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

[justicebeliever]

My SG is already considering leaving and going to one of the other servers. We will if this goes through for sure. As an aside, another option would be to set it so you can use asci characters like other games, thus also letting people get the names that they want. This plan is just awful. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to sit there and stare at a screen for a while, while I login my characters "because I have to". I'd rather spend that time playing. Your naming policy as it stands will CRUSH casual gamers, and casual gamers make up the most of the gamer population out there. Remember, it's been how many years since CoH shut down. People are older now with families, and that means less CoH time them, and more playing the "login game" for them. I could see how it would turn people off.

 

I don't understand this kind of response

1.) The "if it isn't my way, it's the highway" approach doesn't build consensus, change minds or persuade people...I assume you would prefer a change in the policy?  If so, make a reasoned case.

2.) The assumption you make is that if you leave, we suffer.  This isn't a for-profit enterprise.  If you and your Supergroup leave, you aren't hurting anyone's bottom line.  You aren't a true customer here.  These people are doing this for the fun and passion of this, not to make any one specific person happy.  If anything, a big exodus lowers the costs here, makes it more affordable to play.

3.) Finally, I hear you about wanting to spend more time playing.  But if you can't be bothered to play your alts, then I'm confused about why you would miss them?  If have time to play your alts, then no worries.  No one's asking you to log in for just 3 seconds.  You can log in, run a mission, do whatever, and then log out and switch...

 

Personally, I'm fine with the policy.  Seems reasoned and fair (which is never ideal for everyone).

 

Thanks again for making this game possible...

[Saikochoro]

My SG is already considering leaving and going to one of the other servers. We will if this goes through for sure. As an aside, another option would be to set it so you can use asci characters like other games, thus also letting people get the names that they want. This plan is just awful. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to sit there and stare at a screen for a while, while I login my characters "because I have to". I'd rather spend that time playing. Your naming policy as it stands will CRUSH casual gamers, and casual gamers make up the most of the gamer population out there. Remember, it's been how many years since CoH shut down. People are older now with families, and that means less CoH time them, and more playing the "login game" for them. I could see how it would turn people off.

 

If you are playing the game it shouldn’t be an issue. If you rarely play the game or a particular toon it still isn’t an issue. Even at level one it only takes less than 30 seconds a month to keep a name. It takes about 15 minutes to get into the next bracket. This won’t affect casual gamers. I am a casual gamer myself. I work 40+ most of the year and for a couple months out of the year I work 50+ per week. I then spend time with my family in the evenings and on the weekends. I won’t even consider getting on my computer until my kid is asleep. And if my wife wants to do something else I just won’t log on for the night. We often go camping on the weekends so I wouldn’t even be on. Heck I can go a month or more without even getting on my computer.  I’d call that pretty casual. But if I know I have a level 1 toon that has a name I dearly love I can take a couple minutes to login once a month.

 

I think the naming policy is actually a very good and healthy thing for the game. Name camping isn’t healthy. And it is extremely forgiving.

 

[Sanguinesun]

Memorial Day is upon us, and that seems like a perfect opportunity for us to host our first large-scale event!

 

When?

Monday the 27th of May

• 12:00 - 15:00 Pacific
  
• 15:00 - 18:00 Eastern
  
• 20:00 - 23:00 UK
  
• 21:00 - 00:00 EU

 

 

Its a shame that it'll be on Monday. Some of us, especially Oceania/Asia pretty much will miss out on this.

[Nericus]

Memorial Day is upon us, and that seems like a perfect opportunity for us to host our first large-scale event!

 

When?

Monday the 27th of May

• 12:00 - 15:00 Pacific
  
• 15:00 - 18:00 Eastern
  
• 20:00 - 23:00 UK
  
• 21:00 - 00:00 EU

 

 

Its a shame that it'll be on Monday. Some of us, especially Oceania/Asia pretty much will miss out on this.

 

Regardless of the day there will be some that will miss this

[Nericus]

Forgot to mention that even if you don't spend an hour or two with dxp booster to run dfb to get to level 21, you still only have to log in either once a month or three months depending on your level range.

 

So whether it is a month, three months or once a year, you can log into the alt, park it at a day job spot and then leave it. Day jobs only take 100 hours, or four days plus four hours now.

 

So by the time you bring the alt to active status it could benefit from fully charged day jobs and their accolades.

Plus travel powers available at low levels so you can fly safely to zones that may be too high for you like the shadow shards and storm chantry and park for the duration.

 

Just making some lemonade from what some think is a lemon. :)

[CY13ERPUNK]

'Kallisti Wharf is a Co-op zone like the Rikti War Zone, where Praetorians can't go either.'

 

maybe i am not making myself clear here, of course a praetorian character who has not reach lvl20 and/or gone through the transition yet

 

perhaps i am misunderstanding based on the language that we are using, ie is a Praetorian any character that starts/originates from praetoria? or is a praetorian only just those characters while they are 1-20, becuz afterwards they obviously either go redside or blueside ; but technically they are still praetorians, just that they now live in paragon city or the rogue isles...

 

ie u can start in praetoria, go thru those storyarcs, transition at 20 and then get to any/all hero/villain content, including the rikti war zone, shadow shard, etc

 

so i just wanted to be clear, becuz if u make a praetorian character you will eventually have the entire game world available to you ; or not?

 

are we saying that you just cannot access the Kallisti Wharf while you are a 1-20 praetorian b4 u have transistioned, or can a character that starts in praetoria never have access to the Kallisti Wharf ever, even as they later become a hero/villain/rogue/etc just becuz of their origin ; that is/was my original question and confusion basically

 

thanks in advance

 

and thanks untold /emholdtorches for the dedication and perseverance that has kept this CoX dream alive for so long =] 

[Nericus]

'Kallisti Wharf is a Co-op zone like the Rikti War Zone, where Praetorians can't go either.'

 

maybe i am not making myself clear here, of course a praetorian character who has not reach lvl20 and/or gone through the transition yet

 

perhaps i am misunderstanding based on the language that we are using, ie is a Praetorian any character that starts/originates from praetoria? or is a praetorian only just those characters while they are 1-20, becuz afterwards they obviously either go redside or blueside ; but technically they are still praetorians, just that they now live in paragon city or the rogue isles... O

 

 

ie u can start in praetoria, go thru those storyarcs, transition at 20 and then get to any/all hero/villain content, including the rikti war zone, shadow shard, etc

 

so i just wanted to be clear, becuz if u make a praetorian character you will eventually have the entire game world available to you ; or not?

 

are we saying that you just cannot access the Kallisti Wharf while you are a 1-20 praetorian b4 u have transistioned, or can a character that starts in praetoria never have access to the Kallisti Wharf ever, even as they later become a hero/villain/rogue/etc just becuz of their origin ; that is/was my original question and confusion basically

 

thanks in advance

 

and thanks untold /emholdtorches for the dedication and perseverance that has kept this CoX dream alive for so long =]

 

Unless there was a paradigm shift that I missed once a praetorian hits 20 and chooses their side the whole world is open to them

[BlueDrache]

I would LOVE if there was a countdown timer next to names that are expiring. That would help me manage this, and be VERY helpful to the casual player.

 

 

There is.

 

 

Each toon has a number of days since last login counter.  It is up to you to do the math and know the ranges, and if you forget, there's a handy chart right here in the forums.

 

 

Having a countdown timer would most likely be beyond the scope of what these developers are doing and, IMO, an extremely MINOR quality of life improvement.

[WanderingAries]

Unless there was a paradigm shift that I missed once a praetorian hits 20 and chooses their side the whole world is open to them

 

That's the way it was OG and I haven't seen anything stated otherwise so far.

[The Boo]

Unless there was a paradigm shift that I missed once a praetorian hits 20 and chooses their side the whole world is open to them

 

That's the way it was OG and I haven't seen anything stated otherwise so far.

 

It's still the same. Can leave Praetoria once you hit 20. I have 4 of them. ;)

[Dracotn]

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.

 

I agree with this, but I'd think it would be easy enough to set up a contact point for this sort situation. Perhaps the developers could flag that account as exempt for the deployment...

[Viking Queen]

Happy to hear there will be a name-release mechanic put into effect, use-it-or-lode-it works for me, thanks guys !

[Zolgar]

I share some concern with the naming policy, but I also think that SOMETHING is needed. Yes, you can get a name permalocked at 50. Yes, you can get a name solid for a year at 21.  Yes, you can easily get to 6/21/50 in very small amount of time, if that's your style.

 

Yes, it's easy to log in to a character every x days to make sure you don't lose that sought after name- if life doesn't call you away. Life can call you away on more points than just military or chronic illness. Sudden injury/illness, computer asplodes and you can't afford to fix it, familial/vocational commitments, unemployment leading to needing to cancel your internet for a while, etc.

 

"If the name means that much to you, powerlevel them."

It's not the NAME that means so much, it's the CHARACTER who bears that name.

On live I had a character who was meant to level slowly, and I loved her name- because it was a perfect name for the character. She was the Symbol of Freedom, she never broke level 20, but I clocked quite a lot of time in her doing missions solo and a lot more time roleplaying. I spent more time playing that character than some people spend on their 50s.

 

As such, I would personally like to see something implemented where you also gain protection for a name based on time playing the character, to offer roleplayers and content runners the same protections offered powergamers at a quicker pace than they might get it otherwise, since as-is the policy rewards powergamers an inordinate amount.

 

Yes, that would mean someone could just idle while doing other things to get their character's place secured... but is that really any worse than sitting in an AE farm for 5 hours* with dxp on to get your level 50?

 

*5 hours is just a guess as to how long it takes with the nerfed AE XP. I know it can be done in about 2 with normal AE XP and boosters.

 

 

[Xen]

Unpopular opinion, apparently – but I think the new naming policy is totally fair.

 

Don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of my old names (and a few new ones) on standby - but I have no problem logging in to maintain my "dibs" until I get around to fleshing out those characters. This policy seems necessary, given that we now have the ability to create 1000 characters (per server!), especially in a free game. If you don't have some kind of naming policy in place, you'll get people who camp out on names but never use them (whether because they're inactive or trolling). That's how you end up with a bunch of heroes running around with franken-names like CaptainJust1ce2 or 5qui5hyDud3-X.

 

Want to keep your toons' names? Level them or log them in. It's pretty straightforward. And it's really not difficult to get to lvl 6 so you only have to log in 4x/year (or even lvl 21 so you only have to log in 1x/year). Frankly, if you don't plan on logging them in that often, why should you have dibs on names that an active player would actually put to use?

 

Not to mention, you will only lose your name IF another player tries to register it. It's not like you get hit with the GenericStupidName001 hammer the second you cross that threshold. I'm really not sure why people are so up in arms about this... just calm down and enjoy your free game and 5000 character slots. Sheesh.

 

On another note – very excited for the costume contest! Will there be a category for multiple themed characters? Duos? Trios? SGs? Rivals? :)

 

Ultimately, I think these are all good and necessary changes. Thank you for handling the logistics so we can continue to enjoy this game we all love!

[Primantis]

 

 

As such, I would personally like to see something implemented where you also gain protection for a name based on time playing the character, to offer roleplayers and content runners the same protections offered powergamers at a quicker pace than they might get it otherwise, since as-is the policy rewards powergamers an inordinate amount.

 

 

 

I agree. Perhaps they could add an "Either/Or" method.

 

Either you play a character for 12 hours, or you level to them 21. 

Player a character for 40 hours, or you level them to 50.

 

Something like that.

 

Granted people could abuse that by just keeping the character logged in for hours xD (Pretty sure you wont be afk-booted if you're in a SG base or a mission)

 

[Zolgar]

 

 

As such, I would personally like to see something implemented where you also gain protection for a name based on time playing the character, to offer roleplayers and content runners the same protections offered powergamers at a quicker pace than they might get it otherwise, since as-is the policy rewards powergamers an inordinate amount.

 

 

 

I agree. Perhaps they could add an "Either/Or" method.

 

Either you play a character for 12 hours, or you level to them 21. 

Player a character for 40 hours, or you level them to 50.

 

Something like that.

 

Granted people could abuse that by just keeping the character logged in for hours xD (Pretty sure you wont be afk-booted if you're in a SG base or a mission)

 

Start an AE arc. AE arcs are considered TFs and you will not auto-log if you're on a TF. >.>

 

Systems could easily be put in place to combat this, if it was really seen as any worse than powerleveling to lock in a name.

[Killerhertz]

So what do you have to do to join the costume contest? The Positive Gamer is saying you need to join a Heroes Reborn SG to be eligible; is that true?

[Saikochoro]

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.

 

I think it is much better to be able to create as many toons as you want on a certain shard and have to deal with naming issues, than have names I want but be limited on my slots. Especially on game that by its nature encourages lots of alts and experimenting. I have no less than 30 power combos I want to try making. And that is just in one week of knowing this game is back. I can only imagine how many more I will want to make. Would much rather have to get creative with names than be limited on character slots.

[Nericus]

I share some concern with the naming policy, but I also think that SOMETHING is needed. Yes, you can get a name permalocked at 50. Yes, you can get a name solid for a year at 21.  Yes, you can easily get to 6/21/50 in very small amount of time, if that's your style.

 

Yes, it's easy to log in to a character every x days to make sure you don't lose that sought after name- if life doesn't call you away. Life can call you away on more points than just military or chronic illness. Sudden injury/illness, computer asplodes and you can't afford to fix it, familial/vocational commitments, unemployment leading to needing to cancel your internet for a while, etc.

 

"If the name means that much to you, powerlevel them."

It's not the NAME that means so much, it's the CHARACTER who bears that name.

On live I had a character who was meant to level slowly, and I loved her name- because it was a perfect name for the character. She was the Symbol of Freedom, she never broke level 20, but I clocked quite a lot of time in her doing missions solo and a lot more time roleplaying. I spent more time playing that character than some people spend on their 50s.

 

As such, I would personally like to see something implemented where you also gain protection for a name based on time playing the character, to offer roleplayers and content runners the same protections offered powergamers at a quicker pace than they might get it otherwise, since as-is the policy rewards powergamers an inordinate amount.

 

Yes, that would mean someone could just idle while doing other things to get their character's place secured... but is that really any worse than sitting in an AE farm for 5 hours* with dxp on to get your level 50?

 

*5 hours is just a guess as to how long it takes with the nerfed AE XP. I know it can be done in about 2 with normal AE XP and boosters.

 

Also experienced players who know the game can just PL to 50 then use ouroborus to level down and run the low content. So they really aren't out leveling anything.

 

Or just run DFB for an hour or two with boosters to get to 21.

[Zolgar]

 

Also experienced players who know the game can just PL to 50 then use ouroborus to level down and run the low content. So they really aren't out leveling anything.

 

Or just run DFB for an hour or two with boosters to get to 21.

 

We know we can, but we may not want to for character concept reasons :p

[Frakk]

they can't make rules based on how a person decides to limit themselve.

 

[Zolgar]

they can't make rules based on how a person decides to limit themselve.

 

Sure they can, if a significant amount of people play that way, that portion of the population deserves recognition.

 

I have just as much right to be attached to the name of a character who is only level 6, but I have spent over 100 hours roleplaying, as you do a 50+ fully IO'd character you played for 10 hours and then decided to shelf for some other project build.

 

Note, I do not say I have MORE right to the name. I said I have just as much right to be attached to the name, and I should not be forced to powerlevel the character to 50 to get the name locked in, any more than you should be forced to spend 100 hours playing a character to get the name locked in.

 

This is why my suggestion was to add a second check. Is the character x level? If yes, pass. If no, has the character spent y hours logged in? If yes, pass. If no, the name is released.

 

It benefits a subset of the community, offering them the same protection without forcing them to change their play style to get said protection.

[Frakk]

Let me rephrase that.

 

they didn't make rules based on how a person decides to limit themselves.

 

[justicebeliever]

they can't make rules based on how a person decides to limit themselve.

 

Sure they can, if a significant amount of people play that way, that portion of the population deserves recognition.

 

I have just as much right to be attached to the name of a character who is only level 6, but I have spent over 100 hours roleplaying, as you do a 50+ fully IO'd character you played for 10 hours and then decided to shelf for some other project build.

 

Note, I do not say I have MORE right to the name. I said I have just as much right to be attached to the name, and I should not be forced to powerlevel the character to 50 to get the name locked in, any more than you should be forced to spend 100 hours playing a character to get the name locked in.

 

This is why my suggestion was to add a second check. Is the character x level? If yes, pass. If no, has the character spent y hours logged in? If yes, pass. If no, the name is released.

 

It benefits a subset of the community, offering them the same protection without forcing them to change their play style to get said protection.

 

I like this suggestion - time spent with a character probably better represents the player's investment than the levels it has.  Provided it's reasonably doable, I'd be a fan of this...

[AshidoNova]

I support the naming policy. If anything, I think it's too lenient.