against two players of the same name, it would cause some issues.

 

(**If you're a healer/buffer you can make a macro called, say, TANK, where it's a one-button push to target, heal, and buff the tank (or any power combo). When you join a team, simply edit the character name in the macro to the member of the team you consider the tank and want to do all that to. Or for any other player too. Or for non-buffers to use an attack on whomever the teammate of their choice is targeting. etc.)

 

 

 

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.

 

I think what he means by "tied to global" is more like "tied to account" in the aspect that a global is the same across the account.

 

Be that as it may, how would implementing this sort of naming policy deal with the issues stated above? Since there would need to be SOME way of differentiating between different "Hero Man" characters when using slash commands.

[kylevp]

I have a couple thoughts on the naming server.  I don't hear people complaining about what people are accusing them of complaining about.  I don't even hear people actually complaining, just offering feedback.

 

Accusations:  You want to keep the name of 400 toons locked for ever even if you don't play them!

 

Actual Concerns:  Many of us are not power gamers.  We have 2-5 characters,  and enjoy the lower level game.  We don't necessarily reach 50, even on one character, let alone all 2-5.  Can we make the name lock kick in at 30 or so?  That seems like a good compromise.  Or perhaps allow the first 2 characters per shard to be name locked at 30?

[Jimmy]

Just an update on the multiboxing stuff: We no longer have Mastermind-specific restrictions. The other rules still apply. Follow them or be forever snapped out existence.

[Lunchmoney]

;D ;D

This naming policy is like Brexit :lol:

 

I'm totally ok with the naming thing. Everyone else; you're playing a game that you shouldn't be, get over it and enjoy the game.

[grinningsphinx]

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.

 

Dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!:) Those other "people" can exit, stage left, as well and nobody will even notice.

[Lyrion]

Actual Concerns:  Many of us are not power gamers.  We have 2-5 characters,  and enjoy the lower level game.  We don't necessarily reach 50, even on one character, let alone all 2-5.  Can we make the name lock kick in at 30 or so?  That seems like a good compromise.  Or perhaps allow the first 2 characters per shard to be name locked at 30?

 

At level 30 you have 1 year until your name disappears. Are you saying you'll reach lvl 30 and never log in for a year? Why would you still need the name then?

[Noyjitat]

I dunno, maybe I wouldn’t be so bothered by the name policy if it wasn’t such a chore to switch characters. “Retrieving character list” takes like 30

Seconds each time even after a restart.

[mikeywyatt91]

Glad you explained what multiboxing was towards the end of the post  8)

[TiberJoe]

Re: Multi-boxing.

 

I would only ever do this so that I could add one of my other character's to my Supergroup.  If there was a way to invite to supergroup via email that would be great. 

 

So logging a 2nd toon in for like 30 seconds to invite a new character into your SG wouldn't be a problem?

[SeraphimKensai]

Re: Multi-boxing.

 

I would only ever do this so that I could add one of my other character's to my Supergroup.  If there was a way to invite to supergroup via email that would be great. 

 

So logging a 2nd toon in for like 30 seconds to invite a new character into your SG wouldn't be a problem?

There's a slash command that you can do to invite your alts from the same account to your sg. That said expanding on using an alt account, you can transfer influence and such back and forth between alts so there's benefit in that.

[Rockinstone]

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.

 

 

Your going to be in a sad state then as I have seen similar policies going up in other servers as well.