More space for Character Description

[Solarverse]

This has been suggested since the dawn of CoH, so I figure it's due for another go at it. What exactly is stopping this from having more characters (letters) allowed? I can't remember the reasons given (if any) for us only having a limited space to put in a character description. Is it even possible?

Edited August 24, 2020 by Solarverse

[pearbear]

I'm guessing they used a MySQL method that automatically truncates to max of 1024 characters and just said "that's good enough!" I'm betting it is very trivial to update the backend by setting max len, no idea if front end components would need reworking though.  

[Solarverse]

46 minutes ago, pearbear said:

I'm guessing they used a MySQL method that automatically truncates to max of 1024 characters and just said "that's good enough!" I'm betting it is very trivial to update the backend by setting max len, no idea if front end components would need reworking though.  

If memory serves, it was actually less at one time. 

[krj12]

Guess it really depends on the database.... most dbs allow up to varchar(2000) for character fields.

They could potentially do one of three things:    add a part 2 description,   expand the current field to varchar 2000, or use a CLOB (character large object, which has no limitation).

 

 

[Solarverse]

52 minutes ago, krj12 said:

Guess it really depends on the database.... most dbs allow up to varchar(2000) for character fields.

They could potentially do one of three things:    add a part 2 description,   expand the current field to varchar 2000, or use a CLOB (character large object, which has no limitation).

 

 

I like those ideas.

What brought this on, is that I have a German character who goes by the name of Cinderhawk.

His costume is of German Flag colors, he was born shortly (within days) after the rise of Hitler, which was all the more reason for his parents to hide the fact that he was born with powers of fire. At the age of 3, his parents fled Germany to America for fear of what Hitler was doing to their country. Once the war was over, his parents went back to Germany because they felt a certain responsibility to clean up after the war had ended and Germany was left in ruins. My character stopped aging at the age of 30, keeping his secrets of fire powers all that time, but his friends continued to age and started noticing and making comments on how my character seemed to stay youthful. When the comments went from being jokes to being closer to accusations, at the age of 42, he left Germany in fear of people learning the truth, he knew he had to leave before it became any more obvious. He went back to America where he discovered a City full of people with powers such as himself, where he had helped Statesman and given his name, Cinderhawk, during his time spent in the Hero Brigade, when the 5th Column attacked. Since then he has been defending Paragon City at every turn and standing up for what is morally right, all the while trying his hardest to stay out of politics or any political affiliations.

Now...that is the short version...which explains why I am here making this thread, lol.  😄

[huang3721]

The limitation is a reminder to keep our bio succinct. Revoking it may cause those bios to grow into a novella. After all, we are one of the most creative communities around. 

[Oginth]

I think it's good that we are limited to the current limit, to let us focus on the actual details we want to convey and not publishing a life story essay.

 

Though I wish there is a build-in function where we can have a "click here to read EVERYTHING" button.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Oginth

[Greycat]

Honestly... the *editor* needs work before we think about expanding!

[krj12]

1 hour ago, huang3721 said:

The limitation is a reminder to keep our bio succinct. Revoking it may cause those bios to grow into a novella. After all, we are one of the most creative communities around. 

I hardly consider 2000 characters a novella.   I don't have too many characters with very long descriptions, but had two that I had to greatly curtail what I intended to write.   Sometimes you just need more space to convey what you intend.    AE is another area that places too many limitations, but that's a topic for another thread.

Edited August 25, 2020 by krj12

[ShardWarrior]

14 hours ago, krj12 said:

I hardly consider 2000 characters a novella. 

Nor do I, however if it is increased to a 2,000 character limit, there will no doubt be people yet again asking for more space. 

 

14 hours ago, Greycat said:

Honestly... the *editor* needs work before we think about expanding!

Totally agreed.

[MTeague]

My character bio's will always expand to consume all available space.

[WanderingAries]

On ‎8‎/‎24‎/‎2020 at 5:13 PM, Solarverse said:

If memory serves, it was actually less at one time. 

I vaguely feel this to be accurate, but it's been so long since i2.

[Solarverse]

11 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Nor do I, however if it is increased to a 2,000 character limit, there will no doubt be people yet again asking for more space. 

 

Totally agreed.

Well yes, there will always be somebody asking for more. So I guess the next question is, how much space is reasonable? 1500 characters to me, for a game like this, is not very reasonable. I think it's close though, for me personally I think 2000 is right on the money. However, that same statement of "there will no doubt be people yet again asking for more" can be applied to every single request made on this forum...and I do mean all of them. No matter what people ask for, it's never enough. So should we apply that statement to every single request that comes down the pipeline, and just leave it at that, or do you think increasing it to 2000 is actually a reasonable request that can be seen as a delightful QoL and very much productive to the game? I see "people will just want more" as the most common hard stance toward almost any request made on the forums these days...and to a certain point of view, this is the white and black with no grey area way of seeing things. Let's be honest here though, this is an MMO and MMO's grow...I don't see this particular request asking for a little extra space to type your biography as a negative request, but rather a step in the right direction to help see the game grow; albeit in a very minor way, however, this would be a small way to help the game grow when seen through my mind. No matter what request comes down the pipeline, we can easily brush that request off with "people will just ask for more." So I guess the question remains would be, is this a reasonable request which would be a positive way to help the game grow, or a negative one?

 

Edit: Edited for clarity

Edited August 26, 2020 by Solarverse

[huang3721]

I'm sorry about that novella remark. I made my character's description similar to an NPC contact. I also see a character description as a summary. Therefore it must be succinct. In my opinion, the current limit is more than enough. 
However, I saw other players use it as their character's origin story or biography. In that case, 2000 characters may or may not suffice. 
So, the question is how many ways players use that character description and which one is the most common. Then, we use that to decide whether to expand or to keep the limitation.

[Lines]

I think the amount people are willing to read is more important than the amount people are willing to write. For me, the current limit is pretty comfortable to read in downtime and I love seeing what people have to say about their characters. There's definitely a length threshold where I wouldn't bother reading someone's bio. It's probably around the 2000 character mark, maybe a touch more, but that'll vary between people.

 

I know the RP forum is talking about putting together a character bio site. It would be great if the ingame bios could link there, so there's some space for people to really stretch their legs.

[Grouchybeast]

On 8/25/2020 at 2:21 AM, Greycat said:

Honestly... the *editor* needs work before we think about expanding!

This is a larger issue, I think.  At the moment the editor is such a mess that you very often won't even get to use the theoretical maximum number of characters.

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

This is a larger issue, I think.  At the moment the editor is such a mess that you very often won't even get to use the theoretical maximum number of characters.

I have found two workarounds for this.

 

Option #1: 

Copy your full bio text, tab out to Textpad or Notepad or something, paste there, edit there, then delete out your whole bio from the game and  paste in from the outside editor.

Note that this approach, doesn't seem to hang onto hard returns / paragraph breaks.  So you have to manually break up any intended paragraphs after you paste it back in.

 

Option #2: 

In the in-game-editor, manually delete out each space between each word in your bio, and add them back in, one-by-one.  Sometimes what looks like a single space is actually taking up 7-8 characters worth toward the 1024 limit.  This seems to happen most often if you write out a bunch of text, then click up to the middle of an earlier line, and edit something that causes the wrapping to change in the in-game editor.  It doesn't handle that right at all.  But if I manually delete out the spaces and manually add them back in, I can often reclaim like 150-200 characters.

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, Lines said:

I think the amount people are willing to read is more important than the amount people are willing to write.

I think a good balance is keep the existing 1024 as what you first see. 

But also add a "Read More" button that could be clicked to take you to an bigger text area.

Then anyone who finds the opening synopsis interesting can get more, but you don't have to worry about if just inspecting someone is going to pull up 'War and Peace' right out of the gate.

 

That said, 

1 hour ago, Lines said:

I know the RP forum is talking about putting together a character bio site. It would be great if the ingame bios could link there, so there's some space for people to really stretch their legs.

I absolutely love this idea and hope it gains traction.

[Greycat]

8 minutes ago, MTeague said:

Option #2: 

In the in-game-editor, manually delete out each space between each word in your bio, and add them back in, one-by-one.  Sometimes what looks like a single space is actually taking up 7-8 characters worth toward the 1024 limit.  This seems to happen most often if you write out a bunch of text, then click up to the middle of an earlier line, and edit something that causes the wrapping to change in the in-game editor.  It doesn't handle that right at all.  But if I manually delete out the spaces and manually add them back in, I can often reclaim like 150-200 characters.

... which is part of why I say the editor should be looked at first. I'll often be typing away and have it "stall" somewhere. Go back and click to look and it suddenly inserts your text elsewhere (well, where you clicked, if it's anywhere but right at the end. )

 

I'll often do the first, as well. It's just irksome.

[srmalloy]

One of the hidden limitations bio space is that, while the game supports Unicode (as it would have had to in order for chat to work for the Korean rollout, however much of a flop it was), Unicode characters are 16 bits wide, while ASCII characters are 8. So while you could put "Αντάρα" in your bio, it takes up 12 'characters' of space. There may not be a lot of use of Unicode, but it does cut into the bio space harder than ASCII.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

On 8/24/2020 at 4:28 PM, Solarverse said:

I like those ideas.

What brought this on, is that I have a German character who goes by the name of Cinderhawk.

His costume is of German Flag colors, he was born shortly (within days) after the rise of Hitler, which was all the more reason for his parents to hide the fact that he was born with powers of fire. At the age of 3, his parents fled Germany to America for fear of what Hitler was doing to their country. Once the war was over, his parents went back to Germany because they felt a certain responsibility to clean up after the war had ended and Germany was left in ruins. My character stopped aging at the age of 30, keeping his secrets of fire powers all that time, but his friends continued to age and started noticing and making comments on how my character seemed to stay youthful. When the comments went from being jokes to being closer to accusations, at the age of 42, he left Germany in fear of people learning the truth, he knew he had to leave before it became any more obvious. He went back to America where he discovered a City full of people with powers such as himself, where he had helped Statesman and given his name, Cinderhawk, during his time spent in the Hero Brigade, when the 5th Column attacked. Since then he has been defending Paragon City at every turn and standing up for what is morally right, all the while trying his hardest to stay out of politics or any political affiliations.

Now...that is the short version...which explains why I am here making this thread, lol.  😄

Now see this here is the kind of bio Id just have to mosey on up to the character of and say pardon me but while your bio isnt bad at all, and in our world makes sense well enough, doesnt so much in cohverse. For example, while we know hitler and WWII did certainly happen still in this timeline, some details seem intentionally vague, and likely for good reason. For example its likely that the reason for WWII, and for the U.S. involvement in it was radically different to say the least.

 

For starters we know that the Nictus more then likely engineered or in some other way were the catalyst for most if not all the major wars of human history going back thousands of years. While all the details are not likely known to the general public, Kheldian heroes are not exactly low profile, and PB PD officers only add to the likely truth of them being known to the general public to some extent. Maybe not every bit of kheldy/nictus lore, but enough that it would make this timelines version of something like x files be closer to a docudrama series, and the conspiracies about nazi interest in magic, the occult, aliens, and artifacts of power are not so much minor aspects so much as driving forces in this universe. With power coloring you could even do a blue white flame and have your powers be connected to exposure to a PBs radiation or some such if you have been searching for a reason for them coming into being on an infant. More then like a lot of undercover khelds and nictus were thick as fleas on a sewer rat in german in that time period.

 

Statesman and his crew of that era were world wide icons. Paragon already a world famous focal point for Powers. Its very unlikely your character would of been unaware of the existence of either for so many years, and there is enough in the lore to infer that Sister Psyche not unlike prof x was always scanning for new Powers. It seems very unlikely that without powers that assisted in being detected a mere fire projector even one who had perfect control from a young age would of managed to never draw much attention, especially one who also was nearly ageless and Im guessing heals quick to?

 

Also with the existence of multiple cosmic beings like Requiem being involved with the nazi in WWII, I am fairly certain most sane people like your characters parents would of wanted to go no where near Germany for a very long time to come. They like had some first hand awareness of Nictus activity there before fleeing, and fled more then anything due to stories of dark spirits eating peoples souls and taking over their bodies.

 

As you said it was just the quick and dirty so maybe in your expanded version more of this is taken into account. Either way I hope my ponderings here might offer new ideas to integrate better with cohverse.

 

Oh fun fact, up until Pearl Harbor forced the hand of the U.S., the main reason for the nation as a whole holding back was simple popular media persona and national hero Charles Lindburgh, a major fan of nazi eugenics, and now days likely the best suspect in what really happened to little charlie. He spent a hell of a lot of time on radio shows, and writing articles for national papers telling folks that nazi really were good folks.

 

So its pretty likely in Cohverse, with Statesman being a world wide hero at that time, and way  way way more influential then a nazi sympathizer like ol Chuck, it likely didnt take Pearl Harbor for the U.S. to get involved.

[Solarverse]

38 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Now see this here is the kind of bio Id just have to mosey on up to the character of and say pardon me but while your bio isnt bad at all, and in our world makes sense well enough, doesnt so much in cohverse. For example, while we know hitler and WWII did certainly happen still in this timeline, some details seem intentionally vague, and likely for good reason. For example its likely that the reason for WWII, and for the U.S. involvement in it was radically different to say the least.

 

For starters we know that the Nictus more then likely engineered or in some other way were the catalyst for most if not all the major wars of human history going back thousands of years. While all the details are not likely known to the general public, Kheldian heroes are not exactly low profile, and PB PD officers only add to the likely truth of them being known to the general public to some extent. Maybe not every bit of kheldy/nictus lore, but enough that it would make this timelines version of something like x files be closer to a docudrama series, and the conspiracies about nazi interest in magic, the occult, aliens, and artifacts of power are not so much minor aspects so much as driving forces in this universe. With power coloring you could even do a blue white flame and have your powers be connected to exposure to a PBs radiation or some such if you have been searching for a reason for them coming into being on an infant. More then like a lot of undercover khelds and nictus were thick as fleas on a sewer rat in german in that time period.

 

Statesman and his crew of that era were world wide icons. Paragon already a world famous focal point for Powers. Its very unlikely your character would of been unaware of the existence of either for so many years, and there is enough in the lore to infer that Sister Psyche not unlike prof x was always scanning for new Powers. It seems very unlikely that without powers that assisted in being detected a mere fire projector even one who had perfect control from a young age would of managed to never draw much attention, especially one who also was nearly ageless and Im guessing heals quick to?

 

Also with the existence of multiple cosmic beings like Requiem being involved with the nazi in WWII, I am fairly certain most sane people like your characters parents would of wanted to go no where near Germany for a very long time to come. They like had some first hand awareness of Nictus activity there before fleeing, and fled more then anything due to stories of dark spirits eating peoples souls and taking over their bodies.

 

As you said it was just the quick and dirty so maybe in your expanded version more of this is taken into account. Either way I hope my ponderings here might offer new ideas to integrate better with cohverse.

 

Oh fun fact, up until Pearl Harbor forced the hand of the U.S., the main reason for the nation as a whole holding back was simple popular media persona and national hero Charles Lindburgh, a major fan of nazi eugenics, and now days likely the best suspect in what really happened to little charlie. He spent a hell of a lot of time on radio shows, and writing articles for national papers telling folks that nazi really were good folks.

 

So its pretty likely in Cohverse, with Statesman being a world wide hero at that time, and way  way way more influential then a nazi sympathizer like ol Chuck, it likely didnt take Pearl Harbor for the U.S. to get involved.

This is a perfect example of how being allowed to have a link to a CoH page for our character stories would be something I am sure a lot of players could get in to. There is so much more detail that could be added yet we have no room for. However, for quick run downs of a character bio, 2000 would be a great limit...adding in the link to the CoH Bio website would just be a huge bonus.

[Malithrax]

The character bio site is called Virtueverse. It was active during the Live years. Many roleplayers include links to their character's VV page in their bios.

 

Unless you guys were talking about a different effort, the site in question is very much in play right now.

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, Malithrax said:

The character bio site is called Virtueverse. It was active during the Live years. Many roleplayers include links to their character's VV page in their bios.

 

Unless you guys were talking about a different effort, the site in question is very much in play right now.

They're talking about the in-game bio editor.

 

Also, as far as Virtueverse:

(A) isn't there some sort of issue with it at the moment? Thought I heard something in passing, and

(B) I'd ... kind of like to keep this one separate, personally. I know some people are continuing, others aren't - having a different site and keeping Virtueverse as it was "live" kind of appeals to me. I know it doesn't for everyone.

[Malithrax]

14 hours ago, Greycat said:

They're talking about the in-game bio editor.

 

Also, as far as Virtueverse:

(A) isn't there some sort of issue with it at the moment? Thought I heard something in passing, and

(B) I'd ... kind of like to keep this one separate, personally. I know some people are continuing, others aren't - having a different site and keeping Virtueverse as it was "live" kind of appeals to me. I know it doesn't for everyone.

I know the thread's topic. A couple of people in this thread talked about the RP community putting together a site and I thought I'd chime in.

 

A) I don't know of any issues, per se, other than having to contact the mods to create a new account. I believe you can do that through the VV discord. Also, right now, uploading of images is suspended, though you can just host images elsewhere and stick links in the code. I suspect these measures were taken to decrease the load on the VV server from the sudden influx of players since the revival.

 

B) I get what you're saying, but it's too late, unfortunately. Many players, myself included, have not only been updating our characters' older pages from live, but creating new ones since Homecoming.

 

Edited August 29, 2020 by Malithrax